Lotus Exige HDR

Since the birth of our little girl, I've had bugger all chance to get out with my camera. I'm trying to remedy that... it's hard though, I really like being around her!

Anyway we took her to Queensland the other week and I got out a little Not so excited about the results as my timings and prior recon work were non-existent especially because I had no Idea when and where the opportunity to get out would occur.

I also bought myself a Nikon 50mm F1.8 prime lens while in Brisbane as well. Thanks to www.d-d-photographics.com. Man this thing is sharp. Noticeably better than the kit 18-55mm lens I currently have. Time for some serious upgrading.

I did, however, manage to get a serious of bracketed shots of a Lotus Exige. Again not very well planned, but better than nothing. I love HDR and this one is OK.

Only one month until I find out...

Well, I've ticked all the boxes, crossed the t's and dotted all the i's. So now I only have just over 1 month to wait for an answer.

I hope to find out just after the long weekend. Actually, I hope I don't find out before that because if it's not a good answer I'll be shitty for my entire 4 day weekend. I'm also competing in a 4wd competition that weekend, so I don't want to be cranky for that. HAHA.

Hmmm... this is a fairly short post... oh well

Light Painting

I've been playing with this cool effect, basically called light painting.

It is almost exactly as it sounds.

1. Find somewhere dark
2. Get out a torch
3. Set your camera on a tripod
4. Open the shutter to bulb (Remote helps here with stability)
5. Get around in front of your camera and shine your torch at the camera.
6. Try to draw a picture or something
7. Close your shutter.

Done!!


You can do some cool things with this. You can try to draw a man in certain poses, draw objects and write words (albeit backwards) to name a few. You can also use your torch to light areas of the scene up. As I have done with the chair and the guitar. I've seen this done with whole buildings and the effect can be awesome. I have heaps of ideas, now I just need the time and weather to align and I'll be set.

For this first photo, I stood on the other side of the chair and faced the camera. Then I switched on my torch and tried (poorly) to draw a man sitting in the chair. Then I went back around to the back of the camera and shone my torch on the bits I wanted to highlight. The chair and the guitar. That's it.

It's been a while...

WHOA...

It has been a hectic month. A week of work experience with the photographers, then I shot up to Sydney to be with my wife for the birth of our little girl, Lily Eve. Crazy.

OK, where do I start...

Ummm, alright, firstly my wife and child. Lily Eve was born on Friday the 30th of May. She has immediately and positively affected our lives. Chantelle and I were well and truly prepared for the worst, screaming all night, poo from ear to ear, no sleep... if that's the norm then we are blessed. Sure she has her moments, but all wives do... and the baby is pretty good too. It might change, but at the moment it's great.

My work experience went well, I learnt heaps. At the end I got a pretty good report too. The call for applications to transfer to photographer has come in and I had already ticked all the pre-requisites, so my application has been sent away. Now all I can do is sit and wait and hope all the pieces fall into place.

OK thats all for now, brief I know but you get that sometimes. Here's a photo of Lily I took to finish things off today.

Work experience - Day 2

I am learning SO much.

I'm learning heaps about the more technical aspects of photography. The mathematics behind depth of field, hyperfocal distance... far out, and I thought it was just "If I want the background out of focus, I just open up the aperture". Apparently not.

I've been shown a huge studio set up and got to sit in on a portrait shoot. I was shown and explained the lighting setup for the official naval portraits. I also got a brief tour on the area set aside for shadowless photos and for photos of small objects on a plain background. Doesn't sound exciting but I'm having a ball.

Tomorrow I'll be going out to HMAS Cresswell to start my assignment. That's to take at least 1 usable photo at an official "job" and get it from request to ready for release. Unfortunately I won't be using the Canon 1D I'll be using my own camera. And because they use Canon and I use the enemy (Nikon) I'll be probably using my own lens too. Oh well, excitement ahead either way.

HDR (High Dynamic Range)

When you point your camera at something, the camera can't always pick up the entire range of light and shadow. Or more precisely it wont pick up the detail within the light and shadow, like your eye can see. The parts that it doesn't get are either too dark (ie black) or blownout (too bright). To overcome this we can use HDR.

