Photography !!!

[CNA]

Okay, Jonathan, you're going to have to bear with me as it's been quite a while since I responded to posts that are broken up with quotes, etc. But I think I will probably end up just doing a straight post with none of your quotes involved but I will give it a try and hopefully will remember, has been some time. It'll definitely take me a bit to get used to.

Are any of those HDR images? The details, colors, etc., on some of them have HDR written all over it. If not, wow, very impressive.

I guess you could say that some of them are a sort of homebrew HDRI. My understanding is that HDRI are usually 16-bit, but I'm creating in 8. Basically my method is to combine more than one exposure, using, say, the dark values of one, the mids and lights of another, the hues of another, and sometimes the saturation of yet another (often times I'll "create" different exposures simply by opening the same one under different settings). While shooting, sometimes I'll intentionally blur (either completely or selectively in a sort of depth-of-field way) the exposure that's going to be my hue layer so that I can maintain sharpness and clarity in my values and basic form contours/outlines but spread the colors behind the value sharpness. You can see a little evidence of that in the Lake Michigan photo where the reds of the pine needles on the forest floor are bled into by the blue and green hues of the trees (the hues are affected by the blurring but the values are not).

Are you shooting in a RAW format? I haven't played with RAW images yet and I know requires a lot of post processing time. The software I'm using right now for HDR images is Photomatix and have gotten some great results with it. I'm still a relative newbie with HDR. The way I've been shooting with it is by taking multiple images of the same subject at different exposure times with usually an ISO speed no greater than 200, various shutter speeds, and f/6.3 aperture from darkest exposure, regular exposure, lightest exposure, then take the best of those exposures and combining them into 1 image. Photomatix is where I've been playing with hue/saturation/contrast/ghosting artificat and so forth rather than the camera itself. I haven't gotten that far yet with the features on my camera. But what I have found is that I do not like the bracketing feature in ABE mode on my camera where I can preset the exposure times before ever taking the shot because it can't be adjusted and fine tuned to what you want. You know, you just stand there and the shots will be fired one right after the other. For me personally, I've found better results in mounting it on a tripod in full manual mode and manually setting the shutter speed and aperture setting for each shot taken and then combining them later in Photomatix. I'll definitely try what you've suggested. Very curious. And it most definitely sounds a bit more complex than what I am shooting.

What lens did you use?

I'm shooting through a few different cameras. I still sometimes shoot film on an old Canon T70 and an AE1 with a variety of lenses up to 500, and I'm shooting digital on a EOS 40D with lenses ranging from 28 to 300, and on a PowerShot G6, which is actually pretty damn good up to even 8 x 10 at 300 ppi. I usually prefer longer lens lengths to shorter ones.

Damn, Boy, have a camera !!! You sound like a friend of mine that lives in the UK. He's a professional scuba diver/photographer. His gear is just amazing and so much of it. He sent me a shot not too long ago of ALL of his equipment and I couldn't stop laughing. oh, he's definitely addicted I think. LOL He absolutely loves it. As for me, my original camera as a point and shoot Kodak 12x zoom which does fairly well. But upgraded to the Canon EOS 400D with 4 lenses ranging from UWA 18 to 300 mm. But my primaries are the Canon L lenses and a bit spoiled now with these lenses compared to the lenses that came with my camera. After getting a taste of the L series lens, I will probably never buy anything other than L series. Oh, but I would love to have a 500 mm lens, very nice !!

Any processing with Photoshop or the like?

I run everything through Photoshop even though I usually have at least one exposure that nailed what I was after. I still follow the old-school method of bracketing even when shooting digitally, even though the screen and histogram show me that I'm within acceptable ranges. I look at Photoshop as the modern equivalent of a darkroom: just as I wouldn't want to rely on what was captured on a negative, but instead make some refining adjustments when making a print, I like to use Photoshop to tweak at least my absolute black and white limits and some of my mid-range levels. I try to aim for offset press parameters while maintaining a little bit of intensified areas of color. I think that in the images I posted, some of the lighter greens and cyans may be the only areas which exceed normal CMYK ranges, and just slightly, but it's enough to provide a little oomph. Like I said above, homebrew HDRI.

