The Photo Journey » Tutorial

Work your location

Scott — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 05:24:09 +0000

When arriving on the location of a great landscape waiting to be captured, it is important to work out the key features and start to work out different possible angles and compositions. This means it really does pay to arrive early and leave late.

This weeks image was captured on our trip through regional NSW. I have driven past these cattle ramps hundreds of times, but until now I had not thought of stopping and creating something different in comparison to my usual landscape image. The location had the setting sun bathing the hills, trees and farm fences with an amazing orange light.

I tried a bunch of different angles before being rather happy with my initial image (located below). I love the natural lines in the image and the effect of the setting sun, but before hitting the road again I wanted to try something completely different. That’s when this weeks image was born.

The setting sun was dropping rapidly and I had about 10 minutes to capture the last intense rays of light for the day. I positioned my camera to face directly at the sun, but to create the effect I was after I placed the centre of the sun behind the ramp of the cattle dips side planks. There was no way I would be able to capture the image in just 1 shot so I set-up the camera to bracket 5 shots of +2, +1, 0, -1, -2. This was then processed into a HDR image with Photomatix. One of the issues with shooting directly into the sun is that it shows each and every dust or mark on your lens or filters. Hence I need to spend a good 15 minutes in Photoshop removing the marks with the healing brush and clone tools.

So next time your out shooting why not capture your safety image and then experiment. Sure you wont get a winner every time but in the digital world you’ve lost nothing giving it a go.

Strobist Boot Camp – XXXX Beer Video Tutorial

Scott — Fri, 05 Aug 2011 00:27:56 +0000

Strobist.com run by David Hobby is one of my favourite websites. Every few years David runs a project called Strobist Boot Camp to basically get strobist photographers out into their community and push their lighting limits. For assignment 2 in this years Boot Camp David, wanted us to go out and photograph a local object or something of significance in our community.

After the year of disasters Queensland has had this year, with the massive floods and cyclones, I wanted to shoot something that stood for the great work done by Queenslanders to clean up and move forward.

XXXX Gold is brewed about 10km from where I live. It is the most iconic beer of Qld here in Australia. They put some great advertisements out congratulating Queenslanders on their great fighting spirit after the disasters. What’s more Australian than a good Aussie Beer?

And as usual here is my set up image. The white paper behind the bottles made a massive difference to the colour of the bottles. Such a simple addition but so key to the final image.

I have also put together a short behind the scenes (BTS) video of the shoot explaining my lighting and set up. You can expect many more of this in the next few months as product photography is really appealing to me. So keep your eyes out and feel free to submit ideas of things you would like to learn how to light and shoot.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Star Trails @ Ballow View

Scott — Fri, 24 Jun 2011 01:16:52 +0000

Anna and I had been invited out to a property called Ballow View which is about 45 minutes west of Boonah on the border of Qld and NSW. I had been wanting to get out of the city and try some more star trails after a little more research on getting the desired results.

Canon 40D @10mm, f5.6, ISO800, 45 minutes of 30sec exposures stacked with StarStax

I have taken about 4 other star trails but still hadn’t been happy with the finished images. Heading out I knew I wanted to make sure I pumped my ISO up to at least 800 and that I wanted a fairly clear landscape. Ballow view offered the best bet with some amazing trees that had been ring-barked over 50 years ago.

This week I want to share with you some quick tips on shooting star trails but I will be concentrating on how I process my star trails with photoshop and a great new free program I use called StarStax. I will have a video post latter this year on the technical side of star trails from the field.

Click here to view the embedded video.

I couldn’t be much happier with the way the image turned out. My gamble on the rotation of the stars was spot on and I have a few more tricks up my sleeve for the next star trail adventure. Here are a few more shots taken the following day just down from my location the previous night.