By taking a range of photos of different bracketed exposures you can get the detail from the shodows and from the highlights. Generally a range 1 to 2 EV steps either side of 0 will be enough. ie -2ev, -1ev, 0ev, +1ev, +2ev. This is where the Nikon D40x is letting me down. On some cameras you can set it to take a range of shots within an exposure range automatically. This is called auto bracketing. It will happen a lot quicker than taking a photo, then changing the exposure up or down a step then taking a photo...repeat. Lots can happen in that time. Clouds can move a long way, trees sway, animals &/or people will move... you get the idea.

Come on Nikon, update the D40x with auto bracketing!!!

Anyway...

Now the trick to blending these photos is up to the individual. Photoshop CS3 has an automated process found under File - Automate - Merge to HDR. I'm not sure whether earlier versions of Photoshop have this or not. I find that CS3 is too subtle for my liking so I use a program I mentioned earlier called Photomatix. There are tutorials on the net for this everywhere. I love it. One of the great things about Photomatix is being able to make a HDR style picture (though not true HDR) from a single RAW file. This is handy but the process introduces lots of noise. Sometimes it looks good, other times not. You could get rid of the noise through Photoshop &/or noise ninja (Photoshop plugin), but I'm too lazy yet. But there are literally dozens of ways to make HDR. CS3's HDR processing is alright, but Photomatix just makes the shots POP. Some people do find the Photomatix effect too much... not me. Personal taste I guess. There's an awesome tutorial on www.stuckincustoms.com. Search around there for some great HDR photos and a fantastic tutorial for Photomatix.

If you can't justify $100ish on Photomatix, fair enough. Presuming you have a version of Photoshop you can merge your photos into layers from within the document. Doing this could be a timely but satisfying experience, watching your HDR photo appear before your eyes as you erase bits of one layer to reveal the layer underneath, showing details within heavy shadows and repairing blownout sections.

Work Experience

This week I am going for work experience with the Navy Photographers on the base. I think they have a few things lined up for me. Monday morning will involve a portrait shoot, I don't think that I'll be too involved there. But, I will be getting a 2 part assignment. Part 1 is taking the photos (hopefully with one of their new Canon 1Ds cameras :) ), part 2 is processing. The Navy have strict guidelines for taking, and storing photos. They also use Adobe Photoshop CS3 and Adobe Raw, so at least I'll be ahead when it comes to those 2 applications.

Anyway, the point of the assignment is obviously to assess my ability to work within a time frame and my photographic ability. I guess all the usual things like compositon, exposure, etc.

I also have to provide a portfolio... putting that together was interesting. I like shooting landscapes and inanimate objects, so trying to get a bit of diversity in my portfolio is harder than it sounds.

Oh well, here goes... wish me luck!

Sydney By Night

There are 2 main schools of thought when it comes to photography at night. Actually there are probably more than two, but that's irrelevant.

One is to take a spot meter of certain areas and then calculate the settings you'll need to correctly expose the frame... or you can fire and pray.

I'm a fire and pray kind of man. I know what I need to let in the maximum and minimum amounts of light. It's finer things like exactly how long I need to set the shutter to be open for to get the effect I'm after. Setting white balance if there are a few different light sources (Moon, fluro lights, street lights, etc). The small things that are fun to change and see the effects. Like the difference on the water between a 5sec exposure and a 15sec exposure. I don't like going into a situation with as much potential as Sydney Harbour with a fixed idea in my head or it clouds my want for experimentation. One night at 9pm it might look good after 5 seconds, 2 nights later it might need 20 seconds. I like to experiment with these sorts of things. There is a calculator online to help with working these timings out, but who cares.

So, on my last weekend away with my wife before we have our first child in 2 weeks, I took the camera to take photos of Sydney Harbour at night. I'm the last of the romantics I know.

Nothing special here, just an Adobe Camera Raw preset and some level adjustments. Hope you enjoy.

