Ein Beitrag von: Won Kim
Die Japaner sind für die effiziente Nutzung von kleinen Wohnbereichen bekannt, eine Notwendigkeit bei der hohen Bevölkerungsdichte. Ich selbst empfinde oft die gebärmutterähnlichen Eigenschaften dieser Räume als tröstlich, nicht beschränkend.
kwerfeldein – Fotografie Magazin | Fotocommunity
[ By Steph in Destinations & Sights & Travel. ]
Spend an entire night climbing bell towers, composing your own sermons from a pulpit, examining historic artifacts up close or virtually anything else you want to get up to in one of England’s most picturesque rural churches. ‘Champing,’ or church camping, is somewhere in between mosquito-bitten nights in the wilderness and luxurious ‘glamping,’ with modest beds placed right in the nave of a centuries-old place of worship so paintings of Jesus can watch your every move.
England’s Churches Conservation Trust, an organization that takes care of 347 churches that are no longer used for regular worship, has opened three of its buildings to the public for overnight stays. You can have St. Mary the Virgin in Kent, All Saints Church in Northamptonshire or St. Cyriac & St. Julitta in Cambridgeshire all to yourself. Once the medieval-looking iron key is in your hand, you’re free to act like you own the place.
The experience is sort of like sleeping in a museum exhibit, getting all the time you want to look at every last detail of stained glass windows, architectural details, organs and sacred objects. St. Mary the Virgin, in England’s smallest and least-populated town, is quaint and provincial, while St. Cyriac’s features ornate Gothic windows. All Saint’s, with its soaring ceilings, can fit groups of up to twelve.
You’ll have to wash up with a jug and bowl, and the Conservation Trust offers to “very creatively turn a vestry into a champing toilet,” but for rates starting at roughly a hundred U.S. dollars per night, you’ll at least get breakfast delivered. Funds go to the continued preservation of these historic structures throughout Britain.
A beautiful old chapel in the Italian town of Lonate Ceppino has been transformed into a modern library with a perforated aluminum tower that adds to the …
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Italy boasts some of the most spectacular cathedrals in the world. These architectural gems are historical treasures that have withstood years of war.
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This stunning 15th-century Dominican church is dedicated to much more than just one book – it contains thousands of them, in fact, stacked row upon row …
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[ By Steph in Destinations & Sights & Travel. ]
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Swedish company TTRobotix has introduced the TTR-SB Seawolf, a remote controlled submarine that includes a forward-facing mount for the GoPro HERO3 and HERO4 cameras. Seawolf allows video footage and still images to be captured underwater in depths up to 8m/26ft while an operator remotely controls the vessel; live streaming is also available. Read more
Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)
I recently came across a proof book that I had shot wayyyy back in the dinosaur ages, when people used a thing called film, and photography was about your skill with a camera, not skill with your computer….but that’s a topic for another day. Anyway, in those days, I was all about people’s expressions, and not lighting at all, which Continue Reading
The post Lighting 101: 4 Basic Lighting Looks appeared first on Photodoto.
The LED flash units in smartphones are usually poor performers compared to the Xenon flashes in dedicated cameras or even external flashguns. If you feel your iPhone photography has been held back by your Apple device’s underpowered LED light, Tric’s new Kickstarter project might just be what you’ve been waiting for. The team behind Tric is looking to fund the final development and mass production of a wireless trigger unit for the iPhone. Read more
Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)
One of the best things about kids is also one of the most frustrating when it comes to photographing them; they are so full of life and energy they rarely sit still, which can lead to an abundance of blurry pictures and heavy sighs when you go back to review your images. Instead of smiling faces and cute outfits, you often end up with a memory card full of photos where their cute little faces are a mishmash of fuzzy pixels, and any details in their hair or clothes are hopelessly lost. This is a chronic problem with photos of kids from smartphones, but it’s all too common in pictures taken with more expensive DSLRs too.
One solution is to simply use the flash on your camera, but this has the unfortunate side effect of creating harsh shadows, poorly-lit backgrounds, and ghostly red-eye effects that have to be fixed on your computer. To get the types of photos of kids you’ve always wanted it’s important to know a bit about shutter speed, and look at some of the ways you can harness the controls of your camera .
The underlying problem of blurry kid pictures usually stems from your camera’s shutter speed; kids move quickly so a fast shutter is usually required to snap clear pictures. This is fine if you have plenty of light, but as soon as the sun goes down, or you find yourself indoors, your camera’s shutter slows way down in order to let in enough light for exposing – too slow for non-blurry photos of fast-moving children.
A faster shutter speed will result in sharper photos with less motion blur.
