Using Reflectors : Cat Images

Cat pictures! :3 

using a reflector...

The reflector is more useful than I first though... Back in high school they had a 

Film broadcast and everytime they interviewed people

you could totaly see the bright glare from them using a reflector...

he's not too interested in reflectors... little does he know the curtain also doubles as a reflector!

so for a while I was against it.. This is my first time using a Neewer reflector

I got of amazon for $8 

use the reflector whenn you can!! XD 

it makes a huge difference!!

Get as close to the subject as you possibly can without getting the reflector in the shot... 

or unless you want to use the reflector as a white background! ;) 

well this would be more educational if I added a with and without picture... hold up I'll go do it now.. 

but its late so I don't have any Natural Light to work with... and my cat's sleeping in a dark spot of the house... ugh.. okay hold on... 

okay so here's without the reflector. The photo is more contrasy and if you want a dark, lonely mood

then using no reflector is good :P  

it also looks crappy out of context so maybe moody isn't good... 

This is with the reflector. 

no settings on the camera were changed and both images were processed the same. (curves and sharpness)

but this one has a happier, more colorful mood. Also the Mega64 artwork gets some light shed on it... 

(perhaps I'll use a tripod one day... cause I did NOT move the cat.. blame it on the light...) 

Lazy Linus

 Perhaps the coolest cat I've ever owned, now I'm not going to try to turn this into a photography lesson or anything, because sometimes its not about using special techniques and rule of thirds...

 Sometimes the only thing that matters is whats in front of the camera... no matter how awesome your angle is, how fast your shutter speed it or how much DOF you have in the shot... none of that matters if your subject is boring ;)

Blending in is the only way I can survive...

oh yeah... 

Zzzzzzzzzzzz

if you really want something out of this post it would be this:

Don't waste too much time learning techniques and stuff, sure its important, but a lot of your time should also be spent with the side that "normal people" actually care about - subjects...

HDR Tutorial ( Photomatix )

So you've taken your 3 Bracketed photos but don't know exactly how to EDIT them to make that amazing HDR look.. no fear! This tutorial is SUPER DUPER CRAZY EASY!!! (if you're a noob and don't know what HDR is or how to take HDR photos, look at THIS POST first) 

Photomatix is a $100 program that takes your 3 images and combines them into one BEAUTIFUL HDR image and although this can easily be done in Photoshop or other FREE HDR programs, for the sake of this tutorial I will use Photomatix! 


STEP 1: select

Chose "Load bracketed photos" and pick your 3 pictures you want to use. (easy... TOO EASY!!!) ....


 it will give you some options such as noise removal and what not, feel free to pick what you want... figure out what it does on your own... 


Press ok and let it do its thing... it will take some time depending on your picture size and what not


STEP 2: edit

now you have this awesome screen which has a low quality preview of your final image... 


at the bottom are different presets for different looks, "enhancer - Grunge" is the one I have selected in the image above... 


Play with the settings and style so you can get something that fits what you're looking for. 


when you're happy press the big "PROCESS" button at the bottom... 


STEP 3: save

Now it seems like you're done but don't exit yet! 


click "SAVE AS" and chose whatever, I usually do JPEG for convenience. 


If you exit before you save as, you might lose your incredible 2 steps of hard work!!! 


(and did I mention Photomatic saves your adjustments from previously on to any future projects, so even if you did screw up, all your adjustments would STILL be there anyways... AMAZING!!!!) 


THE FINISHED PRODUCTS: 

I edited this one a little more with curves, brightness and contrast and sharpening effects... click to enlarge

hope you enjoyed this super simple tutorial, the free HDR programs all have a similar work flow, just some of them don't have as nice presets... 


the HDR tool that comes with Photoshop doesn't even have presets, and trust me, doing it manually... good luck! :P all it does is combine your 3 images, but no special looks... 

HDR (A Quick How to Lesson)

HDR (high Dynamic Range) is a technique in photography where 3 (or more) pictures are taken of the same subject with DIFFERENT Exposure values.


 [There are ways to pull off this look with only ONE image taken, known as FAKE HDR, which can still look nice when done to the right image, but the REAL HDR will undoubtedly ALWAYS look better!] (simply because the details being emphasized are actually there in REAL HDR, where as in FAKE HDR its more of tricking the viewers to think the details were actually there....)


After editing the 3 pictures down into one, you end up with an image that most accurately represents how the human eye would see the world, OR, the effects can be exaggerated to bring out the details even MORE and create a surreal effect... 


