Friday 21 December 2007

Competition success...

Congratulations to Manuel and Jose Manuel (again !) who recently both got second place in Photo Competitions with their respective companies Deimos and INSA.

The image above from Manuel show locals crossing the river to go to the Sunday Market in Kashgar, China...

And below from Jose Manuel is the road leading to Monument Valley, USA...

As always you can view all the images from club members by clicking the link over on the top right of the blog...

Our first book is published ....!

As you probably all know already the club has published what we hope will be the first of many books representing the images of its members.

Congratulations to José Manuel for getting the cover image with the 'most popular' photo of 2007.

If anyone would like further copies you can order them directly from Blurb in either hard or soft cover editions.

Thank you all once again for your efforts this year, because without you all we could not have achieved what we have... you should all feel very proud of yourselves...

Monday 19 November 2007

The Marlboro Marine...



Mediastorm have their latest presentation of the effect that the Iraq war has had on Marine Lance Corporal James Blake Miller.

The presentation documents both his time in Iraq and his coming to terms with what he did and saw upon his return home. Plus the coming together of a soldier and photojournalist under extreme circumstances...

Wednesday 14 November 2007

Autumn Theme Presentation...

Although not with as many images as normal (maybe the cold weather starts to take its affect), we battled against a badly focusing projector and blindless window to present our latest theme 'Autumn'.

There was plenty of lively discussion with the two images you see here generating the most comments regarding composition and post processing technique.

As a side note, we also got plenty of good resturant recommendations from José Manuel and I finally got to use my slideshow software.

Anyway, all the images in their glory can be found on our galleries webpage, please go and take a look and if you like any of them click the 'thumbs-up' symbol that appears when you hover your mouse over the image, so we can all see what are the most popular images.

You might want to check back on your own images as well, as since I have taken the password off the site, we have started to receive comments from outside of ESAC !

So... next theme is 'Geometry' and you get a break over Christmas as well, hope to see the number of images presented next time back to full strength.....!

Friday 9 November 2007

6 Billion Others...

Yann Arthus-Bertrand of 'Earth from Above' fame, has put together this very interesting project which aims to create a sensitive and human portrait of the planets inhabitants.

More than 6000 interviews were performed in 65 countries where people were asked for there concerns regarding family, their experience, what made them laugh or cry and what gives life meaning etc...

Its absolutely fascinating to see and hear the thoughts of ordinary people from around the world. Yann states "The idea came to me while we were taking the shots for "Earth from Above" in Mali, one day when the helicopter was out of action. The pilot had gone and I was waiting for him in a little village where I started to have a discussion with someone. I stayed there the whole day, In the evening, by the fireside, that man I'd been talking to told me his entire life, his desires, his wishes, his ambitions - they could be summed up in four words - "to feed my family". In spite of the poverty, the drought, I still thought I understood the whole situation. But in fact I didn't have a clue until that man put it to me, just like that, looking me straight in the eye, not complaining, not asking me for anything. That meeting changed me, it changed the whole way I see the world..."

6 Billion Others....... take a look...

Sunday 4 November 2007


'Antartica: The Global Warning' recently won 1st place in the book category of the 2007 International Photography Awards.

What looks like a stunning body of work, also contains a message of the affect that man is having on his own planet. This one goes on my shopping list for future book purchases.

Check out the website as well you won't regret it....

Friday 26 October 2007

printer for photography

Hi there

Maybe this is not the channel for this, but I'd like to get some advice from you. I plan to buy a printer basicly for printing pictures, though I'd like to use it as a general purpose printer as well. Could you give me any advice about it? (models, things to be taken into account, etc etc). I'd like to learn about colour calibration and so on too, any hint?
I know printing you holiday photos at home is not a good idea, but still I'd like to work on some specific pictures and get a nice printout, what implies some trial and error etc etc you'd better make at home.

All your ideas are welcome!

Thanks

Ricardo

Tuesday 16 October 2007

Star gazing......


There is a lot of information regarding Astrophotography on the web, but this article recently posted on Naturescapes.net I find particularly interesting as its a very good place to start your investigation into this potentially exciting aspect of photography...

Tips and Tricks for photographing Autumn...

