A Flash in the Pan - orama

Recently, I've been frustrated trying to shoot panoramic photographs of room interiors. I decided today to take a different tack on the problem. I am pleased with the results.

The problem with interior panoramic photographs is those dang windows to the outside world. They are almost always many stops of light brighter than the ambient room light. At night, they tend to many stops darker. You just can't shoot all your panoramas at dusk. The building invariably faces the wrong way for that. So you are left to shoot in that 15 minute window of balanced light, resort to software shenanigans or light it yourself.

Using Ambient Light and
Replacing the Windows in Software 

Here is a photo of my first panoramic attempt at a tight interior. It was shot with ambient light - very warm ambient light.  I waited till noon to get the light as even as I could out the window. The windows completely overexposed anyway. I ended up shooting the windows separately and painstakingly cutting and pasting them in via image editing software. Notice those nice barrel-distortion curves. It was no picnic!

Next, I tried the HDR Route of panoramic photography. By bracketing exposures and then combining them, I was able to compensate for widely-varying light conditions inside and out and get and image which (barely) made me happy.

Multiple Exposures combined
into an HDR Image in Software 

HDR photographs are starting to get very old to me. I was one of the early proponents of the process of using software like Photomatix to combine multiple exposures. After looking at some recent photography shows, the promise of HDR has faded into the annoying obscurity of the latest fad effect. It screams fake instead of the truthful mimicry of the range of human sight which was its original promise.

Discouraged with software solutions of replacement pains (no pun intended) and the gimmickry of combining exposures in a slightly-less-than-realistic manner, I turned to one of the basic tenants of photography. "Get it right in the field."

As you know I have been experimenting with Strobes in the field, courtesy of the Strobist's teachings.

Flash-aided Panorama

Today we attacked the problem with off-camera strobes. Setting the camera to manual and exposing for the windows we find our base exposure. The remaining trick is to get the light balanced for the room.  A Canon 580EX flash with a Sto-Fen Omni bounce was used at 1/2 power + 1/3 stop. It was mounted above the tripod and circled on the panorama rig as I moved it around the room.  I ended up with a darker shot in some corners than I wanted originally.

Into my old lighting suitcase I went and pulled out an ancient Spiratone screw-in strobe and placed it in the overhead fixture. (You can actually see its reflection in the glass of the lighthouse picture) Now, I had enough light to light the room evenly. Well, evenly enough to determine that I had some really ugly stains on my carpet. 

What does anyone do with these stupid-looking panoramas? They make QTVR movies and sell them to real-estate agencies, remodelers and others for their web sites! The Video is Here (4MB Download and you must have Apple QuickTime on your system to view it, move around inside and zoom in and out.

Again, and not to sound like a broken record ('broken record'? that expression is a little long in the tooth ('long in the tooth'? Am I that old?)) Let's see-did I count the parenthesis correctly? Anyway-I digress. To repeat myself. Capture Correctly and Save Work!

Tonight as I sip an nice merlot, I will contemplate my next task. Building a dual flash panorama rig that allows two strobes to be mounted on either side of the camera as the rig spins…

Rikk Flohr © 2008

del.icio.us Tags: Flash,Panorama,QTVR,HDR,Image Editing

Stellarium - A must-have for the Outdoors Photographer

Often, free software is overlooked by photographers. I am as guilty as any of this trait. Outdoor photographers, particularly those who are in love with sunrise and set, moon rise and set and those who love to shoot astronomical phenomena like star trails and deep sky objects  are ever in search of tools to aid them in finding the right place at the right time. Into this scenario enters Stellarium.

Stellarium is a free planetarium software package  based on open source. It is available for Mac, Windows, and Linux. It offers you the ability to enter your own location, save it as a preset and use it to find out the times of sunrise, sunset, moonrise, moonset, phase, proximity of other night sky objects. Not only are the times offered, but you can find out where to look on the compass to see the sun peaking up behind that favorite rock formation or to find the moon setting behind your favorite lighthouse.

