Nov 11, 2009 | Field Reports
Sharon & I spent most of the day in meetings, really good, productive meetings so when got out, we felt like celebrating. Our dear friend Jeff Snyder (of Adorama) called and said lets do dinner so happily, off we went. What a great dinner (thanks Jeff!!!!) Now the day started with my trying to get out of the city that was mostly shut down, rightly so, for the Veteran’s Day Parade (sorry we missed that). Well, to make a long story short, we got back to our room to see the Empire State Bldg decked out for the tribute. So I had to photograph it.
[swf]http://www.moosepeterson.com/swf_imgs/_BMP0075.swf, 444, 585 [/swf]
This is a hand held shot at ISO 1600, 1/90 of a sec. I’m in play mode which is why I cranked up the ISO, something I never do. While in that mode, I wanted to finish a photo I started in my mind last night of roof top ghosts.
[swf]http://www.moosepeterson.com/swf_imgs/_BMP0106.swf, 444, 585 [/swf]
This is a ISO 1600, 1/4sec exposure of the roof top outside our window. See the roof top ghosts? Pretty cool, huh! The image is tack sharp yet the ghost’s movements are blurred in the exposure. What the hell? This is a single image capture. See if you can figure out what’s going on, took me 24hrs to make it work. Oh yeah, be sure to check out the capture info. MTC.
Photos captured by D3s, 70-200VRII on Lexar UDMA digital film
Nov 11, 2009 | Field Reports
Ida is coming to NY, projected for hitting Friday when I was so looking forward to photographing birds at Jamaica Bay (wind puts birds down so it kills photography). So we went to Plan B, which to be honest with you, excites me just as much. We’re going to walk the Brooklyn Bridge and work D.U.M.B.O. I’ve always, always wanted to do that so can’t wait. We do have a couple of spots available so if you want to come, please, we’d love to have you so give Adorama a call. But wait, I have more!
[SWF]http://www.moosepeterson.com/swf_imgs/nycdm3.swf, 585, 466 [/SWF]
Now here’s the deal I’m offering you folks. We’re going to have a little photo contest. We’ll give you all the details on Friday, but you all win first because your images will be featured on the Adorama website. One person in particular though will be a big winner. We are offering the best photo shot on Firday (picked by me) a full paid tuition to one of our DLWS event ($1000 value) of your choice. I want to really push you which pushes me shooting Friday and willing to pay you to push me. How’s that for a deal?
We start at one of my favorite places, Chamber Street Sub station and then it just get’s better. Hope you can join us!
Nov 10, 2009 | Field Reports
Howdy all! As we start our last big teaching session of the fall season, folks are calling to find out what’s available as they plan their 2010 photographic outings. We have a few on the calendar but we just can’t keep up to date what’s what so here’s the scorecard.
07 Dec Base Camp Bosque – full
10 Jan DLWS San Fransicao – full (can get on waiting list)
18 Jan Yellowstone Adventure – full
07 March Santa Fe DLWS – full (can get on waiting list)
15 March Base Camp Florida – 2 opening
09 May DLWS Moab – full (can get on waiting list)
09 June Base Camp Texas – full (can get on waiting list)
We will be announcing our spring Eastern Sierra Adventure shortly. If you’re interested in attending, you can email and we are happy to notify you before it goes live on the web. I truly look forward to shooting with you and sharing what I’ve been fortunate to learn over the years.
Nov 9, 2009 | Field Reports
That’s been a popular question today. Since day 1, the 50f1.4 has been a 52mm filter size so it’s not too much of a stretch to think the basic optical formula hasn’t changed much. And as such, the 50f1.4 up to the AFS model has been a solid performer. Now the 50f1.4AFS has a 58mm filter size. Yeah, the optical formula has been changed and whatever mods they made in that redesign makes this “normal” lens a stand out.
