November « 2017 « 360Photography

RSS

Archive for November, 2017

What is Pareidolia and how to use it in Your Photography

13 Nov

What is Pareidolia and how to use it in Your Photography

Introduction

Do you often see faces in inanimate objects? Maybe an old man in a fluffy cloud or a toothy grin smiling back at you from the rear of a car? Most people have never heard of pareidolia but almost everyone has experienced it. Pareidolia is a physiological phenomenon where the mind perceives an image or sound where none actually exist. Although it can cause people to see Jesus on a flour tortilla or form dynamic pictures in the inkblots of Rorschach test, one of the most common symptoms of pareidolia is seeing faces in inanimate objects.

What is Pareidolia and how to use it in Your Photography

As per Meriam-Webster.

A photo of a very smiley cheese grater. Sometimes episodes of pareidolia crop up at the most unexpected of times, in unexpected places.

What is Pareidolia?

One famous example of Pareidolia the many faces of the Moon. In the Northern Hemisphere, a common Western perception of the moon is its apparent facial features. Dubbed the “Man on the Moon”, the figure’s eyes are formed by Mare Imbrium and Mare Serenitatis. The Man on the Moon’s nose is Sinus Aestuum and its wide open mouth is Mare Nubium and Mare Cognitum.

Another European tradition sees the figure of a man etched into the moon’s surface, carrying a sack on his back. While many stories from Asian folklore and Aztec mythology recognize the presence of a Moon rabbit.

Another space-related pareidolia event came about when a satellite photo of a mesa formation on Mars was dubbed the “Face on Mars”. The face was cited as evidence of extraterrestrial habitation on the planet. It turned out to be a natural rock formation.

But not every incidence of pareidolia happens out in space. Rock or tree formations may come to mimic facial features through weather and erosion. On a smaller scale, cars are often said to have “faces”, constructed from the two headlights which take on the appearance of eyes. Often anything that includes a few circles and a line as a mouth can register as a face to the human eye.

A cute little face formed by holes in a traffic bollard

The windows of an old house form an eerily familiar face.

What causes pareidolia?

Researchers have a few theories as to why pareidolia occurs. Part of it could be due to our evolutionary heritage, a sensitivity to detecting faces for safety. While it has also been suggested that pareidolia is a consequence of the brain’s information processing system.

Constantly sifting through random lines, shapes, surfaces, and colors, the brain tries to pair input with memories stored in our long-term retention of knowledge. This results in ambiguous visual information being interpreted as something we can understand more easily.

What is Pareidolia and how to use it in Your Photography

Pareidolia and photography

Ever catch your mind wondering, making out faces and shapes in inanimate objects? While you are off daydreaming, your mind continues to work hard at understanding its host’s surroundings. This is a great way to relax and allow inspiration to come to you naturally.

Watching figures in clouds drift overhead isn’t just peaceful, its a reflection on the inner workings of your own creativity. Many artists have harnessed pareidolia as a form of inspiration and insight. Leonardo da Vinci described pareidolia as a device for painters, writing that;

“If you look at any walls spotted with various stains or with a mixture of different kinds of stones, if you are about to invent some scene you will be able to see in it a resemblance to various different landscapes adorned with mountains, rivers, rocks, trees, plains, wide valleys and various groups of hills. You’ll also be able to see diverse combats and figures in quick movement, and strange expressions of faces and outlandish costumes and an infinite number of things which you can then reduce into separate and well-conceived forms”.

What is Pareidolia and how to use it in Your Photography

As photographers, we often pursue beauty in subjects that go unseen to the casual eye. So it’s not unusual for us to encounter pareidolia on a day-to-day basis. But although shadows in the night and weird rock formations can look a little creepy, pareidolia gives us a great opportunity to harness the phenomena to create psychologically engaging and even humorous bodies of work.

Faces in objects can be extremely evocative for a viewer. It’s almost like holding up a mirror to our own interpretations of a space. Addressing a phenomenon that bridges the gap between the known and the ambiguous adds personality to an image. The shared experience of pareidolia is also a great discussion topic.

Having people gather around an image to discuss and compare what they see creates an energy and a connection with the image and those viewing it. Discussing and comparing what different viewers see in an object creates energetic conversation and a greater bond with a photographic image as well as other viewers.

Do you see faces?

These kinds of personal ties to an image create lasting experiences. So what about you? Do you experience pareidolia? How has it impacted your photographic practice? I’d love to see your findings in the comments section below!

What is Pareidolia and how to use it in Your Photography

A cute little pair of eyes and an elongated mouth on my iPhone casing.

While cooking I looked at this cross-section of an onion and saw the face of a frog staring back at me!

The post What is Pareidolia and how to use it in Your Photography by Megan Kennedy appeared first on Digital Photography School.

Digital Photography School

Comments Off

Posted in Photography

6 Tips for Mastering Your Lenses

13 Nov

Most photographers have a favorite lens (you can read about mine here), maybe even two or three. But do you know how to get the best out of that lens? I’ve used lots of lenses over the years. As a result, I know that it takes time to get to know a lens, and longer still to master it. These tips will help you work your way through that process.

Mastering camera lenses

1. Use the lens exclusively for a month

In his book Outliers, author Malcolm Gladwell put forward the now-famous idea that true mastery of a skill takes 10,000 hours of practice. The idea of putting in your 10,000 hours applies to photography as a whole rather than using a single lens. But there’s no doubt that by using the same lens, and no other, for an extended period of time it will help you get to know that lens really well.

You can put this idea into practice in a small way by taking just one camera and one lens out on a shoot. For example, if you have a portrait shoot then take along a short telephoto prime lens. If you’re shooting landscapes, take a wide-angle lens.

I often take just a single lens on a portrait shoot. The only lens I had on me for this one was an 85mm short telephoto.

You can take it further and extend the exercise for a week, a month, or even longer. It’s up to you.

This exercise is easiest with a prime lens. If you do it with a zoom I suggest that you pick one focal length and stick to that. The idea is to get familiar with how a specific focal length behaves. You can’t do that if you are zooming from one to the other.

2. Test your lenses at all apertures

Part of mastering your lenses is getting to know how they each perform at various apertures. There are two things to consider here – technical performance and aesthetic quality.

