Click Sales, Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. The ebook is very well suited for reading on iPad or any tablet computers because of its gorgeous and large photos. In addition, you could possibly get a refund anytime when your disappointed. We assurance that this is the most dependable source work together with.
June 16, Photography Tricks 0. Be the first to comment Leave a Reply Cancel reply. This e-book is made in an easy-to-understand way. Keep in mind -before you will become a professional, you will have to buy several newer and better cameras. Cultivate your talents. If you learn something, develop it in practice. I really hope to make our world more bright, beautiful and kind. Read my reviews for new titles to find what's worth download to your e-reader device.
Download your book in PDF format, and you will receive luck, peace, kindness and love, which will support you during all your life. Wishing your dreams begin to come true, and every tomorrow be happy for you! Learn to observe. Get accustomed to knowing that you do not know how to photograph. Build the composition of your shots correctly. Tags: Education. Related Titles. You can rig a cathode light up to batteries if you want to, but I think using a special light called the V24 Light Stick is better because it is already built to take batteries and is less delicate.
That specific link is probably the best price you will find for the V24 on the internet. They also come in red, green, white, and a special version that changes colors. The color changing one is out of production and is extremely rare. Christopher Renfro photo left is reproducing the design of it and will be reselling them. This woman used this technique by tracing a straight line down her face while turning the light on and off.
Glow in the Dark Paint This is another unique long exposure by toledophotographer. He had an assistant paint a person with glow in the dark paint and had him walk under a black light. This idea is gold!
The person was standing for about 10 seconds in the back, then slowly walked over closer to the camera and then stood for another 10 seconds or so. Doing this also causes your subject to look like a ghost. If your camera is a mid-range or high-end DSLR, it might have a repeating flash mode. A party strobe light has the capability to do the same thing, but the amount of light output coming from party strobe lights is usually much less.
Note: The photo above was actually light-painted with a flashlight iPhone app, but the concept is the same. Here's an example of a bunch of hex-nuts using this technique. The flash was placed low to the ground and fired four separate individual times from all four corners. Flash Gels Flash gels are little plastic covers that go over the flash or regular flashlights for that matter to change the color of the light coming out of the flash.
With multiple colored gels, you can put different ones over your flash and then shoot bursts of different colored light in the environment that you are in. Note: the colors around the walls wasn't made with flash and gels but rather a colorful LED. The concept of changing colors in different areas of the environment is still the same though. I'll go over both methods below.
Each method isn't really aren't that different, so the results are more or less the same. You may also find this thread on Flickr to be just as informative. The Classic Stencil Cut-out Method Take an empty cereal box, open the top and bottom of the box and lay it flat. Draw your design on it with a marker and then cut it out using an Xacto knife. If you are drawing letters or designs with holes in them for example an O, P, B, D, A, or R cut the middle part out first, save it, and then cutout the rest of the letter and throw it away.
Once you have all of your letters cut out, tape a sheet of opaque paper e. Tape or glue the letter interiors onto the paper. The picture to the right was my first light stencil. As you can see, it is pretty The blade I was using was dull! It wasn't my fault! I even used regular copy paper because I couldn't find any tracing paper. I still have this light stencil and it works, even though it looks like a kindergarten project. Note: It would be ideal if the exterior of the box was spray painted black to reduce ghosting, and the interior was lined with tin foil to reflect more light.
This isn't essential, but it IS a step up if you want to go pro. The best ones contain black around all four edges. If you are using Paint in Windows 7, just make a selection, right click, and then hit Invert Color.
Once you have found your image and it is ready, print out 2 copies of it. You need 2 stacked on top of one another in order to block out the light from coming through the black areas. I used tape to hold them together by the edges, but double-sided tape is even better because you can just put it in between each sheet of paper. Next, cut out a big hole in your cereal box and tape the design inside of the box.
You may have to crop the paper using scissors in order to get it the right size to fit inside the box. Here is what mine looks like: As you can see, the original cut in the box was too long for the image that I printed out, so I took two cards and taped them to the front and back of the paper to block the light from coming through that area. Then I simply taped up the sides of the box so no light would leak out.
