Photo Musings | kritterspix

ND Filter

Posted on May 31, 2015 by kritterspaw

So I bought a 10-stop ND filter for Scott Stulberg’s workshop… but never got a chance to use it. So when we were in Lee’s Ferry and did the waterfall hike, I had to try it out. The 10 stop ND filter is pitch black. You can’t see anything through it when you use it. It’s main purpose is to give waterfalls that silky ‘cotton candy’ motion blur in bright daylight. You focus and compose your photo first, then put the blind filter on the camera (on the tripod), and do a long exposure. Fascinating tool!

HDR Effects

Posted on May 22, 2015 by kritterspaw

Following Scott Stulberg’s workshop, I guess this week is all about special effects. Cool and fun as they may be, I am an old fashioned kind of gal. I tend to like the traditional landscapes and wildlife photos, done the old fashioned way… in camera. Having said that, some photos just lend themselves to such effects. Case in point… old cars are often done in an HDR effect.

Now HDR (High Dynamic Range) means two things to me… (1) blend 3 exposure compensated photos – light, neutral, and dark together to balance high contrasting scenes, and (2) an ‘artificial’ over-the-top high pass graininess and unsaturated look over a photo, bringing out the texture, rust, and old paint of such subjects.

I haven’t studied HDR much, and I know there are numerous pre-sets in multiple 3rd party apps… Topaz, Nik, Lightroom, etc. I don’t use pre-sets. I like knowing how to do anything I do with the sliders in Photoshop. I also don’t really like the unsaturated look like traditional HDR effects, sort of like the below. It seems so ‘over done’ to me.

So I devised my own ‘formula’ for HDR in Photoshop ACR (Adobe Camera Raw, or Develop Mode in Lightroom), adjusting of course for each individual photo and personal tastes:

Highlights: Slide far left, darkening Highlights

Shadows: Slide far right, minimizing Shadows

Blacks: Slide left (blacker)

Whites: Slide right a little (whiter)

Clarity: Slide right to the MAX (this is where most of you HDR effect comes from)

Saturation: Slide left de-saturating colors (to personal taste)

DETAIL tool

Sharpening, Radius, and Detail: Slide all 3 to the right, MAX

Star Trails

Posted on May 21, 2015 by kritterspaw

Ok, now this is cool! Scott stayed up with us all night to get this shot. It’s a 1 hour and 15 minute exposure, 30 seconds at a time. It literally tracts the movement of the stars across the sky. The free software StarStaX stitches it together making it super easy to do… other than waiting around for the exposure. But then, I’d argue, that was the best part. Thanks, Scott. You’re awesome!

Light Painting

Posted on May 21, 2015May 22, 2015 by kritterspaw

I have never done light painting before, so this was my first time. I was surprised at what you could do with it… and how easy it was really. Set your tripod up on your night time scene. Dependent on your aperture and focal length, focus around 50′ (light up something approx that distance away and focus.. then turn all lights off). At your lowest aperture f2.8 or f4.0, set camera on Manual and set to a 30 second exposure. Fire a test shot to be sure your exposure and composition look about right.

Then run across the scene like a crazy person twirling colored lights (not too bright of lights).

I’m not sure how practical this technique is.. but it was fun and interesting none the less. Thanks to Scott Stulberg for showing us. Pretty cool.

Check out my other Sedona pix at https://kritterspix.com/pix and http://kritterspaw.com

Focus Stack

Posted on April 26, 2015April 26, 2015 by kritterspaw

Have you heard of Focus Stack. My guess this isn’t the first time… or the last you’ll hear of it. I have heard a lot about it… and have a lot to learn, but it is all the rage in photography. It’s a method employed by professionals and amateurs alike. It’s what wins contests today. Forget about setting your camera on a small aperture, f22 and getting everything from foreground to background in focus. Today, that method is passé, and yields softness or blurry portions in the photograph, dependent on where you focus.

There are a number of free Focus Stack softwares out there that will automatically analyze a series of photos and merge them together such that everything is tack sharp. You take several photos, one focussing on foreground, one focussing on middle ground, and one on background… select them all and the software does the rest. It’s magic… truly!

So I thought I’d give it a go using just Photoshop (without the Focus Stack software…. no doubt that will be a later experiment). Matt Kloskowski demo’s this method in his terrific new Mt. Rainer landscape class (http://www.mattk.com/my-new-mt-rainier-landscape-photography-class-is-live/).

So I pulled out a couple Barlett lake pix out of my archives.

The first has the cactus in focus, but the foreground flowers are out of focus.. (and mostly absent).