No lens gives consistent image quality across its aperture range. All lenses are softer at their widest and narrowest aperture settings than the middle ones.

If you tend to use small apertures when you take photos (perhaps you are a landscape photographer) then you need to be aware of an effect called diffraction that creates a softening effect as you stop down. Yes, you get more depth of field at f/22, but photos taken at f/11 or f/16 may be sharper overall.

Test your lenses to see where the visible effects of diffraction kick in. That way you know the smallest aperture you are happy using, in relation to sharpness for each lens in your kit.

At the other end of the scale, a lens is always softer at its widest aperture. If your favorite lens is a prime then you probably open the aperture to create bokeh. As you stop down the depth of field increases, there is less bokeh, and the image gets sharper.

The key is to find the balance between bokeh and image quality. For example, I find that when I make portraits with a short telephoto lens I get the best results at f/2.8. More of the model’s face is in focus and the bokeh still has a beautiful quality. You can see the difference in the two portraits below.

Mastering camera lenses

3. Zoom lenses – test at different focal lengths

The situation becomes a little more complicated with zoom lenses. This is because you have an extra variable – focal length. Not only does sharpness vary according to the aperture, but focal length has an effect too. Very few zoom lenses give equal optical quality across their entire focal length range.

When it comes to zoom lenses I prefer to think of them as several prime lenses in one. For example, when I owned a 17-40mm zoom I tended to set it to 24 or 35mm for most of my shoots (these focal lengths were conveniently marked on the barrel). At other times I would use 17mm if I wanted a real ultra wide-angle effect or 40mm. So, to me, it was four lenses in one – a 17mm, 24mm, 35mm and 40mm lens.

These photos show the difference between the 17mm and 40mm focal lengths on this lens.

Mastering camera lenses

This approach simplifies the task of getting to know your zoom lens because you are getting to know it at three or four focal lengths rather than across the entire range.

4. Zoom with your feet

Regardless of whether your favorite lens is a prime or a zoom it is helpful to zoom with your feet rather than use the zoom ring (of course, if you have a prime lens you have no choice in the matter!) Zooming with your feet is an expression used to describe the process of moving physically closer to or farther away from your subject to change its size in the frame, rather than using the zoom ring on a zoom lens.

For zoom lens owners, this comes back to the earlier idea of a zoom lens being three or four prime lenses in one. For example, if you have an 18-55mm kit lens then your lens behaves very differently at different focal lengths. At 18mm it’s a wide-angle lens ideal for subjects like landscapes. At 55mm it’s a short telephoto lens that you can use for portraits.

In terms of perspective, both focal lengths are very different. You will only learn about perspective and the way it changes as you move closer to or further from your subject if you stick to using your zoom lens at a single focal length. If you use the zoom ring to change subject size, you won’t learn about perspective.

For example, with an 18-55mm lens set to 18mm, you need to get fairly close to the subject to obtain the dramatic perspective associated with wide-angle lenses.

Mastering camera lenses

If you are further away from the subject the perspective is much less dramatic.

Mastering camera lenses

5. Try different subjects

We tend to think of lenses as associated with specific subjects. For example, wide-angle lenses are ideal for landscapes, and short telephoto lenses are brilliant for portraiture.

But what if you mix it up a little? What happens if you use a short telephoto for landscape photography or a wide-angle for portraiture? The idea is to take yourself out of your comfort zone and find creative ways to use your favorite lenses. Ways that perhaps hadn’t occurred to you before.

If you use a wide-angle lens for portraiture you will soon find that if you get too close to your model then it’s going to create some very unflattering effects. But what if you step back and include more of your environment? Suddenly you’re taking a very different approach than you would with a short telephoto lens. Experiments like these can add new skills and new ways of working to your repertoire.

I made this portrait with my 17-40mm zoom set to 17mm.

Mastering camera lenses

6. Push your composition to the limit

The final tip is to push your composition to the limit. It’s all about taking various techniques to the extreme and seeing what you can do with them.

If you have a wide-angle lens, what happens if you get as close to your subject (whatever it is) as you can? What happens if you use the widest aperture setting instead of a smaller one?

If you have a telephoto lens how can you maximize the compressed perspective that those lenses give you? What subjects can you shoot to make the most of the layered effect you can get with a longer lens?

This is a process of experimentation. Not all of your experiments will work. But when they do, just as with the previous tip, you’ll be adding new skills to your repertoire.

Here is a landscape photo that was taken with a telephoto lens.

Mastering camera lenses

Next steps

Hopefully, these tips have given you some ideas for working with and getting to know your favorite lenses. Instead of fantasizing about the next lens you are going to buy (dreams are nice, but new lenses are expensive!) how about learning to make the most out of the ones you already own?

You may find that true creativity lays as much in pushing the lenses you already own to their limits as it does with buying new gear.

You can learn more about lenses, and how to get the most out of them, in my ebook Mastering Lenses. It also contains a buying guide to help you make wise choices when you buy your next lens!

The post 6 Tips for Mastering Your Lenses by Andrew S. Gibson appeared first on Digital Photography School.

Digital Photography School

Comments Off

Posted in Photography

Shooting an Olympic sailor in action using remote high speed sync

12 Nov

This article was originally published on Luminous Landscapes, and is being republished in full on DPReview with express permission from Terry McDonagh.

In January of last year, I was commissioned to shoot some dramatic action shots of an Olympic sailor; however, I did some image research and wasn’t overly impressed by any images I found, so I decided that a good approach would be to try and light the subject and by doing so I could afford to underexpose the available light.

This would help add to the drama, plus in doing so I would be able to get some light into the water spray coming off the boat. In order to get this shot, I needed to freeze the action using a high shutter speed and combine that with flash, so how was I going to achieve all that?

Obviously, I needed to use flash, but I knew I would be shooting at a high shutter speed, so it had to be high-speed sync (HSS). The beauty of HSS is that it allows you to shoot at a high shutter speed whilst still syncing the flash, which was unheard of a few years ago.

I decided that I would use two flashes, both for the extra power and to avoid any redundancy due to the high risk of this particular situation. I was attaching a flash to a boat which could easily capsize, and I was doing it in January when, due to it being 3°C, the batteries weren’t going to last too long. In other words: I was only getting one chance to nail this job, so I had to minimize the chances of anything going wrong.

