The Big Photography Thread

[xKnuckles]

Joe: do you have any tips for taking night shots on an iPad? Mine are always terrible...

Which iPad? I have an Air, so that might have something to do with it. Or just dumb luck.

 

Nice tree btw!

 

Mobile phone cameras (and ipad) have a small aperture. Your nightshots are bound to be awful since you cannot get enough light onto the sensor.

 

Thanks Pale & Joe. I also have an iPad Air. I was hoping that maybe there was an app somewhere which I had not heard about which would allow me to increase the length of exposure....... (Ever the optimist.....)

[xKnuckles]

Thanks Mike for demonstrating this. Do you guys tend to use these histograms much when you are editing your photos? What are they mostly good for? Thanks.

 

I do. But it has to be used in conjunction with the actual image. Have a look at the histograms at the bottom of this page:

http://mike-warren.net/photography-basics-1-exposure/

 

What a great website, Mike! I have bookmarked it. Many thanks for all the info.

 

[KenElevenShadows]

I was hoping that maybe there was an app somewhere which I had not heard about which would allow me to increase the length of exposure....... (Ever the optimist.....)

 

Triggertrap.com may be the answer to your needs.

[KenElevenShadows]

Thanks Mike for demonstrating this. Do you guys tend to use these histograms much when you are editing your photos? What are they mostly good for? Thanks.

 

I do. But it has to be used in conjunction with the actual image. Have a look at the histograms at the bottom of this page:

http://mike-warren.net/photography-basics-1-exposure/

 

What a great website, Mike! I have bookmarked it. Many thanks for all the info.

 

That's good information. I also want to point out that when you are viewing histograms in the field (in other words, evaluating your exposure in the field by looking at a particular image's histogram), it's one more reason why you really should have your white balance reasonably close to what it should be, as this affects your histogram readout.

 

Generally speaking - and note that I said "generally" - you should not have your histogram slammed up against the left (underexposure) or the right (overexposure), as that indicates clipping.

[Theo Verelst]

Today I took the Sony HC3 (cheaply gotten quality series High Definition Video Cam) in picture mode and made some images in the sun. Because it processes to much to easily understand, here are a few picture processing steps, mainly using smooth illumination mapping "Curves", from the Open Source Gnu IMage Processing program.

 

I took a few images of the same insect, one very close (the not so small camera lens maybe an inch (!) away, one from further away, and combined them in the same image, after some scaling and cropping.

 

The starting image (obviously shrunk, slightly saturated and (possibly clearly) quite a bit sharpened):

 

http://www.theover.org/Keybdmg/Pictures/DSC00498b1.png

 

It's not very maximally exposed, but that's not something I'll now discuss. Now lets make it generally brighter in two main ways, contrast (will make the highlights saturate, and some percentage of the image darker):

 

http://www.theover.org/Keybdmg/Pictures/DSC00498b1_cont.png

 

and using a curve which makes all illumination vales higher, but doesn't cut any values off and neither saturates any pixel illumination values:

 

http://www.theover.org/Keybdmg/Pictures/DSC00498b1_gamq.png

 

We could also take a curve which puts contrast on the values of most interest, or where the histogram is high (what does that mean ?):

 

http://www.theover.org/Keybdmg/Pictures/DSC00498b1_curs.png

 

Finally, we can take a curve which is smooth and makes the image less contrasted, but possible more realistic on a lot of viewing devices, by in a very course way inverting the overall image gamma to a lower value, and keeping the overall contrast (making it not a perfect invert_gamma+redo_gamma operation):

 

http://www.theover.org/Keybdmg/Pictures/DSC00498b1_curn.png

 

Have fun!

 

Theo V.

[Brettymike]

It's great to see the humble drone fly (called that because they look like a drone bee)getting some attention Theo.

They used to be common here , but are now thin on the ground - or air if you like.

I still remember catching these in my hands at primary school when I was 5 years old , and showing the other kids - and they were terrified because they thought I was holding a real bee , but I was the only kid who could tell the difference , and I used it to my advantage when necessary many times .