The second photo has the cactus blurred, but the flowers are more prevalent and in focus:

Using Photoshop I open both pix in one file creating 2 layers. I then select both and Edit-Auto Align Layers to make sure both layers are directly on top of on another. I then add a mask to the second photo (with blurred cactus and sharp flowers) and Command-I (inverse) to blacken out the whole photo. Then using white, and the brush tool, I paint the sharp flowers (second photo – mask selected). What happens is I paint the sharp plentiful flowers through to the 1st layer, painting over the blurred flowers of the first photo.

I must admit, I’ve not done a lot of this sort of composite work in Photoshop… but seeing how powerful it is, I know why it is so popular. Amazing!

Point, Shoot, and Steam

Posted on April 25, 2015April 25, 2015 by kritterspaw

I shoot with a Canon 5D Mark III. It’s a full frame professional camera. Basically, the camera of my dreams. I love it. It’s what I use when I go out and shoot. All those great wildlife and landscape photos are taken with that beauty. If they don’t come out I have no one to blame but me.

I do own a point and shoot… I’ve had many over the years. And I love these little cameras. I carry them with me everywhere. They are super handy to take my food pix, street photos, and inside restaurant / building pictures. I carry them with me on trips and always have them handy in my pocket. Great little camera to have.

I have had the Panasonic Lumix or some decedent there of… but my last 2 have failed on me within 2 years, so I’m a bit squeamish of buying another Lumix. My last one admittedly was probably my fault… I wore it on my belt loop on my ATV (quad) and it got ‘dusted’ on the dirt roads. When I went to turn it on, the lens wouldn’t come out. I probably got a bit of dirt between the lens and got it stuck.

But my latest one, my Lumix ZS19 has me frustrated. It gave up the ghost in a puff of steam.

This is the last picture it took. I think I scared the ghost out of it when it saw the teeth on this whole red snapper. (krittersmenu.com) Ha! In a puff of steam, the camera shut down and I have not been able to resurrect it. It’s 2 years old. I can’t believe a little steam would make it go belly up. I have had it ‘soaking’ in rice for 2 days, and still it won’t work. So it’s time for a new camera I guess.

I have done a fair amount of research for a new point and shoot and found there to be 4 basic categories (these are my own conclusions and observations, so like any advice or information you read on the net, take it with a grain of salt):

1. Social Media Cameras – These camera have Wi-Fi, GPS, and can instantly send your pix to Facebook or other social media. Cameras such as the Samsung Galaxy are king in this field. Not my area of expertise however. I don’t participate in Social Media, don’t have a Facebook account, and barely can spell Twitter. Thus this category is not for me.

2. Inexpensive Bargain Point & Shoots – There are more cameras in this field than I can list… cameras like the Canon ELPH and Nikon Coolpix, etc. These cameras are good value, good all around cameras, and do a great job supplementing a camera phone.

3. Mega Pixel / Super Zoom – These are higher end than the Bargain cameras… optically better cameras. There are a good ‘all ’round’ camera. They have good zooms (20x to 30x) and great mega-pixels, 12Mp – 30 Mp. They take good pix, but not great pix. This is basically where my Lumix sits. Nice point and shoot … takes good pix, great zoom, nice Mega-pix so I can crop as necessary, all in a handy size. (Think Lumix ZS40, Nikon P9700, and Canon SX280.)

4. Pro Digi-cam – High end point and shoot. This is the segment I found myself repeatedly coming back to. The thing that is of No. 1 importance to me personally, is photo clarity…. particularly at low light conditions. That basically means I want a large sensor (more clarity) and large aperture (f1.8 or so) to let more light in at low light. I have come to find out that you have to sacrifice zoom for clarity. Any super-zoom will never have the clarity of a pro digi-cam. Check out the link below… it’s an eye opening example of ‘clarity’ comparison.

http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/image-comparison?attr18=daylight&attr13_0=canon_s120&attr13_1=panasonic_dmclf1&attr13_2=canon_g7x&attr13_3=nikon_cpp340&attr15_0=jpeg&attr15_1=jpeg&attr15_2=jpeg&attr15_3=jpeg&attr16_0=80&attr16_1=80&attr16_2=125&attr16_3=80&normalization=full&widget=1&x=0.4171981864289555&y=0.9443681318681318

While I like my super-zoom, if I have to give up super-zoom for clarity… then so be it. I want sharp clear photos. In looking for a new camera, there are SOOOoooo many out there, you just have to analyze and understand what is important to you, then find the camera that fits in that segment (a time consuming task to be sure, as everyone finds something different is important to each individual). I find that the sorts of photos I take with my point and shoot are street scenes, food, restaurant photos. If I do take a super zoom pic, it’s usually not good enough (or sharp enough) to do anything with anyway. If I really want to take an ‘award winning’ photo, it’s likely to be with my big camera. So I have picked my category. So now on to picking the camera.

