by successfulbob | landscape photography, lens baby, Lumix GX8, Lumix Lounge, panorama, photography
Da#M it!
I got all the way up the hill to the cliff dwellings and realized I left the fisheye from Lens Baby in the car. Gotta tell you I almost didn’t go get it. I also gotta tell you it probably isn’t such a great idea to run 15 minutes up a steep hill at 7500+ feet. I was sucking some serious wind when I got back up to the top.
Annnnyy waayy… I thought I try some different things with the fisheye lens because of the relatively small spaces in the caves. Once I got my breath back I mounted it on the Lumix GX8 and here’s what I started to play with.
Here’s a ‘straight’ Circular Fisheye image from the dwellings. The full fisheye effect is a little cut-off because of the micro 4/3rds format.
Gila cliff dwellings photo captured in a different way with the Lens Baby
Then I thought I’d try to push the envelope a bit further an do a panorama. Here’s the individual captures…
And the stitched image… Don’t try to have Photoshop stitch this for you it locked up on me. I guess the circular edges gave it fits so I did the stitching the old fashioned way… by hand with masks.
I enjoy trying new and different things and was surprised by the final result.
Experiment.
Play.
Have fun.
Make mistakes.
Learn.
Yours in Creative Photography, Bob
by successfulbob | infrared photography, landscape photography, Lumix G6, Lumix Lounge, photography, photography creativity, photography education, photography gear
While on the mountain trip we rode off through the wilderness. Can you say “Curvy Roads!” boys and girls?
Lots of winding roads through the area but it led to some beautiful places. I had the Lumix G6 that has been converted to Infrared capture by LifePixel. It gives the image a pinkish cast straight out of the camera. I’m starting to find my groove in processing for the final Infrared photo look I am going for…
I enjoy how these trees framed a little window into the water beyond.
Same trees different composition with a witness to how careful you need to be in shielding your lens from a direct sun hit. Although in this case I think it’s a happy accident and enjoy the flare that found its way into the frame.
Here’s my workflow at the moment as I learn more how the camera ‘sees’ IR light. I capture the scene in RAW plus jpeg with the camera set to capture a black and white image. This give me a pretty good preview of what the IR image will look once it is processed. But since I am capturing the RAW images at the same time I also get all the information that was presented to and captured by the camera for tweaking in post processing. Having all the color information in different channels allows for some very specific processing that would not be available if only the Luminous information was saved.
In addition to the RAW plus jpeg I also bracket exposures. At the moment I am bracketing by seven stops to learn how far to over and/or under expose any particular scene.
Then I choose two of the separate RAW captures with one giving me the tones for the foliage and one for the sky. I process these in Adobe Camera RAW. Then using Masks I blend the two images together feathering the areas using the Brush Tool. I Save the file and merge all into a Layer on top preserving the Masked Layers just in case.
Then I take the file into NIK Silver FX Pro2 to process for Black and White because I still have the color information in the file I have more options for tweaking individual tones. Then I will process the color Layer one more time to vary specific areas even more. Then with the tow BW processed Layers I blend those together using Masks for the final tone blend. Then depending on the look I am going for I may process this Layer in NIK Color FX Pro4 using Glamour Glow and Mask those changes where necessary.
More IR images tomorrow.
Yours in Creative Photography, Bob
by successfulbob | photography, photography - art quote, photography education
Sometimes I head off on a tangent tapping into quotes from painters, writers, poets, coaches and others. Today let’s get back to a quote from a photographer. Former Magnum Photographer Wayne Miller documented war, black families and was a Life Magazine photographer among his other photographic endeavors.
A Time Magazine memorial article when 94 year old Miller passed away in 2013 started this way, “To photograph mankind and explain man to man — that was how legendary photographer Wayne Miller described his decades-long drive to document the myriad subjects gracing his work.”
Here’s the Photo Art Quote from Wayne that caught my attention.
“I think good dreaming is what leads to good photographs.” Wayne Miller
Simple ten word thoughts like these lead me to do some searching to find a way to make my images stronger and a bit different from those that have created before me. I proudly say that i stand on the shoulders of those photographers that have come before me. Without them photography would not be what it is today. When you take strong ideas and then build upon them you come up with stronger images.