 

Brett

[KenElevenShadows]

http://kenleephotography.files.wordpress.com/2014/07/3467-2014-07-13-2211-161sf8iso200-postofficeinterior-kenlee_goldpoint-mutedcolorcrop-1000px.jpg

 

Inside the post office in the ghost town of Gold Point, NV, where Ora Mae Wiley worked for many years. Much of the equipment she used is still here. I light painted the interior. It was very very hot inside. I drank a lot of Gatorade for these interior shots.

 

It was totally black inside, so all the illumination was created through light painting. Or maybe...maybe Ms. Wiley still works the late shift.

 

It's an urbex (urban exploration) shot of sorts. And I love exploring ghost towns, especially ones way out in the middle of the desert, so this was quite a lot of fun. I hope you like it.

[Theo Verelst]

Was she famous ?

 

Anyhow I understand from your description Ken, you're shining some form of flashlight around with the camera at long exposure, right? So is the light through the window the main exposure, or the artificial light, I was wondering, because if you "paint" with light (a Dutch famous photographer I knew who does that called it such when he'd "draw" on a dark background with a match or something, but not to light the scene), you could get a strongly unnatural light and shadow shape.

 

T.

[Brettymike]

Great photo Ken! , I bet there are ghosts in there.

 

Brett

[KenElevenShadows]

Was she famous ?

 

Anyhow I understand from your description Ken, you're shining some form of flashlight around with the camera at long exposure, right? So is the light through the window the main exposure, or the artificial light, I was wondering, because if you "paint" with light (a Dutch famous photographer I knew who does that called it such when he'd "draw" on a dark background with a match or something, but not to light the scene), you could get a strongly unnatural light and shadow shape.

 

T.

 

No, she was not famous, generally speaking. I really wanted to humanize this photo by telling a bit about the postal clerk, who also has a road named after her.

 

Yes, I am shining flashlights, some with gels in front of them, during the long exposure, so you are right. The light through the window is some of the streetlights, if you are talking about the window way in the back. The light in the room, which is red, is me. And I am illuminating the stuff in the front, of course. None of the lights are being shined directly into the lens of the camera, only on the objects or the room where the postal customers were.

 

There are basically three kinds of light painting. Even some photographers don't know this.

Three Kinds Of Light Painting:

1.) Light Drawing:

These are drawing images by shining light source directly into camera lens. The light itself becomes the subject. You can make all sorts of designs, write names, etc. with this light drawing. But you can also do things like burn steel wool to create sparks or create animals or patterns. It's a lot of fun.

2.) Kinetic Light Painting/Camera Painting:

This involves moving the camera to create patterns, backgrounds, abstract images. Camera Rotation photography is a great if not very well known example of this. I very very rarely do this sort of photography, not for lack of interest, but well, you know, you can't do everything.

3.) Light Painting:

This is primarily the kind of light painting I do, which involves using handheld lights to selectively illuminate and/or color parts of a subject or scene, almost like a movie set.

 

It's quite possible to combine two or more in a single exposure, although all three might result in a a mish-mosh where it might be difficult to distinguish what is going on. But who knows, maybe someone can specialize in doing all three. I do sometimes combine #1 and #3, though, such as I've done here:

 

http://www.elevenshadows.com/travels/joshuatree2012december/images/1joshuatree1212_208f11_199sstartrekring.jpg

 

In the above photo, taken in Joshua Tree National Park, CA, I took 199 seconds to create this image. 199 seconds. Enough time to run up some boulders, "light paint" the rock, run back down, run around the rock a few times with a red headlamp held high, then continue light painting with blue electroluminescent wire, otherwise known as El Wire, which is a thin copper wire coated in a phosphor which glows when an alternating current is applied to it. I shot this Friday, 28 December 2012.

 

With very rare exceptions, I create these photographs in a single exposure. It's not a manufactured Photoshop creation at all, but more like a strange performance. No two are every exactly alike, no matter how hard you try, and I'm fairly consistent.

 

So with the bus photos you mention, I am illuminating the exterior and interior with LED flashlights with gels over them.

 

Photographers refer to it as light painting because we often regard the light sources as brushes.