Shooting the moon

Last night (Wed 23/4) the Photography Club had it's regular meeting at the boat ramp just north-east of the bridge on the Shoalhaven River. I got there a bit late, so I was trying to be considerate to all the people who had got there early by driving around with my lights off. I shouldn't have bothered. The next 5-6 cars just came barreling through with their lights on. Oh well.

It was a good lesson. I learnt about shooting the moon. The trick wasn't as obvious as I thought. I originally thought that I had to go for a longer exposure, but I was quickly shown that even a 1 second exposure gives the moon way too much time to move. To get one of those shots with lots of detail, you need to shoot at a fast shutter speed and a large aperture. 1/60th of a second minimum.

Unfortunately, you also need a decent telephoto lens. Apparently 55mm is a bit small.

I ended up with a couple of ok shots of the bridge from along the water with some nice reflections, and a couple of the jetty.

The bright fluro lights of the bridge, in conjunction with the impossibly bright light of the moon and the orange/yellow street light behind successfully confused my cameras white balance... and me too. I tried all my white balance settings but couldn't come up with the answer. My resulting image was just to warm & orange. So, I feel compelled to sing the praises of shooting in RAW format. I imported my pictures into Adobe Camera Raw, easily adjusted my white balance and changed my jetty poles from orange/yellow back to the nice, bright white they should have been.

I'll put a photo or 2 up next week.

Overlaying Textures

I've been looking at a few photos with these textures overlaid onto them and I like what I see.

For the textures, there are dozens of websites giving away textures. Just save it too your PC. The textures can be anything. A brick wall, a close up of concrete, a bit of rust, the froth in the top of your beer... anything. If you shoot your own textures, just make sure that the image is sharp. And try to get it in the biggest size you can so it isn't ruined if you need to stretch it over something big.

I'm not sure of the actual technique though. I've been avoiding looking it up on the internet just so I can play around with the effect myself without the distraction of a preplanned workflow. I don't want, just yet, to be caught up in step-by-step instructions for something with so much creative scope. Press this, click here, slide the bar to this many percent, blah, blah, blah.

I think that I have done OK. While almost certain that my technique has more flaws that an Australian election campaign, I have only done is as the title suggests. I've overlaid a texture, then all I have done is reduced the opacity of that layer so that the picture underneath is visible. Easy.

Anyway, enough blabbering on... let me know what you think of what I've done so far.

Click on the pics to get a bigger picture.

Transfer to Photographer... Update

First post in a while... well you get that sometimes!

Well things are going great in my mission to become a Navy Photographer.

I've attended a Psychological interview which determines whether you're smart enough and have the right motivation to transfer branch. Apparently I passed both criteria which is good.

When I got to the office there were 2 men arguing, I think they were just pulling the piss out of each other, but, I didn't know who they were. They were swearing and yelling and carrying on. One was Russian I think and he was getting fairly animated. The other was American and he was doing a great job of winding up the Russian bloke. Later I found out the American is one of the base psychiatrists and the Russian is a base Chaplain!! OMG! these guys help people sort out their lives!!!

Anyway...

I had to do a heap of tests on different subjects. What do you think would be suitable tests for someone who was considering a job in the Photographic industry?

WRONG!!!!!

First test was on intelligence. Don't laugh... I nailed that one. This test made sense.

Second test was Maths. Example question: If the sine of 60 degrees is 0.566 , what is the cosine of 30 degrees?? Who gives a rats ass? If it can't say cheese when I point the camera in it's direction why do I care???

Third test was electronics. Again, why do I care how many cells are in a car battery, or the formula for working out how many amps something uses. And what's a farad?

Fourth test was radio frequency. This one wasn't so bad because I had covered a bit of this in my role with Combat Systems, though I couldn't see the link to photography.

Fifth test... yes the bloody 5th written test was on mechanics... need I say more.

After a brief interview it was all over. 3 hours of testing and only about 15 minutes dedicated to photography.

After that I went to the medical centre and conducted a colour vision test. The nurse said my colour vision is A1. I thought that was great.

I later found out there are only 2 scores for colour vision... A1 and fail. HAHA.

So that's another tick in the box, on with the battle.

