It’s hard to beat the Lumix FZ1000 as a travel camera. At two and a half pounds there’s no problem having the camera on your shoulder all day long. The 25-400mm f2.8-4 lens is pretty sweet. With the Macro Mode on you can focus down to less than an inch. what more do your need?*
Here’s a few images from 34,000 feet from the window seat of an American Airlines plane wending it’s way from Detroit, where I was speaking and judging at a photography convention, to Phoenix on my way home.
Love the movement of the water through the scene. Gives the story about how some of the landscapes are formed over the years.
It’s fascinating watching the country unfold from way up high! Toto I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore…
Lots of different views from above…
I find myself inspired to take these images after reading Julianne Kost’s Window Seat – The Art of Digital Photography and Creative Thinking. Great images and story of how she created her book.
Yours in Creative Photography, Bob
* Well you may not need it but the camera also has 4K video and Photo Mode so you can pull 8MP stills from your video and a whole bunch more features that come in quite handy.
Pulled into the driveway the other night and saw the full moon starting it’s ascent from the eastern horizon and I immediately ran for my camera. Now we’ve all had the wonderful (I say sarcastically) experience of photographing the moon and being disappointed by the amount of volume it took up in the entire image surface. You know, way too small for what we had in mind when we made the photograph.
The FZ1000 is 400mm at the long end of the zoom at f4. While solid even that is pretty short for something that is 238,900 miles (give or take a centimeter or two) away from the camera. The camera has a setting called Digital Zoom and shows and captures the image at a larger size. 1600mm in this case. This does degrade the image vs having optics do the job. But have you priced a 1600mm lens lately? In spite of a bit of degradation of image quality I like the Digital Zoom because I can see exactly how the image will fill the frame.
Even after cropping in there’s 2300 pixels of moon that when made smaller and placed in an art piece will have plenty of detail
Now are these images good for study of the craters on the moon’s surface? Heck no! But will they be good for art projects where a moon is needed? You betcha!
One way to add interest to a moon shot is to silhouette an object. I wish I had thought about this a bit more but didn’t have much time to scout out a more appropriate subject but you’ll get the idea with these mesquite branches starting to bud out with our warm weather.
Moon with mesquite branches
One thing to be aware of when attempting this when you have the foreground element in focus there will be a blob of light behind your subject. To help this along I took one of my plain moon images and placed it under the mesquite layer and put it into Multiply Blend Mode. This allowed the image of the moon with detail to show through.
Here’s a different time lapse from the same location as a few days ago at Sound Bites Grill. Was able to set the tripod up on the deck that overlooks this wonderful scenery in Sedona.
This time I set the camera behind a red rock stone column in order to stay out of the gusts of wind that caused some extra work on my last time lapse at this location. I also unclasped the camera strap and tied down the camera for even more stability. I was able to do this quickly because I have the Peak Design Camera Strap. I really enjoy the ability to quickly be able to remove the camera strap when shooting video or time lapse images. This cuts down on the wind profile of the gear leading to to steadier capture. It also make it easy to change the type of strap if I’d rather use a wrist strap instead of over the shoulder. This is a pretty cool system with lots of options.
But I digress… How about the video Bob? Here you go…
Sunset time lapse in Sedona
I used similar settings as the last time lapse on the Lumix GX8 capturing a frame every three seconds processing out to a 4K video .MP4 in camera at 24 frames per second. Then taking that video into Adobe premiere Pro to add some Ken Burns movement through the scene.
I was hoping that the clouds your view scudding across the scene were going to be there as the sun snuck beneath the horizon and giving spectacular color, but alas, it did not. Such are the vagaries of predicting the weather.
Of note, as you study this time lapse be aware of the look of the red rocks after the sun has gone down and the sky begins to move toward cobalt blue and the density range begins to tighten up. This is an ideal time to capture the red rocks as the light is being reflected off of clouds and there’s lots of depth and dimension and beautiful color. I can’t tell you the number of times I will be at a scene with other photographers and they pack it up and leave moments after the sun sets. I wait that extra fifteen to twenty minutes AFTER the sun goes down to get much more intense images. Does it always work? Nope. but way more often than you might think and the rewards are worth it. I’ll address this in more detail in a future post.