Flashes facing Starboard

I had used HSS before, but never remotely and not on the water, which was all a bit daunting.

To prepare, I did a bit of research on trigger systems and decided on a Phottix Laso trigger for a couple of reasons. Firstly, it would trigger my Canon 600EX-RT directly, via the built-in radio on the flash. Second, it came with a separate receiver for my Canon 580 EX-ll, which meant I could control both units remotely from one base unit. And finally, the receiver had a metal hot-shoe mount, which I wanted, as I knew that the gear was going to get bounced around out there so I wasn’t risking any plastic hot-shoe mounts.

Flying along flashes pointing to starboard

The next part of the jigsaw puzzle was the batteries, as HSS is really hard on batteries and the faster the shutter speed, the higher the power drain. I did some more research and came across some ‘Panasonic Eneloop pro rechargeable’s’, apparently the best. I purchased a few sets of them, tested them in the cold, and found they were amazing.

Which brought me to my next major problem: waterproofing the flash units. There was a strong chance that they would be submerged if the boat capsized, and having sailed a Lazer, the boat that I would be shooting, a few times, I knew that these boats flip over very easily. To counter this issue, I developed a triple bagging system using some freezer bags.

When I submerged the flash in a bucket of water to test, it stayed watertight: Happy Days!

The trick was to place one bag over the complete unit and then mount it to the hot-shoe. Then I placed another bag over this, but upside down, and a third one over the spigot so that it was completely sealed.

Flashes bagged up and tethered.

Then it was just a matter of pushing the spigot into the Manfrotto clamp which was attached to the boom of the boat.

Flashes pointing to port.

I headed down to the yacht club to do a technical recce and try to attach the gear to the boat and figure out all my settings.

I settled on mounting the units upside down, firstly so that the sail would not damage them, and also because I was afraid they might rotate with any impacts, plus I reckoned there would be fewer forces on them if they were not top heavy. I used a Manfrotto super clamp as it has a secondary safety lock, so I was able to instruct Annalise how to open the clamp and rotate the speed-lights.—every time she did a tack she rotated the units so they were always facing her, and she was brilliant at doing it. Her sailing wasn’t too shabby either.

Total control

So, I had designed a system that I could remotely fire, adjust exposure and rotate, and it was waterproof… pretty cool! Next thing was to get out there and see how it all worked.

On the day of the shoot, conditions were perfect: overcast, but with some nice contrast. I was getting a light reading of around 1/640 @ F3.2 iso 500. I underexposed by around two stops to try and get some drama into the images but without making it look too much like nighttime.

We headed out to sea about 4 km out as that’s where the wind was and I wanted little or no background buildings etc. in the images. To preserve the batteries I left the units off until we reached our destination, This proved to be a bit of a mistake as the boats were dancing around a lot, so much so that I almost fell in trying to locate the switches on both speed-lights and the receiver, and through the Ziploc bags it proved very tricky.

Luckily my very quick-witted boatman spotted this and grabbed me at the last moment, otherwise I honestly would have gone into the water with a 5DSr and a 70-200mm lens plus my phone etc. Thank god is all I can say.

We shot for approximately an hour, as that was long enough for both Annalise and me, and the batteries were getting very low on energy. I reckoned I had the images I needed in the bag.

Annalise loving the conditions.

I was shooting on a Canon 5DSr with a 70-200mm lens. Final settings were 1/640 @F3.2 and iso160. I had considered using a faster camera but the flash wouldn’t have kept up with it so I just stuck with the higher 50MP camera, which was important as we were using the image on billboards etc. so the higher the quality the better.

The shoot worked out brilliantly. The hardest bit was trying to maintain focus on Annalise, and trying to keep the horizon level; plus, watching all the other elements meant that after an hour of this type of thing you’re pretty burnt out.

When we finished, Annalise nearly fainted when she heard that there was approximately €2k worth of gear attached to her boat. She said had she known she wouldn’t have sailed so hard! I didn’t believe that for one minute.

Wind just died, time for home.

Based in Dublin, Terry works for leading advertising, design and architectural agencies throughout Ireland and often abroad in the areas of industry, architecture, products, people and food.

He provides a fast and reliable digital retouching and manipulation when required, and shoots live action commercials too. Feel free to contact Terry for more information.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

Comments Off

Posted in Uncategorized

Sony a7R III Pixel Shift lifts a veil off your landscapes

12 Nov

Sony’s replacement of its popular a7R II comes packed with new features, most of them aimed at performance, ergonomic and autofocus improvements. But there are image quality improvements as well, like more dynamic range, but also a new Pixel Shift feature that hasn’t yet been talked about much.

Cameras with sensor-shift mechanisms are increasingly offering these pixel shift modes by precisely moving the sensor in one pixel increments to sample each color at every position, thereby overcoming the downsides of the Bayer filter array. And getting you sharper images with less moiré, with potentially less noise thanks to multi-sampling and less math required to figure out the R, G and B colors at each pixel. How does this look in the real-world? Explore our Pixel Shift vs. non-Pixel Shift Raw comparison below (Raws processed using Sony Imaging Edge with all sharpening and noise reduction settings zeroed out, and only tonal adjustments applied to deal with the high scene contrast):

$ (document).ready(function() { ImageComparisonWidget({“containerId”:”reviewImageComparisonWidget-39809707″,”widgetId”:566,”initialStateId”:null}) })

Move around the image and you’ll see a marked increase in clarity almost everywhere. The buildings’ windows are sharper and clearer, all the foliage far more defined… these Pixel Shift results are frankly astounding for static scenes. It’s like a veil has been lifted off your scene: something landscape photographers will simply love. All details are clearer, crisper, and there is no hint of moiré anywhere. The last time I saw this jump in clarity was going from a Rebel with kit lens to a 5D with L-series lens, to put this in perspective.

Last time I saw this jump in clarity was going from a kit lens on a Rebel to an L-lens on a 5D

And it’s not because of extra sharpening (which would come at the cost of more noise, which we don’t see), but because of the extra sampling. We’d also expect a decrease in noise, but we can’t quite tell here because of the non-standard workflow and because – to the credit of the a7R III’s dynamic range – this sunset scene still doesn’t have enough dynamic range to challenge the a7R III and make shadows visibly noisy.* That’s saying a lot.