It definitely provides some oompth and your homebrew HDR is well done.

I'm not so great with portraits of people though. People are not my thing but getting better as time goes on and playing with it even more.

What I've seen of your people work looks good. Taking it indoors gets tougher, though. Have you had any opportunities to play with strobe lighting, umbrellas, softboxes and that sort of thing? When I first started exploring photography, I couldn't afford to invest in a power pack right away, so I bought cheap add-on slave units for each of my cheap hot-shoe-mount flashes and experimented with placing them remotely and bouncing them off of things like walls, illustration board and foamcore. I learned a lot, and by the time that I started using a power pack, I totally knew what I was doing. Freeing the flash from the camera and softening it was the best first step that I took when it came to portrait photography.

Well, thank you. But those shots are only a few. LOL Oy, I have a wedding that I'll be doing in about 7 months or so for a friend so I have some time to practice and get better. We talked and I told her that portraits are not my strong suit but hoping they will be as time goes on. She said she doesn't mind, just as long as she has shots of the wedding. So there's a bit less pressure going on now. LOL

Actually, haven't played with strobe lighting, umbrellas, and so forth yet. Strobe light sounds extremely interesting though. Believe it or not, do not own a flash for my camera other than the horrifying built-in flash that is just not even worth enabling. And so far, I prefer not having the flash. I find myself using a lot of backlighting or natural lighting, which I know can be very tricky given that the subject your shooting is not well lit and the contrast between the two can be a major pain but actually favor this as it adds for me more mood, contrast, a bit more drama to what I'm shooting. As for indoor photography and I often find myself in low light conditions, I went and purchased a Canon EF 24 -70 mm F2.8 L series lens. Quite a bit of money shelled out for it but it is Canon's top of the line low light condition lens and will shoot in the lowest of lighting conditions without a flash firing and does very well even with camera shake. For me, I don't really prefer the flash and is the reason I haven't purchased an external flash yet because I've found it will take away from the shot, details, shading, etc. and sometimes these details are what makes the shot interesting or above the standard of what is considered good. But I do know for portraits it is a must because you want the person's face illuminated but also depending on the effect and mood you're trying to go for.

Please do post more of your work because I'd love to see. I've been checking out DF's work that he's posted as well and will be checking out Robert's page, although have browsed his page in the past and he also does fantastic work.

Angie

[Jonathan]

Hey Angie,

Yeah, I prefer to shoot in RAW format, and I share your dislike of automated bracketing. There are a lot of bells and whistles that I usually ignore on my cameras since I like to have as much manual control as possible. I often do the same thing that you do with choosing an aperture and then selecting a variety of shutter speeds, but I also frequently do the opposite when I'm shooting small to mid-sized objects: I maintain the same shutter speed but alter the aperture (I often like to bracket for both darkness/lightness and depth of field/lack of depth of field).

As for having lots of stuff, well, I guess all I can say is that it accumulates as technology changes. My film cameras are decades old, and I was actually a little slow in crossing over to digital. I wanted to wait until the price came down and the quality was equal to or better than medium format film cameras.

You wrote:

I don't really prefer the flash and is the reason I haven't purchased an external flash yet because I've found it will take away from the shot, details, shading, etc. and sometimes these details are what makes the shot interesting or above the standard of what is considered good.

I agree. I can't stand shooting basic, front-on flash photography, which is why I mentioned my experimenting with slaves and softening techniques when I couldn't afford a good power pack system. I was freelancing back then and occasionally did some work for a magazine, and there were often times when the available lighting really sucked. So I had to find a way to achieve the look of having a pro strobe system on a budget. Here are a few examples:

In the image on the left I had put a slaved flash on top of a filing cabinet to my right and bounced its light off of a wall. I triggered it with a smaller flash running from a sync cord connected to my camera and aimed away from the subject. In the second image I had two large flashes aimed at the man from behind him and a small flash bouncing off of the wall above and behind me. The third image's lighting setup was very much like the second, but with only one flash behind the man. I still occasionally use this method when running strobe cables isn't an option or when there's no room for large umbrellas and softboxes all over the place.