The design was pretty much ready to go, except I needed to fix up the place where the flash goes in 3rd picture. I see this part as being optional, but sealing up the opening where the flash goes in is a good idea if you really want your stencils to look clean, especially indoors where the environment is more reflective.
The specific flash that I am using has a rotatable head, and it just so happens that there is a slit of open space between the top part and the bottom part of the unit that is just big enough to wedge a piece of cardboard between the plastic. Now, your flash might not be like that, so what I would do is cut a hole along the bottom of your cereal box just big enough to let the flash go through, and call it good enough. There are other fancy ways of building flash stencils see the link mentioned at the beginning of this section , but I think the cereal box way is easy, cheap, and quick You can also print the designs out in color!
I then took a hard black brush and made the background black. The only reason why I included the white squiggly lines and dots around my head was to save printer ink. The photo to the right was a long exposure of about 10 seconds.
The window was open and the TV was on behind the camera. You may like this effect, but usually it is undesired. In order to completely eliminate any ghosting from occurring, just take your photo in a very dark environment. There was no ghosting in the image below because the only light that was turned on was my computer monitor, and that was behind the stencils. A tripod must be attached to your camera in order to take these shots.
Make sure to take off any filters you have on your lens to reduce flare and hotspots. Try messing around with the white balance to change the color of the scene. You can buy the filters with different crossings. The image on the left was taken with a 6X. Do a search on Amazon for cross filter or star filter and you can take a look around and get the one you like. While taking your long exposure in BULB Mode, tilt your camera up and down or from left to right while moving your focus ring in and out of focus at the same time.
The camera records the light turning from sharp points into big blurry bokeh blotches. This effect is best done when using wide apertures.
Ferris wheels are a classic example, but the effect works with any ride that moves with lights. For a long exposure photographer, going to an amusement park at night is like a kid going to a candy store. There are so many different lights to take pictures of! This is a long exposure inside of a car interior.
This will obviously only work when you are driving through a city with lots of lights. In order to get a shot like this you will need to have your camera on a tripod or at least have it resting on the back dashboard. I've seen people extend the middle leg out and have it on the floor, then take the two short legs and tie them down to the back seat. Check out this tutorial on Flickr to see what I mean.
You can use an external flash or a flash light to light up the interior of the automobile. You can also take shots from the outside of the vehicle while it is moving. I've used the sun roof before, and I've also stuck my camera outside the window on a monopod to get rare angles. Use the camera-s self-timer or a remote if you do this.
Manual focus might also help. Fire Dancing! Fire is a pretty big element in nature that you can use to your advantage. If you ever see a fire dancer and you happen to have your tripod and camera on you, take some long exposures. The photo above is by Brent Pearson. You might be wondering why you can see that the body is frozen in the photo above, but not the ones below this text.
It is because Brent used a flash to freeze the motion. No flash was used on the photos below. More about this is in the Motion Blur section later in this module. That is how the photo below was made. The photo on the right was made with a butane torch. When the material that is burning collapses, sparks will swoosh up into the air all at once.
I used an exposure time of 1. The second image was the same thing, except I spun the focus ring in and out of focus. Half the sparks are really blurry and the other half are sharp. It looks like hot dreamy lava Sparklers This is just a standard long exposure of a firework sparkler in motion, taken on a tripod.
Keep in mind that if you use a flash, the person holding the sparkler will show up in the photograph. Also keep in mind that if you shoot at F22, the sparks will be isolated on a black background, but if you shoot with a wider aperture, the environment around the sparkler will be lit up by the ambient light it gives out.
This shot was 7 sec. That link also has a secret trick that will show you how to make psychedelic patterns with them in Photoshop software. Cars, bicycles, and sometimes even human beings make great subjects. If you are photographing people, remember that the long exposure will record the sparks of sparkler, and the flash will freeze the person.
It is best to have the flash fire near the end of the exposure and not the beginning. The sparks go everywhere. A popular composition people use is to spin it inside of a tunnel, because the sparks end up hitting all four sides of the tunnel — Sometimes they even bounce off the walls.
This tutorial is meant for information only and should not be used. Steel wool burns pretty quickly so you're generally OK; when it lands on you it'll burn out pretty quick. I've seen huge scatters land on a person and not leave any marks: BUT wear clothes you're not worried about getting burned patches in.
