Wandering in the LightWandering in the LightThings They Forgot to Tell You About DIGITAL PHOTOGRAPHY Articles
One flicker too many
2008-04-11 05:57:00 SAY NO! Originally uploaded by alatimed Flickr only announced its video service on Tuesday and the chorus of loyal flickr-ites saying NO was unbelievable. A fellow Australian Photographer!! Father McKenzie started a group to say NO to VIDEO on flickr and already it has 24,000 plus members. Surely flickr had done some market research! Or was this a yahoo play against Google-YouTube juggarnaught? Such immediate angst suggests that most are happy with flickr just as it is.So what is my opinion, I don't really have a strong one. From a bandwidth point of view there is already enough of it wasted on flickr already, and what was wrong with putting your video on YouTube anyway? Is competition going to improve that service or more importantly flickrs?I'm wondering if the flickr gods will be changing their motto from Flickr loves you, to Flickr who cares!
Why not make your portfolio into a video!
2008-04-01 04:05:00 Nature's Entryway Originally uploaded by Reggiesgirl Reggiesgirl from flickr has a used wonderful way to show her portfolio of nature photography, she made it into a video. With so many screens atound in modern life, making your still work into a video (or slideshow) is a great way to guarentee they will be seen (at least by your friends and family, but if you want your 15 seconds of "net fame" you cam also trust your arm on YouTube as reggie's girl did) There are any number of good programs (too many to mention here) with which make your slide show and convert them into a video masterpiece. Try Microsoft's Photo Story 3 if you are looking for a free program to try out. At the very least you probably already have Movie Make r which can also do the job. More About: Video , Portfolio
The secret worlds of tall trees
2008-03-30 11:18:00 These weird distortions where created by autostitch as I tried to create vertical panoramas from stacked images. Not quiet what i expected by strangely compelling images all the same More About: The Secret , Trees , Worlds , Secret , Tall
Decent rains at last!
2008-03-27 01:24:00 Photographing actual rain is a very complex task, its udsually very poor lighting, its falling fast and therefeore blurs in the slow exposre required, it usually has no center of interests, the list just goes on and on. So I have taken the simple way out, just photographing the effects and really zeroing in on just a small aspects, using the macro setting on my trusty telephoto zoom lens, the water droplettes on a grape vine. Still it tells the story well.
Giving Red Bubble a Go
2008-03-26 10:27:00 I have been looking around for a while for an "low fuss" but good quality way to sell my photos on-line. Basically I had concluded there wasn't one. Flickr gets you exposure, but has no commercial aspects, there are other places like Lulu, Cafe Press and Deviant Art, not to forget any number of self publishing stock photo sites, but to be sweepingly general without wanting to get involved in law suits they all exploit the artist, photographer or content creator. These guys are there to make a profits and take the lion share of sale price. I strongly suggest you read the fine print before signing in because you may give away ownership of your images without realising it. I have heard about RedBubble and decided to give it a try, sorry no glowing endorsement yet (I haven't sold anything, yet!). I thought just writing about joining up and what's going on in there might be interesting enough. What caught my eye was that red bubble just charge a fixed amount to produce and ... More About: Giving
HDR sunset
2008-03-25 11:46:00 HDR sunset, originally uploaded by imageo. This is all about colour & composition, the patterns of the silhouetted branches and intense colour on the clouds behind. HDRi image created with Dynamic Photo, using smooth compressor tone mapping. More About: Sunset
Six of the best
2008-03-22 12:37:00 Actually I hope you are out enjoying the Easter break, not spending time of the net, but if you are here. this is a great little on-line application that can create decorated eggs from your photos.
Immersive Slideshows?