This sunset scene doesn’t have enough dynamic range to challenge the a7R III. That says a lot.

What’s more: Sony’s recent lenses have enough resolving power to take advantage of this mode. You see the resolution increase at least partly because the lenses have enough resolving power to take advantage of the extra pixel-level sampling (theoretically, increasing the resolution of any part of the imaging chain has the potential to increase sharpness, but your lens needs to resolve enough to begin with to see the dramatic differences we’re seeing here). You can’t always take that for granted (see the limited increase in resolution of Pixel Shift modes on Micro Four Thirds cameras in our studio scene, for example).

Studio Scene Comparison

We know you’re itching to compare these results to all our other cameras, including those with their own Pixel Shift modes. Well, here you have it (Phase One 100MP camera is included as a benchmark so you know what the details are actually supposed to look like in our scene):

$ (document).ready(function() { ImageComparisonWidget({“containerId”:”reviewImageComparisonWidget-26066373″,”widgetId”:565,”initialStateId”:null}) })

The first thing you might notice is the lack of moire in our saturated color wheels, something even the Phase One 100MP sensor fails at. The Pentax K-1 offers a similar performance here: sampling three primaries at each pixel position helps overcome the color aliasing typically associated with Bayer filters.

Pixel Shift removes color aliasing in the newspaper print$ (document).ready(function() { $ (“#icl-3794–1566952198”).click(function() { ImageComparisonWidgetLink(3794); }); }) as well (check back above). It also produces less moire in the black and white text$ (document).ready(function() { $ (“#icl-3798-785963340”).click(function() { ImageComparisonWidgetLink(3798); }); }) of our scene. The lack of moire and increased resolution allows you to read down to the last line with ease – something the a7R II can’t claim.

You can even start to see the texture in our color wheel$ (document).ready(function() { $ (“#icl-3795-1120823446”).click(function() { ImageComparisonWidgetLink(3795); }); }) that not even the Pentax in Pixel Shift mode (much less the original a7R II) can resolve. The Phase One and Pentax medium format cameras are the only other cameras sharing that honor.

Traditional cameras with Bayer arrays particularly resolve less in saturated colors, where the lower resolution of the red or blue pixels really starts to show. So take a look at the massive increase in resolution in our saturated threads$ (document).ready(function() { $ (“#icl-3796–2100605088”).click(function() { ImageComparisonWidgetLink(3796); }); }). You can resolve individual strands the a7R II – or a7R III without Pixel Shift – don’t show. The K-1 does well here too, but remember the a7R III images are processed through Sony ‘Imaging Edge’, and we expect things to improve once Adobe provides support (which, to our understanding, it will).

Just generally speaking there’s more detail throughout our scene: take a look at our Beatles patch$ (document).ready(function() { $ (“#icl-3797–29172716”).click(function() { ImageComparisonWidgetLink(3797); }); }). You can make out individual threads otherwise only visible to the Phase One. The increased resolution of the a7R III over the K-1 probably helps resolve more threads, though the incredibly sharp Sony FE 85/1.8 may have some role to play here as well.

If you’re curious how well the 50MP Canon 5DS R compares: not so well. Individual threads are not well resolved$ (document).ready(function() { $ (“#icl-3800–1236522308”).click(function() { ImageComparisonWidgetLink(3800); }); }) (if not noisy, particularly in the reds), and color aliasing$ (document).ready(function() { $ (“#icl-3801–202191445”).click(function() { ImageComparisonWidgetLink(3801); }); }) can be an issue.

Are we impressed?

How could we not be? Landscape, cityscape and architecture photographers will absolutely love this new feature paired with the already excellent sensor in the a7R III – as long as they steer clear of (or clone out) moving objects in the scene. The increase in resolution and decrease in aliasing Pixel Shift brings is obvious in both our studio scene and real world result. It’s frankly dramatic in the latter.

Are we impressed? How could we not be? Landscape, cityscape and architecture photographers will love this

There can be obvious artifacts in anything moving though, so that’s a potentially significant (albeit expected) caveat for landscapes with motion (water, fast clouds), telephoto shots prone to movement from wind and vibrations, etc. You’ll want to use a sturdy tripod with a remote release or self-timer. Furthermore, for now, using Sony’s ‘Imaging Edge’ software is clunky, but once Adobe incorporates support, we can’t wait to start shooting landscapes and perhaps tougher subjects in this mode to see how well it copes.

* That said, this was still a high dynamic range scene that we exposed for the highlights and tone-mapped in post using Sony’s ‘Imaging Edge’ software (the only option for processing Pixel Shift files at the moment). So shadows have been lifted many stops – yet remain noise free. You’ll have to excuse the somewhat flat result, as we didn’t have access to the tools we’re used to to tonemap HDR images while retaining proper local contrast. More to come…

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

Comments Off

Posted in Uncategorized

Real-world test: Long exposures with Panasonic G9’s high-res mode

12 Nov

Out-of-camera 80MP JPEG using the Panasonic G9’s high-resolution mode. Lots of detail, and some strange-looking pedestrians.
Panasonic Leica DG 12-60mm F2.8-4 | ISO 200 | 1/500 sec | F4

New to Panasonic’s G9 flagship is a high-resolution mode, which shifts the sensor by half-pixel increments eight times, and generates an 80MP final image. As with similar technologies from Ricoh and Olympus, it’s not necessarily recommended for scenes with moving subjects in them. But we wanted to see if we could make it work.

You’ll notice in the above image, the pedestrians are sharply ‘ghosted’ in the foreground; this is due (obviously) to the eight exposures being taken, but also partially the 1/500 sec shutter speed. What if we purposely chose a slower speed, so that they would blur more naturally into each other?

These are only initial findings on a gray Seattle day, but we’ve got some interesting results.

Panasonic Leica DG 8-18mm F2.8-4 | ISO 200 | 1/30 sec | F8

For this situation, in order to get a proper exposure without either an ND filter or stopping down to diffraction-inducing levels, I figured I’d give 1/30 of a second a try. As you can see, there’s a little ‘repetition’ around portions of the pedestrians in the foreground and across the street, and while there’s lots of detail in the scene, you may want to just use the normal 20MP file for this one.