Also wear a hood or a hat so it won't get in your hair. Goggles are a good idea, too. What you need: - Steel Wool: fine grade works best, but you can use medium if you wish. Do this by putting the 'crotch' of the pair of trousers in the center point and then wrapping each 'leg' in counter directions around the chain and each other.
That's also how you get 'bombers' - meteor like chunks that come out of the spin. A second technical point is to use different gauges of steel wool which will burn at different speeds. Infinity-spin for extra cool points.
A good tip for getting focus is to shine a torch on yourself and use that to get auto-focus to work, then switch to manual. You can always crop it - I'm pretty sure even the most rabid Straight-Out-Of-Camera allows for crops. That said, a frame full of fire can be pretty cool too.
With most light painting, fire, torches, whatever, it depends on the environment - whether it's lit already or in darkness. A general note is that the higher the aperture, the thicker the lines of fire will be. I'd go ahead and experiment. Tungsten's a good setting if you want mostly white, Shade or Cloud for yellow. It should start to spark almost instantly and then burn slowly. The faster you spin it, the further the sparks will fly and the harder it'll burn; it's the spinning part that feeds the steel wool oxygen and makes it burn quickly.
I've used that to reasonable effect: 10 - Close shutter at appropriate moment, usually when burn is finished. Burns can look kind of same-ish, so go hunting for some awesome locations.
Water is extremely cool as it gives great reflections of the fire plus it's got the whole 'elemental' theme going for it. Tunnels or more enclosed places are also cool as you get bounce back from the sparks. Enjoy and play safe! In addition to that, you can also create a new layer on top of the layer of the original photograph and add a colorful gradient filling it up, and then set the Blending Mode to Color or Hue.
If you are interested in picking up some EL wire for light painting, check out this thread. Also check out CoolNeon. You can type in words and then have them projected onto the pixels over time as you drag the screen across space to give an impression of real 3D light painting. These tricks apply to any of the light sources listed in the previous section.
Camera tossing and abstracts You can literally throw your camera up into the air and spin it while it is taking an exposure and then catch it when it comes down!
This works well with wide angle lenses. You can also just wave your camera frantically to get long exposure abstracts. Try zooming in and out and moving the focus ring while doing this.
Lights on wheels and hoops Putting LEDs on wheels and hoops can generate some pretty cool designs. The image on the right is a long exposure of a bunch of LEDs attached to a wheel inside of a tunnel. Do a light painting over a body of water like a pond or something and then you will get a naturally symmetric light painting. You can then rotate the photo 90 degrees to create a vertically symmetric designs.
The same technique can be done with mirrors. LEDs are great for writing letters! Keep in mind that the alphabet picture on the right took a long time to create. Each individual letter took the photographer about 7 attempts each before the final result was compiled in software. These images were taken with two 80xcm soft boxes on both sides of the model. The short flash burst freezes the mode to render them motionless, and then the rest of the exposure can be painted with light. Make sure the light passes directly above the quarter every time to ensure your orb comes out clean.
Watch this video tutorial if you are having a hard time understanding how it works. This takes a lot of practice if you want to get them looking really good. The best tool for orbs is to have LEDs on the end of speaker wire. You can learn how to rig these up here and here. Think of the end that is on the ground as a pivot point and try not to move it or slide it out-of-place.
You can alternatively put a stake in the ground, attach a rope to the end of the stake and a light on the other end of the rope, but this is more difficult. You can also create a dome by simply putting lights on a stick and then placing it on the ground, then moving the stick on one end to the ground and moving the other end around in a rainbow pattern, just like this.
Your camera will need to be locked up on a tripod to ensure that it won't move. Here is how it works: First, take several exposures with different lighting conditions. In this example I am using a garden. Each shot was 30 seconds long and each had different things lit. The first shot is just ambient light coming from the LED to illuminate the foreground, the second shot is me going crazy with the LED, and the third and forth shot has the LED behind the bird bath only.
Once they are all loaded, go into the layers window and change each layer's blending mode to Lighten. Once you do that, you'll see all of your exposures combined! Pretty cool huh? You can also change the Levels and Curves on each individual layer and even disable the layers that you don't want.
