My Photography Blog: May 2012

Wednesday, May 30, 2012

Heroes Square

Heroes Square
Budapest, Hungary
October 2008

Canon Rebel XT
Focal Length 11mm
Aperture 14
Shutter 1/320
ISO 200

The Danube

The Danube River
Budapest, Hungary
October 2008

Canon Rebel XT
Focal Length 55mm
Aperture 13
Shutter 1/320
ISO 200

Tuesday, May 29, 2012

Bridge

Bridge
Paris, France
October 2008

Canon Rebel XT
Focal Length 39mm
Aperture 25
Shutter 1/60
ISO 400

Switzerland

Church
Innsbruck, Austria

Canon Rebel XT
Focal Length 55mm
Aperture 11
Shutter 1/250
ISO 200

Monday, May 28, 2012

Slot Canyon 2

Slot Canyon

Utah, United States

May 2012

Canon 5D Mark II
Focal Length 58mm
Aperture 14
Shutter 3.2 sec.
ISO 50

Steps and Fountain

Spanish Steps
Rome, Italy
November 2008

Canon Rebel XT
Focal Length 11mm
Aperture 22
Shutter 13 sec.
ISO 100

Rushing Water

Creek

Zion National Park

Utah, United States

May 2012

Canon 5D Mark II

Focal Length 40mm

Aperture 7.1

Shutter 13 sec.

ISO 50

Statue

Paris, France

October 2008

Canon Rebel XT

Focal Length 55mm

Aperture 14

Shutter 1/400

ISO 400

Thursday, May 24, 2012

Mountains

Mountains
Zion National Park, Utah, United States
May 2012

Canon 5D Mark II
Focal Length 58mm
Aperture 7.1
Shutter 1/100
ISO 400

Slot Canyon

Zion National Park, Utah, United States

May 2012

Canon 5D Mark II

Focal Length 24mm

Aperture 10

Shutter 25 sec.

ISO 50

Campfire

Zion National Park, Utah, United States

May 2012

Canon 5D Mark II

Focal Length 47mm

Aperture 14

Shutter 2.5 sec.

ISO 50

Mojave Desert

Mojave Desert
Interstate 15, California, United States
2012

Canon 5D Mark II
Focal Length 80mm
Aperture 14
Shutter 1/80
ISO 50

Thursday, May 17, 2012

Using the Reduce Noise Function in Photoshop

For this photo I had a noisy look that I wanted to get rid of. Filter > Noise > Reduce Noise. I used 0 for the preserve details slider and 10 for the strength slider. I lost much of the photos definition but gave it a soft rich look with and soft colors.

Fountain
Place de la Concorde, Paris, France
October 2008

Canon Rebel XT
Focal Length 11
Aperture 22
Shutter 10 sec.
ISO 400

Not a huge difference, except for the discerning eye perhaps.

This is the original without any retouching. I don't mess around with the white balance because you can just adjust it in one quick easy step in post production. In Aperture 2.0 I use the slider under the adjustments tab. The original had too much of a orange look to it due to the types of light sources.

Wednesday, May 16, 2012

Setting Your Shutter at Night

Differing shutter speeds at night will give you a much more dramatic feeling shot as opposed to differing shutters during the day time. During the day you will be able to capture things like water flowing, and capture it in a fluid, flowing motion. You will be able to take objects in motion completely out of your pictures - like traffic on a freeway for example.

During nighttime it's a different story. Anything that moves with your shutter open during the photographs exposure will come out blurred. If your object remains steady it will come out sharp. What's great is that you can have the best of both worlds. Case and point.

Moulin Rouge Cabaret
Paris, France
October 2008

Canon Rebel XT
Focal Length 18mm
Aperture 25
Shutter 5 sec.
ISO 100

You can see how the building and all inanimate objects come out crisp and sharp while the rotating windmill comes out blurry. Often times setting a show shutter at night will give you spectacular light trails. Especially with fast moving objects along a set path - eg. a freeway where all the cars follow a nice organized pattern as they are bound by the freeway. Here, the spoke of the windmill was anchored at the middle, so since the edge of its spoke was at a fixed length it formed a perfect circle an added uniformity to the light trails. Lighting that's sporadic and disorganized may give you a messy looking image. It looks best when your light trails are uniform. It's really all personal preference though.

Here in the picture below the windmill was moving slow enough that it appears to have been perfectly (or nearly) still over the 1/30th of a second (shutter speed) that the shutter was open. Another big difference with this shot is the increased level of light that you are able to see throughout the photo. The highlights are much more toned down as well and the words that were illegible in the first photo are sharper and the backlighting is more even and subdued.

You could also get the illumination in the foreground found with typical aperture on the lower numbered side of the spectrum (wider apertures, F4, F5.6, F7.1 and so on), while creating a blurred image like the top photo if you used a higher strength neutral density filter. Probably a .09 would be best to use to slow the shutter so a level low enough to capture great light trails in the above picture. You could try more or less for different effects.