What is dreaming? According to Wikipedia, “Dreams are successions of images, ideas, emotions, and sensations that occur usually involuntarily in the mind during certain stages of sleep.” An idea to capitalize on your dreams is to work to retain them after the fact is to have a notebook and pen or recorder next to your bed. If you don’t jot down the ideas that come to you in dreams within a few moments of wakening they go out and become part of the ether again.
To my mind photographic dreaming is a culmination of all the information you place in front of your eyes. Movies, books, photographs, impressions from your travels and added to that your imagination mixing all of these elements together. This can also be done while you are awake to have more control. Give yourself permission to day-dream. I know it was probably knocked out of you at an early age with parents and teachers telling you to, “Stop woolgathering!” “Pay attention!” “Day-dreaming is a waste of time…” Now you don’t want to do it all the time, but you do want to let your mind wander and play. Playing is one of the best ways to learn and develop new ideas and concepts.
What do you dream about? Have you found ways to incorporate your dreams into your photography?
Yours in Creative Dreaming, Bob
by successfulbob | cloud photography, infrared photography, landscape photography, Lumix G6, Lumix Lounge, photography, photography creativity, photography education
Live, learn and practice some more.
This is the continuing story of learning to see and capture infrared images with my newly refurbished Lumix G6 camera from LifePixel where I added a straight IR filter to the camera… (see Part One or Part Two)
Photographing with a camera that has had it’s sensor replaced by with an infrared filter makes IR photography MUCH easier than the olden days of film when fogging a roll was easy and focusing not so much. But as with all things photography making it easier doesn’t necessarily lead to stellar results. You still need to learn to ‘see’ in infrared. A helpful tool is the use of photographing in RAW +jpeg. You can set the camera capture mode to black and white The capture is in color AND black and white. If you have what you need and are happy with the ‘natural’ in-camera capture in black and white you are ready to go…
So far I am not.
RAW file to the rescue. As you saw in part two there are multiple ways of addressing the final IR image and many ways to get to the final image you have in your brain. We still have the words of Ansel Adams to fall back on to create a more artistic rendition of a scene. Paraphrasing for today’s world here, ‘The RAW capture is the score, the processing and final print the performance.’ Just as a conductor can get more out of his orchestra but pulling exhorting his individual musicians to do their best we can manipulate each pixel in each color space to give us the tones we desire.
Some of the things I’ve dabbled with…
Two or three different processing pulls from the RAW files for different areas of the image.
NIK Silver FX Pro 2. to convert to black and white and tweak ‘colors’ into the tones I was looking for.
Channel Mixer Adjustment Layer after the file was open in Photoshop.
Black and White Adjustment Layer.
Hue Saturation Adjustment Layers.
And mixing and matching all of the above techniques to taste…
We don’t have a lot of deciduous trees in Sedona, but the banks of Oak Creek lead a parade of trees down from Flagstaff. Having the color information available in the file and Layers and Masks in Photoshop allowed me to create the contrast and tones I was looking for…
Same scene from a slightly different angle and different processing lead to an image, while still BW IR has a totally different feel than the one above.
As always don’t forget to turn around… Many times there is an enticing image waiting behind you.
Moving off the creek banks led to this….
I see IR as a great new tool in my quiver. Makes photographing at mid-day very interesting. Can’t wait until I start to learn more about new capture and processing ideas to really push the look.
Yours in Creative Photography, Bob
by successfulbob | landscape photography, Lumix GX8, panorama, photography education, photography gear
I really enjoy the field of view you can achieve with a panoramic photo. The Lumix GX8 is pretty solid with the in-camera stitching when you need a quick capture of the scene for sharing… And with this version going to print. There are still some occasional stitching errors in areas with lots of confusing crossing details or areas with hardly any detail but I had to look really, really hard to find a small error in one of the tree clumps… Sweet!
This is the view on the way to Cathedral Rock in Sedona, Arizona. Heading down Verde Valley School Road in the Village of Oak Creek (view of the right side of Cathedral Rock)
Here’s a tip that some people don’t think of when creating Panos. Turn the camera to the vertical position as you make your capture. This will give you some more vertical room. You can also capture a next ‘row’ of image and stitch them together in Photoshop or your favorite Pano program.
One more thought to help get smoother stitching… Point your feet toward or slightly past where you would like the pano to end. Then pivot your stomach muscles to the beginning of the captures and use your stomach muscles to move the camera with your elbows tucked in and the camera touching your forehead.
Yours in Creative Photography, Bob