What if we go with a little longer of a shutter speed, though?

Panasonic Leica DG 8-18mm F2.8-4 | ISO 200 | 1/8 sec | F8

This looks to our eyes to exhibit some improvement. We overall found that a shutter speed between 1/4 sec and 1/8 sec gave a reasonably natural look to the average pedestrian in motion – of course, for faster and slower moving objects, you’ll have to adjust accordingly. Do take note, though, that there are some interesting colorful streaks in our moving subjects, and a reduction of resolution in static objects that can be seen behind them.

If you’re thinking about an even slower shutter speed, once you get down to 1/2 sec or so, pedestrians largely just disappear from your frame, leaving barely a shadow for you to notice. Of course, this could be an advantage if you’re wanting to eliminate people from your photos, without necessarily needing an ND filter and a 30-second exposure.

There were some people on these stairs, I promise.
Panasonic Leica DG 8-18mm F2.8-4 | ISO 200 | 1/2 sec | F8

We tried an even longer exposure to see if we could get the motion artifacts to ‘disappear’ with subjects moving fast enough across the scene, but we still could see some – check out the car taillights and the ground surrounding them in the below image. The rest of the image, predictably, shows good detail, but once you start inspecting the areas of motion too closely, the image starts to look a little strange. That said – you’d probably have to have someone point it out to you to really notice it in real life.

Panasonic Leica DG 12-60mm F2.8-4 | ISO 200 | 1.3 sec | F4

In any case, the high res mode on the G9 is something we want to continue to look into as we progress with our review. Raw support is coming shortly, and we’re looking forward to examining the Raw files from both real-world shooting as well as our test scene.

For now, we’ve added these images and their corresponding ‘normal’ 20MP equivalents onto the end of our existing image gallery for you to inspect.

Scroll to the end of our sample gallery to see our updated high res images

$ (document).ready(function() { SampleGalleryV2({“containerId”:”embeddedSampleGallery_0107841691″,”galleryId”:”0107841691″,”isEmbeddedWidget”:true,”standalone”:false,”selectedImageIndex”:0,”startInCommentsView”:false,”isMobile”:false}) });
Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

Comments Off

Posted in Uncategorized

Why it’s Important to Have a Good Relationship With Your Camera

12 Nov

I don’t like upgrading my camera; I’m rather content with the old one I have. I’m not one to worry so much now about the changes in technology. These days it seems there’s nothing really new under the sun. My trusty Nikon D800 is like a close friend, we have a good relationship.

The Importance of Having a Good Relationship With Your Camera

The advancements in camera technology have now slowed down and we already have more than enough megapixels to overflow our hard drives. So in my opinion, being content with a (slightly) older camera can help improve your photography more than if you are continually hankering for an upgrade.

Is your camera good enough?

Recently we had a customer on one of our photography workshops tell us they’d bought a few new lenses and were happy with them and next they wanted to upgrade their camera. I pointed out the camera they already have is way more advanced and can produce higher resolution photographs than most of the cameras I have ever used, (over the last 35 years I have used quite a few).

The Importance of Having a Good Relationship With Your Camera

My wife also loves her Nikon D800.

Having a close relationship with my camera is important to me. We need to know each other. The feeling I have for my camera enables me to obtain more interesting, dynamic, and relational photographs than I could make if I was using a brand new camera, (especially if was a brand of equipment with which I am not familiar). Having such a close and good relationship with your camera will make you a better photographer.

Use your camera with ease

If you can get to know your camera so well that you don’t have to consciously think every time you want to change a setting, you will have more energy to focus on your subject and the creative aspects of picture making. Being able to enjoy photography without your camera being the main focus of your attention is far more conducive to making great photos than having a brand new camera that you are unfamiliar with.

The keys to any good relationship are:

Compatibility
Frequent connection
Meaningful communication
Positive feelings

The Importance of Having a Good Relationship With Your Camera

Working with a camera you are just not comfortable with will not result in a good relationship. If you have small hands and your camera is large, you will struggle to operate it easily and it will be uncomfortable for you to hold. Likewise, if you have large hands and a small camera you will not find the experience of making photos as pleasurable as when you have a camera that suits you better.

If you find the controls awkward to manage, the image resolution disappointing, etc., you might want to consider a camera that’s more compatible. However, most cameras these days are well designed and crammed full of technology that produces incredible quality images. So you are probably better off committing more time to getting to know your current camera better.

Use your camera often

Frequent connection with your camera, as with your friends, will produce a richer relationship, especially when it’s a meaningful connection. Finding a subject, a location, or style of photography you really enjoy will ensure you want to spend more time with your camera in your hands.

This can take time, and can change over time, but when you have a passion for something or someone you naturally want to dedicate more of your time to that relationship.

The Importance of Having a Good Relationship With Your Camera

When you are so familiar with your camera that your attention is more focused on your subject, the timing, composition, and lighting, you will find a far greater enjoyment in photography. You will also likely see a big improvement in the photos you are producing.

Know your craft

In our modern consumer societies you are constantly reminded by advertisers there’s something else you must buy. I believe if you constantly upgrade you are potentially missing out on the depth of artistry that can be achieved by being intimate with your camera and your craft.

The Importance of Having a Good Relationship With Your Camera

A while ago I had a wonderful experience photographing two men putting finishing touches to some beautiful artworks. I was in the Grand Bazaar in Istanbul looking for the copper workers quarter which I had read about. I spent quite some time searching for it and literally walked around in circles and ended up back at the same place more than once. But I was determined to find this place as I really love making photos of craftspeople working.

Eventually, I heard a “tink tink tink” sound and followed my ears down an ancient arched alleyway. I went up a staircase, and into a courtyard surrounded by two-story buildings with hundreds of pots, pans, lamps and other items all crafted in copper.

The Importance of Having a Good Relationship With Your Camera

I continued farther to the source of the sound and was welcomed into a small workshop. With no common language, I gestured to my camera and received a thumbs up for me to take photographs there. The two men working on the art pieces were being watched by an older man, (I learned he was the father of one and uncle of the other.)

Another man arrived after a while and some discussion took place. That man was a customer coming to buy their art and he spoke some English. I asked him to help me because I had a question. How long, how many generations, had this family been working with copper and creating such art?

