Photo links for Sept. 21, 2010
Tuesday, 21 September, 2010 — photography
These photo links have been around a while, but if you haven’t seen them, they’re very worthwhile.
Articles tagged: photography
iPhone + Aperture 3 = GPS-tagged photos
Tuesday, 09 February, 2010 — iphone photography
I’m checking out the newly announced Aperture 3 info. There’s a lot to like about being able to split libraries, merge libraries and use brushes as to make adjustments. But, my hands down “Holy crap, oh my God that’s awesome” moment is seeing that Aperture 3 can use an iPhone photo to hint at GPS coordinates for digital photos from a different camera. Alternatively, you can use an iPhone app like RunKeeper to record a GPS track. Then, from the RunKeeper website, download a GPX track, which Aperture can then read.
That seems far more flexible for cameras without internal GPS than a GPS attachment. By itself, that sells the $99 upgrade for me.
Photographing Raleigh fireworks
Sunday, 05 July, 2009 — photography video
I shot a sequence of roughly 75 images in the course of 20 minutes during the fireworks display at the NC State Fairgrounds in western Raleigh. I used a remote trigger for everything and had the exposure locked in at ISO 400, f/11 and five seconds of exposure.
As I was editing the photos, I was pleased my tripod performed admirably. No appreciable shake. No one dislodged the tripod (likely to have been me). What I noticed – through the sequence – was the sky darkening, clouds drifting and people moving. So, while there are a few stills I like (and have uploaded to Flickr), I saw the whole sequence was worth sharing.
While I like the sequence as a whole, I’m not thrilled with how the rendered video pixelates the transitions. I’m unsure of the cause or solution.
As a result of the experience, I have extended notes in two areas, night photography in general, then detail on my workflow of creating the video.
Night photography notes
I wasn’t exactly sure what a good exposure value was going to be for the fireworks or how far away from them I’d be. My selected values of f/11 and ISO 400 were intended to first give myself a lot of focal latitude, minimal grain and the ability to get a longer exposure. The exposure time of five seconds was a good guess, confirmed with a couple of test exposures. After moving to Beryl Road upon realizing we were in a bad position to view fireworks, I used the remote release attached to the D300 and set-up bursts of exposure, four at a time.
A tripod is essential to night photography. Mine is one I formerly used for large-format photography, so the legs are extremely hardy and the head adjusts on three axis individually. If I was getting a replacement now, I would probably get something lighter. But, something heavy that won’t blow over easily or has a tendency to jump when you adjust the camera is good.
About the remote shutter release: Once exposure and composition is dialed-in, it’s nice not touching the camera for shutter release. During a long exposure, particularly those long enough to require tripod support, but less than a couple of seconds, touching the camera can induce shake and yield a sub-optimal image.
Unfortunately, with many dSLRs, using a cable release that threads into the shutter button is not an option. With cameras like the Nikon D70, D90 and such, there’s a infrared remote release. Fine, but that required triggering within view of the IR receiver. On the D300, there is a threaded release into a PC port, but that means a minimum of $15 for just a button on up to $150 for Nikon’s multi-function cord. While it works on Nikon’s top-end dSLRs, it isn’t compatible with the consumer models.
I use an off-brand release, with the ability to set a release timer, multiple exposures and probably a few other things. The main thing is, in this instance, cost aside, the ability to trigger multiple exposures without touching the camera itself was a bonus.
If you don’t have a remote release option, use a self timer.
Video creation and export
I used Aperture, iPhoto ‘08 and iMovie ‘08 to create the video. I imported the photos from my card, per normal process, and then opened iMovie. Within iMovie, I started a 4:3 project. I set the images to scale within my selected project size. Each photo is fully onscreen for two seconds, with a crossfade of .15 seconds. I was initially going to upload video to Flickr, but even at one second of video, I had 17 seconds more than Flickr’s 90 second maximum. I didn’t want to drop images from the sequence.
My initial difficulty was photo quality in iMovie. I keep my Aperture previews small, so the first run of video that used the RAW images directly was not very good. I exported the images as full resolution JPEGs. I tried importing the freshly exported photos into iMovie’s media browser, but no go. If it isn’t in Aperture, iTunes or iPhoto, iMovie won’t see it. Rather than import images I already had in Aperture, I imported them into iPhoto, which I’m using to catch my iPhone 3GS video. That allowed iMovie to see the JPEGs.
I wanted to output High Definition video. iMovie ‘08’s direct export settings aren’t accurate in terms of what YouTube will accept, so I ignored those. Instead, I exported with QuickTime at 720p, 30 frames-per-second, presuming a 1-Mbit connection.
