Tuesday, June 03, 2014
Thursday, April 24, 2014
Tuesday, April 15, 2014
Friday, March 28, 2014
Saturday, March 22, 2014
Saturday, June 23, 2012
Ghosts
During today's floral shoot my first shot was this buttonhole
It might look OK but on closer inspection the edges of the petals (especially noticeable on the inner most petals) had a ghost image...
It might look OK but on closer inspection the edges of the petals (especially noticeable on the inner most petals) had a ghost image...
I had the camera on a tripod, shooting with a cable, mirror up, indoors, no movement. The exposure was 2 seconds using flash plus two continuous lights on the background.
The 2 second exposure was to get the background ambient-light closer to white, the flash should make the subject exposure about 1/700 sec. If I shot at 1/160 the ghost went away.
It had me foxed for a while, head scratching, trying to figure out where the ghost came from.
Solution: I am using a tripod and I had forgotten to turn off the lens Image Stabiliser. I have read that IS can generate image movement when the camera is on a tripod; I would usually switch it off but often forgot and had never noticed it before.
I find it interesting that the ghost was only noticeable when I had a long exposure, perhaps that was why I had not seen it before.
Specifications: Canon 5DMkII and Canon 24-105L IS lens at 105mm, f/22, ISO 100
Thursday, June 14, 2012
Monday, June 11, 2012
Irene Froy - Pastels
Yesterday I attended an interesting presentation by Irene Froy, "Pastels and More". Irene talked us through a collection of prints and walked - ran :-) - through the Photoshop process of several of the images turning them from straight prints to pastel, dream-like prints.
Today I started experimenting with her techniques for pastel images. Initial results below, Clearly I need to put in a lot more work.
Irene explained that the initial image should not be too contrasty, the flatter the better (mist and rain are good.) Being a fair-weather photographer I don't have too many of these to work with so did the best I could.
I have created my masks quickly as this is only an initial experiment to accustom me to the techniques, these are not meant to be final images or even the images I would use in anger. I would need to take images specifically with the end result in mind.
Click any image to view larger.
Please visit Irene's web site for examples of how this technique should be done.
Today I started experimenting with her techniques for pastel images. Initial results below, Clearly I need to put in a lot more work.
Irene explained that the initial image should not be too contrasty, the flatter the better (mist and rain are good.) Being a fair-weather photographer I don't have too many of these to work with so did the best I could.
I have created my masks quickly as this is only an initial experiment to accustom me to the techniques, these are not meant to be final images or even the images I would use in anger. I would need to take images specifically with the end result in mind.
Click any image to view larger.
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| Original |
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| Result |
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| Original |
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| Result |
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| Original |
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| Result |
Please visit Irene's web site for examples of how this technique should be done.
Saturday, March 17, 2012
Wedding Promotion
Wedding Promotion
Sweet Rose Floral Designer and Veedub (VW Occassion Hire) were holding a wedding promotion event in Bedford (UK) this weekend.
It was a little cold, overcast and damp. I took a few photos for them first thing this morning. Cropping close to avoid the clutter around their stand.
Sweet Rose Floral Designer and Veedub (VW Occassion Hire) were holding a wedding promotion event in Bedford (UK) this weekend.
It was a little cold, overcast and damp. I took a few photos for them first thing this morning. Cropping close to avoid the clutter around their stand.
Tuesday, March 13, 2012
Forget Mugshots - Book Review
Forget Mugshots - David Duchemin
David, with this book, continues to enlighten and encourage
photographers in the art of portraiture. In over 30 pages he covers 10 topics
to help everyone improve their pictures.
His topics include relating to the subject, the moment, the
lens, multiple frames, how to identify a genuine smile, eyes, light,
backgrounds, positions and posing. Anecdotes are carefully chosen to not only be
interesting but also to reinforce each point.
With each topic David describes how to approach and accomplish
this point, some inspiring example images, example settings and a creative
exercise. The book can be read again and again and with these exercises can be
used as a practical teacher, reinforcing what you have just learned.