Please do post more of your work because I'd love to see. I've been checking out DF's work that he's posted as well and will be checking out Robert's page, although have browsed his page in the past and he also does fantastic work.

Here are some samples of my commercial work:

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2027/159138...169fced03_o.jpg

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/91/247738724_45fa2e017d.jpg

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2417/159227...5aa8b5e77_o.jpg

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2419/159138...0eb69b6f7_o.jpg

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2391/159138...9c98a647c_o.jpg

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2246/159226...60ea78925_o.jpg

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2269/159226...73b4f620f_o.jpg

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2328/159138...2018731ca_o.jpg

Most of these are about a decade old, or older, and I haven't looked at them in a while. It's interesting to see how much I was apparently enjoying using lighting gels at the time. :-)

J

[CNA]

Hey Angie,

Yeah, I prefer to shoot in RAW format, and I share your dislike of automated bracketing. There are a lot of bells and whistles that I usually ignore on my cameras since I like to have as much manual control as possible. I often do the same thing that you do with choosing an aperture and then selecting a variety of shutter speeds, but I also frequently do the opposite when I'm shooting small to mid-sized objects: I maintain the same shutter speed but alter the aperture (I often like to bracket for both darkness/lightness and depth of field/lack of depth of field).

As for having lots of stuff, well, I guess all I can say is that it accumulates as technology changes. My film cameras are decades old, and I was actually a little slow in crossing over to digital. I wanted to wait until the price came down and the quality was equal to or better than medium format film cameras.

You wrote:

I don't really prefer the flash and is the reason I haven't purchased an external flash yet because I've found it will take away from the shot, details, shading, etc. and sometimes these details are what makes the shot interesting or above the standard of what is considered good.

I agree. I can't stand shooting basic, front-on flash photography, which is why I mentioned my experimenting with slaves and softening techniques when I couldn't afford a good power pack system. I was freelancing back then and occasionally did some work for a magazine, and there were often times when the available lighting really sucked. So I had to find a way to achieve the look of having a pro strobe system on a budget. Here are a few examples:

In the image on the left I had put a slaved flash on top of a filing cabinet to my right and bounced its light off of a wall. I triggered it with a smaller flash running from a sync cord connected to my camera and aimed away from the subject. In the second image I had two large flashes aimed at the man from behind him and a small flash bouncing off of the wall above and behind me. The third image's lighting setup was very much like the second, but with only one flash behind the man. I still occasionally use this method when running strobe cables isn't an option or when there's no room for large umbrellas and softboxes all over the place.

Please do post more of your work because I'd love to see. I've been checking out DF's work that he's posted as well and will be checking out Robert's page, although have browsed his page in the past and he also does fantastic work.

Here are some samples of my commercial work:

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2027/159138...169fced03_o.jpg

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/91/247738724_45fa2e017d.jpg

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2417/159227...5aa8b5e77_o.jpg

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2419/159138...0eb69b6f7_o.jpg

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2391/159138...9c98a647c_o.jpg

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2246/159226...60ea78925_o.jpg

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2269/159226...73b4f620f_o.jpg

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2328/159138...2018731ca_o.jpg

Most of these are about a decade old, or older, and I haven't looked at them in a while. It's interesting to see how much I was apparently enjoying using lighting gels at the time. :-)

J

hehehe, so you're kinda a pack rat with your photography stuff. ;) That seems to be the case with many I have known. I haven't gotten rid of any of mine either. Hey, they'll come in handy at some point or another. I love your portraits and really like the fact that you played around quite a bit and experimenting to achieve the desired effect you were looking for. My curiousity is definitely peaked, no doubting that !! Of course, my partiality to medicine and my being exposed to it for so many years as just a passion of mine I really like the medicine shot with the stethoscope. But the others are very nice as well, great comp on all of them. By the way, how long have you been doing this? It sounds like you've been doing it for quite some time and is a major passion of yours !!!

