Tuesday, August 31, 2010 at 9:50PM My computer cranked away a while on this one.
To demonstrate how massive this image truly is I produced a centre crop of a section. Also I kept the HDR/Tonal mapping effect to a minimum in this one with the preference of keeping things flatter and more realistic.
Once all said and done the file tipped the scales at 963.1 MB's on disk, gulp......
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Tuesday, August 31, 2010 at 9:50PM Reference.
Reference is a big thing in all things creative. Whether your a writer, director, designer, we all need inspiration and research to get a fresh perceptive on a particular problem. Being totally honest, most of the time this now incorporates basically ganking a series of videos, images and excerpts from a single search term in google….
Yep and that's exactly what I did for 8 Bit Love's Music Video series. When I started thinking about this post I was really concerned that no one was going to learn anything from it. It was clear what I had done, a simple Google search. Hence everyone could emulate it in the same fashion by plugging the same keys into Google.
Let's say in the Google image search we type "The 1950's"
A couple of my favourites...... [I'm not attempting to be sexist with the first one, just think it's a great illustration]
From Creatively Different Roller Blinds
Stor-Mor Magazine Advertisement, UK, 1950s
From The Guardian UK
Corn Flake packet in the 1950s
... and chances are, several hundred other creatives have done exactly that same thing.
Soooo, how to avoid said quandary of the same inspiration for the same starting thought.
I came up with a little set points to gather a new slightly more in depth approach.
Here is a summarised list of the steps.
Thursday, August 26, 2010 at 12:36PM Today I was scouting for some nice straight on shots of the city of Melbourne for 8 Bit Love Meets Mario. One the best places I know I could get into without to much problem was the old XYZ Studio's roof top. Basically I was amused to find that the old XYZ crest that I believe Cedric painted was still up in all it's glory.....
Anyway I was shooting High Dynamic Range imagery at the time so why not grab one of the door, I'm sure the guys would love to see it standing the test of time.
After a bit reading, post shooting, I found out that it is really recommended to have your camera on a tripod for bracketed exposures, which makes total sense of course but this was shot standing still (there was slight shift). If anything it makes the image feel a little more painted in nature. Happy accident.....
The rest of the bracketed exposures I did was with a tripod and will be up shortly.
To make the following tonal mapped images it is a simple process of selecting your three individual exposures (or however many you have) in Adobe Bridge and then going to Tools => Photoshop => Merge to HDR Pro. Photoshop will then allow you to modify said scene as you see fit. It should be said that this is a very basic demonstration of the technique using the presets. I have yet to push the effect and or see what is possible myself. I'm interested to see how the landscape shots come out.
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Wednesday, August 25, 2010 at 5:45PM I guess this post is for all the newer photographers out there as I dare say if you've been shooting for a while I'm sure you've either notice this yourself, and or your ears are bleeding from hearing it so many times....
Shoot just before daybreak and late evening, during sunset. This is when you'll get the most pop and interesting photo's. You'll also see the greatest variation of light in the shortest amount of time. This is great for me, as I don't have a massive amount of patience. The other beautiful thing about these times is either you can shoot toward the sun and have objects back lit by the sun or you can shoot away from the sun and have things bathed in the morning or evening sun that is usually a very warm light.
Shooting at these times like I said has the largest variation of light which means moving fast to get the most out of the that period. I'm sort of the believer that the more you move around an area the more interesting your photo's will become. I guess it's natural to shoot wide as your primary step. This sets the scene similar to an establishing shot in film making. Then from there you have the opportunity to shoot at low and high angles, off axis and macro's if you so choose. I guess that's summed up in one sentence. Shoot wide then shoot close. Now this is very much an old concept as well. I first heard a similar saying from Scott Bourne on This Week in Photography.
Now this rule for Melbourne locals would lean toward shooting early. The weather pattern appears to go something along the lines. Early morning clear and crisp, mid to late morning light flattens out and the weather becomes overcast, afternoon to late evening either overcast or rain. So to get the best shots at the moment get out early and process in the evening, that being said, there has still been some nice red sunsets with a nice cloud array which you should be ready for. This is of course anecdotal so don't send a weather chart.
Example shots coming tomorrow with same settings to prove my point.
Wednesday, August 25, 2010 at 5:43PM I think my current urban setup (I can definitely upgrade a couple of things, tripod for instance) is just about perfect for a skating/train/tram/walking setup. Personally I do own a car that my brother is currently borrowing but I still would go with this setup.
Minimal if any setup time and the biggest advantage no parking required.
Let's go through the kit from top to bottom.
Things that are missing; Variable ND Filter; that's very high on the buy list to have the ability to stop down the volume of light as to have the ability to bring widen the aperture in video mode.
Also note that the filter right now is useless as my lens casing has a crack in it therefore cannot actually add any filter to the front of the lens right now. Kind of funny really.....
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Monday, August 23, 2010 at 4:13PM I promised myself that this wouldn't see the light of day...
However I had nothing left really to post today so here it is, there is one or two shots I guess....
Writing on the Wall - Dragon Stop Motion Test 001 from Bernard Winter on Vimeo.