2008-03-21 01:23:00 So what are immersive slideshows, as opposed to ... I don't know drowning (in) slideshows? They are the brainchild of Cooliris in the form of a browser plugin, called PicLens. It takes a number of common image intensive web places, social networking, photo sites, etc and converts them into a full screen "cinematic presentation" experience. It is very stylish, slick and unobtrusive (a watermarked "play" button is superimposed over the bottom right corner of images to indicate PiclLens can be run, just click your mouse on that, otherwise you don't notice its there)The real fun begins when you start looking at your own personal images on say flickr, photobucket or picassa web albums. I particularly like the "3D" photo wall (complete with reflection of a virtual shinny floor).My conclusion reflects that of a review in Wired Magazine, its "Fun and Addictive", but it is a pity it does not work with blogger. More About: Slideshows
Contemporary Artist Show
2008-03-18 06:34:00 The Venus Bay Contemporay artist show was good for me, I managed to sell all my works (see all the red stickers already at the opening). The Exhibit was open by well know local sculptor Colin Suggett, and had a strong inspiration based around the natural world. My "geological" impression of venus bay in 200 million years can be seen behind colin. More About: Artist , Show , Contemporary
HDR from on high
2008-03-17 06:15:00 I think most frequent flyers will know the delight of watching the big billowing cumulus clouds from a plane in the late afternoon. The trouble is attempting to capture this with a digital camera pretty well always gives a disappointingly flat image, and thats before you start looking at the issues of photographing through glass. The real problem is the range of intensity in the light you are viewing, whilst your eye can handle it the camera's CCD sensors and light meter can not, so the camera will probably make some wrong decisions about the exposure. Isn't this exactly what HDR (high dynamic range) techniques are about? Of Course it is. So I took the required bracketed series, (hand held, there is so little room in an airplane seat these days a tripod is definitely out). Since the plane was moving and some clouds very near I had to use pin warping to get everything lining up between exposures. Then I used my favourite tone mapping regime in dynamic photo , it is called smooth co... More About: High
Photo Impressions
2008-03-16 07:00:00 I have stopped using the term Photo mosaic, which with this spelling has been registered as a trademarked by Robert Silver. I use the professional version of Andrej Olenik's Mosaic Creator, which is based on different patented techniques to those covered by the patents filed by Robert Silver through Runaway Technology Inc. There is a good article on the photographic mosaic process in general on wikipedia, including discussion of the trademark issue. Also worth following up are Joseph Francis's History of Photo Mosaics and WL Hunt's History of Photo Tiled Pictures. From now on I will be referring to my photographically tiled works as photo impressions, and the multi-image panoramics and other similarly multi-image constructions as just multi-image and/or collages More About: Impressions
Tapestry Wave Wallpaper
2008-03-02 05:03:00 Tapestry Wave Wallpaper Originally uploaded by imageo Normally I steer clear of artistic filters in the photomanipulation and paint programs, not for any especially noble reason, I just don't really apreciate any of the results, you see i do a bit of painting and sketching myslef. Ok I do harbour a nervous twitch whenever I hear "You can photoshop that!" I know the resulting photo has a high probability of being over contrasty and garishly coloured, and probably still an ordinary image. Ok I'll stop mysef now before I offend to many. Still I do have a confession, I do occasionally stray over to the dark side with my screen wallpapers. You see I like having wallpapers of my own images, it is the ultimate way to personalise your workspace and often they are my more artistic photos of texture and abstracty things. These lend themself to experiment so I do, Just occasionally they are good enough for my collection of wallpaperson Flickr More About: Tapestry
How good are the Auto-Fix Tools?
2008-02-27 13:03:00 I guess everyone with a camera knows the disappointment of a great moment that slipped away into a very average photo. The weather was changing to rain and this cormorant turned into the breeze to dry his wings before the rain squall arrived by the time I had fumbled in my camera bag and change my lens the little light left was disappearing fast and I was way to far away anyway, but I hit the shutter button anyway. The result was low key grayness and not quiet what I hoped, but very understandable given the conditions. So maybe it is a worthy candidate to use to compare all those auto-fix tools popping up in most software these days First I tried out Live Gallery (which is free to download), it doesn't have so many "correction" features but top of the menu of fix tools is the auto adjust. The nice thing is, it does its job quickly but then gives you a set of sliders (which I didn't use) that can enhance the shadows or highlights separately to general brightness and con... More About: Tools , Auto , Good
Static Vibrancy
2008-02-23 05:34:00 Ripple in Time Wallpaper Originally uploaded by imageo This screen wallpaper started out as an exercise in trying to capture things that repeat over time and then post process them using the HDRi technique into a single image (ie I was taking three photos at different exposures, then using dynamic photo to merge the images with an extended dynamic range. I expected to see the ripples moving across the image (at subtlety different exposures). The subject was the incoming tide flooding over a current cut small pool in the sand. Normally when using HDRi you must have a subject that is static across the three exposures so the images cab be matched exactly, but I like to find out what happens when you break the rules. The individual images, showed the ripples patterns nicely, especially the +1.0 EV. (Validating my view that it is often wise to use EV bracketing when photographing low and direct light, because in those conditions the built in light meter in your camera may... More About: Static