The lost art of generations

My question was translated and a long discussion ensued. Then all three family members looked at me and shrugged. They did not know. Their families have been copper craftsmen for so long and been passing on the skills of this lifestyle so long that nobody knew the answer to my question.

I was not surprised. Looking at what they were producing and at the pride on the older man’s face, it was evident they were not novices. They know their craft and their tools so well they made it look like what they were doing was somewhat effortless. But this is the result of a generations-long relationship with their materials and tools, (some of which may be generations old) frequent use of them, and an obvious passion for what they do.

The Importance of Having a Good Relationship With Your Camera

Conclusion

For more on loving your camera, watch the video below:

As you are pushed to spend money, rather than time, on your creative photographic expression, I believe you are in danger of losing touch with the depth and meaning that can be obtained by a more conscious connection with the camera you already own.

So if you are tempted to upgrade your camera let me encourage you to consider holding on to the one you already have for a while. Learn to love it and you will see the results in an improvement in your picture making.

The post Why it’s Important to Have a Good Relationship With Your Camera by Kevin Landwer-Johan appeared first on Digital Photography School.

Digital Photography School

Comments Off

Posted in Photography

Photo story of the week: Sunrise in Burren National Park

11 Nov

The warm colors of a sunrise or sunset in a wide open landscape, the foreground gently touched by the orange hues, and the sun throwing a nice aperture star—that is what the romanticizing cliché of landscape photography looks like in the heads of many people these days I reckon. Rightfully so, since it is one of the most atmospheric times of day to shoot: the light is soft, and partial illumination of the foreground is desirable for tonal separation and visual flow.

Almost every landscape photographer has at some point of his or her creative journey chased the intensity that comes with the golden hour. Still, even after all these years of shooting mainly landscapes, going after the elusive sunset and sunrise light is one of my favorite things to do while out in the field. One of the reasons is simply because depending on where you live it can be a rare sight—it is not an everyday sight for most of us.

For all who don’t do this already I would highly recommend using satellite and radar data to scout your location ahead of time

Whenever I am out on a road trip or hiking trip I keep a constant eye on the satellite data—if I have cell reception—to check the cloud coverage in order to find spots right at the edge of a field of clouds to get good conditions for a sunrise or sunset shot. To take this shot, I took a look at the radar over the western parts of Ireland—over the Burren National Park to be exact—and monitored the satellite forecast before I was catching some shuteye.

The predictions for the following morning showed the clouds would most likely pass in the next couple of hours, being carried further north, leaving only a field of scattered patches behind. Furthermore, there would be no clouds at the eastern horizon blocking the sunlight. It is not hard to do these sorts of things if you know the sources for reliable weather data in the area you’re in, but it can be the difference between getting a good shot or none at all. So, for all who don’t do this already I would highly recommend using satellite and radar data to scout your location ahead of time.

When I woke up next morning it was still dark as I made my way out to the karst landscape of the national park grounds which are dominated by limestone ground speckled with shrubs and grass. I had scouted the lake before while I was preparing for my trip by looking at hiking maps of the area, and knew the sun was at the right angle to rise next to one of the limestone hills I had hiked to a day before. With this in mind, I was spending much of the blue hour finding different foreground compositions for the moment the clouds would light up and sun would make its way past the horizon line.

It seemed like the country had saved the best light for last

Originally, I intended to include a bigger patch of the lake in my image, but ultimately scrapped the idea for the shrubs and stones for three reasons: A) because the unique feature of the landscape is not the lake but rather the limestone, B) because the clouds were almost entirely gone by the time the sun rose and only covered a narrow strip of the sky, logically much of the reflection would have been just empty sky, and C) the morning light on the shrubs made for a warm and cold color palette with the rocks still in the shade.

I tried to balance out the double sun star in the upper right corner by placing some of the little bushes near the lower left corner of the frame. Due to the perspective, the gaps in between the shrubs appear to becoming shorter the further away they are from the camera, creating a visual flow and implicitly drawing the viewer into the image towards the sun, much like the curvature of the shoreline and the slim layer of mist above the lake. To me the leading lines were appealing in their subtlety, not being too obvious, yet present.

After I walked back to my sleeping bag I was very content, feeling like I did the landscape and the sunrise justice. This was also one of the last shots I took on my two week road trip through Ireland and it seemed like the country had saved the best light for last.

Pure bliss for a landscape photographer

Now I have another cheesy sunset in my portfolio. And sure, for some it may be nothing more than a cliché, but for me it represents a morning alone in Burren National Park, one of the most beautiful areas of Ireland, sitting in the warm morning light and enjoying these sights and taking a couple of shots while eating breakfast—pure bliss for a landscape photographer.

EXIF: Nikon D800 – Nikkor AF-S 20 mm 1:1,8 G ED | FLM CB-48FTR & CP30-M4S | 20mm | 4 Exposures for DRI | f/13 | ISO 100

Nicolas Alexander Otto is a semi-professional landscape photographer based out of North-Rhine Westphalia, Germany. He writes for different online and print media, teaches workshops for several agencies, sells prints and calendars and offers post processing sessions. You can find more of his work on his website, Facebook and Instagram.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

Comments Off

Posted in Uncategorized

Two Ways to Create a Snowstorm Using Photoshop

11 Nov

The holidays are upon us and you want to have the perfect photo but it’s just too cold, slippery, or you missed the snow all together? There are times that regardless of your will, the weather won’t allow you to go outside to shoot the photos you want. Fortunately, it’s easy to recreate a snowstorm using Photoshop to give that final touch to your image.

Two Ways to Create a Snowstorm using Photoshop

Select an appropriate image

First, you have to choose an image that will be believable as having been shot during a snowfall. It can be a snowed-in landscape or a holiday view like the ones I’ll use here to show you the technique. However, you can get as creative as you like. In this tutorial, I’ll teach you two different techniques to make it snow in Photoshop so you can choose which suits you best.

#1 – Snowstorm with layers

With your image open in Photoshop, duplicate it as a layer by going to Menu > Layers > Duplicate Layer. An exact copy of your image will be created on top of the original and as a default will be called Background copy. However, if you want to rename it “snow” for organization purposes just double-click the layer name.