Unfortunately the solution is not always as easy as increasing your shutter speed, as this can lead to pictures that are underexposed if there is not enough light available. This is why your camera will often opt to use the flash if you are shooting in low-light situations on Automatic mode. Rather than decreasing the shutter speed your camera simply creates its own artificial light. If you’re using a kit lens with a focal length between 18-55mm a shutter speed of 1/90 is probably sufficient to capture blur-free images of little ones, though the exact value will change depending on the focal length of your specific lens and how fast the kids are moving. As a general rule I don’t use shutter speeds slower than 1/90 second when taking pictures of kids with my 35mm lens, but that usually means I have to compensate for low light in a few other ways. Here’s a few tips to help:
There are three primary ways to control the amount of light that enters your camera:
The first method is limited by the physics of your lens. Most basic kit lenses simply don’t have large enough openings, or apertures, to let in much light (unless there is a great deal of light already available i.e. outside during the daytime or in a brightly lit room). The second method is easy if your subjects are not moving. You can leave the shutter open for many seconds at a time and get a non-blurry shot if everything is standing still, but that rarely happens with little kids. The third method, raising the ISO, was not a viable solution until recent years when camera technology advanced to the point that you could greatly increase the sensitivity of your sensor without a massive loss in overall image quality. Camera sensors are now so good that you can use faster shutter speeds to get blur-free shots of kids (even if your lens does not have a wide aperture) simply by raising the ISO.
Shooting at ISO 3200 allowed me to get pictures of my nieces’ pajama party without using the flash.
Until a few years ago most DSLR cameras were fine at ISO settings of 400, 800, or even 1600. Beyond that, photos started getting quite noisy and grainy, almost as though they were coated with a fine layer of colored sand. Now even basic consumer cameras like the Canon Rebel T4i or Nikon D3300 can go all the way up to ISO 6400 without too much detriment to their overall picture quality. Granted an ISO 6400 picture is never going to be as clean and sharp as one taken at ISO 100 or 200, but ISO 6400 essentially allows your camera to capture 64 times more light than ISO 100 (equal to 6 stops more). This means an image that would normally require a shutter speed of 1/15 second at ISO 100 could be taken with a shutter speed of 1/1000 second at ISO 6400 – a massive benefit if your goal is to capture pictures that are not blurry.
Shooting at higher ISO values means your photos will have a bit more noise and grain, but you will be able to use much faster shutter speeds. It’s up to you whether the trade-off is worth it, but for me it usually is.
One caveat to this technique is you simply cannot do it in Automatic mode. If you don’t feel quite confident to start shooting in Manual, try using the Program Automatic mode instead. Rotate your camera’s command dial to the P setting, then you are free to change the ISO while your camera figures out an appropriate shutter speed and aperture. The more you practice, the more you will get the hang of it, and start feeling comfortable with your particular camera’s capabilities at higher ISO values.
I mentioned in the previous section that a wider aperture is one way to let in more light, and the best way to do this is with a prime lens. These lenses do not zoom in and out like the kit lens most cameras come with, but the trade-off is their extraordinarily large apertures – big enough to let in tons of light even at dusk, or in a dimly-lit room.
Shooting at an ultra-wide aperture of f/1.8 allowed me to get a picture of this girl taking her first steps. Using the flash would have resulted in washed-out colors and would have been quite a distraction for the little girl.
If you don’t have a prime lens you can still use wider apertures, but you will likely have to raise your ISO a bit more as well. Most kit lenses have apertures of roughly f/3.5 when zoomed out all the way and f/5.6 when zoomed in, which might not sound like much but it’s actually a massive difference (f/5.6 to f/2 is three stops or 8x less light so it is quite significant – in the example above it would mean shooting at 1/4 second or 6400 ISO instead). This just means you will have to move around a bit more to position yourself closer to the kids instead of standing across the room and using the telephoto end of your lens.
If you’re not entirely comfortable dealing with apertures and f-stops just yet, try using your camera in Shutter Priority (S or Tv) mode with auto-ISO. This lets you set the shutter speed while your camera figures out the best combination of aperture and ISO. As I said earlier, when taking pictures of kids with my 35mm prime lens I like to use a shutter speed of 1/90 second and faster, like 1/125 or 1/250, if they’re running around or jumping on furniture. The shutter speed you use will be different depending on your camera and the focal length you are using on your lens, but when you shoot in S/Tv mode with auto-ISO your camera will generally default to using the widest possible aperture and then start raising the ISO to get a good exposure. In other words, you are telling your camera “I want a fast shutter and no flash, so it’s up to you to figure out the biggest aperture and highest ISO to make this happen.” It doesn’t always work, but it’s certainly a good technique to try if you want clearer pictures of children.
The only way to get a non-blurry picture of this girl jumping on her trampoline was to use both a wide aperture and fast shutter.
This might sound a little counter-intuitive, but if you shoot in Aperture Priority (A or Av) mode, you can tell your camera to use a large aperture but in order to get a good exposure it will usually give you a slower shutter speed. By contrast, shooting in Shutter Priority will force your camera to use the widest possible aperture every single time in order to get a good exposure at the shutter speed you set. (Unless of course there is already plenty of light available in which case it might select a smaller aperture, but you would still get the non-blurry photo you want.)