Moulin Rouge Cabaret

Paris, France

October 2008

Canon Rebel XT

Focal Length 18mm

Aperture 5.6

Shutter 1/30

ISO 400

Tuesday, May 15, 2012

Grilling

Shish Kabob
San Diego, California, United States

Canon 5D Mark II
Focal Length 45mm
Aperture 8
Shutter 1/125
ISO 50

Paradise

Harbor
Hamburg, Germany

Canon Rebel XT
Focal Length 18mm
Aperture 10
Shutter 1/80
ISO 400

Hotel Del Coronado

Coronado, California, United States

Canon 5D Mark II

Focal Length (Varied)

Aperture 20

Shutter 120 sec.

ISO 100

Silhouette 4

Sunset Cliffs
San Diego, California, United States

Canon 20D
Focal Length 24mm
Aperture 10
Shutter 1/160
ISO 100

Sunday, May 13, 2012

Statue and Fountain

Sculpture

Munich, Germany

Canon Rebel XT

Focal Length 18mm

Aperture 9

Shutter 1/100

ISO 400

Saturday, May 12, 2012

Cathedral

Milan, Italy

Canon Rebel XT

Focal Length 18mm

Aperture 5.6

Shutter 2.5 sec.

ISO 100

Thursday, May 10, 2012

Tiber River and Vatican City

Tiber River and Vatican City
Rome, Italy

Canon Rebel XT
Focal Length 30mm
Aperture 22
Shutter 20 sec.
ISO 400

Wednesday, May 9, 2012

Sky

Sky
Rome, Italy

Canon Rebel XT
Focal Length 18mm
Aperture 20
Shutter 1/500
ISO 400

Night Freeway

Mormon Church
San Diego, California, United States

Canon 5D Mark II
Focal Length 40mm
Aperture 22
Shutter 66 sec.
ISO 50

Selective Desaturation

Palm Tree and Skyline
Rome, Italy

Canon Rebel XT
Focal Length 21mm
Aperture 5
Shutter 30 sec.
ISO 100

Given below is the same photo with no adjustment made to the red color channel. I wanted to achieve a darker, richer look in the photo and remove the red cast that was present due to the street lighting. Color casts such as this are common with sodium vapor lights. After reducing the red channel by around 80% I adjusted the "black point" in aperture 2.0 to give the sky a richer, darker look. For both of these photos I also lowered the yellow levels. I also lowered the luminosity of the greens and adjusted the definition by 100%.

And below is the untouched original.

Palace Grounds

Grand Palace

Bangkok, Thailand

Canon 5D Mark II

Focal Length 24

Aperture 22

Shutter 1/100

ISO 200

Statue

Bangkok, Thailand

Canon 5D Mark II

Focal Length 24mm

Aperture 16

Shutter 1/60

ISO 100

Sunday, May 6, 2012

Using the Shadows Function in Aperture/Photoshop

This is a great example of how the harsh mid day sun throws unsightly shadows over unwanted portions of your subjects. This is a bad photograph, which would have tuned out much nicer if I had been able to shoot later in the day under more even, less direct, sunlight. Shown below is the original photo. (Some minor adjustments were made to color, contrast, and definition/sharpness.

Statue

Berlin, Germany

Canon Rebel XT

Focal Length 11mm

Aperture 13

Shutter 1/250

ISO 400

Much of the detail of the face of the statue is masked in darkness due to the angle of the sun. The easiest way to deal with this would have been to use a flash, although unfortunately I didn't have that luxury.

In many post production products you are able to brighten underexposed areas selectively. This is an adjustment sometimes called "shadows". If you used a brightness adjustment it wouldn't differentiate and the entire picture would be brightened. While the underexposed areas would be corrected, more or less, the correctly exposed areas would become overexposed. Shown below is is the same photograph at different strengths of the shadows adjustment.

Shadows at 25%

Shadows at 50%

Shadows at 75%

Shadows at 100%

As you can see the feature brightens only the underexposed portions of the photograph, the face of the statue and some parts of the trees to the right. The sky is virtually untouched. This was done in Aperture 2.0, where you only have the option of going to 100% with the shadows feature. However if you were using Photoshop you would have the option to infinitely adjusting the intensity of the shadows feature, however you could only go to 100%, as the slider would reach its maximum. You would then apply the adjustment and manually select the adjustment again. Since you had applied the adjustment to 100% already, the next time you applied the shadows function the adjustments to the picture would have remained. Thus, if you adjusted the shadows function by another 100% you would have actually increased the shadows by 200%. The picture would look terrible, and it is not something that I would recommend, but it serves as a good example of the functionality of the program(s). For this image you would have better luck turning it to black and white or adding an artistic filter of some sorts. However, the grain/noise would likely be more pronounced in a black and white photograph.

When you increase the shadow you also increase the noise of the photograph as shown below.