 

Light painting can be done fairly realistically, which is what I often prefer to do:

 

http://kenleephotography.files.wordpress.com/2014/08/4858kenlee_mtpinos-20sf28iso4000-2014-07-26-2306-milkyway-1000px.jpg

 

Or it can be surreal, something not ordinarily seen, such as this:

 

http://kenleephotography.files.wordpress.com/2014/07/3166-2014-07-11-0028-134sf8iso320-closeupofbustostarsblue-kenlee_carforest-960px.jpg

 

And to me, it's all good. They require different skill sets, and are in some ways, a bit different aesthetically, and are even frequently done at different times.

 

For instance, discussing the last two photographs above, the Milky Way in the pine forest is done when the moon is not out. This particular one was shot during the "new moon".

 

The second one was shot near a full moon. A full moon illuminates everything nice and evenly, and doesn't require nearly as long of an exposure as if the moon were gone, so it's easier and arguably often more aesthetically more pleasing to light paint things like abandoned buses, buildings, objects, etc. in a certain way.

 

But all these, regardless, are illuminated while the camera shutter is opened for a prolonged time, and not screwed with in post-processing in the sense that someone is altering the color or adding color somehow or anything like that. And most light painting photographers take great pride in that, feeling like it's a performance and not digital manipulation.

 

Did I answer your question? If not, ask away!!!

[KenElevenShadows]

Great photo Ken! , I bet there are ghosts in there.

 

Brett

 

The locals there are convinced that there are ghosts in the post office, and in some of the other buildings. And these are real "nuts and bolts" people, not the sort to have hyperactive imaginations. Regardless, I never saw any, felt any, sensed any, or perceived anything amiss, but of course, that doesn't necessarily mean anything at all.

[xKnuckles]

Hi Ken. Thank you for all the info - so interesting! I have been wondering how you were making these photos for quite a while now.... One question ...(and probably quite a stupid one.....) ...but if you were running round your Joshua tree boulder with a headlamp, why do you not appear in the photo?

[xKnuckles]

I was hoping that maybe there was an app somewhere which I had not heard about which would allow me to increase the length of exposure....... (Ever the optimist.....)

 

Triggertrap.com may be the answer to your needs.

 

Thanks for the suggestion Ken. I looked at the website but it appears that this is for triggering a proper camera (which I lack) from an idevice. It doesn't allow you to lengthen the exposure on the actual idevice.

[xKnuckles]

Thanks for the processing tips Theo.

[Brettymike]

Great photo Ken! , I bet there are ghosts in there.

 

Brett

 

The locals there are convinced that there are ghosts in the post office, and in some of the other buildings. And these are real "nuts and bolts" people, not the sort to have hyperactive imaginations. Regardless, I never saw any, felt any, sensed any, or perceived anything amiss, but of course, that doesn't necessarily mean anything at all.

 

I have only seen one 'ghost' in my life - it was a friendly entity (about 4 years ago), and it was a most amazing , profound , life changing experience for me. You don't only see , but FEEL and KNOW their emotions as well - incredible.

 

Brett

[Joe Muscara]

Ken,

 

I would love to see a video of you doing the light painting of something like that boulder. It would be fun to see you running around with the lights. It might be too dark though.

[RichieP_MechE]

Hi Ken. Thank you for all the info - so interesting! I have been wondering how you were making these photos for quite a while now.... One question ...(and probably quite a stupid one.....) ...but if you were running round your Joshua tree boulder with a headlamp, why do you not appear in the photo?

Basically, he's not in any one place long enough for the light reflected off of him to be registered by the camera's sensor.

[KenElevenShadows]

I was hoping that maybe there was an app somewhere which I had not heard about which would allow me to increase the length of exposure....... (Ever the optimist.....)

 

Triggertrap.com may be the answer to your needs.

 

Thanks for the suggestion Ken. I looked at the website but it appears that this is for triggering a proper camera (which I lack) from an idevice. It doesn't allow you to lengthen the exposure on the actual idevice.

 

Oh, strange, I thought it could control the internal smartphone camera as well. Sorry about that.

[KenElevenShadows]

Hi Ken. Thank you for all the info - so interesting! I have been wondering how you were making these photos for quite a while now.... One question ...(and probably quite a stupid one.....) ...but if you were running round your Joshua tree boulder with a headlamp, why do you not appear in the photo?

 

That's not a stupid question at all....that's a smart one.

