Wandering in the LightWandering in the LightThings They Forgot to Tell You About DIGITAL PHOTOGRAPHY Articles
Pretty as a picture?
2007-12-01 07:28:00 Well the lighting is lovely but the image may not be so well appreciated by all those suffering hayfever this year. More About: Picture , Pretty
2nd last spring sunset
2007-11-30 05:06:00 Individual photos for spring sunset pano Originally uploaded by imageo The second last sunset of spring, beach no.1 Venus Bay. The extreme wide angle effect is created using a five panel photomosaic, stitched together with autostitch. More About: Spring , Sunset
More on Sky
2007-11-17 09:29:00 Before After I have mentioned this "trick" before. Most digital cameras end up having a dilemma when trying to find the perfect exposure during the middle of the day. If you point at something like a tree, the exposure will be fine for everything on the ground and the trees but the sky will be washed out. The simplest way to add a nice blue sky back into your photo is using a simple gradient filter, specifically one that allows you control the position and rate of the gradient (sometimes called feathering). Here I am using the gradient filtering feature in picasa.
Dangerous
2007-11-10 00:27:00 For photofriday's theme dangerous A "small" salty on the banks of the daintree river More About: Dangerous
Now that is a good idea
2007-11-08 03:55:00 I came across this researching something else, but who is this for a snazzy idea, putting a wi-fi transmitter into a camera's SD memory card. It is called an Eye-Fi. There is a bit of set up required on your PC or Mac to configure it, but after that you can upload your photos from the camera wirelessly, and in can be automatically setup to also upload your photo to your favourite website, like flickr, photobucket, even facebook. At present they don't work with public wi-fi hot spots (they can't log in by themselves). And yes the camera battery will be used when the card is transmitting. The other bad news is the Eye-Fi is only supported in USA (but hopefully that will change) More About: Idea , Good
No filters needed
2007-11-06 09:16:00 I recently sold a number of my sunset photos at a local Art Exhibition and so many people asked if I used some special filter or photoshop process. The answer is I used neither. My secret to getting good photos at sunset is firstly be there, at the right time. The best colours often come just after the sun has set. Secondly, and less importantly, is don't be afraid to take several at slightly different setting (for example use EV bracketing). Built-in light meters and their monitoring techniques behave quiet differently between digital cameras when being pointed at a strong light sources. Sunsets (and sunrises) are a favourite topic of mine, to see other posting on them click on the label sunset below More About: Filters
Getting the sky
2007-11-06 06:19:00 I am actually rather proud of this panorama, I hope to generate a 2m long blow up. It is based on 19 individual images and was stitched into a single with autostitch. However that is the easy bit, getting 19 images to look as if they are correctly exposed out in the middle of a late spring afternoon in Australia is the real challenge. Normally because the Australian midday lighting is so harsh, if the beach is correctly exposed the sky would be washed out (most automatic light meters will do this) or if the sky was nice and blue the beach would look dark. So I have used a polarizing filter, its effect on the beach is minimal but it changes the contrast in the sky and clouds beautifully.
Tale of Two Panos
2007-11-02 10:31:00 It was a pretty magnificent sunset tonight down here, perfect opportunity to compare my new phones autopano feature which I am having a bit of trouble mastering, with multi-image autostitching (my preferred method, but much more time consuming) Whilst there is not that much difference at the "thumbnail" size displayed here, if you click on the images to see them full size, the difference is astounding. More About: Tale , Pano
(Auto) panorama of PNG mask
2007-10-31 02:44:00 (Auto ) panorama of PNG mask Originally uploaded by imageo Yes I am still playing with the camera features of my phone, and the one-click upload feature you get with shozu. This is the nokia auto panorama feature, basically yiou click and slowly move the camera in one direction then click to stop. to be hionest is quirky and tempramentlyt and more a gimiky toy than a serious tool, but to leap to its defence I was trying it out moving the whole phone (like a scanner head) in front of the mask. Clearly this made the mtch up process stutter a little.- Taken at 12:29 PM on October 31, 2007 - cameraphone upload by ShoZu More About: Mask , Panorama , Pano
Taking another look at Shozu