Photojojo have posted 12 Fantastic Fall Photo Tips, that I thought maybe useful for our pending Photo Theme.

Its mainly 'leaf' based but could provide some guidance, even though the leaves in Madrid appear to be taking their time to change colour and fall this year.....!!!

Thursday 11 October 2007

Another dimension to Photography: Water



I like to spend my time wisely (not really but it sounds good) so I try to combine two of my hobbies, photography and diving together to do underwater photography :-)

There is lots of info out there on the web. But there is one particular very nice online magazine called Underwater Photography . It has many beautiful photos (even for non-divers!) and items on material and many tips/tricks. (no, i'm not getting anything to say that).

btw. above picture was taken by me last year in one of the dutch lakes ;-)

Thursday 4 October 2007

12 Essential Phtoto Rules from Popular Photography...

In the past we have spoken about the sunny-16 rule, but do you know the moony 11, 8 and 5.6 ..?? (steady Richard.. ;-) )

You want a new digital camera which has a least twice the resolution of the last one, did you know you have to find one with 4 times more megapixels...!

Either way check out what Popular Photography thinks are the 12 Essential Photographic Rules...

Tuesday 2 October 2007

Are you a Flickr-holic...?

Flickr has always been a bit of a talking point, what with advertising agencies rocketing unsuspecting photographers into the limelight, like this for example..... or those agencies with not quite so many scruples taking advantage of the overwhelming number of low cost images (i.e. taking them for free) and using them for national ad campaigns like this case with Virgin Mobile Australia

As an image resource and source of inspiration, you can't complain too much because there are plenty of images to see, but how do you sort the "wheat" from the "chaff" and get to those 'wow' images with the maximum efficiency, Howard French tells us what he does over on the Online Photographer...

Seam carving and resizing images...



This has begun to appear on a few different websites and I thought that you maybe interested in this new way of resizing images without distorting the content. I'll let the author explain the details in the video (your going to be amazed for sure...!).

For those of you who are not mathematically challenged there's a whitepaper that explains the concept in detail.

The website is here and you can even upload a picture and try out the software online.

Apparently one of the authors has been recently employed by Adobe, so we may see this appear in future versions of Photoshop and/or Lightroom.

Sunday 30 September 2007

Chase Jarvis on Commercial Photography...



I'm a big fan of this guys photography and its good to see a top professional sharing his idea's and giving us a glimpse into the hectic world of the Advertising/Commercial Photographer...

He has a number of online videos that show us what he gets upto on his photo shoots... he always looks like he has a good time (and just like a few members of our club he gets to go to windswept and exotic destinations rather often as well :-D...).. You can find them here if your interested :

New Zealand Shoot
Hasselblad Masters
Ninja Shoot

He's also a bit of a techy and DIY man, check out what he did to create a Photographers Laptop Case...

Anyway, back to the video above, which is his presentation at a 'do' for Photoshelter (an online image library) where he explains what it takes to be a Commercial Photographer, its almost an hour long so you should probably order a pizza before hand, but its packed full of spectacular images and idea's if you have the time to sit down and watch...

Wednesday 26 September 2007

"Ocultos"

Hi all.

The "Círculo de Bellas Artes" opened yesterday an exhibition called "Stellar moments of the 20th century photography" (free translation from the spanish title :) ), including pictures by Cartier-Bresson, Robert Capa, Riefenstahl, Man Ray, Andy Warhol, Marina Abramovic and many others. I haven't visited it yet, but sounds interesting. Just for you to know.

For more info (sorry, in Spanish) : http://www.circulobellasartes.com/ag_expo.php?ele=38

El Círculo de Bellas Artes is in C/ ALCALÁ, 42, Madrid.

(The picture is 'Rituales en Haití' (2001), by Cristina Garcia Rodero.)

Tuesday 25 September 2007

keeping track of new posts more easily...

Hi, In reply to an earlier question (on the mail). It is possible to subscribe (with your favourite rss-feed reader; e.g. google reader) to the ATOM (RSS) feed (there is a tiny link at the bottom of the blog page) for the ESAC Photo Club and then you can keep up (more easily?) with the new items posted. Good luck, Nick

Monday 24 September 2007

Travel Photography Inspiration...