 

Generally speaking, if you do not shine a flashlight on yourself or remain stationary for approximately 10% of the total exposure of the photo, you will not appear in it. This is a common technique used in architectural photography, where a photographer will do a long exposure photo of a building, and passerby, if walking, will not appear in the photo.

 

If one remains stationary for about 10%, they start appearing as a smudge, a sort of blurry thing that you can still see through partially. After 10%, the longer they are stationary, they more solid they will appear.

[KenElevenShadows]

Great photo Ken! , I bet there are ghosts in there.

 

Brett

 

The locals there are convinced that there are ghosts in the post office, and in some of the other buildings. And these are real "nuts and bolts" people, not the sort to have hyperactive imaginations. Regardless, I never saw any, felt any, sensed any, or perceived anything amiss, but of course, that doesn't necessarily mean anything at all.

 

I have only seen one 'ghost' in my life - it was a friendly entity (about 4 years ago), and it was a most amazing , profound , life changing experience for me. You don't only see , but FEEL and KNOW their emotions as well - incredible.

 

Brett

 

That would be an incredible experience, and yeah, life-changing. All the ramifications that could come with that boggle the mind.

[KenElevenShadows]

Hi Ken. Thank you for all the info - so interesting! I have been wondering how you were making these photos for quite a while now.... One question ...(and probably quite a stupid one.....) ...but if you were running round your Joshua tree boulder with a headlamp, why do you not appear in the photo?

Basically, he's not in any one place long enough for the light reflected off of him to be registered by the camera's sensor.

 

Whooops, didn't see this. But yes, that's exactly it. Not enough time to register on the sensor.

 

Unless I mistakenly blast myself with a flashlight. That will show up.

 

A lot of times, light painting photographers dress in dark clothes, even covering up their faces, looking very ninja-like. This is of course great fun, and helps in not registering in the photo.

 

It does, however, look very strange if one is stopped by the police.

[KenElevenShadows]

Ken,

 

I would love to see a video of you doing the light painting of something like that boulder. It would be fun to see you running around with the lights. It might be too dark though.

 

That would be fun to make. I don't know how much of it would show up. I guess if you had a good video camera, it would show up pretty well.

[Brettymike]

Was she famous ?

 

Anyhow I understand from your description Ken, you're shining some form of flashlight around with the camera at long exposure, right? So is the light through the window the main exposure, or the artificial light, I was wondering, because if you "paint" with light (a Dutch famous photographer I knew who does that called it such when he'd "draw" on a dark background with a match or something, but not to light the scene), you could get a strongly unnatural light and shadow shape.

 

T.

 

No, she was not famous, generally speaking. I really wanted to humanize this photo by telling a bit about the postal clerk, who also has a road named after her.

 

Yes, I am shining flashlights, some with gels in front of them, during the long exposure, so you are right. The light through the window is some of the streetlights, if you are talking about the window way in the back. The light in the room, which is red, is me. And I am illuminating the stuff in the front, of course. None of the lights are being shined directly into the lens of the camera, only on the objects or the room where the postal customers were.

 

There are basically three kinds of light painting. Even some photographers don't know this.

Three Kinds Of Light Painting:

1.) Light Drawing:

These are drawing images by shining light source directly into camera lens. The light itself becomes the subject. You can make all sorts of designs, write names, etc. with this light drawing. But you can also do things like burn steel wool to create sparks or create animals or patterns. It's a lot of fun.

2.) Kinetic Light Painting/Camera Painting:

This involves moving the camera to create patterns, backgrounds, abstract images. Camera Rotation photography is a great if not very well known example of this. I very very rarely do this sort of photography, not for lack of interest, but well, you know, you can't do everything.

3.) Light Painting:

This is primarily the kind of light painting I do, which involves using handheld lights to selectively illuminate and/or color parts of a subject or scene, almost like a movie set.