If you are already an accomplished portrait photographer you
may not learn many new things although the book can still be an enjoyable read.
Raw beginners will want to start with an easier book as here David assumes you already
know how to use your camera. For everyone else I would be very surprised if
this book did not earn its keep.
For less than the price of a typical monthly photographic magazine
this book is amazing value for money. The e-book sells for $5
Thursday, September 10, 2009
Near Disaster
The Shoot
Subject
Wedding flower arrangements. Arrangements made on Friday, photographed Friday evening in studio, delivered to wedding Saturday morning. No chance to repeat shoot. Client attended shoot.
Set-up
White backdrop, lit by 2x500w cool lamps. Strobe and reflector on subject.
Canon camera, tethered to laptop (old, XP) running Canon Remote software. Laptop networked to desktop (XP) in next room. Desktop running Microsoft Folder Sync (Powertoy) to sync the laptop and desktop folders (only downloading new/changed files.) Lightroom to import new files and review.
Workflow
Take several pictures of an arrangement using remote control from laptop. The images are not saved on camera card but in laptop. Use laptop for basic control and focus checking.
Move to desktop. Sync folders. Import into Lightroom. Review batch in LR. If OK move onto next arrangement and start process again.
Feel safe, two copies of each image; one on laptop and one on desktop.
Hiccup
Half way through shoot the laptop switched itself off, then back on and rebooted itself (has not done that before, no reason could be seen.) Everything seemed to be OK, continue session.
Shoot complete
Everyone happy, client takes flowers away to deliver to wedding client. I leave the post processing for Saturday morning.
Post Processing and Disaster
Open LR and review all shots. DISASTER! half the images are missing. It transpires all of the images taken before the laptop re-booted are missing from the Desktop. How can that be? They were there last night. Look on laptop, same problem. The missing images are not to be found on either computer.
Consider what has happened. On each import into LR we only check the most recent batch - LR defaults to this by showing just the Previous Import. I had assumed that the previous batches would still be in the main folder as usual, I never actually checked this.
But why did it not work?
Remote shooting numbers the images, starting from one, as they are taken and saved. It does not use the camera numbering. I believe the laptop reboot caused the Canon Remote software to reset the image number back to one. From that moment each picture would have had the same filename/number as an earlier shot. The software simply overwrote the earlier shot without warning.
When I synched the laptop and desktop folders the same thing happened, the file had changed so it overwrote the earlier image with that file name. LR only uses the files it finds in the folder so effectively it also did the same thing.
Lucky Recovery
I tried the Recycle bin and other obvious checks but was unable to locate the missing files.
Finally the situation was saved and the images recovered. In fact I found I could recover the lost images in either of two ways. One way was down to luck and the other I learned by trying something unexpected.
1. Before I discovered item (2) below I had checked the memory card in the camera. It had been re-formatted before I started the session and, as expected, was almost empty, it had just one or two shots that I had taken untethered. The camera does not save images to the card when in tethered mode; or so the manual says.
In desperation I ran the San-Disk image recovery software against the card and it found all of the images from the whole evening. It would seem the camera does save the image on the card then it must delete it after it has been uploaded to the laptop. However the deleted file is not overwritten by the next image; instead, I guess, it continues to create then delete files using the "empty" data sectors on the card. Although I assume that if the card became full it would start re-using the old data sectors this was not the case here. The card was large enough to hold all of the images from the session.
2. Also by luck earlier in the day I had experimented with LR auto-import. This did not seem that useful to me in this situation so I decided to manually import the images instead. By accident I had left auto-import switched on and it had quietly imported each new image from the synched folder into my earlier test folder on the desktop. This LR auto-import had the good sense not to overwrite a file when the content changed but the file name was the same. Instead it created a new file with a new name (adding "-2" to the filename.)
Thus I was able to recover the missing files from the card and, as it happens, also from the auto-import folder.