Canon 40D @85mm, f5.6, ISO800, 180sec

Canon 40D @17mm, f4, ISO800, 250sec

Natural HDR Processing Tips

Scott — Thu, 07 Apr 2011 08:19:32 +0000

I headed off to Shorncliffe Pier at 4:45am to capture the sunrise at 6am. However 3 wrong turns latter and I missed the sunrise, but only by a little so I was able to save the shot. Shorncliffe is a great location with plenty of possibilities and one mammoth pier. It was my first time to the area and it looks like an exciting spot for many return visits.

This week I have put together an in-depth (28min) post processing tutorial where I take you through Photomatix, Lightroom 2 and Photoshop. Because it is a little long I have also created a 1 min fast forward so you can get a quick glimpse of what I will cover to gauge if the tutorial will be of interest to you.

Many people have been inquiring how I manage to keep my HDR images looking so natural and fairly noise free. These tips are shared in the full length video plus a few other tricks.

Here is the 1 min fast forward teaser.

Here is the full narrated tutorial.

Useful Online Resources

Scott — Thu, 31 Mar 2011 02:23:32 +0000

This week I will share with you some very useful websites I use to help plan my weekly image. They will cover websites that will help with location scouting and weather monitoring. New websites are cropping up all the time so keep your eye out and share your favorites on the Facebook page.

Canon 40D @10mm, f16, ISO200 with Tiffen HT Circular Polarizer & Tiffen 0.6 Hard Grad plate filter. HDR +2, 0 -2.

Location Scouting

www.flickr.com – Flickr is not only a great resource for learning tips and techniques and sharing your images with the world it is also a great place to scout locations. There are numerous ways of using flickr to scout locations. If you find something you like leave a comment or email the photographer about the location. Most people are willing to help you out. Just remember to return the favor when somebody asks you.

Use the search function and sort by interesting and wade through the results.
Flickr Maps allow you to view aerial maps of the entire world and see GPS tagged or manually tagged images.
Join Flickr Groups for the area you are traveling to or live in. Some of these groups have discussion threads about great local locations and it is also a good spot to see what other people have been capturing around the area.

www.google.com/maps- Google Maps allows you to check out possible shooting locations with the use of the aerial maps and street view. Not only that but you can turn on the option to display photos that have been tagged in the area.

www.google.com/images – Google Image Search, is a bit of a hit and miss tool however every now and then it yields an insight into a locations possibilities. Simply enter in a search related to the area you are planning on shooting at. for example for this weeks photo location I would enter in something like “Story Bridge Brisbane at Sunset”.

Weather Monitoring

www.SkippySky.com.au – This little site is a absolute gem. Whilst is it an Australian hosted site it does work for other major parts of the world. Basically it predicts cloud cover up to 120 hours into the future. Its actually a tool created for Astronomers to predict clear skies but I use it in reverse to see when low cloud will be around. Well worth a look

www.WillyWeather.com.au – This is probably my most visited site on the iPhone. It is only for Australian conditions however they may be something similar for your country. The great thing about its weather monitoring is that it is very specific to a location. For example back in my home town of Woolgoolga I can get tide times and other weather conditions for 15 different beaches in a coastline of just 30km. This localised information is amazing. Not only does it give you the sunrise and sunset times it also supplies first light and last light time which is great for capturing blue hour.

www.Weather.com – This is not a site I use myself regularly as I use Willy Weather for my local resources the Weather Channels website does give you some great information for most populated areas. Just make sure that you click the “Expand Weather Details” button to get all the information like sunrise and sunset.

Creating Foreground Interest – 4/52

Scott — Tue, 01 Feb 2011 04:01:02 +0000

Great landscape images are made up of 3 very important layers and I’m not talking about a curves or levels adjustment layer in Photoshop. The foreground, middle ground and a background layers of an image together create a feeling of depth on a 2D medium. Today I want to talk about introducing a foreground object onto your images to dramatically improve your landscapes.

Figure 1; Sandy Beach, NSW Sunrise

Having an amazing sunrise/sunset location is a great start like the image above that I captured at Sandy Beach, NSW.