Another feature of Stellarium allows you to play the night in real time or at fast speed so that you can plan your shooting for tonight, tomorrow morning and anywhere in between.  This is particularly handy for determining the exact time an subject will interact with your location over the course of a long weekend or a month of great weather.  In combination with a map and a compass, it becomes a deadly precision tool in getting your tripod placed in just the right spot.

The program offers realistic horizon portrayals to help orient you and you have the ability to incorporate your own panoramic photos into the scene as well.  See this link.

The best part about this software is that it doesn't require a connection to the Internet. It works where ever you and your laptop are making Stellarium a  legitimate field tool for any outdoor photographer's gear bag.  Find out more about Stellarium at www.stellarium.org.

Three images where Stellarium put me in the sweet spot!

Check it out today!

Rikk Flohr © 2008

del.icio.us Tags: software,outdoor photography,sunrise,sunset,moon phase,free,stars,night

Costa Rica Photography Tour Date Announced!

"I want to see

you in Costa Rica!"

Fellow photographers, travelers, adventurers and fun seekers, we have set the date for the next Costa Rica Photo Adventure from Worldesigns Tours.  Come along with me as your instructor for Photography, Software and the Costa Rican experience. You've walked Balboa Park in San Diego and stalked Bourbon Street in New Orleans with me as your guide.  You might even have been with me on my last February's Costa Rica Adventure. You've watched me teach image editing at PowerPoint Live, CorelWorld, the upcoming CorelDraw Unleashed User's Conference and at various Camera Clubs throughout Minnesota.  You've read my photographic trials and travails on the blog network and you've seen my imagery at the Fleeting Glimpse web site. Now is the time to go with me on a real photographic adventure.
 

Costa Rica!

 

FEBRUARY 19-26, 2009

 

Gallery from the 2008 Trip 

Our tours are limited in size to ensure that our photographic participants receive the individual attention, instruction and aide they require.  It doesn't matter whether you a pro with bazooka-sized lenses or a for-fun photographer with a point-n-shoot, we will tailor our training and activities to your needs.

The tour operator has authorized me to offer an early booking discount of $ 200.00 for those who sign up for a tour by June 30, 2008 for the February 2009 tour.  Take advantage of this by going to the Worldesigns Tours web site and signing up for this once-in-a-life time adventure.  I want to see you in Costa Rica!

del.icio.us Tags: Costa Rica,Photography,Travel,Tours,Instruction,Worldesigns,adventure

Rikk Flohr © 2008

Anatomy of a Self-Portrait

Multiple off-camera flash in action

"…incredible results to counter the
most severe of circumstances…"

If you followed my blog recently, you will know that I am hanging out at the Strobist's Blog. The Strobist advocates the simple use of off camera strobes, portable and relatively inexpensive, to create professional lighting results. Yesterday my B&H box arrived with several new strobe toys which allowed me to expand my lighting arsenal. I set up a self-portrait example to test equipment and technique.

F 11 @ 1/5 Second

I started with an aperture priority shot using the camera's metering.  The shot is both dark and light due to daylight coming in from the windows. A poor portrait at best.  Tungsten lights in the room were turned off to keep the light color variance to a minimum.

I think one of the things that distinguish professional-looking portraits from shots like this is the ability to show detail in those dark and bright areas. In other words the ability to see beyond the dynamic range of the light available.

F11 @ 1/250 Second

I used the outside as the basis for my exposure. I metered for the exterior and set my camera on manual to ensure I exposed the sky out my window correctly. This resulted in a too-dark image. Virtually no detail is left in the rest of the shot.

With a basis for exposure, I can start looking at my ambient light picture and selecting problem areas and build from there.  I began to set up off-camera flashes to light my room.

F11 @ 1/250 Second

I set up a Canon 580 EXII speedlite on full power to shoot through a Sto-Fen Omni-bounce to illuminate the room's interior. Trial and error placement resulted in a position just slightly ahead of my body in the room's center.

Notice how the ambient window light falling on my face is nearly neutralized. The window side of my face is now too dark and the area on my desk is in too much shadow for my taste. Adding a second off-camera flash seemed like the best course of action given the room's tight layout.  There was no place to set up a reflector.