Lately I’ve been capturing time lapse sequences of sunsets here in Sedona, Arizona. And by photographing them I seem to have reprogrammed my brain for the way it sees light change. Almost as if by capturing and working with images that compress time into a shorter period I am extending my vision of light and time.
Let me explain.
Because of this new awareness I am now seeing the shadows slowly crawl across a scene as if I am becoming hyper-aware of the changes. Capturing a time lapse makes you take time to slow down because it takes a fair number of images created over a relatively long time period to have enough material. In a sense it becomes a meditation.
Now in this particular case it was a bonus to set the camera up then retire to the bar to observe the changes taking place which was a fun way to work/play on a personal project. My wife and I got to enjoy a glass of happy hour wine and one of their stellar appetizers. (it was the calamari, cooked perfectly and served with a sweet/spicy sauce over a bed of carrots and light greens)
Images captured with the Lumix GX8 & 12-35mm f2.8 Vario lens. Time lapse was processed in camera then imported to Adobe Premeire CC 2015 for processing slight movement. I was hoping that the clouds you saw in the beginning of the video would have hung around and colored up to spectacular… and they did as they moved out of the frame. Color was bright salmon to the south… Oh well, still nice movement of light on the red rocks.
Time lapse Photography – Sound Bites Grill & Snoopy Rock
aka – Snoopy Goes to Sleep
I get to spend quite a bit of time at Sound Bites Grill, being the house photographer. So I am very familiar with the view. And as many times as I see the sun set on the red rocks I am always amazed at how each sunset differs from the one before. On this day with no clouds to help I decided to concentrate on the comic feature built into the red rocks a Charles Schultz character called Snoopy.
Snoopy Rock Time Lapse Video
The initial images were captured with the Lumix GX8 with a 35-100mm f2.8 Vario lens. The settings were for an image captured every 3 seconds. The video was processed in-camera in the GX8 to 4K video with playback speed at 12 frames per second. I had previously processed the 916 images into a 4K 24 fps video and felt it was too fast.
One problem that I wasn’t aware of during capture (cause I was having dinner at the bar) was there were some very severe wind gusts shaking the camera. That’s not a good way to view video. Adobe Premiere Pro CC 2015 to the rescue. Opened the file in Premiere Pro then added the graphics and music. Even more important used the Warp feature to examine and fix the shaky wind buffeted footage to rock steady. Also added a slight Ken Burns effect zooming slowly into the image featuring Snoopy that is possible because of the 4K size files that still leaves you plenty of quality on an HD timeline.
As an added benefit to shooting time lapses there are individual images to choose from to create stills from the same scene. Here’s one with just a bit more color correction in Adobe Camera Raw and Photoshop.
Snoopy Rock still photo at sunset.
I’m really enjoying the ease with which time lapse videos can be made with the Lumix cameras. You don’t need to take the subsequent video into and additional processing program but that enables the addition of information and flourishes depending on your final output.
For infrared conversion of my cameras I use LifePixel. Infrared allows you to put an older camera to use and opens up a new time time of day for productive image creation.
Fotopro tripods are well worth checking out. You can learn about the ones I use and recommend by clicking on the Fotopro Tripods link at the top of this page. If you want to see what other tripods might fit your needs check out the Fotopro.com website. Check back with me before you buy as a Fotopro Ambassador I’m able to get you discounted pricing including complementary continental USA shipping for my followers that you won’t find through retail outlets.
Learn Photoshop in a fun environment. Aaron Nace applies the right amount of fun with easy to understand and follow tutorials. Actions and brushes are included with lessons!
Lightning, waterdroplets, sound, time-lapse, HDR sequences, smiles and much more control for your camera!
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A High Speed Smart Camera Remote
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Platypod has become a great resource for being creative in getting your camera gear easily into unusual places. As an Platypod Pro I get to work/play with the gear even before it comes out. Head over to Platypod, subscribe to the newsletter and you will get special discounts reserved only for subscribers.
Love the movement of the water through the scene. Gives the story about how some of the landscapes are formed over the years.
It’s fascinating watching the country unfold from way up high! Toto I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore…
Lots of different views from above…