With this new layer selected, go to Menu > Filter > Pixelate > Pointillize. In the pop-up window, you can choose how big or small you want the snowflakes to be by dragging the slider and when you’re happy click OK.

Note: Your background color should be set to white.

Pointillize - Two Ways to Create a Snowstorm using Photoshop

While on the same layer, go to Menu > Image > Adjustments > Threshold to make it monochrome. The higher the number, the less dense the snow will be and therefore it will look more real.

Threshold - Two Ways to Create a Snowstorm using Photoshop

Layer blend mode

Once you click ok you will only see a black canvas with white spots. So to merge it with your image you need to change the layer blend to Screen; you can do this in the drop-down menu of the layers tab.

Now you need to give the snow some movement to make it look like it’s falling. For this you can go to Menu > Filter > Blur > Motion Blur. When you adjust the angle you will change the direction in which the snow will appear to be coming down. The Distance setting changes the space between the “snowflakes”. When you’re happy with it click OK.

Two Ways to Create a Snowstorm using Photoshop

There you have it, a digitally created snowstorm! You can adjust the opacity of the layer if you want the effect to be less intense. You can also repeat the process to create more layers and change the values of the Motion Blur to make it less homogeneous and therefore more realistic.

Snowstorm Two Ways to Make it Snow in Photoshop

However, this will always be a bulk effect, if you want to do it more precisely and more controlled then follow the next set of steps in method two.

#2 – Snowfall with brush strokes

First, you need to create a personalized brush for the snow. To do that, open a new canvas with a white background and then paint some uneven circles (with a black brush) that will be your snowflakes. Make two or three in different sizes, remember that you can adjust the size of the brush in the top left menu. It’s also good to use a soft brush to avoid any hard edges.

To turn this canvas into a brush, you need to go to Menu > Edit > Define Brush Preset. In the pop-up window, you can rename it as Snow. Now you can close this document without saving it because it was already saved as a brush that you can now use on any image. Now you can open the photo in which you want to make it snow.

Brush Two Ways to Make it Snow in Photoshop

Paint in the snow

Having your desired scene as the background, you need to create a new layer by going to Menu > Layer > New Layer. This is where you are going to paint the snow using the new brush you just created, but first, you need to set the properties of the brush.

First click on the brush tool, choose the snow brush from the pop-up menu and set your foreground color to white. Then open the Properties window by going to Menu > Window > Brush or by pressing F5. Here you can change many things to adjust the brush to suit your needs, in this case, I did the Scattering, the Shape Dynamics and the spacing of the Brush Tip Shape, but you can play around until you’re happy.

You will always see the applied effect of what you’re doing in the preview window at the bottom right-hand side of the screen. You can also activate or turn off each of the settings with the check sign to the left of the brush preset name.

Brush Properties - Two Ways to Make it Snow in Photoshop

Refine the snow

To make it more realistic, go to Menu > Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur. In the pop-up window, you can change the radius to soften the snowflakes.

Now you can create more layers to give the impression of depth. The snowflakes you did before form the base, think of those as being the farthest away. Then repeat the process on another layer in which the flakes are going to be closer, for that they need to be bigger, which is controlled by the brush size. You also need to show motion, so instead of the Gaussian Blur, this time, use a Motion Blur.

Snowfall - Two Ways to Make it Snow in Photoshop

You can add and paint snow on as many layers as you want. Of course, you can always colorize it with some hue if your scene has a different tonal palette, adjust the layer opacity, and mix the two techniques described here in order to make your image look just right, as shown below.

Both - Two Ways to Make it Snow in Photoshop

Conclusion

Please give this a go, and share your before and after snowstorm images in the comments below.

The post Two Ways to Create a Snowstorm Using Photoshop by Ana Mireles appeared first on Digital Photography School.

Digital Photography School

Comments Off

Posted in Photography

Weekly Photography Challenge – Hit the Streets

11 Nov

Street photography is an interesting genre of photography. In some ways it sees quite simple – all you need is a camera lens and your own two feet to do it. Yet in other ways, it can be quite hard and complicated.

How can you keep moving subjects in sharp focus?
Do you even want to do that?
How do you approach people to photograph them?
What if you get in trouble?
Do you need a model or another kind of release?

Trinidad, Cuba – bought some meringues from this lovely man just so I could take his photo.

Weekly Photography Challenge – Street Photography

If this is something you’ve struggled with, here are some dPS articles to help you out.

7 Steps to Improve Your Closeup Candid Street Photography
How to Plan a Street Photography Shoot When Traveling
How to Tell a Story With Your Street Photography
The Ultimate Guide to Street Photography
Tutorial – Easy Camera Settings for Street Photography
7 Tips for Overcoming Nerves When Doing Street Photography
A Simple Way to Conquer Your Fear of Street Photography
10 Non-Technical Ways to Improve Your Street Photography

Two key tips I will give you myself are – find good light and shoot there AND find a good or interesting background and wait for a subject to enter your frame.

Be patient!

Here I saw this amazing late afternoon light on the stairs. So I waited for someone to descend and enter the light.

I was attracted by the symmetry of the arched windows but wanted someone to walk past between them. So I fired this frame when the two kids were walking through the scene and got a bonus silhouette in the foreground – which adds even more depth to the image. I waited about 5 minutes for this shot to happen.

Shadows make for dramatic photos. Find them and use them in your images,

Simply upload your shot into the comment field (look for the little camera icon in the Disqus comments section) and they’ll get embedded for us all to see or if you’d prefer, upload them to your favorite photo-sharing site and leave the link to them. Show me your best images in this week’s challenge. Sometimes it takes a while for an image to appear so be patient and try not to post the same image twice.

Share in the dPS Facebook Group

You can also share your images on the dPS Facebook group as the challenge is posted there each week as well.

The post Weekly Photography Challenge – Hit the Streets by Darlene Hildebrandt appeared first on Digital Photography School.

Digital Photography School

Comments Off

Posted in Photography

Gear of the Year 2017 – Barney’s choice (part 1): Leica M10

11 Nov

My choice for Gear of the Year is a pricey camera with niche appeal. The Leica M10 is not a camera that many people are likely to buy, when compared to other major DSLRs and mirrorless products released in 2017. Leica knows that, and trust me – Leica is fine with it. The M10 probably isn’t a camera that will suit the majority of photographers, either – even those with the funds required to purchase one.