F11 @ 1/250  Second

With a second speed-lite placed to the left side of the image, I was able to open up the shadows on the desktop and the right side of my body. This flash was set to Manual at 1/8th power. I now have a natural looking portrait lit entirely by portable, off-camera flash.

This shot is nicely lit but one element is missing-the monitor's image (see first image). Exposing the windows ( a huge distraction if over exposed, and lighting me correctly meant I had to sacrifice the image on the monitor. That is what image editing software is for. It is much easier to replace that monitor display than to expose for the display and try to fix the windows or the room interior.

Speedlite with Omni-bounce	Canon DSLR with ST-E2 Wireless Flash Controller	Speedlite set on desktop

Above were the three components used to create the portrait. Below I have photographed a wide angle shot to demonstrate the relative locations of each component used.

Final analysis: Off-camera flash give you a powerful edge in creating more professional and dynamic pictures. Adding a second flash and a few key pieces of equipment like wireless controls, flash accessories and a stand can give you incredible results to counter the most severe of circumstances.

With digital, you can experiment, meter, and achieve incredible results-even through trial and error. A little practice and these things will start to become second-nature.

Now, off to Big Woods State Park for a little off-camera multi-flash nature photography…

Rikk Flohr © 2008

del.icio.us Tags: flash,portraits

Technorati Tags: flash,portraits

Retouche'

del.icio.us Tags: retouching,image editing,Corel,photoshop,portraits

"It's not what's in the mirror-it's what's left inside." ~ Stevie Nicks, Sometimes It's A Bitch

The lure of Image Editing Software is subtle, seductive and self-indulgent. Nothing reinforced this like the recent event of taking my own passport photo. The purpose of a passport photo is to give a reasonable likeness of yourself to identify you when traveling abroad or attempting to gain reentry to your homeland. After taking the photographs of my wife and I in the most flattering light I could find, the temptation to touch us up a bit was overwhelming.  Long story-short, I maintained control and did only the most minimal of retouching so that our photographs wouldn't be too far from the truth.

The following exercise is not as indicative of self control.

I took this self portrait while working out a lighting set up for an upcoming shoot.  I used a Canon 100 MM F2.8 Macro-a lens too sharp for traditional portrait work. I decided it was a little harsh and needed softening. I used some varied techniques to 'Hollywood Up' my image.

Most of my retouching skills were learned in books and seminars.  Katrin Eismann's book, Photoshop Restoration and Retouching is a great place to start. It has many techniques that can be applied to all image editing software packages. I used Corel PhotoPaint in today's exercise for example.

Here is the end result of my efforts. It is an example of self-indulgent over retouching. While I love the way I turned out in this retouch, I know, after letting it ruminate a few days that it was too much.  This is a problem with editing software. People don't step back and think about what they've done.

One of my latest workflow operations is to evaluate what I have done through the lens of time. I find that I am over exuberant in editing an image because I am caught up in the adrenaline rush of the process. After leaving it sit for an hour, a day, a week, and then revisiting the project, I find I can often dial back my editing a bit and achieve a more realistic and ultimately more pleasing result.

Here, I have overlaid the completely retouched image with the original file. By setting the transparency to 33% or, the opacity to 67 percent if you prefer, I can softly fade the retouch into the original yielding a more realistic, yet nicely retouched image.

I liked the image even though it was just a lighting test and my expression is a little wide-eyed.  One of the tricks Hollywood and tabloids us to make celebrities larger than life is to enlarge the eyes slightly-only a 102% or so. I had done this in my original retouch but forgotten to take it back when I did my final blend. So I did it again.

 
Split Screen showing retouching before and after.

You can see now the eyes are subdued and not as large as in the original retouch. I am happy with the final product and feel that it represents me well. It is what is inside but perhaps not what is in the mirror. After all, the goal of portraiture is to give the rendition we expect of our loved ones and ourselves.  If we have to sit on it a day or two and then dial it back to reality - the delay is worth the effort.