8 Bit Journey, In Production, Making of in Journey Monday, August 23, 2010 at 1:04AM Majority of these photo's are shot at either 28mm's or 85 mm's. Even though I shoot with a zoom lens. [Tamron 17-50mm f2.8] I seem to be at either extremity. So I guess I could get away with two bodies and two primes if I had such a setup. To insure there is no confusion the Canon 7D I shoot with has a crop factor of 1.6x which basically means I have an optical zoom of 1.6x on whatever lens I happen to have on the front. This basically means a 17mm turns into a 27.2 mm lens to be exact.
The rest of the specs include a shutter ranging from 1/10th of a second to 125th of a second, ISO of either 1250 or 3200 and always fully open at an aperture of 2.8.
Of recent times I have been exprementing more and more with slower shutter speeds. Sometimes, especially with a live performance, motion blur captures some of the action and energy of the performance. Same goes for perceivable noise. Usually I like things pin sharp and smooth as silk. Band photo's on the other hand actually look worse when you remove all the noise. They loose some authenticity I think.
I would say with the last shoot that my band photography has got quite a bit better. I think it's the fact that I've got used to making my equipment that I currently own work at it's most effective. As I listen to pocasts like Red Centre and TWIP these comments continually come up that you should get to know what you own throughly and not think of the next thing you need to buy. The more I shoot the more I agree. Of course a good base setup helps a lot.
For instance if I had a 5D MKII I think I'd be sitting at an ISO of 3200 a hell of a lot more but I find with the 7D, the noise is getting pretty intense at an ISO 3200. I guess its all about getting the best out of the gear you have right now and then slowly build on that equipment and learning as you go. If a job calls for a purchase or a rental then by all means but maybe it's being creative with what you have that will get you a shot that you, and many others wouldn't expect. Let's face it, creativity is the name of the game.
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8 Bit Journey, In Production, Making of in Journey Sunday, August 22, 2010 at 7:09PM Bit of Graphic Design started, nothing quite like doing a nice piece of artwork then saving it out as a PNG-8, Black & White and Pattern selected instead of Diffusion.
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Saturday, August 21, 2010 at 7:27PM Make shift green screen at home....
Generally I would recommend something better then a green binder for a matte background, but just for Photoshop cutouts this is fine. Use what you have. Flat colour that's highly different from the object should do the trick.
Oh funny story. That tripod below was being thrown away by uncle as one of the leg clamps had broken. I said wait; no I'l have it....... Bit of gaf tape later and 6 years on I'm still using it for projects. I've lost a couple more leg clamps and it's almost to light for my 7D but still kicking.
You'll also notice I've gaffed some weights to one leg to get the shot I required. Haha yeah it is too light, but I have a tripod that I can take anywhere and not care if it gets sand in it, run over by a truck and or thrown off a tall building.....
I'm waiting for the day that the head will just shear off and my 7D will come crashing to the ground....
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Saturday, August 21, 2010 at 3:29PM Last night was 8 Bit Love's EP launch. From all accounts it was rad.... Here is a very few shots from last night.
More soon...
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Tuesday, August 17, 2010 at 2:13AM This came in the mail today....
Basically if you buy Dragon Stop Motion you get this as an add on. Just have to pay for international freight from the states.
Nice Numeric Pad and a nice little resolution/focus chart too, Kinda cool.
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In Production, Making of in Journey Tuesday, August 17, 2010 at 2:12AM ;)
8 Bit Love - SUPER MARIO LOVERS [EP] Launch - w/ Rush In Attack & Samson
Revolver Upstairs
229 Chapel St, Prahran, Australia
Doors are at 8. Be there or be square. Event page here
Tuesday, August 17, 2010 at 2:11AM No pain, No gain....
Don't get lost in detail. Just smash out the major strokes and then get back to the detail later. I get lost in detail all the time, so trying to remind myself....
Technical Thing. If your thinking of freezing someone in time with photography, you need to be sitting at a shutter speed of at least 250 or greater. This will ensure your image is pin sharp with no motion blur. That's very dependant on the object and it's velocity your capturing as well as how fast your travelling (classic science stuff from old mate Einstein). A race car for instance will require something faster then 250 if it's travelling at it's top speed. You must also remember that the faster the shutter, the less light you get to your sensor, therefore leaving only ISO and Aperture to get you back to an acceptable exposure of the scene. This usually isn't much of a problem if your in midday sun. Different story if your inside or in less then stellar light.
Why I'm making this point is you will notice some motion blur on Vito's shoe below. I wasn't following my own advice as I was attempting to keep the green screen well exposed. I guess it's a bit of juggle but in hindsight I would have went a little faster then a shutter speed of 125 and brought the exposure up in post. Shutter speed is very much an in-camera choice where as exposure with the advent of RAW image capture can be manipulated to an extent in post. Now I say an extent for a reason. If you clipped the blacks then there is nothing you can do get information back. Either way I would have underexposed by a single stop rather overexposed by a single stop.
That's if I had my time again. The reality is that the motion blur will be very, very hard to see in final piece of work. Therefore this particualr issue can be seen a lesson learned and not a critical failing which would require a reshoot.
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