Shoalhaven Photographic Club

There's no lack of inspiration here in Nowra, that's for sure. And that was proven last night. I've been to 2 Shoalhaven Photographic Club meetings before, they meet roughly every 2 weeks. The first meeting of the month is an assessment. There is a theme you can follow or there is an open section. The second meeting of the month is an information night. The first night was monitor calibration and the second night was getting to know your gear. April's information night is a workshop on "moonscape". This will be done down by the river... if it's not raining.

Last night was an assessment night. The theme was "Spheres and Circles" & an open section.

Holy crap.

There were some sensational photos. The colours were amazing. The subjects were awesome. The clarity in the photos... I was mildly impressed as you can tell. Most of these people, not unlike myself, are just enthusiasts. Even though,the level of quality was inspiring.

So now after last night, I'm off to take photos of signs, rocks, floating spheres, kids playing soccer, hay bales and dirty fish tank water.

If you're in the area and are interested go to www.shoalphoto.org . They meet on the 2nd & 4th Wednesday of every month at 7:30pm.

Annie...

A couple of weeks ago I secured the services of a photographic subject. A model if you will. She is so willing. Never asks questions, doesn't care where I want her to go. Doesn't talk back. She doesn't really smile though...

Annie was an idea I got from various youtube ventriloquist videos and years of twisted dreams. She was the perfect subject for an exploration into darker themed photos, low exposures and black & white. She has kept me on the lookout for more creative lighting like bars on windows and shadows cast from branches. So I took a few photos and thought I would share. Let me know what you think.

Foggy Sunrise

It was a foggy sunrise that led to me heading just out of town onto a little used road. I was after a certain effect from these shots and generally I achieved what I was after. Heaps of fog, cattle ramps, bright rising sun... I love it. I didn't really learn a lot from this little outing, it was just trial and error. A little less error than usual which is good!! I hope you enjoy what I got.

Lee Kernaghan - A valuable lesson.

A while back Lee Kernaghan played here at the Nowra showgrounds. It was a free concert to help celebrate the 100 year anniversary of Rugby League. Of course I took my camera. Any one who has been to a Lee Kernaghan concert knows that he fully condones cameras. And I took way too many photos. I started to use the aperture mode which I generally use, but found the photo's weren't very sharp. So I switched to shutter priority and experimented with different speeds. I finally worked out that for hand held shooting (no tripod) it's best, especially with no vibration reduction, to use a shutter speed that has a number which is more that the focal length (zoom) you are using.

So...

If you are, like I was, shooting at 55mm use no slower than 1/55sec or 1/60sec exposure.

Remember. Focal length < shutter speed.

So here are some photos which I really like.

Cape St. George Lighthouse.

So I decided one night that I would head to a dissused lighthouse near HMAS Cresswell in the Jervis Bay area. South Coast, NSW. I wanted to get some sunrise photos over looking the cliffs and lighthouse and out over the ocean. I got up with the alarm at 5am, the car was already packed, I didn't start work until 11am so all was set. I followed the signs out to Jervis Bay and Cresswell then followed the signs from there to the lighthouse.

The lighthouse was steeped in history. It was built in 1860, 2.5 miles north of where it should have been. It seems the contractor built it closer to the quarry so he wouldn't have to cart the rocks so far. From 1864 to 1893, 23 ships were wrecked in the vicinity of Jervis Bay. The light was replaced in 1889 by Point Perpendicular light. From 1917 to 1922 the light was used for target practice by the Navy and subsiquently destroyed. The Cheif lighthouse keeper was washed of the rocks in 1895 and the second lighthouse keeper's daughter was shot in 1899. So there was history... perfect

When I got there it was still pretty dark, and man it was creepy. There was a path leading through the spindly salt bushes and trees of about 150m, which I was more than dubious about walking. Ghosts are the least of your problem in Wreck Bay...

The first 2 are my first attempt at HDR... Not great but getting there.