It falls more into the 'digital art' category but I thought it wouldn't be a bad idea to mention it in this ebook. What you do is take tons of separate shots of different light painting designs. The image on the lower left was created with dozens of different photographs. Each swirl, curve, dot, and line are all separate photos. This will put all of your images into separate layers in a new Photoshop document. Now you will have to move around, reshape, and resize each photo to create something like a face, animal, building ie something recognizable!
Right click on the selection to pick which function you want to use. This puts all the layers into one. This removes the background to make it completely black and clean looking -- which is important. The image on the lower right was created by only using some of the lines from the green swirl long exposure image above it. When in free-Transform mode, the Warp function was primarily used to re-curve each duplicated line. This takes at least one hour to complete and you have to use the eraser tool to smooth out the ending of the lines so they blend smoothly together.
The image on the right is a good example of this. Both of the images below were created with a bunch of different long exposure photos of fireworks.
This is great when you want to make perfect circles. Check out this tutorial by Dennis Calvert to learn how to do it! The stand from a utility light. A paint roller. Cold cathodes and LED strips work nicely. The LED bar I am using in these photos is no longer manufactured If you want one, you had better get it now! These things are awesome for light painting and very rare nowadays.
Step 1: Step 2: Tape your lights to the paint roller. Stick your paint roller on top of the light stand Step 3: Move the paint roller around in a circle. You're done. Wasn't that easy? Textures Try waving your camera frantically while aiming it at a pile of Christmas lights laying on the floor to create scratchy textures that you can then overlay on top of other photos. Experiment using the smallest aperture you have available on your lens and the lowest ISO number.
This ensures that you are only capturing the streaks of light coming from the Christmas lights and nothing else in the room. The next section will be going over generic long exposure effects. If you need any additional help or inspiration, there is a Flickr group called Light Junkies that has tutorials on light painting and is probably the best resource on the internet to find more information.
You can talk to the people there, ask questions etc. There are links on the main page and on the discussion boards that are very helpful, including a bunch of Do-It-Yourself projects for making homemade lights. Using long exposures like 5 minutes is great because you can capture multiple strikes of lightning in one frame, right in your camera.
However, because super long exposures introduce noise on the cameras sensor, you can help eliminate that by just taking a bunch of 30 second exposures one after the other, and then stacking the frames in Photoshop and using the Lighten, Screen, or Linear Doge Add for the blending modes. If the lightning you are photographing is striking in an unpredictable way and you don't know where it will hit next, simply zoom out to a wide angle.
You can crop the photo later in Photoshop if you want a better composition. Notice that this image has the beautiful water reflection underneath the lightning. This makes a great composition because the reflected light illuminates the environment almost twice as much. No more auto-focus hassle. This was a 7 minute long exposure. Now, this may seem kind of obvious, especially after going over light painting, but motion blur is more useful during the day than at night and special light toys don't play as big of a role.
Here are some examples of blur: Subject is stationary. Subject is moving. Camera is stationary. On-camera flash will allow us to freeze our subject but have the background motion blurred. Cameras will sometimes give you the option to assign the flash to go off at the beginning or end of the exposure. In most cases it is best to have the on-camera flash flash at the end of the exposure.
As you can see in the diagrams above there is a very narrow but very significant burst of light at the beginning of the exposure. This is the flash burst coming from your on-camera or external flash.
The second diagram shows the same thing, except the flash burst it at the end of the exposure. Throughout the rest of the exposure, we can see that the light remains constant; this is the constant ambient light that is shining on the environment light coming from the sun, lamps, etc.
Camera is moving with subject. Flash fires at the end of exposure. Flash fires at beginning of exposure. Because of the shorter shutter speed, a Because of the longer shutter speed and significant amount of ambient light is wider aperture , more of the ambient light is eliminated.
This makes the environment more Because the flash froze him at the end of bright. Keep in mind that the wider aperture also makes the light coming from the flash appear brighter.
Check out 13 great slow sync flash images on Digital Photography School. Taking long exposures during the day is useful for blurring water, blurring clouds, and even removing moving subjects like people and cars from the scene.