The 'Canon Digital Learning Centre' is currently hosting a series from the well know travel and nature photographer, Art Wolfe, here on its website.

As I know a lot of you enjoy this type of photography, I thought you maybe interested.. There's lots of info and advice mixed with a fair amount of Arts' stunning imagery..

P.S How many of you spotted the seagull in the image above ?

Friday 21 September 2007

Mark Tucker...

I have long been a fan of the imagery of Mark Tucker, a prominent portrait and lifestyle photographer.

His use of tilt-shift lenses , overlaying of textures, compositional techniques and humour never cease to amaze me..

His website has recently been updated so if you have a few minutes to spare mosey on over and take a look...

Latest Flipbook from George Lange...

We've seen the work of George Lange in the past (see March entry), and I admit I'm quite partial to this type of presentation.

This time the images are from Israel and he promises that he has more in the pipeline. Anyway, check out the movie here if you feel so inclined.

Maybe I'll try this for the next Photoclub presentation, at least people can't complain about the amount of time it takes to show all the images..! ;-)

Thursday 20 September 2007

HDRI Updates....

Remember in the past we have talked about High Dynamic Range Imaging, which had its origins in CGI Graphic artist industry and is now finding its way more and more into photography.?

I just discovered a new website "HDRI News" which is dedicated to the theme, and that also offers software, news, an online community and lots of inspirational images...


You might also want to take a look at "Digital Outback Photo" as well, which is pioneering new HDRI techniques using DSLRs with fast frame rates (> 5fps), thereby eliminating the need for a tripod and opening up the opportunity for using HDRI without limitations...

Tuesday 18 September 2007

Adventures in Greenland...

It would seem that the list of 'windswept and exotic' locations to which our photoclub members travel continues to grow, the latest being to Greenland.......

Benjamin tells us about his latest adventure :
"I would like to share with you an image of one of the most impressive and powerful landscapes I have ever seen. This is a glacier at the south of Greenland. Its name is Eqalurissit. It is about 2.5 km wide and the ice walls are about 100 meters tall. The ice tongue enters towards the interior of the island in what it is called the 'indlansis', a word of scandinavian origin that means any glacier field of the type 'continental ice' with extensions of more than 50.000 squared km. In this case, the tongue merges with the ice platform that covers around 85% of the surface of Greenland"

Thursday 13 September 2007

We're back.........

The blog entries have been a bit sparse recently, but the summer is almost over and we have had our latest presentation of Photojournalistic and Holiday images..

Head on over to our galleries page and take a look. I know writing comments can be difficult but if you feel inspired I do urge you to do so as they are very motivational.

Also, if comments aren't your thing, hover your mouse pointer over the images you like and click the green thumbs up that will appear.... Why you ask.?????.... Because smugmug will then tell me what are the favorite images (I can't see who clicked on what by the way), and I thought it might be a good excuse to hand out some prizes at the end of the year... (Don't forget to give your 'thumbs up' in the other galleries as well...)

Anyway, here are a few of the images that got the most wow's during the presentation...... Go to the gallery page to find out who the culprits are...



Friday 1 June 2007

PHotoEspaña 2007 has started....


The annual image festival in Madrid has started and being as it is the 10th Anniversary there even more exhibitions and activities than normal.

I have already been to see the images made by Sebastião Salgado in the BBVA (AZCA) building and they are stunning.

I've also downloaded the press kit in pdf, which contains all the info on which exhibition is where. If anyone wants a copy let me know.

Anyway, head over to www.phedigital.com for all the details.

Wednesday 9 May 2007

Another exhibition...


As a further addition to the blog entry from Ricardo, there is also another tattoo related exhibition at the 'Casa de América' in Madrid, called 'Maras'. Providing a insight into the world of young prisoners in El Salvador jails who use their tattoo's as a form of self expression.

Its free to enter and is on until the 27th May, further details can be seen by clicking the link above.

Tuesday 8 May 2007

Nice photo exhibition


FYI:
Javier Ortiz, "Pachi", exhibits a series of photos portraying tattooed people called "Tattoos Tuus".

You can have a look at it (and a beer :) ) at La Maripepa, c/ Jesús, 7, in the Huertas area, Madrid.

I visited it last weekend and I found it quite interesting.

Thursday 26 April 2007

Theme 2 - 'Architecture'...

