Tag: Camera

Today’s The Photo Walk

My goal is to experiment with very slow shutter speed, the exact opposite of the way I usually shoot. The neutral density filters will block light. It will be daytime, but my camera will only have as much light as it gets at night. The shutter will have to stay open longer. That changes everything.

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Clicky and I are driving to Seal Beach this afternoon. It’s the annual Scott Kelby Worldwide Photo Walk. There are over 1,000 walks scheduled with 20,000 scheduled to attend.

Volunteers around-the-world organize groups of photographers who meet and take photos nearby. We’ll start at the Red Car Museum (if you saw “Who Framed Roger Rabbit,” those red cars… well, the real ones) then end at the beach for sunset.

I’ve done these before with my friend Steve. We did the New Haven and Brooklyn Bridge walks a few years back. Lots of fun.

IMAG1510[1]Overpacking has been a problem for me in the past. Today will be different. Three wider lenses, neutral density filters and a tripod–that’s it! No long impressive football sideline telephotos. It will all fit in a shoulder bag.

My goal is to experiment with very slow shutter speed. The neutral density filters will block light. It will be daytime, but based on incoming light my camera will be set as if it was dark. Shutter/aperture combinations not normally possible will be needed.

It’s an experiment. My experience with this kind of shooting is near zero. It’s a radically different way of taking pictures. Who knows if it will work when I try it?

By the way, I know no one who’ll be there today. Looking forward to it.

A Couple Of Afternoon Timelapses

You see physics in action as you look at the clouds interacting with the rest of the atmosphere at this much faster pace. Everything that happens is dictated by the laws of physics. Nothing is random.

So many things look different when seen at an alternate time scale. Nature is pretty damn cool.

0880I’ve taken a few time lapse videos today. The camera is mounted with a suction cup to the outside of my office window.

It’s a GoPro, one of the biggest breakthroughs in video technology, ever. It’s a cheap, tiny, waterproof, indestructible, high definition video camera that also shoots stills.

Every two seconds it snaps another frame. One hour of real time equals one minute of video. In editing it can be sped up even more.

The GoPro’s secret is its super wide lens–the opposite of a telephoto. Being wide reduces shake and makes aiming shots much less critical. It’s great for things very close or very large–like the sky.

The whole stills-to-video process is a pain. Nothing difficult. Just lots of steps.

You see physics in action as you look at the clouds interacting with the rest of the atmosphere at this much faster pace. Everything that happens is dictated by the laws of physics. Nothing is random.

So many things look different when seen at an alternate time scale. Nature is pretty damn cool.

Hello Hummingbirds

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One of the biggest surprises in SoCal living has been my hummingbird feeder. It was a spur-of-the-moment purchase, now suctioned to a window from our family room. The birds hit my feeder dozens of times a day, year round.

Photographing hummingbirds is tough. Their wings flap rapidly. Very high shutter speeds must be used.

High shutter speed means less light gets in the lens. Even in bright daylight my camera, a Canon 7D, is being pushed near its limit.

Everything happens quickly. No time for autofocus. My lens is open to f/8 and pre-focused where the birds are most likely to light.

Sometimes that works. Most times it doesn’t. Over 300 photos for the six you see here!

Magic Lantern software loaded into my camera controls when the photo is shot. It looks for changes in the frame, then shoots three times.

There are lots of out-of-focus snaps and plenty where the bird is partially out-of-frame. Sometimes a puff of wind will rock the feeder and… click, click, click. It’s expected most shots will be deleted.

This is a technique thing. If you know how to do it and spend enough time, you’ll get the shot. Otherwise, shooting hummingbirds is nearly impossible.

The Hummingbirds Come Into Sharper Focus

Photographing hummingbirds has gone from experiment to obsession. That didn’t take long!

Yesterday I set up my camera with Magic Lantern firmware and shot away. Today I made more modifications. The lens is longer, bringing me closer (though these are still cropped images). The light is a little better.

My shutter speed still isn’t fast enough! 1/1000 second doesn’t freeze the hummingbird’s wings.

If I speed up the shutter and leave the aperture where it is I’m going to start adding too much noise. Where’s the balance? Still to be determined.

Here are the best four of 136.

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Awaiting Results

“Clicky” is on a tripod pointing toward my family room window. Its lens is focused on the hummingbird feeder that’s suctioned on. All the photo settings have been manually dialed in. The shutter is fast, trying to freeze wings that are always in motion.

“Clicky,” in real life a Canon 7D camera, has been loaded with aftermarket firmware called Magic Lantern. With its new extra brainpower it has been commanded to photograph the bird feeder only when something in the shot is in motion–like a hummingbird.