Camera & Gear & Shooting in RAW (No, not THE RAW, I keep my clothes on)

As mentioned before it's a Nikon D40x. I only bought a single lens kit, the 18mm - 55mm AF lens. It was purchased at Harvey Norman.The only reason I bought it from here is because they price matched an online store who constantly have amazing deals. www.d-d-photographics.com.au . Their prices are miles below the big stores like Teds and Camera House and especially Harvey Norman. Remember, if you want to get a better deal there are to things you can do. (1.) Shop around and (2.) ask. Generally if they crap on about not being able to do any better... tell them to jam it, there is ALWAYS better!!! Photography is an expensive hobby to get into.

Back to the camera...

It's not a bad bit of kit. Actually I really like the camera a lot.

PROS for the camera...
It's light, 10.2 mega pixels, great colour, it's easy to use, built in help system so you can read what the changes you're making will do.

CONS...
No auto bracketing, no inbuilt sensor cleaning, compressed RAW.

MY TAKE ON RAW

I shoot all my photos in RAW. Why? It's the most original format. Like a negative, so no changes from the camera. JPEG is a compressed format and when you take a photo in JPEG, as it is being stored, the camera makes changes. It could be small changes or big changes depending on your settings and camera, but it will alter the file. Usually just things like a bit of colour enhancement and contrast tweaking. Also RAW files can be better manipulated in Adobe Raw. You have more control over the white balance and exposure once it's on your computer compared to JPEG. This can make you a bit of a lazy photographer... but I'm not that fussed!

Programs

I currently use Adobe Photoshop CS3 Extended. I bought a 2nd hand copy from a guy who couldn't work it out!! I saved heaps (oh my god I saved heap$$$). I love finding people with more money than sense. I have purchased a couple of pluggins and other little things, but CS3 is where 99.9% of all of my processing happens. I am still learning with CS3 but I love it.

Another program I use is Photomatix. It's good for making dramatic "High Dynamic Range" (HDR) effects. I used the trial for a while then purchased it with help from a voucher found on a site from photographer Trey Ratcliff, www.stuckincustoms.com . His HDR Photos are sensational. I really love the effect that HDR can give the sky. HDR is where I found my first fault with the D40x. No auto bracketing. I knew it didn't have auto bracketing when I bought it, but I couldn't see where I would use it. Now I know, HDR. I'll explain HDR better a bit later.

Day 1:

When I first got my D40x, I didn't have a clue what I was doing. I didn't understand composition, depth of field, shadows, leading lines, the rule of thirds... nothing. It was safe to say that with my lack of knoweledge in those areas, I had a lot to learn about aperture, shutter speed, metering, white balance and all of the other things that make for good photos.

It's been an awesome journey from connecting my lens to my camera for the first time to now, and I still don't know all of those things. I still have SO MUCH to learn. So many areas of photography that I have yet to explore. So far to go. But I love learning this stuff. I've learnt so much from the work forum and from my Father-in-law, Robert.

Robert is a constant wall that I bounce ideas and problems off. Not because he always knows the answer, but he will nearly always help me come to a solution. He has been a great friend and has helped me through much more than just my photos.

And I can't forget my beautiful wife Chantelle. What can I say. At 7 1/2 months pregnant, she puts up with me darting out "because the sky looks awesome", or heading out at 5am for a sunrise. She is 100% behind me trying to become a photographer in the Navy. I'm so lucky to have her in my life. She works so hard at work and then when she comes home has to do everything here because I'm playing with photos on the PC or searching the net for por... inspiration. haha (joke). She's the greatest.


Here's my awesome efforts from the start.





Geeezus these are not good....

Better late than never...

Well, as the tittle says, it's better late than never.

This is my journey from nothing to Photographer for the Royal Australian Navy.

I am inspired by photographers like Matt Allan from www.disenchantedphotography.com and Stephen Allen from www.baddog.smugmug.com/ whoes work I get to view nearly everyday on private forums. In fact on this forum, rarely a day goes past where I don't get to see something from someone who works for the defence force that blows my mind away.

Anyway...

This will be a visual diary of my efforts between now and when the decision is made to whether someone thinks I have what it takes to be a photographer, and all my lessons in between.

Hope you enjoy...
Richard