Once again an excellent turnout for our second theme presentation of 2007. Nine members showed their interpretations of 'Architecture', and above is a choice selection of some of the photo's (click image to see larger). There was a lot of discussion regarding technique and composition and I think we all learned a new thing or two.

Don't forget that you can see all the images on the clubs Gallery webpage (link is at the top right of this page). Please do leave comments as it is always helpful and motivating to get a bit of feedback every now and again...

Finally, you all chose an extremely difficult theme for next time... 'Photojournalism'. It is going to be extremely interesting to see what images everyone turns up with...

I'm really looking forward to seeing all your photo's in June and hoping for an even larger participation..!

Monday 23 April 2007

one web album I like :-)

I was browsing the picasa web albums a bit (for inspiration) and thought this guys pictures are quite good, so I thought I share this link with all you photography lovers :-)

I find it amazing how many good photographers there are out there....

http://picasaweb.google.com/bholfeltz/FlickrPretty

Looking forward to see everyones pictures tomorrow :-)

Nick

Wednesday 18 April 2007

Pulitzer 2007


Hi everybody

As all of you probably know, the Pulitzer prize awards relevant works in journalism. This year, the prize in the category of "breaking news photography" has gone to Oded Bality for this picture.

A sin the previous post about photography and ethics, I will say nothing else about it and let you judge by yourselves. The picture is impressing anyway.

You can read the full record in

http://www.pulitzer.org/year/2007/breaking-news-photography/works/

Thursday 22 March 2007

Vulture photo

I have read an article that is not about techniques or filters. I am almost sure you all can recognize the photo of a vulture behind a near death girl in Africa. It gained a lot of prizes (Pulitzer for example) and it showed a real situation in that continent.

But reality can have several faces. In this article we can see a bit about... ethical photography? It is lawful to show only what you want, or should your photos reflect the real situation?

In this case, the photographer decided to show a terrific, but not very truthful, photo. Instead of gimp/photoshop he used a "legal" camera technique.

It is up to you to decide.

Link - Enlace



PS: The articule is in Spanish

Tuesday 20 March 2007

So true...

Thursday 15 March 2007

Always looking for inspiration...

This has popped up on a few different photographic blogs this week and if you really like people photography and are striving for that contemporary look with feel-good factor and have 3 minutes to spare, go and check out this flipbook presentation by George Lange.

It will leave you with a smile on you face and have you thinking how can you apply his techniques to you own images. Just look at the wonderful quality of light that the images exude...

...and if you still have the time afterwards, and are suitably inspired, take a look at the rest of his website.

Tuesday 13 March 2007

A box with a hole... the fascinating world of the pinhole camera...

With the modern digital camera its very easy to become complacent about making images... the camera can focus, meter, judge colour temperature, sharpen, add contrast etc.. etc... perfect photo's almost all the time no..???

How about a camera that uses film (oh no not the f word..!), has no shutter button, you can't focus it.. hell... it doesn't even have a lens... just a very small hole... welcome to the world of the pinhole camera.


Exposure times in bright sunlight with a slow film can be measured in tens of seconds and as the sun goes down you could be talking hours to expose the film correctly... issues with Reciprocity failure, colour shifts, grain... and you can't even see what you got until the film comes back from the lab...!.. Why oh why would anyone use such a god forsaken contraption... Because you can create wonderful ethereal images, images that no amount of photoshop trickery can produce, they are not perfect and that's exactly their beauty...


If your a bit of a DIY expert you can even make one yourself (like this guy who built one from a 150 year old child's skull !!), if not, then you can go to Zero Image who have an entire range to choose from...


And for those of you who can't bear the thought of having to use film, you can even turn your digital SLR into a pinhole...

Recommended Galleries and reading :

Isabelle Lousberg...
Zeb Andrews...
Mackeson...
The Pinhole Resource...

Wednesday 7 March 2007

Nuri Bilge Ceylan's stunning imagery...

I highly recommend that you go and take a look at the 'Turkey Cinemascope' portfolio of Nuri Bilge Ceylan, a film director from Istanbul, whose panoramic images capturing both landscapes and portraits exemplify the stunning use of light to create a three dimensionality that is so difficult to achieve and often the holy grail of many photographers.