2007-10-29 14:23:00 I must admit I have seen others enthuse about ShoZu, pronounced show-zoo, but had not seen much application for it myself. I was wrong of course. If you are into social networking and have a mobile phone camera, you should get it, serious you should download it now. The advantage is that photo goes directly to the website (no uploading and fidgeting on a PC required). The list of destination you can share to is extensive, including flickr, facebook, most popular blogs and YouTube and if your phone supports it you can set up One-click uploads (you get the option to upload a photo whenever you take one, with a single click). This is a good feature ZuCasts, are possible the next big thing, probably making this the number one phone application, they are a lot like a silent podcasts. After you subscribed to specific content it will get delivered to your phone in background, for you to review whenever it suits you. Shozu is essentially free (there are no charges for joining or... More About: Taking
Last Full Moon in Spring
2007-10-27 13:34:00 As well as being the beginning of daylight savings, tonight is also the last full moon in spring, and it was a spectacular moonrise. The red colour presumably coming because of dust and pollen lifted into the air by strong north winds. More About: Full Moon , Moon , Spring , Full
Blue Sky
2007-10-27 05:33:00 The traditional way to enhance the sky (darken the blues and whiten the clouds) is with a polarizing filter. Whilst filters where much used in with films SLR, they are not that popular with digital photographers, possibly because post processing can do pretty much the same (and more). With a polarizing filter No filter No filter on lens, but the "I'm feeling lucky" filter in Picasa More About: Blue , Blue Sky
Plastic Bottles :: the new menace
2007-10-26 15:28:00 Not long ago it was plastic bags that where choking the inland waterways. I get the impression things have changed for the better, with noticeably less shredded bags around now. However I was walking along the lower reaches of the Tarwin river, looking for erosionflood damage associated with kings tides. There in the flood debris I was very surprised to find how many plastic bottles have taken up residence (maybe it because they float, glass ones would sink). Seams the littering habit is still alive! More About: Plastic , Bottles
Modern Photo Shoebox :: Digital Camera to CD
2007-10-18 07:36:00 Back in the days of film, or even slides, photos that didn't make it into an album, or frame, disappeared into a shoebox. there was seldom any order or logic, negatives, prints and maybe if your were lucky a few notes might be penciled on the back. Well its not a lot different with digital pictures only the shoebox is now a CD, or set of CDs (maybe even a DVD) and probably they are no better organized than the old shoe box So I thought it might be interesting discussing the various ways you can build and collate your collection of digital images, both with and without a plan to keep them organized. 'As I go I will update links from here to related stories, but you can also just watch the blog for them to appear in no particular order. More About: Photo , Digital Camera , Camera , Modern , Digital
Adelaide by Night
2007-10-15 05:08:00 Whilst the city is not actually paved with gold, the colours of the illuminated buildings can assume that golden glow at night. Actually the northern side of Rundle street is paved with coins. These where all taken with night mode and since I didn't have my tripod with me I just used suitable nearby posts, bins and veranda poles for support. More About: Night , Adelaide
The Case of the Shinny Balls & the Headless Ghost
2007-10-14 13:08:00 This image is yet another multi-image photomosaic, stitched together with autostich. I like the technique as a way to get a superwide angle view in a tight space (compare it with the normal "wide" angle/zoomed out view) below. The poor man on the right has become a ghost and lost his head because he moved between frames, but it does add a little of the surreal to the center of Adelaide. More About: Ghost , Balls , Case , Shinny
What the heck is this?
2007-10-13 04:04:00 It is a QR Code, a type of two dimensional bar code, which I heard described as a cross between a chess board and a crossword. on a recent BBC digital planet podcast. The really great thing about them, and why I bothered to blog about them, is that most new mobile phones, well the ones with cameras and web access, can probably already scan them and use them for instance connect to a web address. Thats exactly what this one does, it is the URL (web address) of this blog, just point your cameraphone at the image, on the screen! and take a picture. The next step depends on your phone, (HINT: you may need to read its instructions), activate the QR CODE READER option and you will get taken to your phone's web browser and directly to this very blog site! On your phone, no difficult thumb and finger typing required! If your phone doesn't have a QR Reader built in (most phones less that 2 years old will have it), but a camera you can download the free KAYWA Reader into your phon...