There is the “sweet spot” contingency out there that with their charts do show very accurately that lenses tend to have one f/stop that is sharper than the rest. Guess what, I never even take that into consideration. Most folks destroy more image quality by their post processing then they might have ever gained by using the “sweet spot.” With that said, I own fast lenses like the 50f1.4 AFS to shoot them wide open. The 50f1.4AFS performs beautifully wide open, hence it’s in the camera bag. This next week shooting in NY, you’ll see what I’m referring to.
So the difference in the 50f1.4AFS, a whole new optical design and it’s a sweetie!
Nov 7, 2009 | Field Reports
It would seem that all the lighthouse images struck a cord with some folks. They’ve taken the time to look back at all of the ones I’ve posted on the blog over the years. It seems to have spurred on one common question. “How’d you capture that light?” In order to “see” the beam of light from a lighthouse it has to be dark and there has to be some sort of atmospheric condition like fog in order to see the beam. Making the photograph under those conditions adds a whole other layer of complexity on capturing that light. But without that light, it’s just a house. A lighthouse needs a light!
[swf]http://www.moosepeterson.com/swf_imgs/BPLH660.swf, 585, 444 [/swf]
So the beam of light might be believable in this image, but it surely isn’t possible in the conditions in the image above. “Seeing” the light beam at sunset just ain’t going to happen. That means only one thing, the light beam was created in the digital darkroom. I don’t have the time right now to create a video to show you how to create the beam but I do have the instructions written down. Here you go, have fun!
During our Oregon Coast DLWS event, I was challenged by the Coquille River Lighthouse because it’s one of these historic lighthouses with no light. In the process of putting a light in the lighthouse, I challenged Joe Sliger of Wacom Technologies to come up with the ultimate technique for adding a light. This technique I’m sharing with you is my modified version of Joe’s original technique. The credit for this properly goes to Joe (thanks Joe!).
With our image loaded in CS4, the first thing we need to deal with is noise. It’s going to be there, no doubt and removing it is a snap (Ctrl/Cmd+Space Bar, zoom in on the roof of the lighthouse/sky and you’ll see the noise). Personally, I’ll remove the noise via Nik’s Dfine 2.0 (Filter>Dfine 2.0). That quickly deals with any noise issue without removing any detail from my image. Next, I’m going to sharpen for content via High Pass (Ctrl/Cmd J >Blending Mode Overlay>Filter>Other>High Pass>3.0) and then I’m ready for the actual technique.
We need to start with our light. What Joe figured out was a really cool way to make use of Lens Flare. Head to Filter>Render>Lens Flare. You can truly create the light that fits your image’s mood. My general preference is Brightness of 35% and the 105mm Prime flare. Once you’ve dialed in those two ingredients, center the light as best you can on the lighthouse. If it’s not exact, it’s not a problem as we’ll make it perfect in a second. Click OK and you’ll see the Lens Flare appear in your image.
We need to remove the lens flare we just created because as is, we have no control over it (if you’re using Photoshop, you’ve gotta have control, right?) Ctrl/Cmd Z. We’re now going to create a layer for our Lens Flare to live on so Layer >New>Layer or Shift+Ctrl/Cmd+N or click on the New Layer icon at the bottom of the Layers Panel. We now need to fill the layer with gray so Edit>Fill>50% Gray (from drop down menu under content) or Shift F5. Now Crtl/Cmd F to run the Lens Flare filter you just created. You’ll now see the flare you created and have complete control over it.
At this point, I like to paint out the flare elements I don’t want in my photo. These are the colored orbs off some distance from the center of the main lens flare. Select a soft edge brush, click on your foreground color to bring up the Color Picker and in the HSB set the B to 50%. Set your opacity to 100% and paint out the flare. Now, if you’re not sure in the beginning what flare to keep and what to discard, you can skip this step and simply use a layer mask later on to remove unwanted flare. Change the Blending Mode for this new layer to Hard Light and all you see in your image is the flare you just created, the beginning of your light.
At this point, you can stop and say you’re finished. If you were to capture the lighthouse light coming straight at the lens, this is generally what you’d capture. If you want to have the beam of the lighthouse, we need to do a couple more steps.