I'm running a bit short on time tonight and want to respond more in depth when I can, hoping tomorrow sometime, although have a pretty big job tomorrow so I'll see what happens. But I did do a quick HDR tonemapping shots of Corona Del Mar right before sunset. I took the shots maybe a month or so ago but did the HDR tonemap tonight on them and wanted to include one of the shots here. I won't include the 3 exposure shots on OL because as you I don't want to bog down the thread and the loading time. But I'll include the one shot I like the most out of the 2 HDRs I did. I included the 3 separate exposure shots on the Flickr page I have linked up above with the the tonemapped HDR first and then the 3 shots subsequent to it that were combined to create the HDR image. On the one I am including on OL, I completely zoned and didn't adjust the shutter speed to give the water a more silky dramatic look, especially the water that is coming off of one of the rocks. I'll get it next time though. Also there is another HDR shot on my Flickr page that was heavily processed and was done fairly quickly so not much in the way of fine tuning with shadowing, black point, white point, hues, lighting, etc., and is not my favorite of the two but the 3 separate exposure shots are subsequent to that HDR image as well. If you look, you'll know what I'm talking about. The 2nd HDR I also darkened it up a bit to give it more of a *darker mood* so to speak with quite a bit less highlights in the cyan range and made it a bit more smokey looking if you will. It definitely needs a bit more tweaking to get it right and looking decent because there is a lot of saturation in it but I included it anyway on my Flickr page above.

Here's my favorite of the 2 HDRs I did tonight. It's not overly processed and probably needs a bit more but it is enough to make a difference from the original 3 shots.

[Jonathan]

Good work, Angie. I was just looking at both of your latest HDRs in detail, and I was thinking that water looks so cool in HDR. It's somewhat similar in effect to simple time-exposure motion blur, but the slight ghosting of the discrete triple exposure has a much more life-like effect. Very cool.

J

[CNA]

Good work, Angie. I was just looking at both of your latest HDRs in detail, and I was thinking that water looks so cool in HDR. It's somewhat similar in effect to simple time-exposure motion blur, but the slight ghosting of the discrete triple exposure has a much more life-like effect. Very cool.

J

Thanks, Jonathan. HDR is pretty cool with the water, layering the 3 shots onto one another. It's a trip. I've seen some HDRs that look a lot like paintings, the fine details are just amazing on some of those HDRs. I love playing with Photomatix. It's a pretty cool program and on quite a few levels seems to blow Photoshop out of the water. Even though no where near the complexity as Photoshop is, it has features that are very simple to use that surpasses Photoshop and no where near as expensive as the full version of Photoshop.

I want to pay you great compliments for some of the work I've seen from you. You've definitely lit a fire underneath my butt and have offered inspiration on quite a few levels and makes me want to play even more. Thank you and it is definitely contagious, no doubting that !!

Angie

[Mike Renzulli]

Pardon my gushing but Angie's photography is EXCELLENT! With the kind of pictures at her site I am surprised that she hasn't been picked by someone to do this professionally.

I am proud to consider myself her BIGGEST fan! Keep up the grrrrreat work, Angie!! You rock!

Wow, it's been quite some time since I visited and posted here on OL. First of all, the new layout is wonderful and like it so much better than the old. It's good to see some old friends back on OL such as Rich. It's been awhile since we've talked. Rich, I'll be emailing you soon to say hi and see how you've been!! Anyway, I wasn't sure as to where to put this post as there's no Hobbies and Interests section on the front page so I decided to put it here in the Living Room. I haven't had much contact with the friends I've made here on OL for quite some time with the exception of the rare email. Have been very busy living life, working, my son, photography, and all the rest.