I draw a lot of inspiration and motivation from viewing outstanding images from other photographers and then trying to achieve the same. I personally think that to become a better photographer you have to look at photographs, understand what you like and don't like and try and put those feelings back into your own photography...

These images must look stunning in print (you can get a idea from the photo below of his exhibition in Thessaloniki)... looking at his website I see that he will exhibit in Granada during the Cines del Sur Film Festival which is from the 9th-17th June...

Should we organise a club trip..??


Lens Hoods...

Lens hoods are good... they keep that straylight out of your lens and prevent something called 'flare', which is even more important to prevent if you permanently have a UV filter stuck on the end of your lens (we'll leave the filter or no filter debate for another time)...

If you lens comes with one already... great... make sure you use it... but with a lot of lenses nowadays its an optional extra... and often an expensive one... well.. lenshoods.co.uk comes to the rescue with free printable lenshoods which you can make out of paper or thin plastic... I'm certainly going to give it a try... I'll let you know how I get on...

Thursday 1 March 2007

Virtual collages...

A few people have asked how I did the collage effect on the Torres Kio image I presented recently.

Basically, you have to choose a spot where you see the entire scene you want to capture. Select a focal length, not so long that you need 200 photos and not too short that you only get 3. Set your camera to manual (if you can) so the exposure doesn't differ between each photo and start clicking away.. but don't change your position and try and move the camera around a bit so the images are not all on the same plane (and don't forget to re-focus as you go along).

Then you need any image manipulation software that allows you to resize, rotate to any angle, and change opacity of your images... and then you basically start overlaying the images on top of each other to build up the complete scene... adjust contrast and saturation to taste and there you have it...

It can be a bit time consuming depending on the amount of images you have and how precisely you want to match them up... but it can make an otherwise touristy shot turn into something a bit move interesting...

There's a tutorial over at Photojojo that describes the technique in detail that you should take a look at, there also other examples that may inspire you further...

Wednesday 28 February 2007

Theme 1 - 'Whatever you want'...

Our first Theme showing turned out to be a roaring success, with almost every member of the club presenting images, and those that didn't were there to view, give comments and ask questions... The images above give you a taste of what was presented (click for bigger size)... if you want to see all the images shown, pop over to our galleries page and look under 'Themes set by the Club' (link is at the top right of this page) and feel free to leave comments on individual images, I'm sure the authors will be interested to know what you think...

There was a good cross section of images with travel photography from Argentina, New Zealand and Japan (some people have all the luck..!), to demonstrations of hand holding techniques extraordinaire (8 seconds..!), fractals in nature, 3D, night photography, low light photography, architectural photography, impressive landscapes, zooming techniques and burning light bulbs...

Great job everyone..!

Next theme is 'Architecture'.... can't wait to see what you all come up with..!

Monday 26 February 2007

Model Photography... ;-)

Is it real or is it a model.?.. Someone with far too much time on their hands or trickery...

Well....... its real but it looks like a model don't you think..? This effect can be done quite easily if you happen to own a Tilt and Shift lens... which I imagine none of us do, because its used mainly in architectural photography to handle perspective issues which normally arise when you point you camera up in the air to take a picture of your favourite building and find out when you look and the image afterwards that it looks like its falling over or that it has slopey sides... anyway I digress... what in reality your doing with this type of lens is controlling the plane of focus... but the interesting thing is we can also fake it digitally...

Go here and here for step by step tutorials (They are for Photoshop so I'll leave Manuel to tell us how to do it in Gimp), the only thing that I would recommend is that you take your original image from above the subject as this is how you normally look at one of these types of models, and that it is well lit, so that you can pump up the saturation to give it that kind of smooth plasticky look... all adding to the illusion...

If you like the idea, check out these examples, some of which you'll have a hard time believing that they are not models.!.

Tuesday 20 February 2007

Use YouTube to learn Photoshop

For anyone who is interested in learning Photoshop, YouTube (and other video sites) can be a good source of free learning that you might not have thought of. Both YouTube and MetaCafe have a lot of photoshop video tutorials and while not all are the best quality video, the ability to see techniques in action with video is great for quick learning.
The following page has a collection of links to these video tutorials: http://www.fortysomething.ca/mt/etc/archives/006129.php

As an example, it post here the linked video about Chroma Keying (removing objects from their background).