Final Image after Retouching and Partial Reversal

Rikk Flohr © 2008

The Low Down

del.icio.us Tags: flash,macro,nature,wildflowers

One of the big mistakes most people make when taking pictures is they way they stand-or rather that they stand. Kodak taught us long ago to hold the camera to our eye and steady ourselves before snapping the picture. What resulted from this was a generation of photographers who learned to take pictures at 4.5 feet off the ground.

Just thumb through your picture albums and you will see that most pictures of children have the ground or the floor as the background because the parent is shooting down on them.  How much more engaging is a picture when we put ourselves in the perspective of the subject?

A child will always look better when photographed at eye level.  The same is true of many other objects. I was out shooting wildflowers at Big Woods State Park yesterday and this was on my mind.  Actually a lot of things were on my mind. Last week's article was about a different trip to Big Woods where I concentrated on using flash in bright daylight. This trip was the same except that I was concentrating on using flash that wasn't affixed to the camera.

This photograph is only possible when you have the flower at eye level. Unless your flower grows five feet tall or you have a convenient ditch in which to stand, you are going to have difficulty getting this perspective on a subject. I laid on my stomach for this shot but was propped up on my elbows so the camera saw about 12 inches from the ground. It matched the height of the blossom nicely.

Sometimes it is necessary to get even lower if your subject is particularly low or you are adjusting the placement of the background in your image.

This shot of an emerging bloom was taken from about 6 inches off the ground. In order to move the orange glow closer to the blossom and give the top of the frame a little more interest. From a little higher placement at capture, I would have moved the lower part of the background higher in the picture and lost some of that delicious orange color that makes the image for me.  A little off camera flash to the right lights the flower and leaves the background dark. Leaving me with a flower that pops and a background that compliments but does not compete.

Other times you dig down deep to get some foreground in shot. This can be particularly helpful in creating an artistic context to the shot.

In this shot, the camera is two inches off the ground and I am using the foreground grass as a diffusion element to give an impressionistic feel to the image. This flower was in total shade so I didn't use a flash , being satisfied with the soft light as it was. The shallow depth of field of the macro lens enhances the dream-like quality of the image and makes it softer and more painterly without having to resort to software.

Bottom line is get to the bottom. Go low to match your subject's perspective and you will be rewarded with pictures that look nothing like a snapshot.

Rikk Flohr © 2008

Considering Fill-Flash

Spring is in the air-finally. Those of us in Minnesota saw our last snow melt a week ago. Those of us in Minnesota who are photographers are itching to get shooting. Today, in spite of the poor light (blue skies and mid-day sun), poor conditions (windy) and poor time of year (brown vegetation with sparse emerging plants), I went out to practice some manual flash techniques in preparation for the wildflower season.

Round-Lobed Hepatica

Having spent some time over at the Strobist's Blog, I have been eager to try out some less-than-automated flash photography.

Though armed with reflectors and sunlight my wildflower photos have been lacking something-some extra punch. I decided that maybe a little manual shooting like I did in the old days before Aperture Priority and Flash before ETTL, was in order.  This is a departure from my usual technique to use natural light and then do the remaining corrections in image editing software.

This close up shot of a solitary blossom shows potential. It has some nice backlighting by the 11:00 AM sun and though I was able to keep from blowing the highlights and plugging the shadows too much, the flower ended up being much darker than the background.  I was using a silver reflector on this shot.

"What a difference a little
well-placed flash can make!"

In the second shot, the same blossom was photographed with the Canon 580EX flash set to 1/16 +.3 EV  power at 90° with the bounce card deployed. As you can see, the flower is much more evenly illuminated. The background, while lighter, no longer dominates the flower. The nice backlighting provided by the sun is still present as are the shadows cast by the petals in the upper left. Overall this image is going to be much easier to work with in software.

The real difference in the images to those who like to use software like Photoshop, Photo-Paint, Paint Shop Pro and Elements, to enhance their images, can be seen by reviewing the histograms.