Tranquility
2008-02-19 23:49:00 Moon rise over Jell's Park Lake. Yet another experiment with the HDRi technique, trying to match the dynamic range as seen with a human eye. More About: Tranquility
Painting with Photomosaics
2008-02-19 13:43:00 I have been making large multi-panel photomosaic of the bird of South Gippsland, using South Gippsland scenes as the tiles for a while now. Whilst Mosaic Creator seems to do a reasonable job whatever you throw at it, I have the overwhelming view that Andrea Mosaic gives me more creative control (but alas with that comes the ability to really ruin images as well) and I got top thinking I should treated making mosaics more like painting an image. Then the penny dropped I needed to get a better palette of colours, from which to mix my new Mosaic, just like an artist selects his tubes of paint and makes up his colour scheme. fd's Flickr Toys has a neat palette generator, I think it is really meant for web designers or home decoration projects. It is so easy to use I don't need to explain that here. All you need to do is upload a photo and a palette of colours based on the colours in the photo will be generated automatically. So next I looked through my picasa library o... More About: Painting
Join the one legged club
2008-02-18 07:18:00 At first I was worried about the sudden increase in one legged seagulls. Then I noticed they like to balance on one leg when they are facing a slight breeze More About: Join , Club
Correcting a few details
2008-02-18 03:56:00 If you found your way to this blog from the article in the Leongatha Star, there are a couple of details that need to be cleared upAnsel Adams was most defintely not a digital photographer, he died, aged 82, back in 1984. One of his great contributions to photography was the zone system (his wikipedia entry says he was a co-inventor of it) but I am not so sure about that. He ceratinly developed it and other techniques to capture the fullest detail across all ranges of tone in his black and white photos and his landscapes in particular are just outstanding.The panoramic photo published in the star was a very recent one, not the panorama from my participation in the One Horizon project on flickr. This is the panorama exhibitted in the New York Exhibition in 2006And to keep you up to date, this was taken yesterday, at the same wonderful beach. More About: Details
Another great day for the beach
2008-02-17 00:42:00 Up till now I had been trying out the HDRi techniques in low light, a theme that seems to be the favourite place to start, at least in the Flickr My first HDR (beginners)group. It has been a magnificnt weekend so it was off to do my usual breachcoming photography ramble and I though I should start with a HDR test in the full glorious light of an australia summer day (a subject most digital photographer soon find out returns a very contrasty washed out image. OK I have been using a polarizing filter for such situations and that helps resort a more natural image, particulary helping to keep the sky blue , not a washed out white) and the three EV bracketed photo used in the HDR image above where taken with that polarizing filter. In dynamic photo I have been movind down hwn tone mapping, avoiding the eye catching and Ultra Contrat setting and i tend to like the smmoth compression, or human eye setting, but in the HDR photo above I used the Auto Adaptive seting because it most closelt c... More About: Beach , Great
Crystal illusion
2008-02-16 12:13:00 The beach at venus bay faces west, so on a late summer evening if there is an off shore breeze the waves get a beautiful aqua transparency. More About: Crystal , Illusion
Understanding HDR (High Dynamic Range)
2008-02-15 10:09:00 You may have notice I have been playing a lot with the HDRi (High Dynamic Range ) technique later. I offer no excuse, I am playing, I just need to figure out how it works and how I might be able to use it. So here is my simple explanation of the general process. Note I am using FDRTools in this example because it is easier to show what is going on (I already prefer dynamic photo, see my previous post why) Step 1, Take a set of bracketed photos, (three is a good number but you can take more) at different EV exposures. Step 2, Load those photos into software that can analyse the exposure range of each photo, it is normally necessary to align the individual photos, if you use a tripod this will not be necessary. I actually rested the camera on a wall to keep it steady so i have jumped over this step. Step 3 now create a virtual photo space with a wider range of exposure range, using a composite of all intensity recorded (ie the darks from the darkest photos, ton... More About: High Dynamic Range , Understanding
HDRi Brissy skyline
2008-02-14 21:44:00 14-feb hdr brissy skyline Originally uploaded by imageo Using Dynamic photo again. I was without a tripod and this sceene needed a very long exposure for the EV bracketed set, but luckily there were trust round topped bollards along the waterfront. More About: Skyline
What a difference a day makes?
2008-02-12 12:04:00 The same tree in two different HDRi photos taken just one day apart at roughly the same time. More About: Difference
Bird's in Flight
More articles from this author:2008-02-11 00:56:00 it was only a day or so ago that I complained that these guys [Onychoprion fuscatus] where hard to capture in flight. Well this guy, at least, must have heard me and staged his own close range fly bay. Thanks mate!The "Picture Grid" collage was created with picasa More About: Flight 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 |
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