It made me laugh...

If you want more of the same, head over to 'What the Duck'.

Friday 16 February 2007

Camera tossing... a new olympic sport...??

Came across this recently and thought it was pretty ironic when you consider that most of the time we are trying to eliminate movement of the camera in anyway possible (tripods, image stabilisation etc)... Serendipity is the name of the game when you launch your camera into the air (and hopefully catch it again) but the results can be quite stunning... check out this blog for all the facts and techniques... Lets see if anyone dares to try, inspiration for the 'Whatever you want' theme possibly?

(credit to Ryan Gallagher for the inspiration)

Thursday 8 February 2007

Books on photography?

Hi photo enthusiasts,

Perhaps it is a good idea if we select a few (to start with) good books on different aspects of photography for reference and such. This could be the start of a small 'photoclub-library'. I at least find it nicer to read of paper than from a screen, and we don't all need the buy the same book ;-) Anyone suggestions?

A quick and dirty search on amazon gives me for example:
- Understanding Exposure, by Bryan Peterson
- The Digital Photography Book by Scott Kelby (2006)
- The Complete Guide to Close Up & Macro Photography by Paul Harcourt Davies (2002)
- Digital Macro Photography by Ross Hoddinott (2006)

Also, perhaps a magazine subscription (which one?) is feasible.

In the mean time, Wikibooks provides several free content 'books' related to photography.

http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Digital_photography
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Basics_of_the_Camera
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Basic_Photography

And on Wikipedia itself you can find the "Photography Portal" a good starting point for numerous Wikipedia entries related to photography.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Photography
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photography

Printed versions could also be collected in the 'photoclub-library'....

A poisonous chameleon

I think that digital photography is a two part history. Neal taught us a lot about the first part the other day. Shuttering, exposure, iso, light... and a lot of things that are to come are common (more or less) with traditional photography.

But this is a new era. We do not have films anymore, but bytes. After taking a photo there are a lot of things you can do: correct white balance, increase sky saturation or just transform them to a funnier photo.

Yes, Photoshop is the word. But as it lacks some useful characteristics (you have to pay for it, it does not work under Linux) so I will try to convince you about using the best alternative: GIMP.

There are tons of good information about Gimp, and most existing about Photoshop is somehow "compatible" with this free software. I suppose that the best entry point to this program is:
www.gimp.org

And if you want a free introductory book you can also look at:
http://gimp-savvy.com/BOOK/index.html

I pickup Neal's chameleon photo and transformed a bit just to show an example of what you can do in just a few minutes. Next time I will teach you how to change someone's hair colour.

Neal's chameleon poisonous cousin

Wednesday 7 February 2007

Heaven, Earth, Tequila....

Mediastorm, a company attempting to mix photojournalism with story telling, has some fantastic presentations on their website which bring together music, narrative and the latest slide show techniques... This presentation in particular I find absolutely stunning (click image to view)



.....and after you have finished with this one its definitely worth the time to investigate further the other presentations available... enjoy...

Tuesday 6 February 2007

Camera Basics Presentation...

Thanks to all of you for turning up and doing me the honour of listening to my incessant ravings about metering, aperture and shutter speed... just how many gray blocks can people stand..!

I hope that it was useful in someway.

A big, big thanks to Marco, our model, who suffered having his retinas burnt and his face scorched by the torture device... oops I mean... 'ring-light'.. That's him above holding up under the pressure at F1.8... (that should mean something to you now..!)

Sunday 4 February 2007

Friday 2 February 2007

Want to remove people from your photo's.?...

Remember the scene in 'Abre los ojos' where the guy is running around Gran Via in Madrid and there's not a person in sight.... well... this chap has a piece of software that will allow you to create your very own empty Gran Via... automatically..(damn... could I use something like that every time I drive in Madrid....!!)...

While you at it, you might want to check out his tone hacker as well...

For the Nikon owners amongst us...

Over on Andy Frazers Blog he talks about long exposures with the Nikon D200, something that in the past was one of the disadvantages of digital... Well, Laura Elskan appears not to have too many problems.

