Archive for June, 2011

This is an HDR photo of a tavern where I had lunch yesterday. The tavern is on a major highway on the way to Mt. Ranier. The character just oozes from every board.

Regards…..

Jim

You go to a destination for a photo shoot, the weather is great, the lighting is perfect, you have your desired subject in the frame of your camera. There is only one problem…. there isn’t a clean shot. That happened to me recently. I went to Florida’s west coast to go on a photo shoot with James Shadle. James has a pontoon boat and takes people out to photo shoot Spoonbills and other birds. We were out before sun up to get into position. James drives the boat out to the vicinity of a spoil island where the birds are. He anchors the boat far enough away so the birds are not spooked. Once anchored we get into the water with our camera equipment and work our way into position. We are watching a small group of Spoonbills on the shoreline and in the surrounding vegetation. A Spoonie jumps onto a branch and perches so as it is framed with the branches, or so it seemed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As you can see from the image, there are some issues with the capture. Among the list are an out of focus (OOF) branch in the foreground and the distracting branches on the backside and above the head of the bird. I really want to keep the image to remember the trip and capture the emotion of being in this fabulous place at sunrise. What to do? What to do?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I chose to take an artsy approach and find something to take care of the major issues. I did use the content aware healing brush tool to eliminate some of the branches above the head so as not to be so distracting. I then opened up On One Software FotoFrame and searched for an appropriate frame to apply to an image. The FotoFrame effect is applied in Photoshop as a layer. In the image above, i erased some of the effect of the frame so as to be able to see all of the bird’s feet. The image above is in the horizontal. How does the vertical work?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I think in this case, it works very well. Before applying FotoFrame in the vertical position, I did use the healing brush tool content aware tool in Photoshop (CS5) to completely remove the branch above the head. The FotoFrame effect covered the other branches very nicely.

 

Contact me for more information on these and other techniques to maximize your results from the field.

Regards,

Jim

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This past Friday, 17 June, I took advantage of a photo op with Atlantis at the launch pad at Kennedy Space Center. Pretty much everyone knows this is the last Space Shuttle launch ever. So I wanted to go out and pay my respects to the program. I have worked half of my life on the Space Shuttle/ Space Station programs (31 years!). I had a difficult time finding a clear shot. There was a lot of activity with vehicles driving up and down the ramp to the pad. There were also quite a few people walking on the ramp too. I had to use Photoshop to take out a vehicle and two people in this first image.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Rotating Service Structure (RSS) is on the left side of the image. It is in the open position since NASA had performed a tanking test on the external tank. The object in the center of the RSS is the payload canister. The canister is what the payloads are stored in for the trip to the launch pad.

The second image is narrowed to the Space Shuttle Vehicle itself. The yellow rails on the orbiter are used to open the orbiter payload bay doors. The rails will be removed before launch.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Both of these images are single image HDR processed using NIK HDR Efex Pro. I used the fine structures preset for each. For each image I used my Canon 1D Mark IV, 70-200mm f/2.8, and a 2x extender. For the first image, I was in Manual mode, ISO 400, 1/800 of a second shutter speed at f/11. The second image was shot had the same setup at 1/1000 of a second shutter speed. I used my Histogram for metering the exposure.

If you have questions about any of the above, contact me for the details.

 

Go Atlantis !!!!!

Jim

Just returned from a relaxing weekend at the beach. Specifically, Jetty Park located at port Canaveral, Cape Canaveral, Fl. While it was mostly a family weekend, I did take my camera with me on the Friday evening walk.  My walk around equipment was the Canon 1D Mark IV, 70-200 f/2.8 IS, and 2X tele-converter. The most notable birds in flight activity was a lone Skimmer that made one pass down the surf line. It flew directly in front of me just as if it were on cue.

Heading back to the campsite, I wanted to try to capture a silhouette of some sea oats growing on the sand dunes. I was looking for a clean background and good light for the image. After image capture I increased the temperature, adjusted the exposure down 2 stops, and increased the amount of black in the image. I like the final results.

Best to all,

Jim