Help with technical stuff

As I have needed help with the technical stuff I bought this magazine which has been helpful.  In the back it has a cd which although did not work with my ps6 still gave me a hint at how to do things, specifically layering techniques and help me work out what to look for on you tube.  Its also helped to cement some of the lingo.

 

This book came with my camera and offers different advise to the magazine.  A uni student wrote it after he had done photography and it is nice and basic for a beginner.  It comes with me when I go out shooting.

 

 

PS practice

 

 

 

 

 

Working my way through excercises not able to manage in class.  I didn't have the space background so I just used the sea scape from our first assignment.



 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Some digital artists from spoongraphics - Pawel Nolbert

://blog.spoongraphic s.co.uk/articles/20http-amazing-digital-artists-to-follow-on-behance

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 





        ARTIST
    Pawel Nolbert

Images digitally enhanced. Mixture of illustration and photography.   Different subjects.
I really like the colours and imagination used.

Practicing Vignette

As with everything, I had trouble  learning vignette in class, but some practice at home helped to work it out.  I wish these photos were not blurry.  They were some of the first ones I took with my new camera so I have used them for practice.  I adjusted the focus manually, and will do automatically from now on.  They were also over exposed  and the sky was blown out as it was an overcast day.  Settings at f.4.5, shutter speed 1/60 and iso100.

Dark vignette

Light vignette

 



 

Dark vignette

Ball of LIght

I was very impresed with the ball of light series with Denis Smith (I think) Bryce presented and have had another look.. It clearly shows the science behind photography and the dedication of the artist to persue this technique until it has become a speciality.  I can almost see him in there, that little bit of white in the middle.  I love the night time photographs that have the stars in them, to be able to capture those is so totally cool.

 Balls of Light by Denis Smith

Here is one of my tries of light photography, before I knew what it was... taken on a Nintendo DS about 2 years ago on New Years Eve.  It is obviously not art, but it is effective - in my humble opinion.

With a bit of further research I found this website which gives in depth tutorials for understanding and creating light ball art.

Ive copied and pasted some non too technical jargon for a start, but have had a good look through the site itself.

 

I particularly like how Steinberger often has many light balls  of varying colours in the photograph which I believe would be due to different light sources.

 

 

http://500px.com/blog/156/how-to-paint-a-ball-of-light

 

Tutorial: How To Paint A Ball Of Light

Published by Debs Slater · June 27th 2012

Tutorial is courtesy of Richard Steinberger who often paints orbs into his images and was generous to share his tips & tricks with us.

Balls and Creek

Richard Steinberger

63.6

Buy CanvasDownload

Light Balls in the Valley

Richard Steinberger

51.8

Buy CanvasDownload

Colored Balls of Light in the Snow

Richard Steinberger

68.7

 

A Ball Of Light Painting

So, what is this "ball of light," and how can you create one? The simple answer: light painting. And it can be done in different ways. The most popular way is to take a light source, put it on a string that you swing around in a circle with your hand while rotating your body in its own circle (making sure that the lowest point of the circle is always in the same place). I've seen varying forms of this done; from LEDs connected by wires to a battery pack, to flashlights tied to a rope. I've never cared too much for doing it this way; it doesn't seem very exact, and quite frankly, it's a lot of work.
I figured it would be much more practical to put daylight-balanced LEDs on a 5-foot pole that's fastened with a bolt to a second pole that's resting vertically on the ground. You can then move the 5-foot pole in the needed circle and, to suit your purposes, you can vary your turning speed and the angles of your lights to the camera. It's also a lot easier on the wrists!

Great Advice

When setting out to shoot balls of light, and when light painting in general, you should wear black clothing otherwise you risk showing up as a ghost in your image. As the camera can only record light, your chances of appearing in your photo are reduced greatly by wearing black.
In addition, a full moon offers the best opportunity to shoot a ball of light; it will allow you to see the surrounding area in the final image. Depending on how long your exposure is, your image might even look as if it was taken in the daytime.

Panorama, 2nd, 3rd...........6th attempt and Im finally finished..... woo hoo.....

It took a LOT of mucking around but  I now know how to:

•  enlarge and shrink images the hard way ( just found the easy way right now whilst looking through some notes...
• change colours (well, try) to fit different photographs taken in different light levels...
• use the magic wand, although it did not work at all well with the crowd scenes as it just replicated heads, showing very obvious doubles.
• mirror photographs so I can fill in crowds with extra pictures as the content aware feature did not work with such a busy panorama, at least not with someone with so little experience.
• work out in which order to layer photographs so I can get them in the correct position without other pieces overlapping.
• merging, as I repeated the process A LOT because I kept stuffing up.

Sonya and I worked together for this assignment although we each finished a photograph solo.  Her vision was to leave the photographs with the light as it was in the hall whereas I prefered the result once saturation levels were increased.  I felt that both photographs should be similar in tone, so have left the colour as it was to match the pic Sonya has been working on.  Overall, i was happy with the end result...as far as a novice goes.

I plan to make a panorama of my brothers property and Worlds End Creek in the near future... just because they are my favourite places on Earth AND  NOW I CAN!

Rollerderby Panorama - 1st attempt

 

Bout 2 in roller derby was on the weekend.  I've been before, the game is sometimes boring but is ok, more importantly  the atmosphere is lotsa fun. Sonya had not been and was interested... soooo, what a great topic for our panaorama assignment. Wild Hearses v Mile Die Club.  Im a Salty Dolls gal, but Im going for the orange and black tonight, they were up to some crazy antics... and the purple and orange made for vivd, eye catching colours.

I forgot how to stitch pics together, thank goodness for you tube...I was able to stitch, but the magic wand would not work... it kept saying cant do over multiple images...  need to work on that
need to work on:

•  magic wand to fill in the bottom of pics...
• erase stitch lines out...
• create a higher saturation level of colour... first or after?

Anyway, this is where it is at the moment... it is a start...

Im excited.  It is going to work after all.  I took ages walking around the stadium taking different photos, trying to work out the best way to do things... Playing with different shutter speeds and iso settings.  I  like the result, but I might try next time to get the crowd focused and the skaters a blur.