While exporting, I was not surprised my MacBook Pro was going to take a while to render the video as MPEG-4. But, it did seem excessive, and I remembered, my MBP has a discrete NVIDIA GeForce 9600M GT card. I typically use the integrated GeForce 9400M graphics since using that card offers better battery life. This export made logging out and switching to the discrete card worthwhile.
I’m a very infrequent user of iMovie, but it seems to be agreeable to my prodding and poking about settings to (mostly) get what I’m after.
Nine Inch Nails and Jane's Addiction photos and thoughts
Monday, 15 June, 2009 — music photography
I have photos from the concert up on Flickr. So far, I have 12 from Nine Inch Nail’s portion. In the next couple of days, I’ll have a few from Jane’s Addiction. There are quite a few photos from other Flickr users, too.
Some observations and thoughts on the concert:
- Nine Inch Nails performed as a four piece. Robin Finck was the only support player I’d previously seen with NIN in-concert. But, nothing seemed lacking by having one less person on stage.
- NIN had better sound than Jane’s Addiction. Vocals and instrumentation were very well balanced.
- Back in Section 13, Dave Navarro and Eric Avery’s work seemed too much for Farrell to sing over. Part of this is I’m not incredibly familiar with Jane’s Addiction’s material, so without knowing what all of the songs where, I had a harder time keeping up. @lkmi wondered if it was just the nature of Perry Farrell’s voice.
- Jane’s Addiction had a more thorough light show. They also had the benefit of going onstage after twilight.
- Compared to the Lights in the Sky and With Teeth tours, NIN’s lighting and presentation was greatly simplified. What there was was well done.
- NIN covered a wide variety of material, including a couple of more obscure tracks from The Downward Spiral. I don’t recall anything from Ghosts I-IV. Songs I was surprised (but not disappointed) not to hear: “Closer”. “Starfuckers” was also not in the set. We did get “Metal,” “Burn,” and “I’m Afraid of Americans,” however.
- Street Sweeper Social Club was already on stage when we arrived. We caught the last three songs of their set. They rocked and I wish we’d been there a bit sooner to see Boots Riley and Tom Morello do their thing.
- Overall, this was the most on-time show I’ve seen at a large venue. No issue of “Rock Standard Time” here. Set changes were efficient.
- I’m pretty sure it was Rob Sheridan I saw photographing side-stage in the later stages of NIN’s set, after the fans were moved off-stage. Then, during “Head Like a Hole,” he was onstage filming video. I hope this makes it into the growing list of High Definition videos from the stage Sheridan’s been posting.
- This was my third NIN show in as many states. Past shows were: Sacramento, Calif. in June, 2000 (Fragility 2.0) and Richmond, Virginia, in March 2006 (Live: With Teeth)
Exploration and deliberate practice in Winston-Salem
Saturday, 16 May, 2009 — photography travel
I talked about deliberate practice in my previous entry, which was borne out of some frustration with the photos I took on an April trip to DC and my general lack of attention to photography.
I was on vacation last week and we planned a much more reasonable afternoon trip to Winston-Salem to photograph around the multitude of RJ Reynolds facilities. Driving north on U.S. 52, on the east side of downtown, there’s quite a number of decaying buildings and redevelopment possibilities. I’d previously photographed around the area a few years back, but revisting has been a goal of 5x5 and I.
We spent a few hours wandering around a three or four square block area and making a couple of side-trips into Krankies, a coffee shop between 3rd and 4th Streets. Overall, I’m pleased with the results I’ve been posting in a new Winston-Salem Flickr set. I’m also trying to learn more about Aperture’s tone controls, particularly where it concerns black and white images.
I am after a few goals with my black and white images. I want some pop, so I tend to emphasize contrast. I generally underexpose slightly when taking the photograph and optimize exposure during editing to give myself some highlight latitude. Looking at other photographers, though, I want to work on my middle tonal range. I see see great tones in some middle grays, and I want to aim for that, but without leaving the image flat. My own work leans towards strong highlights and shadows, which is certainly part of how I compose my photos.
To that end, looking around at other architectural photography on Flickr and my brother-in-law’s professional work is very helpful in my own growth as a photographer.
Apart from the photography, Krankies is highly recommended. They roast on site, the shop is in a great space and there’s plenty of seating, complete with a shaded patio. Otherwise, downtown Winston-Salem seemed rather dead. Sure, it was Mother’s Day, but it’s amazing going to downtown Raleigh and seeing the activity level rise over the years and going elsewhere and seeing where that downtown revival is non-existent or still developing.
Be that as it may, we have another two photography trips to Winston-Salem in the discussion phases.