fritzified.com » Tips in Photography http://fritzified.com Thu, 17 Nov 2011 20:09:50 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 In Photos: Two Eclipses and a January http://fritzified.com/2010/01/16/photos-of-two-eclipses-in-january-2010/ http://fritzified.com/2010/01/16/photos-of-two-eclipses-in-january-2010/#comments Fri, 15 Jan 2010 17:12:17 +0000 Fritz http://fritzified.com/?p=2706

This much I know when attempting to photograph an eclipse, be it lunar or solar: my first few attempts will always end up a failure. See that post-header image? Got that this at around past 5 in the afternoon on 01.15.2010 when I hoped for a decent shot of the solar eclipse. Shooting earlier would have ended in failure because those blasted clouds decided to block the sun. Way to go, clouds!

Failed eclipse shot, gained sunset shot.

(Click on image for a larger view)

I rushed to another office window to get a clear view of the sun minus the metal obstructions and got depressed because no matter what setting I use on the Lumix ZS3, I still couldn’t get a decent shot. What followed was an idea I got when I was still in school: get a micro floppy disc, tear it open, and get the magnetic film inside and use that to filter the brightness that’s too much for the camera’s sensor. I got excited when, finally, I got this (pardon the digital noise):

(Click on image for a larger view)

I did my best but it ain’t good enough and so I tried to get another shot but was already too late. The sun has already set. :(

I used the full zoom (12x optical) and tweaked the following with the dial on “normal picture” mode (limited manual):

ISO Sensitivity: Auto
AF: 1-point
Pre-AF: Continuous AF
Metering Mode: Spot
Intelligent Exposure: On
Stabilizer: Mode 2
Min. Shutter Speed: 1/8

Coincidentally, I just discovered that I used almost the same settings in getting this Lunar Eclipse shot on January 1, 2010 (save for the Min. Shutter Speed factor which I set to 1/60 for this photo):

(Click on image for a larger view)

Compact point-and-shoot cameras win at life. See those lines? Fuckit, I never thought that those can be captured, either. You may see the images of my first two failed attempts for the lunar eclipse in this flickr page.

Gloat factor: these images were not enhanced/post-processed, save for the in-camera cropping and/or resizing.

]]> http://fritzified.com/2010/01/16/photos-of-two-eclipses-in-january-2010/feed/ 1 A Must-Have Travel Photographer’s Handbook http://fritzified.com/2009/09/20/a-must-have-travel-photographers-handbook/ http://fritzified.com/2009/09/20/a-must-have-travel-photographers-handbook/#comments Sat, 19 Sep 2009 18:13:34 +0000 Fritz http://fritzified.com/?p=2283

At 9 p.m. today, I made a rush to make a last hour purchase of UNO’s September 2009 issue and some construction paper for Bong and Maro‘s causes. I got inside the Powerplant Mall and into National Bookstore with some time to spare before the mall closes for the day. Immediately to the right of NBS’ entrance, I noticed a table stacked with photography books all marked down to 80% of the cover price (20% off).

Since they are photography books, they are all still sort of expensive. Most of them are geared towards the general use of DSLRs, while some are for specific brands and models. I suddenly realized that even if I get to find something I like, my purchasing power for the night is capped at P720 and some loose change (for jeepney fare) since I left my wallet at home on purpose (I was wearing shorts with no back pocket is why). I was about to go to the counter with my UNO and construction paper in hand when I chanced upon this handy, little book:

Front


Back


The Photographer’s Field Guide (192 pages) by Michael Freeman, who travels a lot and does photography for a living, is not as costly as the other books, at P423.25 (originally at P529). It has tips on right about everything and presented in a concise way, lined with photos to illustrate the author’s idea better, as necessary. When I said “everything,” I really meant EVERYTHING. Below’s a shot of the table of contents (do click on the image to enlarge for a more readable text).

I’ll make it a point to read this through and over again and bring it whenever I go on trips. The cover may say “the essential book for traveling and your digital SLR camera” and that I may not have an SLR, but tips on lighting and composition are universal. In fact, I already got an idea of how to make people “disappear” from a famous tourist destination in my future final photographs. A steal for the price, too (I bet this will cost more from other local bookstores even without the discount).

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]]> http://fritzified.com/2009/09/20/a-must-have-travel-photographers-handbook/feed/ 6 Gorillaz CMYK Vinyl Figures in Concert! LOL http://fritzified.com/2009/06/29/gorillaz-cmyk-vinyl-figures-in-concert-lol/ http://fritzified.com/2009/06/29/gorillaz-cmyk-vinyl-figures-in-concert-lol/#comments Sun, 28 Jun 2009 16:15:16 +0000 Fritz http://fritzified.com/?p=1763

Instead of just shooting the new toys the “usual, boring way,” (i.e. with them in the box, out of the box, and propped on a shelf or on the table) I picked my brain for a comp to make this photo set more dramatic and edgy. I wanted to make do a concert scene but all I have is my caving light and I won’t be arsed to create a makeshift concert stage from scratch. And then, after a glass of ice cold Coke, a brilliant idea it hit me!