There are a lot of high end pro digi-cams. Canon G7 and Sony RX100 rock the scene with a full 1″ sensor. OMG. But the price tag for such a camera is around $800. That’s a bit steep for my little supplemental point and shoot (P&S). I have my big camera for the heavy lifting. I just want a small P&S that takes good pix when I’m out and not carrying the monster. So below those is a field of 1/1.7″ sensor camera’s that have large aperture f1.7… Canon S120, Lumix LF-1, Sony RX100 (basic), Nikon P340. They each have their individual features… but sit in the same general space +/- $100.

The Sony RX100 is a bit pricey at $500 (and upward from there). The Lumix LF-1 has a view finder, but tends to be soft (blurry) in the corners (and I’m still mad at my Lumix, not sure I can stomach another one). That leaves me with the very capable Nikon P340 and Canon S120. Being a Canon owner, I tend to lean toward that. The Canon S120 is super small (that can be good or bad), but gets great reviews in particular regard toward clarity… the feature most important feature to me. It only has a 5x zoom, which is going back years on my ‘zoom’ front days.. but I may be making the plunge. Hmmmmm….

Make it Blur

Posted on March 5, 2015March 5, 2015 by kritterspaw

I have been taking a Photoshop class, and getting quite the refresher on Blur techniques. I forgot the vast varieties of blurs that exist in Photoshop. So I thought I’d have fun with it, and demonstrate several different blur techniques.

So many of my photos are Wildlife and Landscape. I thought it would be good to use an example of blurring out background distractions… like crowds and people. I solicited my photog friend, MaureenK. MaureenK goes to lots of horse and car shows…. and you can always count of crowds to be present at those types of events. She was willing to let me ‘have my way’ with one of her photos for the sake of my little BLUR exercise. You can see more of MaureenK’s work on Flicker: http://www.flickr.com/photos/kovacs_m/

Here’s her original picture:

First up, I tried a RADIAL BLUR from the Photoshop toolbar, Filter-Blur-Radial Blur:

Then I got creative and used the Filter-Blur Gallery-Pallette Knife, there are so many to choose from.

I got tired of this guy standing next to the horse watching me. So with the power of Photoshop and it’s amazing Content Aware Fill, I selected him with my lasso tool, and deleted him before moving on to my next blur technique.

Then I used the Filter-Blur-Field Blur technique, setting focus pins and blur pins to identify what I wanted in and out of focus. Cool tool.

I had to try the Filter-Oil Paint technique while I was at it, for an interesting artsy look:

And finally, since I was playing. I decided this black horse and rider would be happy going to the beach:

Gotta love Photoshop!

Special thanks to MaureenK for letting me play with her picture.

Print It!

Posted on February 28, 2015February 28, 2015 by kritterspaw

For Christmas I gave gifts that kept on giving… and cost my friend’s money… and a smile.

To a special few, I handed out my own photographs. Not only photos that I took, but that I printed. Who knew printing was it’s own craft and art? I have learned more about ICC (International Color Consortium) profiles, paper types, RGB space, CMYK, Pro Photo and things I’m still learning. I have learned the need for sharpening, adding contrast, and calibrating my monitor to establish a true baseline for my prints. Who knew?

Traditional photo paper is RC, or resin coated paper, and comes in more well known brands and types than you can shake a stick at. But then there’s paper canvas, cotton fiber, and fine art papers that truly make wildlife and textures come alive. There is so much I have learned… and still so much I don’t know.

What I do know is I love my new Epson 3880 Large Format printer. It prints 17″x22″ and below, including the popular 13″x19″ sizes. Even paper sizes are new to me. I feel like I have been living in an alternate universe, one that was devoid of all this depth of knowledge of printing, papers and their new technologies that I was absolutely oblivious to. There may not be enough time left in my life to learn all I have yet to learn.

RAW vs. JPEG

Posted on February 11, 2015February 12, 2015 by kritterspaw

A couple years ago, and more and more serious since, I devoted myself to my photography. I have made a concerted effort to improve my photos, by reading multiple photography books, watching numerous educational videos, practicing lots, and even taking online college courses. I believe I have improved, and it can be seen in my photographs. Since I was a kid I have been into photography, but in truth (particularly now that I look back at those pix) I was never really very good.