 

It's quite possible to combine two or more in a single exposure, although all three might result in a a mish-mosh where it might be difficult to distinguish what is going on. But who knows, maybe someone can specialize in doing all three. I do sometimes combine #1 and #3, though, such as I've done here:

 

http://www.elevenshadows.com/travels/joshuatree2012december/images/1joshuatree1212_208f11_199sstartrekring.jpg

 

In the above photo, taken in Joshua Tree National Park, CA, I took 199 seconds to create this image. 199 seconds. Enough time to run up some boulders, "light paint" the rock, run back down, run around the rock a few times with a red headlamp held high, then continue light painting with blue electroluminescent wire, otherwise known as El Wire, which is a thin copper wire coated in a phosphor which glows when an alternating current is applied to it. I shot this Friday, 28 December 2012.

 

With very rare exceptions, I create these photographs in a single exposure. It's not a manufactured Photoshop creation at all, but more like a strange performance. No two are every exactly alike, no matter how hard you try, and I'm fairly consistent.

 

So with the bus photos you mention, I am illuminating the exterior and interior with LED flashlights with gels over them.

 

Photographers refer to it as light painting because we often regard the light sources as brushes.

 

Light painting can be done fairly realistically, which is what I often prefer to do:

 

http://kenleephotography.files.wordpress.com/2014/08/4858kenlee_mtpinos-20sf28iso4000-2014-07-26-2306-milkyway-1000px.jpg

 

Or it can be surreal, something not ordinarily seen, such as this:

 

http://kenleephotography.files.wordpress.com/2014/07/3166-2014-07-11-0028-134sf8iso320-closeupofbustostarsblue-kenlee_carforest-960px.jpg

 

And to me, it's all good. They require different skill sets, and are in some ways, a bit different aesthetically, and are even frequently done at different times.

 

For instance, discussing the last two photographs above, the Milky Way in the pine forest is done when the moon is not out. This particular one was shot during the "new moon".

 

The second one was shot near a full moon. A full moon illuminates everything nice and evenly, and doesn't require nearly as long of an exposure as if the moon were gone, so it's easier and arguably often more aesthetically more pleasing to light paint things like abandoned buses, buildings, objects, etc. in a certain way.

 

But all these, regardless, are illuminated while the camera shutter is opened for a prolonged time, and not screwed with in post-processing in the sense that someone is altering the color or adding color somehow or anything like that. And most light painting photographers take great pride in that, feeling like it's a performance and not digital manipulation.

 

Did I answer your question? If not, ask away!!!

 

 

This Bus Photo is absolutely great and amazing , I can't quite describe why.

 

Brett

[KenElevenShadows]

Oh cool, so glad you like it!!! Thanks!

[KenElevenShadows]

http://kenleephotography.files.wordpress.com/2014/08/3643-kenlee_carmaarrays-2014-07-15-0344-25sf35iso640-flatbw.jpg

 

Long exposure night sky photo up in the Inyo Mountains of California...telescope dishes.

[Joe Muscara]

Dude, that looks like it's from some old campy sci-fi film!

[KenElevenShadows]

Thanks, that's pretty much what I was going for!!!!!! B&W on stuff like this = instant 1950s sci-fi!

[Mike Martin]

^^^^^^

That is so cool Ken!!

 

 

Here is a little guy from the yard.

 

http://ppcdn.500px.org/81367713/df609fbcb788a6a3ddcb154e20e0a41b602ff0bd/4.jpg

Dragonfly by Mike Martin on 500px

[KenElevenShadows]

Awesome, Mike! Gotta get a macro lens some day.

 

http://kenleephotography.files.wordpress.com/2014/07/3149-2014-07-10-2241-235sf8iso500-goldfieldsubway-kenlee_goldfieldnevada-960px.jpg

 

Antique subway station entrances from what appears to be from a London subway station. What are they doing here? Well, no matter! I love it! More fun stuff to photograph here in the almost-ghost town of Goldfield, once was the largest city in Nevada, a boom town that was fueled by the lust for gold. Light painting photos of this nature are often best done near a full moon, and although mostly plagued with cloudy skies, I kept shooting, clear skies or no, and some still came out well.

 

Title: Station To Station (3149)

Photo: Ken Lee Photography

Info: Nikon D610, AF-S Nikkor 14-24mm f/2.8G ED lens at 14mm. I used an LED flashlight and SB-600 with gels to light paint. All colored light work was done during the exposure, and is not a Photoshop creation.

 

 

 

[Brettymike]

Cool photo's , love that little helicopter guy - complete with crash helmet!.

 

Brett