This is really a learning experience. There are many steps before a shot like this works. It’s doubtful all will be right on the first try.

Hopefully, some nice hummingbird shots before the day is through.

The New Camera Shoots Video

If I’m going to shoot video I’ll need all sorts of new skills. I’ll also need to carry a tripod because HD video exaggerates and camera shakiness!

Last Tuesday Birthday Man showed up with a new camera, a Canon 7D. How did he know? It’s just the right size and color.

The 7D is larger and heavier than my 450D with a quieter sensor and the ability to see better in low light situations. It also shoots video.

If I’m going to shoot video I’ll need all sorts of new skills. I’ll also need to carry a tripod because HD video exaggerates and camera shakiness!

This being the perfect summer day I thought I’d try it out with a little video in my favorite spot–Jepps Brook.

Note: The original video was pulled and replaced by this version with a better soundtrack.

Stuff I Never Saw Growing Up In Apartment 5E (photos)

A woman was on cross country skis heading toward the closed end of our cul de sac!

Sunday saw a big snowstorm across the Northeast. Though Connecticut didn’t get the worst we got some. Frank who plows my driveway will get a check!

The first day after a snowstorm is the pretty day. The snow is still pure white and this afternoon the sky was pure blue. I went for my camera.

Santa brought me a new lens, a Rokinon 8mm fully manual fisheye. It is a low end lens which has gotten rave reviews.

I took a few shots of my front yard… and then I spied her. A woman was on cross country skis heading toward the closed end of our cul de sac! I ran upstairs to get a more appropriate lens.

This is a site I never saw growing up in Apartment 5E back in Flushing.

A Few More Vegas Pics And Their Stories

Las Vegas is very photogenic. That’s indisputable.

Las Vegas is very photogenic. That’s indisputable. In addition I’ve found it very conducive for HDR photography. HDR is the technique which extends the range of brightness levels seen in a photograph by compressing the range. I know–confusing.

Your eye sees can see dark darks and bright whites at the same time. Cameras can’t. HDR produces a photo closer to what the eye sees. The raw material is usually a series of three photos taken in rapid succession.

Using different shutter speeds you end up with one underexposed, one overexposed and one properly image. A computer program combines the three produce the HDR.

Unfortunately it’s easy to overdo HDR and come up with some “Elvis on Velvet” results. I read complaints from the photo cognoscenti all the time. I mostly agree.

The reason I thought this shot would work was because of the bright clouds above and deep shadows within the Mirage Volcano. A standard photo would show detail in one or the other but not both.

I’ve already posted one photo from our little journey to Blue Diamond, NV. It was very dark and very cold! We really had no idea what we’d see. Actually the photos from Blue Diamond produced detail not visible to the naked eye. It was just too darned dark!

I am disappointed in most of this series of photos including the one I posted earlier. The exposure was too long allowing the Earth’s rotation to smudge the stars. This is one of the shorter exposures–only 22 seconds which cuts down on the motion.

For those interested it’s f/3.5 ISO 400 using a Tamron 17-50mm f/2.8 lens at 44mm. I tried manually focusing by looking at stars, but mostly just trusted the infinity mark on the lens. There’s a little help from Photoshop in bringing down the ambient brightness of the sky and helping illuminate the dimmer parts of the butte.

I have no idea how close the butte is, but probably a mile or more away. We were standing on Bonnie Springs Road just off Route 159 pointing reasonably north.

One night we went downtown to Fremont Street. Years ago before the Strip was developed Fremont Street was the heart of Las Vegas. Nowadays it’s an open air pedestrian mall surrounded by older, seedier casinos. There’s entertainment in the street and a pretty good atmosphere.

As we waited for the overhead lightshow to start this guy walked by! I have no idea what he was doing or why he was there. I only had one shot! What you see if what I got with no cropping.

My Tamron 70-200mm f/2.8 lens was on the camera. That’s a lot of lens for a darkened area. I dialed up to ISO 1600 and 1/250 second for the shutter. The image still needed a little Photoshop help boosting the levels and killing the noise. It looks a little soft and runny to me probably more because of ISO 1600 than anything else. It’s still worth showing.

In the movie this guy will be played by my friend Rick Allison.

Finally a shot from our first night in town. We went to dinner at Mon Ami Gabi a restaurant attached to the Paris Hotel with an open air patio overlooking The Strip.

It was cold that night! Luckily Mon Ami Gabi (and loads of other places) have these radiant gas heaters.

This was a shot I visualized before shooting. It came out just as expected. The soft background is what I wanted and very pleasing.

This was shot with my Tamron 70-200mm f/2.8 lens wide open and fully extended. ISO was a noisy 1600 and the shutter speed was 1/125 second.