However you will notice that in Figure 2 whilst still at the same location as Figure 1 and taken only 5 minutes later that the introduction of a stick to the foreground of the frame gives the image a feeling of depth and scale for the viewer to connect with. The fact that the stick is more of a silhouette is a great way to balance the bright vibrant sky.

Figure 2; Introduction of foreground subject

Just about anything can be used as a foreground subject like boats, shells, rocks, people, tall grass – the list goes on. The main idea of the subject is for it to be something the viewer can relate too and that will lead their eye into the image.

There is nothing wrong with physically positioning the subject in the frame like I have done with the stick. I actually found the stick further up the beach as I walked to my location. Try out a few positions to see what works.

The next trick is to make sure that when you set your focus that you do not focus on the horizon or the clouds. Set your focus on the foreground subject or something 1/3rd into the frame. For example, I could focus on the small rocks that are closer to the camera than the stick in Figure 2. This will give you sharp focus from the front to the back with an aperture of about f16.

Here is another example of layering with the silhoutte of the Greek Island building as my foreground and the cruise ship in my middle ground.

Canon 40D @ 10mm, f14 - Santorini Sunset

Why not try incorporating a foreground subject in your next landscape shot. I would love to see how you go so drop me a line in the comments or via the contact page.

Stitched Panorama Video Tutorial – 2/52

Scott — Fri, 21 Jan 2011 04:12:50 +0000

I have heard from a few people that they are having trouble with stitching together panoramas and most of them think its the software that’s the issue. Unfortunately a lot comes down to the base images you are using.

Its not the most amazing subject to be shooting for the weeks image but it will have to do considering the devastating flood Queensland has been hit by. I haven’t had another chance to go out shooting this week with volunteering to cleanup some of the worst affected areas in Brisbane by pushing mud out of homes.

This is a 3 image stitch taken with my Canon 40D and a 50mm f1.8 prime lens. The real trick to a good stitched panorama is to make sure that there is at least a 25% overlap from 1 image to the next. All this and more is explained in my first of many video tutorials for the Landscape 52 Project.

If there is a post processing tutorial you would like me to do please drop me a line on the contacts page.

Incense Black & White Brief Video Tutorial

Scott — Fri, 22 Oct 2010 03:37:52 +0000

Here is the 2nd in a series of videos on how I took my photos for this years Canon Photo5 Competition. Check on the other photo5 blog posts here. For more information on the competition check out the website.

Brief 3 was to be a black and white shot capturing smoke from the supplied incense stick. I had shot smoke before but this time I wanted to engage the viewer with a message not just have them think, “Hey kewl smoke shots”. I wanted to get a message out about the effects of smoking to a persons health. I had been searching for an empty packet for the shoot for about a week when Anna managed to come across a drenched packet in the middle of the street near her work. It has been raining 2 weeks solid here so the packet had certainly copped a beating. It was perfect for the look I was going for.

Check out the BTS video on how I setup for shooting the smoke and a few tips of taking your own smoke shots. You may want to check out a older blog post I did on this with post processing video also. Check it out here – Smokin…Tutorial

Once again it was recorded and edited all on my iPhone 4. Interesting exercise. Love to hear your comments.

Bubble Gum Brief Video Tutorial

Scott — Mon, 18 Oct 2010 05:27:23 +0000

So this is the first in a series of videos on how I took my photos for this years Canon Photo5 Competition. The way the free competition works is Canon send out a couple of thousand brown boxes with 5 random briefs for the entrant to complete. This year Canon announced a portfolio category that got me really excited to complete all 5 briefs. For more information on the competition check out the website.