Have a look..... what do you think if we do a club outing to try and do a similar thing ? (even if you don't have a nikon..)...

Thursday 1 February 2007

HDR and things that move...

After reading some comments made by Mauro to the previous post I thought it might be useful to mention that if you like this HDR thing, but were put off by the fact that you have to use a tripod and obviously things in the image can't move between frames, this somewhat restricting you subject matter.... There is actually a way of making HDR images with just one frame.

For example, look at the fella above, who I found when we were on holiday in Andalucia (didn't know Chameleons where indigenous to the south of Spain !), although not known for his blistering speed, he wasn't going to hang around while I set up the tripod etc, etc... and anyway, what his body lacked in velocity, his eye more than made up the difference.... So one frame was all I got...

Well then, if your camera can shoot in Raw and you use this mode of operation you can create 3 images using the raw converter that you need to handle these sort of images. Basically, you bias the exposure -2 stops from the original, save the image, same again for + 2 stops... and there you have it 3 images to plug into you HDR software... and thanks to the latitude of the raw image you can get away with it (most of the time). Obviously, it depends on the exposure of your original image (i.e don't completely blow the highlights because you can never recover them) and it doesn't quite produce the same level of subtlety as 3 separate images... but hey you getting 3 for the price of one..

Wednesday 31 January 2007

HDR.... fad or the future...?


HDR or High Dynamic Range is method of merging images taken at different exposure settings, such that both the highlights and shadows are maintained.

How many times have you tried to take a picture from inside a room and try to get the view out the window as well..? What normally happens is that you can get the view out of the window correctly exposed, but then the room is dark, or the room properly exposed and the view completely blown out. Thats because the dynamic range of your film, transparencies or CCD is limited, so it can't record the whole range of light values present. So you have to choose whether you want detail in the shadows, or in the highlights because you can't have both... until now... 'you mean I can have it all !!!'... well sort of....

You can now take three or more exposures covering the mids, highlights and shadows, stuff these images into a piece of software like Photomatix which then combines the images, performs tone mapping and gives you back an image with everything..... Sounds good doesn't it... so where's the catch ?? Well.... all your images have to be the same, pixel for pixel, so you need a tripod, then you have to adjust your camera up and down at least 2 stops. You now have to process 3 files instead of one and well... the tone mapping can give you some pretty funky results, very artistic but not exactly true to life... (I imagine sometime in the future all this will be done in-camera in the blink of an eye, but until then...)

The web is awash with interesting examples, like here and here. If you want to read a good tutorial, try this one... and have a go.. its lots of fun.

Tuesday 30 January 2007

Magazines.... in-print or on-screen...?

I'll say it right now.... I'm a bit of a magazine'aholic.... But with the internet image content growing not only in size, but quality, and most of it being free, can the printed magazine really last much further into the future...?

I sincerely hope so, because for me there is no equivalent to seeing the printed image. The magazines that I see having potential problems are the typical 'how to'/'review' types. The internet is so active and so jammed packed full of forums, review sites etc, I don't know how these type of magazines can continue to compete. For example, by the time they print a review of something its already old news on the web...

The magazines that I see with a future are those which concentrate on images only... and whose image content is way above average.... Bearing this in mind, my current favorites are:
  • Lenswork - A small format magazine from the States, B&W only, the images and printing are stunning and the content inspiring. It has been going for years and I hope in continues for many more. There is also an enhanced issue which basically contains the entire content of the printed magazine plus added images, interviews, podcasts etc, in a pdf format, a clever bridge between the real and virtual worlds.
  • Phot'Art - A new'ish magazine from France, with absolutely gorgeous printing, also includes sumptuous glossy pages on heavy format paper. Images are both colour and B&W. The webpage is a bit sparse, and does no justice at all to what is a very high quality printed magazine.
I do enjoy some of the online magazines as well (I'll talk about those another time), but if you like the printed image you'll be hard pushed to find anything better than the magazines mentioned above...

Welcome to the ESAC Photo Blog

Here's the start of what hopefully will be a useful resource for all things photographic and also a quick way of finding out whats going on in the ESAC Photoclub.

I will set everything up so club members can create entries in the blog. If you want to respond to any entry please use the 'comments' functionality don't create another entry.

Thats it then........ blog away to your hearts content........