by successfulbob | Lumix G7, Lumix Lounge, photography
You know me.
I gotta play.
Here’s the image from yesterday that started with multiple exposures captured with the Lumix G7 and Layer Stacking in Photoshop. Adding a little artwork using blend modes in Adobe Photoshop.
Apache Plume Bloom
Once the original capture is assembled then it’s time to select the plant image in order to separate it from the background. This allows the addition of a drop shadow which creates more depth. Then adding some textures in various blend modes I built a background to give the image a more painterly feel. I always encourage people to play with images and ideas.
When’s your next test/play session??
Yours in Creative Photography, Bob
by successfulbob | Lumix G7, photography, photography education, photography gear, photoshop tutorial
Just got my hands on the new Panasonic Lumix G7 – Lumix G7 w 14-140mm lens ($1098) or G7 w 14-42 ($798) – and have been putting it through some paces.
There are some beautiful desert plants that my wife has been landscaping the yard with vs having water-sucking plants since we live in the super dry climate of Sedona, Arizona. This is the bloom of the Apache Plume plant.
Apache Plume Bloom
Capture info
I used the 45mm f2.8 Macro to make the details of the ‘plume’ feathering jump. In order to get the most detail I set the aperture to f8 and used studio flash. Shoot through umbrella to the side and just behind the plant with soft reflector fill opposite. Black background paper lit with flash with snoot and 2 layers of blue gel. Used the Wifi from the camera to allow the Ipad to run the camera changing focus using the free Panasonic Image APP. Never having to touch the camera makes for better, easier blending because there’s no camera shake or movement.
Here’s How to Focus Stack
I captured fifteen exposures with focus through the image and used Photoshop to stack them together and achieve sharpness from front to back. Take the images into Adobe Camera RAW and tweak any color or shadow/highlight settings. From the Tools menu ask Bridge to Load Files into Photoshop Layers. Highlight all Layers in the Layers Palette. Under the Edit Menu > Auto-Align Layers. With all Layers still selected, Edit > Auto-Blend Layers with the Radio Button Stack Images Selected with Seamless Tones and Colors checked. Then go through your image and look for areas that might not have been blended perfectly by Shift clicking on the individual Layer Masks to see if there is a sharp image that might be blended better. **Note – Subjects that contain a lot of white will have more issues with Blending the Sharpness in this process than others with more color and contrast.
Initial Thoughts on the G7 (more to come in future posts)
This camera would make a great back-up to the GH4 if you are a pro on a budget. Controls are slightly different but not so much you would have a problem switching in the middle of a job or if you are doing a two camera shoot. Pros – VERY light weight, super-easy 4K Photo Mode, interchangeable lenses, image quality on par with GH4. Cons – Tripod plate needs to be undone to get to battery and SD card compartment, smaller battery, built on plastic body vs magnesium.
If you are really on a budget two or three of these cameras would make great kit to have pro backup capabilities.
Yours in Creative Photography, Bob
by successfulbob | Lumix FZ 1000, Lumix Lounge, photography education, photography gear
Walking from my favorite restaurant and I spy an absolutely beautiful flower bloom on a cactus. So I stop to shoot a couple frames and move on in the glow of the after dinner bliss… Or, was it the wine?
No matter.
‘Squirrel Moment!’
I know you’ve had this happen.
You think you see something beautiful. On the move you grab a frame thinking you have something to work on later. Turns out you were distracted by the ‘squirrel!’ in the image and failed to look at the whole scene carefully in the frame. Here’s a recent ‘squirrel’ shot from my wanderings.
Man, I almost don’t even want to show you this… In my mind I saw the flowering blooms
and new buds coming on (cue beautiful music)…
The reality of the ‘past prime’ dead flower buds escaped my notice until
I opened the image and viewed it on the computer. “Bummer!”
I think it’s good to share the not so good stuff as well as our treasures so we all know we are in the same boat… Chugging away, trying to create beautiful images, and not always hitting a home run. The usual camera was in play and it did a good job helping me get a nice exposure on the run. It’s not the fault of the Lumix FZ1000 that I can be distracted by a ‘Squirrel Moment”… They can’t all be perfect can they???
Yours in Creative Photography, Bob
by successfulbob | Lumix GH4, Lumix Lounge, macro, photography education, photography gear
“When you take a flower in your hand and really look at it, it’s your world for the moment. I want to give that world to someone else. Most people in the city rush around so, they have no time to look at a flower. I want them to see it whether they want to or not.” Georgia O’Keeffe
In the desert southwest the smallest of flowers dot the landscape at certain times of year. I agree with Georgia that sharing the world that many pass by is a cool thing… These particular flowers can easily go by unnoticed because of tiny size. These flowers are about the size of my thumbnail.
Tiny desert flower bloom
To capture a flower this size takes a little thought and manipulation. This was captured with the Lumix GH4 and 35-100mm 2.8 Vario lens with 26 mm of extension tubes from Neewer Technologies (get two sets they are very inexpensive and you can magnify even more using the technique below). When you have that much extension Depth of Field is extremely shallow. In order to get the buds and the first flower in total focus to share the miniscule detail I added a tripod and the technique of focus stacking. I focused on the bud in the foreground and made an exposure, changed focus to the bud a little further into the image followed by multiple captures across the surface of the flower. These exposures were taken into Adobe Photoshop and blended together using Photo Merge. When this process is used Photoshop will stack the images and blend together the sharpest parts of the image giving an increased DOF.
Yours in Creative Photography, Bob
by successfulbob | Lumix FZ 1000, Lumix Lounge, photography, wildlife photography
GO BIG OR GO HOME!
Oh wait. I’m a little carried away there… But, one technique for making an interesting photograph is to take a very small subject and fill the frame with it. This flower is about the size of a fingernail. Using the Lumix FZ-1000 I was able to bring this tiny subject forward. While I don’t often recommend bulls-eye composition I think it works in this case because of the bud in the lower left corner and the leaf in the upper right hand corner. The flower dominates but the additional subjects in the frame give you eye something else to look at and turns it into more modified diagonal composition.
The bud is barely the size of my pinky fingernail & the flower is just a bit bigger than my thumb. Settings 432mm Exposure 1/5000 sec to help freeze the flower in the breeze, f5.6, ISO 800
Constantly working and playing when not on a commissioned job. Without practice and really knowing your gear it’s difficult to grow as a photographer. Golfers are constantly trying to ‘find the groove’ and practice is a huge part of their ability to succeed.
When is the last time you tired something new?
Yours in Creative Photography, Bob