Long exposures are excellent for ocean waters splashing against rocks. The longer the exposure, the more misty the water will look. Depending on how dark your filter is, you'll sometimes need to make sure to get the scene in focus before putting the filter on, and then switch it to manual focus.
Switch to shutter priority mode or manual mode if you are comfortable with it and make the exposure as long as you can get it without overexposing your image.
If you find that your images are coming out too bright, make sure you are using the lowest ISO number possible something like ISO or lower , and the largest F Number you can something like F If you want to take exposures longer than 30 seconds, you will either need a cable release or a remote, depending on what camera you have. More explanation on 'going past 30 seconds' in a single exposure is covered in the Star Trails chapter.
Blurring Waterfalls and Beaches with Long Exposure Long exposures of waterfalls create that 'soothingly smooth' effect that is very popular. Also keep in mind that pressing the shutter button causes camera shake, thus making your picture a little blurry.
In order to eliminate this completely, I use an RF wireless remote for my camera. This way I can take a picture without touching the camera at all. Just use your camera's self-timer if you don't have a wireless remote, cable relate, or mirror lock up mode.
The first six images have a green tint to them because I forgot to set the white balance to compensate for the ND8 filter I was using. The speed of flow also plays a roll on how smooth the water will look. This was captured using an ND8 filter on my lens and is processed with a technique called HDR to enhance visible shadows, highlights, and color. I will talk about HDR later in this ebook.
The sky is usually much brighter than what you see on land, so you may have to wait until dawn or dusk to capture the cloud movement, depending on how dark your filter is. Sometimes there is heavy wind and the clouds move much faster than usual. This can really help you out if you want to capture the blurry cloud effect. You can also try using a graduated neutral density filter. ND Grad filters are tinted on the top half and clear on the bottom half.
This makes up for the sky being too bright, evening out your exposure for both the foreground and the sky. Well, I wasn't kidding. In this example the exposure was obviously shorter than 30 seconds. Think of the possibilities though You could set up your camera in a high place aiming down at a crowd, -- a sea of people -- take a really long exposure and it would just be a big blur. Alexy Titarenko has excellent photographs using this same technique. Take a look at what he has done by clicking that link and looking at his gallery.
I've seen a lot of photographs taken in this style and find it fascinating. Folks at fotoblur. This is a long exposure of a crowd of people walking on a sidewalk with only one person standing still. There are other methods to taking star trails which require more tools, but if you have those three things than you can get away with taking a fine photo. Find a good foreground and then make sure the sky is clear with minimal light pollution.
It will be harder to do fantastic star trail shots in the city because the city light bounces off the atmosphere and causes the entire sky to glow. Ideally, we only want the stars to glow. It is best if there are no clouds around when doing this. Start taking your photo when it is as dark as possible for best results. In order to prevent your lens from fogging up, wrap some hand warmers around your lens with a rubber band, or get a miniature fan to constantly blow wind onto your lens. I haven't had to use any of those things so far though.
You will need a tripod and a device that can take exposures one after the other. You can take one huge long exposure, but the noise in the image adds up with long exposure times, especially if it is a hot summer night.
In order to get around this noise issue, we can take a bunch of 30 second exposures one after the other and then combine them into one image on the computer.
Either method is up to you and I will discuss both of them. It's a good idea to plan your shoot ahead of time because you will be able to see what is in your foreground. Getting just a photo of the sky is boring and uninteresting. Foregrounds especially illuminated or light-painted ones will add so much more dynamic to the image.
Pointing your camera in different directions will give you different star trails. For example, if you point your camera North, you will see circular trails as the stars rotate around Polaris, pointing your camera South will give you horizontal trails, and pointing it East or West will give you curving trails across the sky.
Sometimes you will see airplane lights in your photos. Make sure to turn the noise reduction OFF in camera because it will take a long time for the camera's processor to remove the noise and that drains battery life.
If you take a 30 second exposure, your camera will then take another 30 seconds to remove the noise. The intervalometer will allow you to take 30 second exposures one after the other, automatically.
We can then take all these exposures and combine them together on the computer. Check your camera's instruction manual or go inside the camera menu to see if it has an interval timer shooting mode.