Uploading on the go
2007-10-09 08:38:00 A few posts back I mentioned, backup your photos, to an on-line storage as you travel, there are now lots of ways to do this and moblogs is a fairly neat one for mobile phones. Sure any phone with a camera probably comes with some software to upload the images to your PC, then you have to email them or prepare a blog post, its all a hassle and kind of two hard. With moblogs you can send the pictures, video and text in an MMS format, just like you send your friends now, but know you are sharing with the world. If you are contemplating making a visual travel diary of your next trip, check it out. Best part is Mum, Dad, aunty Jean and Grandma can also become members and print out or download their favorites photos, before you get home. Flickr also has some neat facilities, for uploading photos on the go. First they have a mobile phone oriented web portal, which is text oriented and cuts the bandwidth drain. It does let you use the web interface to upload from your cameraphone, but t... More About: Uploading , The Go , The G , Loading
Instant Beach Erosion
2007-10-07 08:54:00 The combination of big swell and king tides, that correspond with the full moons in spring, has literally eroded scarps over two meters high along the beach in several places at Venus Bay, but beaches are dynamic places and seasonal changes are normal. The sand is actually being sweep back and forth along the beach giving the beach is long sweeping shape. The bigger erosion risk for the beach are blowouts, caused by wind and clearing of vegetation in the dunes behind the beach. More About: Beach
Field Trip
2007-10-06 05:26:00 My field trip around the Venus Bay Peninsular and Andersen Inlet, was very successful in that it was well supported. Whilst the purpose was to see evidence of the importance of understanding sea level rise and its influence on the development of ecology and landforms, I was abruptly reminded of the power of the sea and specifically recent king tides. The mangroves in the photo below, used to illustrate my notes, have gone and the site I had visited only 5 weeks before showed significant (several meters of) erosion. click here to download my notes for the field trip "Some Thoughts on The Recent Geomorphological Development, in the Venus Bay Area, related to Sea Level Rise." More About: Trip , Field
SkyDrive arrives
2007-10-04 01:22:00 Those traveling, or multi-computer using types, may be interested in Sky Drive, a new beta release of an on-line storage system from the Microsoft Live project. Whilst the 500 MB of storage is modest, it is the ability to limit access through encryption, to private, share with your family or group or even share publicly to the world, that may appeal. If you have a Hotmail account or a Passport ID sign up and give it a try. A 500 MB memory stick is cheap these days and may be better and more flexible way to backup of photos while traveling, yet it doesn't give you the ability to instantly share, with good control over who too, or give protection should you and/or your luggage have an accident, get damaged, stolen, any of a thousand mishaps. Remember the memory stick will be there with you or in your luggage, and probably suffer the same fate. Memory sticks are also notoriously easy to loose. On-line storage systems give you an instance off-site backup, but if 500 MB ...
Get close, its spring
2007-09-30 09:33:00 Now is the right time (well in the southern hemisphere, it is) to get out in your garden (or some one else's, these photos are all from my mother's garden) and get up close to the magnificent spring display. Close up photos, where the image is close to the size of the original are usually referred to as Macro Photography. Most digital cameras, and a lot of camera phones, these days have a macro setting, usually indicated by a button of setting on the lens marked with a flower. When you get up close you may find your run into few special issues, If you are using a view finder, you may find the image you captured is half cropped off (so it is better to use the camera LCD screen to frame your photo before you take it). When you are close up depth of view (not normally seen as an issue on digital cameras) will mean you may only be able to focus on part of the flower, so don't be afraid to take a few shots and move the camera in and out, till the results are pleasing. With an ... More About: Spring
Night moves
2007-09-26 13:25:00 Most cameras have a night scenes mode (usually indicated by a pictogram with a crescent moon) and it will lengthen then exposure time, however if there is something moving, like a car with its headlights on, you will just get a streak of light. Yet this in itself can be appealing. More About: Night , Moves
Make your cameraphone into a scanner
2007-09-18 13:47:00 Qipit is a great little website and applet. It allows you to send in a photo taken with a digital camera or even a mobile phone, and the website converts it into a more conventional scanned image. Great for recording notes on white boards or handwritten notes, downloadable as a PDF, emailed or sent to you as a fax. All you need to do the test it out is email your image to copy@qipit.com I thought I should try out the service with a very ordinary, low contrast, low resolution photo of a badly hand written page. I was impressed with the result but received an email saying - Qipit has scanned your image but the resulting document may not be satisfying because the resolution of your original image is too low. To avoid this: Ensure that your camera phone is 1 megapixel or greater. This information is generally found near the lens of the camera. Ensure that your camera is set to the appropriate resolution and image quality Ensure that your camera is ... More About: Make , Scanner , Cameraphone
The leaning trees of inner Adelaide
2007-09-17 22:12:00 I have noticed something strange in the older and taller trees of central Adelaide , they all lean. I can not see a simple explanation, like prevailing winds or swelling soils. They all just appear to have their own personal leans and twists, whilst retaining a calm balance as they ignore the bustling world go by below. More About: Trees , Rees
A charming Victorian Glasshouse
2007-09-17 07:36:00 The palm court in the Adelaide botanical gardens, dates back to the Victorian era and whilst such a glass house is very suitable for the kew gardens in the UK, It may just get a fraction hot in Adelaide, so no wonder the place is now specializes for the dry vegetation of Madagascar, and just one palm. The glasshouse was imported from Bremen In Germany in 1875, and is thought to be the only one of its kind. More About: Charmi , Charmin , Char
Patterns on Patterns
More articles from this author:2007-09-15 16:44:00 I tend to avoid the fancier features of photomanipulation packages, not sure why, possibly I'd rather do the picture forming in the viewfinder. However photos like those of the tree branches in my previous post, those with strong patterns, can make great images to manipulate. More About: Patterns 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 |
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