Since the caving lights (a 21 LED contraption running on 3 AAA batteries) can already serve as a spot light, all I had to do was find backdrops. I searched my photo archives for concert shots (some of the stuff I used I got from the net, tee hee), had the images brightened/saturated then blurred to achieve a depth of field vibe, ran the images on a slide show using MS PowerPoint, had the Gorillaz statuettes stand in front of my LCD monitor, experimented with the LED by lighting up the toys from different angles, and VOILA, I can haz a concert scene in the comfort of my own home!

Try this technique out yourself! Experiment with an outdoorsy background or the beach, the bedroom, a dungeon, anything to serve your purpose if you need to take photos of small objects like toys but you want your shots to look extraordinary. The possibilities are endless!

The shitty thing, however, is I had no choice but to do post processing since the quality of the photos (read, digital noise all over) took a toll from the low and selectively focused lighting.

Here they are, the Gorillaz during a “concert” here at home. Snooty, huh?! LOL Click on the images for a larger view and hover your mouse on them for the caption.

More photos after the jump.

More photos of the band in action in this flickr set.

]]> http://fritzified.com/2009/06/29/gorillaz-cmyk-vinyl-figures-in-concert-lol/feed/ 12 iBlog5: PhotoBlogging Discussion Complement http://fritzified.com/2009/05/13/iblog5-photoblogging-discussion-complement/ http://fritzified.com/2009/05/13/iblog5-photoblogging-discussion-complement/#comments Wed, 13 May 2009 07:31:58 +0000 Fritz http://fritzified.com/?p=1594

Cramming in what I, together with Faith,  have solicited/compiled as hopefully relevant points for the “Photo Blogging 101″ session during iBlog5 proved to be more of a chore than I expected. I sounded like a nervous wreck (pfffft! Pampasira sa image shet! LOL).  For one, we were so pressed for time up there that we only later on realized that we skipped some important points that we wished to give out. Not having slept the night before can do that to you. Revising the presentation slides to the way it finally looked, looking for (fully attributed) photo samples to support the pointers we shared the night before in an attempt at perfection, and putting on a helm of authority over an audience of talented, passionate, and probably more adept populace added to the pressure. Yay! An excuse, I think I haz it!

That alibi didn’t work now, did it? Boo me! Thanks for bearing with us me but we hope you at least got even just one take away from the 20 minutes we had with you.

Let me share here some other points in our agenda that we meant to put across. You may consider this as more of a complement than the main talk:

Food Photography: Natural light is still way up there in the best-in-bringing-out-the-”delicious”-in-food- photographs section. As a light reflector, I got this tip from a food magazine way back, you may use a white plate (or bond paper) to bounce off light to illuminate a shadowed area of your subject. Do not use flash (or at least do not use the flash that comes with a point and shoot camera) or flash light unless it’s an emergency situation (or unless you have a DSLR with a light diffuser and fully manually adjustable settings). If the event is at night, come back during daytime. Doing so will also give you twice the basis for an opinion on the food you are reviewing (IF you are reviewing food).

Event Photography: publish/show more photos of the main subject of the event and less of the people attending the event on a blog post. This will make your accompanying photo more relevant and useful for visitors who would want reference on the product or service you featured.

Composition:  if you intend to take closer photographs, abuse the macro function of your cam and see to it that the focus is on the part of the object you want to highlight for the shot (like the eyes or face of a person, for example). For depth, shoot through foregrounds and blur out backgrounds while using the longest focus (optical) that you can. No or limited optical zoom? Go (or walk) closer to the subject.

This is it for now. I’ll add to this list with links on several more useful references for the items we’ve taken up. 

Thank you, Janette Toral, for giving us a most humbling opportunity to share ideas in the fellowship of bloggers, old and new.

You may also want to read about some photography and digital imaging tips I’ve previously written for this blog:
1. Cam Phone Shooting Tips From Your Rockstar Paparazzi
2. Photoshop CS4 Tutorial: Black and White
3. Shooting “Batman on Gargoyle” by Keiji Iwakura

See you all in iBlog6!

 

————————————————–

You may want to read on/watch the entries/videos other attendees have made regarding iBlog5 below:

Live stream feed last May 9

Video

Photos

Blog Posts

#iblog5

]]> http://fritzified.com/2009/05/13/iblog5-photoblogging-discussion-complement/feed/ 8 SMB Barkada Valentine Party: Brazilian Models http://fritzified.com/2009/02/15/smb-barkada-valentine-party-brazilian-models/ http://fritzified.com/2009/02/15/smb-barkada-valentine-party-brazilian-models/#comments Sat, 14 Feb 2009 22:14:30 +0000 Fritz http://fritzified.com/?p=1301

I don’t thing all eight of them are Brazilians but, yeah, they call them that. This is the first of the three sets of photos I’ve taken during SMB’s Barkada Valentine Party held on February 12-13, 2009 near the SMC Compound somewhere in Ortigas. The girls were called up on stage to show the audience their favorite San Miguel manufactured beer. It was quite convenient that each of them had a different favorite from the variants. Whodathunk, yes?