Comparing the histogram without flash on the left with the histogram from the flash photo on the right we can see that the images are going to be different animals when it comes to editing. Most of the pixels in the normal exposure are in the second darkest stop of the image where Fill Light adjustments are normally applied. In the flash exposure, more of the pixels are in the Exposure Range of the histogram.  Notice too, that the blacks are much heavier without the flash and actually plug on the blue channel. In the fill flash shot, the blacks are fewer and don't plug. This seems intuitive: more light = less blacks and darks.

Here's the rub: The highlights are actually better in the flash shot! The non-flash shot has plugged shadows in the blue channel and almost touches the wall on the left meaning highlights are approaching white. A little highlight recovery might be in order for the non-flash image.

What does it mean? The flash image has more to work with in areas that are going to lend themselves to editing. The non-flash image needs highlight recovery and black and fill light areas boosted. Those types of adjustments introduce noise and posterization if done too severely.  What a difference a little well-placed flash can make!

It all goes back to the adage: Get it right in the field and you will spend less time in the software at the desk. The choice of using a little fill flash on an image that I could likely have easily recovered means I don't have to do that bit of extra work. I can easily apply this technique to situations where I might have trouble doing it in software later.

In this flash shot, the flower above is backlit by the sun, the flower in the middle is in shadow of the blossom above and the blossom below is reflecting direct sunlight at the lens. A flash allows me to expose them all properly and control the brightness of my background at the same time!

So everyone, visit the Strobist Blog and then let's all go out and flash something.

Rikk Flohr © 2008

Blogging in Person

The Blog has hit the fans!

In this blog, I have covered photography, image editing software, presenting and a host of other topics. It is rare that I write on the phenomenon of blogging itself. I know little of blogging save my own experience and the scant absorption of infrequent visits to other blogs.

Bloggers have an intrinsic advantage when it comes to spouting opinions, pontificating authoritatively and creating an environment in which they are a respected and acknowledged as a legitimate voice in their arena of the blog-o-sphere. That advantage lies in the relative obscurity of the individual on the Internet and the quasi-anonymity offered by the nature of the blogging medium.

Taking it to the Streets!
Rikk Flohr on a Digital Photography Tour in Costa Rica
Photo Credit: Nicole Flohr

Some bloggers are very much like the people who shout (or shout down) opinions from the darkened recesses in the back of auditoriums. It is relatively easy to sit in the comfort of your home and attempt to influence the masses. It is harder to get off of your chair, leave your house and to out and meet the people who comprise the intended audience of your writing. Ultimately, it is far more rewarding.

I have taken this to heart. My blogging began in 2004 as a means to explore my writing, deal with grief, and connect with the kind of people who shared my interests, beliefs and needs. As my blog evolved, I found it to be a forum to share my knowledge, challenge my peers, and explore my worth as an mentor in a variety of fields. As my confidence grew through my blogging and other online activities, I found myself wanting to actually meet the kind of people with whom I have interacted online.

"There's no substitute for
'pressing of the flesh'."

Fast forward to 2008. My evenings are now full of meetings and sessions where I attend, offer opinions and conduct classes. Last night, I spent my evening with the wonderful folks at the Crosstown Camera Club teaching the basics of Waterfall Photography. As I gave my presentation, I found that I felt like I was blogging-in person-only better! This makes me wonder-is blogging really something new? Or, did it take the place of something valuable societal interaction? Or, in the right hands-administered properly, does blogging augment personal interaction?

Like purveyors of many disciplines, bloggers come from different camps. Some grew into prominence through their blog and others were in prominence and decided to blog as well. I am neither.

"There is no substitute for 'pressing the flesh'", Rick Altman of PowerPoint Live maintains. It is one of the reasons his conferences are so successful. A closer-knit community forms from the proximity and interaction that is inimitable in a virtual community. Shaking hands and connecting with people enhances the messages you share and the passion you seek to invoke.

Blogging was originally a way to express myself and work through my internal issues. It is now become a way of giving back by sharing my expertise in photography, image editing, computer use, and what little I have gleaned from life's lessons by living. I try to live my blog now and only report on it here.

Rikk Flohr © 2008