If it does, set everything on manual manual focus, manual white balance, etc. If your camera doesn't have a built-in intervalometer shooting mode, buying a timer remote control might work instead.
Here is a Canon one, and here is a Nikon one. Some cameras take longer than a second to write the image to the card, so you will have to set the interval time to be a little longer than 30 seconds.
On my Ds, I have set the intervals to 33 seconds in order for it to sequence properly. Go by trial and error until you find the shortest interval time that works. Set your camera up and just leave it out over night until the battery dies or when you go to bed. Then combine the images on the computer this is discussed later. Push the button on your remote once to initiate the exposure, and push it again to stop it.
Not all remotes and cameras are created equal, so you might want to check with a local camera dealer to see if this method will work with your camera. It works with the Nikon D50 for sure, and probably the D Using a Cable Release Some cable releases have the ability to lock your shutter when in BULB mode so you can take the exposure for as long as you want.
Get an eraser and place it on your shutter button, then just wrap it up using a rubber band so it holds the shutter button down constantly in BULB mode.
Because all cameras are different, you still might not know what method is best for you. If that is the case, use the rubber band method or ask forums or your local camera dealer on what you should get for your camera. A good resource online would be to search Flickr Groups for your camera model. Join the group and look around to see if your question has already has been answered. Expect to get an answer within the first minutes.
Camera Settings for Star Trails Photos Now that we have discussed all the different tools for getting past a 30 second exposure, let us simply look at what settings we need to apply when we are actually outside with our camera and tripod.
Focusing: Set your camera to manual focus and focus out into infinity. Take a test shot to make sure your stars are sharp. Take one 30 second exposure at ISO If it looks properly exposed, just take that 30 seconds and multiply it by If you are using ISO , multiply the shutter speed you used by 32, and so on. The number you get after multiplying the shutter speed you used by the ISO you used will tell you the shutter speed in seconds you will need to use when shooting at ISO Using ISO should be fine when using that same exposure time too, even though it will be a little brighter.
This usually works out because the sun is still making its way down the other side of the planet, so it does get a little bit darker as it gets late in the evening, which makes up for the higher ISO. Aperture: What should the aperture be when shooting star trails? I usually use F3. If you are doing one huge long exposure, then it is okay to use Auto WB. A dark frame is a reference photo for Startrails. The darkframe needs to be taken with the same shutter speed, aperture, ISO, and white balance as all of your regular images, except you take it with the lens cap on your lens to make everything black.
Loading a dark frame is optional. I recommend taking one before and one after the main sequence of star trail photos. It will then take a long time to process all of your images. If you want to combine your images in Photoshop and not Startrails. Wait for all the images to be placed into the new Photoshop document, and then select all the layers and change the blending mode to Lighten.
You can also try experimenting with other blending modes such as Linear Dodge Add , and Screen. Secret Star Trail Tricks Here are some cool tricks you can implement in your star trail shots: Fading Star Trails Over a long time, while the camera is taking the exposure, you can rotate your focus ring out of focus so that the stars gradually fade out [example] Trick Photography and Special Effects - This image was compiled from several layers of photos.
I took about five images of the tree being lit up in different ways by my flashlight, but only used two of them as seen above. It's always good to have extras.
I took some shots with the flashlight shining on the edges of the tree, some in the middle, some all around, some bright, some dark, etc. This gives me options later in post-processing. I can blend the exposures together and mix-and-match until it looks good. After I got enough shots of the tree being lit up, I started the star trail sequence and took a little over frames, each 30 seconds long from PM to AM at F3. Then I brought my fogged up camera inside and compiled the sequence in Startrails, put it in Photoshop to make it brighter, did some color adjustments and added the illuminated tree to the scene Note: I live in a rural area, so I didn't have to worry about light pollution.
Plus, I have a deck out near the back of my house so I didn't have to worry about animals like deer knocking my camera over or something. Do this in regular intervals. Say, 10 seconds to expose the light like normal, and then 40 seconds with the object hanging over the lens to block all the light out.
Keep repeating this and you should get dotted star trails. If you are using an intervalometer, then just take a bunch of 30 second exposures and select every 10 frames or so when you import them into startrails. The photo above is an example of dotted star trails.
0コメント