The M10 is a curious beast: a highly evolved throwback, which combines some very old technology with a modern 24MP full-frame sensor to offer a unique user experience with some unique quirks. It’s awkward, tricky to master, and lacks a lot of the bells and whistles common even in much cheaper competitors, but I love it all the same.

I could have taken this picture with pretty well any camera. But I took it with the Leica M10, because that’s what I had with me. (I didn’t promise you an exciting story).

There is a certain magic to Leica rangefinders, which is hard to properly explain. A lot of their appeal comes down to the quality of construction, which is obvious the moment you pick one up. While other brands have thrown their efforts behind high-tech mass-production (with admittedly impressive results), Leica has never aspired to market saturation and still makes its M-series cameras in much the same way as it always has done; relying heavily on manual processes, and the accumulated years of experience of its small workforce in Wetzlar, Germany (with a little help from electronics suppliers in Asia and a facility in Portugal).

A lot of Leica rangefinders’ appeal comes down to the quality of construction

I’ve been pretty cynical about some of Leica’s digital imaging products in the past (I still can’t get excited about the TL-series, for instance, despite the considerable improvements that have been made to that system since its introduction) and I make no secret of it. In the days of hybrid autofocus and 4K video, the M10 is clearly an anachronism.

But…

The M10 and current 35mm F1.4 Asph., makes a powerful and unobtrusive combination. Many DSLRs and ILCs are technically more versatile, but few are as discreet while still offering a full-frame sensor.

Ironically, the M10 has won a place in my heart (and my camera bag) precisely because it isn’t trying too hard to be something that it isn’t. In contrast to the slightly bloated Typ. 240, the stills-only M10 is stripped back to the essentials. Presenting almost the same form-factor as the M6 TTL and M7, and an identical footprint to the original M3, the M10 is noticeably slimmer than previous digital M-series rangefinders while offering a simpler digital interface and tweaked image quality. In fact, with the M10 I can comfortably shoot at ISO 12,800 and higher without worrying about banding, or any particular image quality gremlins. The sensor isn’t quite up there with the best 24MP sensors on the market, but it’s more than good enough.

It’s been a long, strange year but as 2017 draws to a close, the M10 is probably the camera I’ve used most. While undoubtedly not as versatile as (say) a Nikon D850, the M10 does have the advantage of being considerably more convenient to travel with.

I still get a bit uncomfortable carrying what amounts to almost a year’s rent around my neck

I’ve done a lot of traveling this year, and the M10 has been with me almost everywhere I’ve gone. I love that I can fit a full-frame camera and lens outfit covering 28-90mm into a small Domke F6 shoulder bag without feeling like I’m going to pull my arm out of its socket. I still get a bit uncomfortable carrying what amounts to almost a year’s rent around my neck, but – touch wood (or rather, hand-laquered wood soft shutter release) – nothing bad has happened yet.

This started out as an attempt to quickly ‘de-bling’ a chrome M10 for my recent trip to the jungles of central Mexico. I might have got a bit carried away. Watch out for the ‘Britton Special Edition Jungle M10’ and remember – you saw it here first.

Partly that’s because I’m careful about who I point my camera at (and where I do it) but partly it’s because a black M10 in a black half-case, accessorized with some carefully applied black electrical tape, doesn’t actually draw much attention. The eye-catching chrome version looks absolutely beautiful by comparison, but it’s the kind of beautiful that makes me nervous.

The whole process of taking someone’s picture is less confrontational than it might be with a larger and louder camera

I’m not a huge proponent of candid portraiture, but the subtle click of the M10’s shutter means that even for casual snapshots of friends and family, the whole process of taking someone’s picture is less confrontational than it might be with a larger and louder camera.

The flip-side is that it’s also harder to use. For all of the smug chin-stroking of whiskery old salts who cut their teeth on M3s and M2s back in the Good Old Days, the suggestion that M-series rangefinders are as functional – or as practical – as SLRs “just as long as you know what you’re doing” is nonsense. I still shoot film occasionally and I love it, but compared to a 24MP full-frame sensor, even the finest-grained film is a pretty low-resolution medium. I’m much more prepared to let minor focus errors or even camera-shake slide when I’m flipping through scans from my film cameras than I am when examining digital files at 100% in Lightroom.

One of my favorite lenses on the M10 is actually one of the oldest that I own: the tiny 1950s-vintage Nikkor 2.8cm F3.5, attached via an LTM-M adapter. At F4, the center is sharp enough for this kind of (slightly) off-center composition, with just enough out of focus blur fore and aft for some subject separation. Newer Leica and 3rd party 28mm lenses are unequivocally sharper, but they’re also much bigger. This portrait was taken using Live View to ensure off-center sharpness using this vintage lens.

The M10 can turn out excellent results, but truly accurate focusing and composition can be extremely challenging – even for those with long experience of shooting with rangefinders. Yes, there’s always Live View, but on this point I tend to agree with the whiskery old salts: you don’t buy a rangefinder to use Live View (which doesn’t mean that I never do, because like every good whiskery old salt, I am also a hypocrite).

Perversely though, its inherent trickiness is one of the reasons I enjoy shooting with the M10 so much. Compared to an auto-everything DSLR or mirrorless camera, it’s very challenging. When I capture an image that I really like, I appreciate it more because I feel like I’ve worked harder to get there.

Leica M10 real-world samples

Please do not reproduce any of these images on a website or any newsletter / magazine without prior permission (see our copyright page). We make the originals available for private users to download to their own machines for personal examination or printing (in conjunction with this review), we do so in good faith, please don’t abuse it.

Unless otherwise noted images taken with no particular settings at full resolution. Because our review images are now hosted on the ‘galleries’ section of dpreview.com, you can enjoy all of the new galleries functionality when browsing these samples.

$ (document).ready(function() { SampleGalleryV2({“containerId”:”embeddedSampleGallery_6037658348″,”galleryId”:”6037658348″,”isEmbeddedWidget”:true,”standalone”:false,”selectedImageIndex”:0,”startInCommentsView”:false,”isMobile”:false}) });
Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

Comments Off

Posted in Uncategorized