Grab your Marquee Tool (tap M key) and draw a box around your light. We now want to inverse our selection Select>Inverse of Shift+Ctrl/Cmd+I. Then tap the delete key. Reverse the selection with Shift+Ctrl/Cmd+I. This makes it easier to manipulate the light in the next step. At this point, make your image smaller with Ctr/Cmd+- so we can stretch out our light.
Your selection is still active from the last step. Now we’re going to use Free Transform Ctrl/Cmd T to stretch our light. You’re going to stretch a WHOLE lot! Once you have your light stretched to taste, enlarge the image so you can move the light so that the bright center is over the light of the lighthouse. Since we’ve put this in its own layer, you can always fine tune the placement of the light with the Move tool later.
At this point, add a Layer Mask to the light layer. With a soft edge brush, 100% opacity and painting with black, paint out the elements of the light you don’t want. Remember, it’s a layer so you can modify the light any time, any way you like. For example, if the light is too bright, just lower the layer’s opacity.
The more of these you do, the more creative you will become. For example, I like to add a little warmth to the lighthouse by selecting just it and with Nik Color Efex 3.0 Skylight filter, warm it up a tad. You can also work the direction of the light by photographing the lighthouse so it fills the frame a little more than this example and putting it lower in the frame, then using Perspective when doing your Free Transform, you can have the light look like it’s about to hit you rather than just heading out to sea.
Nov 6, 2009 | Field Reports
Sharon & I have been on the road since the 15th of Sept and now being home for a couple of days, been slamming and jamming to get things caught up. That includes uploading to the network and backing up the 387GB of images captured since the 15th of Sept, getting 29 prints out (glad others like lighthouses too) and all sorts of other “stuff” done just so we can leave the office again and not feeling guilty for letting Nancy deal with all the rest. In that process of getting images moved over, I’m seeing things I said I would post but never have. So, going to try to get that caught up as well.
[swf]http://www.moosepeterson.com/swf_imgs/_BMP0765.swf, 585, 444 [/swf]
This is from the PSW Vegas Photo Safari lighting class. Lanette was such a good sport to let me use her as a light palette as we talked about flash. In this first photograph, the SB-900 inside a Lastolite EzyBox is about 12′ away from her. Look at the shadows under her face.
[swf]http://www.moosepeterson.com/swf_imgs/_BMP0771.swf, 444, 585 [/swf]
So now we’ve cut the distance in half, the flash now just five feet away from Lanette. Notice how the light is better, shadow not so hard under her face and little better wrap. But we can do better.
[swf]http://www.moosepeterson.com/swf_imgs/_BMP0790.swf, 585, 444 [/swf]
Now the flash is just out of the frame camera right. The EzyBox is actually resting on the shade of the 24-70AFS. Notice how her face has changed with the three lighting distances with this final image having the nicest wrap around coming from a light course that is much larger now that it is so close. This was all in prelude to the “real” shoot where we produced this image.
[swf]http://www.moosepeterson.com/swf_imgs/_BMP0814.swf, 585, 444 [/swf]
There was no “teaching” in this lighting other than those techniques used to make the image. The stage is pretty simple. Lanette is looking saucy and distant from the poor field hand Lane who has come in from a hard day’s work. At least, that’s the lame story I gave these two talented models to help them “get in the mood.” The light is pretty simple. Lanette has a SB-900 with 1/2 CTO pushing through a EzyBox. Lane is another SB-900 pushing through a 1/2 CTO and Honl 1/8 grid spot. All being driven by the SU-800. The mind twist for the folks learning was the fact the camera body is set to -4 exp comp! Why? The sky, I didn’t want washed out, no apparent sunset. I wanted, well, what you see and to get that, I simply underexposed it to submission. The flashes were set to +2 and everything else just feel into place from there. It was great fun and hopefully more folks will pull out their flash and play a little more with this creative light source.
Well, I’ve gotta get back to work. Have a great weekend and expose some pixels for me!