Lessons Learned
1. Beware Canon Remote software, it can happen that files get overwritten
2. Beware Folder Synch utilities, they can overwrite your files
3. The Canon DSLR does write images to the card, albeit they are deleted again
4. These non-existent (deleted) images can be recovered
5. Regularly check LR folders to ensure the old images still exist.
Subject
Wedding flower arrangements. Arrangements made on Friday, photographed Friday evening in studio, delivered to wedding Saturday morning. No chance to repeat shoot. Client attended shoot.
Set-up
White backdrop, lit by 2x500w cool lamps. Strobe and reflector on subject.
Canon camera, tethered to laptop (old, XP) running Canon Remote software. Laptop networked to desktop (XP) in next room. Desktop running Microsoft Folder Sync (Powertoy) to sync the laptop and desktop folders (only downloading new/changed files.) Lightroom to import new files and review.
Workflow
Take several pictures of an arrangement using remote control from laptop. The images are not saved on camera card but in laptop. Use laptop for basic control and focus checking.
Move to desktop. Sync folders. Import into Lightroom. Review batch in LR. If OK move onto next arrangement and start process again.
Feel safe, two copies of each image; one on laptop and one on desktop.
Hiccup
Half way through shoot the laptop switched itself off, then back on and rebooted itself (has not done that before, no reason could be seen.) Everything seemed to be OK, continue session.
Shoot complete
Everyone happy, client takes flowers away to deliver to wedding client. I leave the post processing for Saturday morning.
Post Processing and Disaster
Open LR and review all shots. DISASTER! half the images are missing. It transpires all of the images taken before the laptop re-booted are missing from the Desktop. How can that be? They were there last night. Look on laptop, same problem. The missing images are not to be found on either computer.
Consider what has happened. On each import into LR we only check the most recent batch - LR defaults to this by showing just the Previous Import. I had assumed that the previous batches would still be in the main folder as usual, I never actually checked this.
But why did it not work?
Remote shooting numbers the images, starting from one, as they are taken and saved. It does not use the camera numbering. I believe the laptop reboot caused the Canon Remote software to reset the image number back to one. From that moment each picture would have had the same filename/number as an earlier shot. The software simply overwrote the earlier shot without warning.
When I synched the laptop and desktop folders the same thing happened, the file had changed so it overwrote the earlier image with that file name. LR only uses the files it finds in the folder so effectively it also did the same thing.
Lucky Recovery
I tried the Recycle bin and other obvious checks but was unable to locate the missing files.
Finally the situation was saved and the images recovered. In fact I found I could recover the lost images in either of two ways. One way was down to luck and the other I learned by trying something unexpected.
1. Before I discovered item (2) below I had checked the memory card in the camera. It had been re-formatted before I started the session and, as expected, was almost empty, it had just one or two shots that I had taken untethered. The camera does not save images to the card when in tethered mode; or so the manual says.
In desperation I ran the San-Disk image recovery software against the card and it found all of the images from the whole evening. It would seem the camera does save the image on the card then it must delete it after it has been uploaded to the laptop. However the deleted file is not overwritten by the next image; instead, I guess, it continues to create then delete files using the "empty" data sectors on the card. Although I assume that if the card became full it would start re-using the old data sectors this was not the case here. The card was large enough to hold all of the images from the session.
2. Also by luck earlier in the day I had experimented with LR auto-import. This did not seem that useful to me in this situation so I decided to manually import the images instead. By accident I had left auto-import switched on and it had quietly imported each new image from the synched folder into my earlier test folder on the desktop. This LR auto-import had the good sense not to overwrite a file when the content changed but the file name was the same. Instead it created a new file with a new name (adding "-2" to the filename.)
Thus I was able to recover the missing files from the card and, as it happens, also from the auto-import folder.
Lessons Learned
1. Beware Canon Remote software, it can happen that files get overwritten
2. Beware Folder Synch utilities, they can overwrite your files
3. The Canon DSLR does write images to the card, albeit they are deleted again
4. These non-existent (deleted) images can be recovered
5. Regularly check LR folders to ensure the old images still exist.
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