If you don't know how to set your camera to shoot 3 pictures with different exposures, here's a quick lesson on it (Canon users - Nikon Losers ... no jk it should be pretty much the same on both DSLRs) 


Set the camera to "M" and set your picture, adjust your setting and all that stuff you would normally do for a normal picture, once you get an average set up, press the "Q" button and navigate to the Exposure Settings and click "set"

The thingy circled in green is the exposure menue, select it and roll the dial on the top of you camera to set the bracketing... the more the bracketing the more dramatic the difference will be between your shots...

for Magic Lantern users, simply turn HDR bracketing "ON" and that's all you'll have to worry about! >:P 

Now your camera is ready to shoot 3 pictures at 3 different exposures! You might want to add a delay/timer so when you press the button it takes a while before the camera actually takes the pictures 


(to prevent shake in the photo from when you press the camera - and also cause the 3 different pictures have to be EXACTLY the same in terms of composition) 

anyways BLAH BLAH BLAH! in the next post it'll be time to learn how to go from the 3 pictures above to this: 

This is a more exaggerated look, the details seem to POP in a surreal look, there are tons of different effects you can go for, so don't feel like all HDR images will look like paintings... 


  

Graduated Neutral Density Filter

Graduated Neutral Density Filters are pieces of plastic, one end it perfectly clear, the other end is darker to prevent some light from entering...

 When the camera is pointed at an unevenly exposed area (horizon) The Filter can be used to properly expose BOTH the sky and the land.

This is without the filter, (not that there's anything wrong with this picture) It just might not be the look you're going for....

same picture, WITH the filter... (the down side is objects in the foreground get darker)

The advantage to using the filter is its really easy to get that HDR look without taking multiple pictures. (it also works great for videos) 

...and of course... There's always Set Extension to get a FAKE background instead... 

The images below has nothing to do with satanic cult worshiping...  

This is a sample form an upcoming film I'm working on... and DON'T WORRY, it doesn't have anything to do with "evil" stuff... 

DSLR Sensor Cleaning (Lazy Guide) "Hot Pixel"

in the spirit of lazy this blog post will be very lazily done*


To clean your DSLR sensor WITHOUT touching, risking or damaging your sensor:
*don't take off your camera lens*

1: Set your camera to Manual Mode

2: Go to the options (middle yellow wrench thingy on Canon DSLR's)

3: Select "Sensor Cleaning" (your camera will open it's sensor where you could if you wanted to, put a sensor cleaning device inside and clean it, however if you screw up, you may potentially render the camera completely useless... )

4: after about a minute to 2 minutes turn your camera off

5: Take a blank picture and check it for hot pixels and other dirt... if the picture looks cleaner then your sensor is clean and there is no need to take it to a camera specialist.

this is a picture taken with the lens cap on... LOOKS perfectly black right?

this is the EXACT same picture as the one above, only slightly zoomed in to reveal that even though the picture looks black, there's still plenty of dirt and dust and all sorts of imperfections on the sensor... (just proves how incredibly sharp and sophisticated camera's these days are)

and that one bright white dot in the center is called a "hot pixel" usually hot pixels aren't a problem and are virtually invisible unless you shoot in low light... where they can often become distracting and frustrating... They can always be colored over but if you shoot video, its a little harder to cover it up...

This picture below is the exact same zoomed in selection as the above picture, only taken AFTER I did the above procedure to clean my sensor... notice the hot pixel has vanished :)

there is still a little bit of dots and noise... but that can't be helped, and after a little touching up all that stuff can be fixed up! (only a truly picky photographer would gripe about something so small as a little bit of noise)

Incredible above pictures taken by Andrew Taraba, please no stealing?

HSL Magic! The Magic of adjusting Hue, Saturation and Lighting...

Using HSL in any photography editing program and even video editing programs, you can go from the original left photograph, to the new HSL enhanced right photograph with almost no work at all... 

feel free to copy and past the photo below, if you want to follow along with this tutorial

STEP 1:  Do all the "usual" adjustments, from the original photograph and pretty it up the way you think looks best... I usually do a brightness and Contrast adjustment with a few Color Curves to get what I thought looked pretty nice:  

Step 2: HSL adjust... 

Experimentation is the best way photographers will learn... 

THE FINISHED PRODUCT: 

Here's some other photographs edited using HSL adjustments.

Pictures by Andrew Taraba

Incredible Canon T3i/600D Example Pictures

Incredible Canon T3i/600D Example Pictures

The Canon t3i is an incredible camera both for video and photography. I fell in love with this thing since the first time I touched it. Here are some photographs I took using only the Standard 18-55mm kit lens.

All the stars are smoking cigs... or maybe... All the cigs send us to the stars....

Time to make dinner... Someone forgot to clean out the oven... House instantly got filled with smoke... PICTURE TIME!!! ;]

Nothing turns a stomach or moves my hunger more than a nice old Live Sea Urchin...

Two satellites floating in the sky...

This was my picture for the Animal Photography Contest... I later found out that the magazine article I found the add for the contest in was three months old...

Symbolism in the cymbal....

Pictures by Andrew Taraba