I've recently been in contact with one or two and was asked to share some of my work with photography and I definitely wouldn't mind because I know there are a number of photographers here on OL or those that just have an interest in it. I recently took up photography maybe 7 months or so ago and really enjoy it. It's the first hobby I've found that has actually enabled me to leave the stresses of work, daily responsibilities, the daily grind behind for just a while when I'm out shooting. It's been very therapuetic on many levels.

Anyway, I don't want this post to be long and drawn out, plus I'm a little limited on time as usual but I wanted to include some images I've taken over the last few months. I'm still relatively a newbie at this and have a lot to learn which is all part of the fun and discovering new techniques, lighting, angles, DOF, bokeh, creating HDR images, and so forth. So any discussion on this in regards to technique or just sharing your work I am definitely interested in. I've been thinking as time goes on and I get a little more experience and hopefully get better I may very well drop my current career as a freelance reporter and take up photography full time, if not, part time while keeping my current career. Here is my new Flickr page http://flickr.com/photos/14979423@N04/

[CNA]

hehehe, thanks, Mike. It's kinda strange to have a BIGGEST fan. LOL I updated my signature and website url in my profile to the Flickr site I've had for awhile now. I deleted the original Jengo page from awhile ago because I was having problems with someone that wouldn't leave me alone even after asking them to stop numerous times. Shortly after deleting that page, I created another one named Cali_Bunny and laid low for a bit in hopes that this person wouldn't find that page. But it was recently discovered by that person so it's no longer under wraps. Thankfully I haven't had any problems so far with this individual even though he knows about it now. I'm hoping that I won't also have to delete the Cali_Bunny page later on but I'll see what happens. Oy, so since the page I am most active on has been discovered, I've gone ahead and updated my signature and website page in my profile to reflect that. There's a few here at OL that have known about the Cali_Bunny page for a little while now, including you. Again thank you, Mike, for the gush. It's very sweet of you.

Angie

Edited November 12, 2007 by CNA

[Mike Renzulli]

Anytime, Angie! Keep up the great work! :-)

hehehe, thanks, Mike. It's kinda strange to have a BIGGEST fan. LOL I updated my signature and website url in my profile to the Flickr site I've had for awhile now. I deleted the original Jengo page from awhile ago because I was having problems with someone that wouldn't leave me alone even after asking them to stop numerous times. Shortly after deleting that page, I created another one named Cali_Bunny and laid low for a bit in hopes that this person wouldn't find that page. But it was recently discovered by that person so it's no longer under wraps. Thankfully I haven't had any problems so far with this individual even though he knows about it now. I'm hoping that I won't also have to delete the Cali_Bunny page later on but I'll see what happens. Oy, so since the page I am most active on has been discovered, I've gone ahead and updated my signature and website page in my profile to reflect that. There's a few here at OL that have known about the Cali_Bunny page for a little while now, including you. Again thank you, Mike, for the gush. It's very sweet of you.

Angie

[Jody Gomez]

Angie,

As I've long had a few beehives of my own, I have a soft spot for photos of Apis mellifera. And, as an aspiring photograher myself, I have to say I'm impressed by some of your photos.

[CNA]

Angie,

As I've long had a few beehives of my own, I have a soft spot for photos of Apis mellifera. And, as an aspiring photograher myself, I have to say I'm impressed by some of your photos.

Aw, Jody, you're such a sweetheart. Thank you. Sorry for the delay. I don't always get notifications in my email when there are replies to threads I've subscribed to or when I get PMs. I haven't been around much as of late. Hell, the last time I checked my email was a while ago and no doubt have emails awaiting me I'm sure but browsing a bit tonight here on OL before heading for bed and I saw your post and had to say hi. I know you're a beekeeper and an aspiring photographer. If it was me in your shoes, I would be having a field day with macro shots of bees. I'm still trying the whole spider deal and getting there, just taking me a while since they give me the total heebie jeebies. Jody, if you have any of your work posted some place, please do tell. I'd love to see. I gotta head for bed, very late for me now. I hope you and yours have a Merry Xmas and Happy New Year and be safe.

Angie

[Chris Grieb]

Angie; It was great to notice your post.

Hope all is well.

Don't be a stranger.