Last year, we made the plunge, and I bought my first full frame digital SLR (Canon 5D, Mark III). Prior to that I had a crop camera (Canon 40D, APS-C DSLR), which in effect is a digital SLR with a .6 size sensor to a full size 35mm sensor. The nice thing about the crop camera is that all your pix are 1.6x using crop lenses, thus a 300mm lens yields 1.6x or 480mm. My full frame camera 300mm lens yields 300mm, so if I want 480mm, I have to buy a 500mm lens or use a teleconverter.

But I digress. Once I got a full frame camera, one of the first things one must decide is to shoot RAW or JPEG. It seemed an easy decision for me. I thought, I’m not a professional, I don’t need to shoot RAW. Moreover, RAW had 2 distinct disadvantages that I wasn’t willing to deal with, (1) every single picture I wanted to print, email, post, etc, would have to be manipulated and processed in a photo editing program to add the color, exposure, sharpness, white balance, etc, and (2) each photo would be at least 2 – 3 times the size, requiring a lot more memory to store all these RAW photos. So I choose JPEG, and off I went, satisfied with my decision.

As I have journeyed down this path, my photos have improved. I post my photos on this blog (and my other blogs, www.kritterpaw.com and www.krittersmenu.com), I email them, I enlarge them, and I print them. I have sold a few, and submited a number for publication (still waiting for that one to work out). And I have cropped photos. When you crop a photo you loose a lot of very critical pixels leaving the photo with less integrity and graininess.

The other day I saw the most compelling argument for RAW over JPEG. A JPEG photo has all of 256 bits, while a RAW photo has some 65,000 bits! When I edit and save a JPEG it looses more and more integrity every time I save it. I’m still learning to properly edit my photos, without overdoing it. I can use all the ‘margin’ I can get. And I want to keep the integrity and all it’s pixels in my digital negative.

The irony is… I thought as an amateur, I didn’t need RAW, JPEG was good enough. The truth is, as an amateur I need RAW because I am learning, because it can help make up for poorly exposures pix because RAW retains all the data, and because data lost when editing still leaves crucial data left, even more so than a pro, who knows what he/she’s doing.

Thus… I made the leap, and the switch to RAW.

Of any given shoot, I only ‘keep’ maybe 5 pix for publication. So the editing is minimized to only those keepers… and I have found that those keepers I wound up tweaking, albeit minor, via Photoshop in JPEG anyway. So the editing of RAW photos wasn’t a hardship at all.

As far as the memory, I delete all the RAW files of the non-keepers. But for those great shots, I have digital negatives that are full of information I can tinker with as I see fit to my hearts content without the fear of degrading my files. I’m happy I have the switch, and glad I did it sooner rather than later.

I’ll have more external storage devices as a result of my decision, but fortunately they are cheap enough these days, that it’s not much of a hardship either. Storing a few extra external drives in return for more pixels and integrity in every photo I take (particularly the great ones), is worth the trade-off for me. So win-win in my book.

Shooting Night Balloon Photos

Posted on January 25, 2015January 26, 2015 by kritterspaw

If you looked at my ‘PIX’ posts, you’ll see I just got back from shooting the Havasu Balloon Festival. The festival wasn’t unlike any other festival with its challenges in crowds of people and harsh light once the sun was up. So I tried to take my photos early morning and late evening. The balloon festival has great night glow shots with flaming up the balloons that make it a great photographic opportunity… and challenge. I normally shoot Aperture Priority, which gives me creative control over the depth of field in my photos. So for the balloon shoot, knowing that I was in low light conditions I shot f4.0 on my 28-105mm to maximize the light entering my camera, at a ISO1600. Unfortunately, hind sight is 20 / 20, but I did learn what to do / or not do next time. So I thought I’d share my learnings. Even though I shoot Aperture Priority, for my next balloon shoot, I’ll shoot Program mode. I know, for a serious photographer this seems blasphemy. Though considering that the balloon heaters are only on for like 3 seconds, it’s hard to note your settings, and make adjustments in that time. Granted you could check your settings on one blast, adjust, and wait for the next blast to snap the photo. But by setting it on Program you can let your sophisticated camera do the thinking in this particularly challenging situation, and concentrate on composition. I also noticed that where you take the exposure reading is crucial. I like to black out the background so that you can cut the clutter of the crowds out and the distracting background. So by taking your exposure reading off the very bright burner blast, you blacken out everything else… as in the picture below. Finally, I did minor adjustments in Photoshop Camera Raw. Worth noting, though, is on the left side of the photograph was a persons head. I used a brush in Camera Raw set on max shadow (dark) and max exposure (dark), and painted black over the head and around the outside of the balloon to clean up any distracting bits. I left the expressions, hand movements and glow on the faces directly surrounding the balloon glow, leaving a story telling photo.