One of the best sources of light is available for free all day long right in the sky above you. However, while the sun is certainly the brightest light, it is also the least controllable. This means you have to find ways of making use of the light it does provide, which usually is a simple matter of repositioning yourself or your subjects. When working with adults this is fairly easy, but kids are another matter; they rarely go right where you want, and if they do they are not likely to stay there for long. If you’re the kind of person who likes to take pictures while resting comfortably on a couch you might find yourself with plenty of blurry, or excessively dark or light photos, as a result. If you get up and start roaming about the room you can not only get a better vantage point from which to take your pictures, but find ways of making much better use of the sunlight that is likely to be streaming in through the windows.
Sunlight was pouring in through a window just to the right of this photo, so I quickly found a location that took advantage of such a large amount of available light.
This technique works great even if you don’t have a fancy DSLR or other such expensive camera. I often see pictures of kids posted to social networks that are blurry because the shutter speed was too slow to capture the action, even though there is plenty of sun or other light available. The trick is to learn how to reposition yourself such that your subject is in front of you and the main source of light is behind you. This will help make sure your subjects (whether they are kids, adults, pets, plants, or anything else) are properly lit, while also giving you enough light to use faster shutter speeds.
This takes a bit of time to adapt to because you may be used to staying relatively still while kids run around and play. Once you start getting up, moving around, and learning to harness the available light instead of using the flash, you will see a dramatic improvement and far fewer blurry photos, even if you are using an iPhone or an inexpensive point-and-shoot camera.
Do you like taking pics of children? What are some of your favorite techniques for getting photos that are sharp, in focus, and not blurry? Leave your thoughts in the comments below.
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The post 3 Tips for Avoiding Blurry Photos of Kids by Simon Ringsmuth appeared first on Digital Photography School.
[ By Steph in Gadgets & Geekery & Technology. ]
Is it the human element that’s crucial in calling a creation ‘art,’ or does it still count even if it was made by a robot? Adding to the age-old debate attempting to define a fairly abstract concept, robotic art mimics human movements or transcends them altogether using all sorts of computer programs, magnets, pendulums and CNC machines. One even draws blood and uses it as ink to create a portrait of the artist in his own bodily fluids.
Artist Ted Lawson’s blood was fed intravenously straight to a CNC machine to paint his own portrait for ‘Ghost in the Machine.’ The project uses a robot arm to trace a programmed illustration in squiggly red lines. For Lawson, the experience was… draining. “I want to show the connection between our existential humanity and the ever-expanding technology that we use, are addicted to and rely on, as something deeply personal and very real. I’m trying to repeal the underlying code that is present in all things.”
The Sisyphus machine by Bruce Shapiro automatically creates incredibly intricate drawings in sand using magnets, steel marbles and a computerized motion control system. It’s mesmerizing to watch, the patterns seemingly appearing out of nowhere, the steel balls moving all on their own. Shapiro is planning a tabletop consumer version. As Shapiro explains the name, “For the crime of cheating death, Sisyphus must push his boulder up the mountain only to have it roll back down each day. For all eternity.”
Watch from a hot tub as a robot plays in twelve tons of salt poured onto the entire floor of a gallery space, pushing and extruding it into abstract shapes resembling city skylines. Artist Jonathan Schipper’s installation ‘Detritus’ makes the viewers a destructive element in the scene, as their movement to and from the water destroys what the robot has created. “Objects are continuously being formed but, due to the fragility of the salt crystals used to make them, they deteriorate at nearly the same rate new ones are being built. This installation is an attempt to create a vantage point that is impossible in the real world. A vantage point that both condenses and speeds up time and provides an objective view of the things we value which, at times, we recognize as merely detritus.”
The movement of an ink-colored sphere is captured on a piece of paper, set within the guts of an old pinball machine. STYN by Sam van Doorn creates prints that get more complex depending on how good you are at the game. “In a time of digitization of the work process, you can easily forget the freedom and fun of play,” says the artist. “By creating new tools, you give yourself the opportunity to break free from standards in design.”
Not so confident in your artistic skills? While it’s not entirely autonomous, this machine will help you produce strikingly accurate drawings by screwing with your brain a little bit. ‘Vision’ splits your ocular system to create two images of your subject, so that you can trace one directly onto the curved surface before you.
Rube Goldberg loved to draw complicated machines designed to complete wonderfully simple tasks. Here are 10 examples of Rube Goldberg’s enduring oddball legacy:
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Robot protagonists engage in an urban uprising in London’s Brixton neighborhood in this short dystopian digital film by Factory Fifteen.
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These 16 robots can save fish from danger, spray graffiti, help disabled people regain mobility, squeeze ketchup, stop your snoring and perform exotic dances.
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[ By Steph in Gadgets & Geekery & Technology. ]
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You’re itching to liven up someone’s Monday with good laugh, right? Well, hop on over the shop and tell us a joke!
TODAY ONLY (10am-4pm EST), we’re doling out dough for jokes. The more you make us laugh the bigger the discount we’ll throw at you.
The absolute ringer of the day will win a whopping $ 150 coupon! We really like jokes. No joke!
Hit Us With Your Best Punch(line)
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Das Bild des Tages von: Max
Im Ausblick: Unterwasserpolaroids, Spielzeugsoldaten und die Frage, ob alles schon fotografiert wurde.
kwerfeldein – Fotografie Magazin | Fotocommunity
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