Sorry for the quality of the images because it is the very first time I got to use a Sony Alpha 300 DSLR (OK, I kid about being sorry for the quality of the images because there’s nothing to be sorry about, really). I charged the battery the night before and had to work in the morning so I did not really get to play around with the a300 prior to show time. I made it a point, though, to read which button I should push to adjust the aperture, shutter speed, and ISO so I can easily manipulate the most important basic elements in composing a shot.

The dilemma in shooting events like this is you can’t make your subject stay put and hold their pose. That and lighting would almost always fuck up the colors, most importantly of skin tone. I don’t know if I’ve done the right thing, since it was really (honestly) my first time to use the cam, but I jacked up the ISO to 3200 and used shutter speeds with variying values between 1/100 to 1/250. I was under the impression that this way, I can freeze whatever movement the subjects are making. Having the shutter speed lowered to these levels would also limit the light coming into the lens thereby making an otherwise bright ISO background look just right. I might just be blabbering like a crazed loony case here but it does sound logical, come to think about it. Advise from well seasoned DSLR users most welcome here. I also used Manual because I’m snooty like that. I have set the lens to function in automatic, though, so it does the focusing of my subjects for me at blinding speed when I do a half-press on the shutter button.

More on the cam in my next posts. Meanwhile, I give you permission to drool over these schmexeh ladies’ photos. Enjoy!

Thanks to Juned and Stella of SMC for the event invites. I had a blast. Next post will have Mocha.

]]> http://fritzified.com/2009/02/15/smb-barkada-valentine-party-brazilian-models/feed/ 6 Photoshop CS4 Tutorial: Black and White http://fritzified.com/2009/02/05/photoshop-cs4-tutorial-black-and-white/ http://fritzified.com/2009/02/05/photoshop-cs4-tutorial-black-and-white/#comments Wed, 04 Feb 2009 19:05:48 +0000 Fritz http://fritzified.com/?p=1255

Without further ado and as promised, here’s the tutorial I prepared which will help you convert your colored digital photographs into impressive black and white images. This guide may have been prepared using Adobe Photoshop CS4 but they are still very much applicable if you are stuck with Photoshop 7 or CS3.

1. First, open a photograph of your choice.

Initially, press X to toggle your foreground color to black (you can toggle between white and black foreground colors by pressing X. This may come in handy with other Photoshop techniques out there). You’ll observe the effect in the upper right hand corner of your CS4 window on the “Color” box as shown in the image below (try pressing X several times and observe what it does with the elements in said box).

2. Now go to the Layers palette and add a new “Gradient Map” adjustment layer like in the following screencap.

This screen will then appear (as a pop-up in CS3 or Photoshop 7) above the Layers palette. Just leave all the values alone as they were initially.

At this stage, your image will have already changed from colored to black and white but we are far from done yet.

3. Next, as in #2, create another adjustment layer but this time, choose “Channel Mixer.” The image will still look the same when you do this but everything will change as we proceed.

Right now, you have three items on your Layers palette: Background, Gradient Map, and Channel Mixer.

The screen below will then replace the “Gradient Map” pallete on CS4 (Channel Mixer will still appear as a pop-up in either CS3 or Photoshop 7), above the Layers palette. Make sure the “Monochrome” box is checked thereby making the “Output Channel” show a “Gray” selection (ticking the “Monochrome” box will automatically choose “Gray” for you).

The next step will call for values depending on how bright your image is. It may also depend on the effect you would like the lighting to be in your final B&W output.

4. There are four adjustable values in Channel Mixer. First thing’s first, bring down the value of “Constant” to -8. Now, darker images may need to be adjusted to around -6 and brighter ones may call for an even lower than -8 value. The lower the value, the darker the image (initially, but this is just normal). At this point, have Constant rest at -8 and fine tune it after we have pegged the value of the other variables in the next steps. For this photo, however, I used a -7 value.

Next, slide the value of the “Red” channel up between +70 and +75 (I used +72 for this photograph).

Now, the tricky part is finding the right values for “Green” and “Blue.” Drag the slider for Green to the right first and let it rest to around +20. Do the same with Blue. Please note that their values may most probably be different from each other depending on whether you think you have already achieved the “right” mix. Personally, if the whites have already taken over details in a photo that I think are important, then I’ve already overdone it with either of the Green and/or Blue values. Adjust one after the other and keep their values relatively close (a +20 Green value and a +40 Blue may still work for some photographs so just experiment while keeping an eye at your image).

For this photo, I used the values below.

Here’s the final output we got by using this technique.

Had you done it by merely selecting Image > Mode > Grayscale, you would have gotten this, instead:

Again, here’s the original photo as shown way up in this post:
.

I hope you liked this nifty tutorial. It’s the very same technique I used with my Batman on Gargoyle statue photographs featured in the previous post.

Until next time!

Original image in this post was taken using a Sony DSC-W300, if in case you are wondering.

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