Brief 2 was a portrait that had to include some bubble gum that they had supplied. I hated the stuff as a kid and I still do. I was very depressed to see it in the box at first. I wanted to capture something that showed the bubble gum inflated and then popped. My initial idea had been done by numerous other competitors so I wanted something totally different and eye catching. Then it hit me a double exposure would capture both states of the balloon, but first I had to work out how the heck to do it on a digital camera. I did some research and came across an article about an international fashion photographer called Joe Oppedisano. He took some amazing double exposures on film back in the 80/90′s in a series titles “Inner Self”. They were amazing and instantly I pictured my shot. Now I just had to work out how to do it in camera. There was to be no Photoshop here.

I was wrapped with how the final image turned out. I couldn’t have pulled it off without my wife Anna who put up with my directions of moving an inch this way and an inch that way. She managed to blow some great bubbles. Especially considering we were up till midnight shooting.

Check out the BTS video on how I did it. It was recorded and edited all on my iPhone 4. Interesting exercise. Love to hear your comments.

Shooting bikes on seamless white

Scott — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 08:27:12 +0000

How can I shoot bikes on a seamless white background? I received an email with this question after creating my seamless white background video. The challenge was to shoot a mixture of shots, for example close ups of components, and a shot of an entire bike, with a white background. So here is the tutorial.

For these shots I decided I needed to come up with a way of blowing the ground white as well at the wall. Something I had not previously done. I have adapted my technique from that of Zack Arias who has been shooting portraits on seamless white for years. He has used a technique of positioning the subject on tile board that is sort of glossy to give some grounding to his subject by providing a reflection. It is a great medium for blowing white and it is also very cheap. I picked up 2 sheets of white melamine mdf (1200 x 900) for $14.50AUD each at my local hardware shop. I think you can get it in larger sizes also.

Here is the setup I used for the latest Bike shots. I have 2 Cactus KF36 strobes pointed at the back wall both set as 1/4 power. They are also both an equal distance from the back wall to give an even coverage of light. The wall will now become the 4th light source as it reflects light back at the camera and onto the floor.

The bike must be positioned further from the wall than the 2 cactus stobes so that no light from the strobes directly hits the bikes frame. You may need to flag your strobes like I have on the right hand strobe.

Another Cactus KF36 is used to expose the bike with the use of a shoot through umbrella. This will give a nice wrapping light to the bikes components. This would probably be best positioned directly behind the camera. The lower to the ground your camera is the better the reflection you will get from the mdf boards.

For the close up component shots, like gears and derailleurs, keep your camera settings the same and zoom in or move yourself closer to the components. The lights will work the same as long as you don’t directly stand in the path of the umbrella.

When it comes to the post processing it is much the same as I explain in my video blog post about white seamless shots. Simply up your exposure so that more areas are blown out white and then bring back some of the detail in the bike by increasing the blacks. Then run a curves adjustment layer and do a sharpen to the image. In the end I decided to delete the reflection the mdf boards gave me on the entire bike shots as they didn’t fit in with the eventual advertisements my brother will use the shots for.

If you have any further questions or want me to do a post processing video on the bikes let me know. I’m more than happy to do tutorials on anything you guys want. Just drop me a line on the contact page.

Seamless White Video Tutorial

Scott — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 03:30:39 +0000

My Self Sportraits on white backgrounds have really generated some interest in the first 60 days of my 365 Photo Journey,. A few people have asked how I do them. So for day 63 I setup my very dodgy Fujifilm D5000 and recorded my setup and then did a quick post processing tutorial. Sorry for the lack of video and sound quality. Its my first go at something this in-depth.

I’d love to hear your comments and see your result from following the tutorial.

Jedi Lightsaber Video Tutorial

Scott — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 01:55:02 +0000

I have been getting lots of comments on my recent Star Wars Strobist Themed week about how I do my lightsabers. So today I want to share with you my technique.

Its been a great week. I recommend setting a weekly theme every now and then as it really makes the weeks shots so much more enjoyable and you can sort of plan ahead.

I hope to do more tutorial like this in the future to supplement my Project 365. Please leave me a comment about the video and drop me a line with any links to images you make using this tutorial. I’d love to see the results.