Les Jones

More bargain-basement macro techniques…

Tuesday, December 2nd, 2008 | Photos | Permalink | No Comments |

here.

Word of the Day: Dolly Zoom (Cinematography)

Tuesday, December 2nd, 2008 | A&E, Photos, Word of the Day | Permalink | 1 Comment |

Wikipedia:

The dolly zoom is an unsettling in-camera special effect that appears to undermine normal visual perception in film.

The effect is achieved by using the setting of a zoom lens to adjust the angle of view (often referred to as field of view) while the camera dollies (or moves) towards or away from the subject in such a way as to keep the subject the same size in the frame throughout. In its classic form, the camera is pulled away from a subject whilst the lens zooms in, or vice-versa. Thus, during the zoom, there is a continuous perspective distortion, the most directly noticeable feature being that the background appears to change size relative to the subject.

As the human visual system uses both size and perspective cues to judge the relative sizes of objects, seeing a perspective change without a size change is a highly unsettling effect, and the emotional impact of this effect is greater than the description above can suggest. The visual appearance for the viewer is that either the background suddenly grows in size and detail overwhelming the foreground; or the foreground becomes immense and dominates its previous setting, depending on which way the dolly zoom is executed.

The effect was first developed by Irmin Roberts, a Paramount second-unit cameraman, and was famously used by Alfred Hitchcock in his film Vertigo.

The dolly zoom is commonly used by filmmakers to represent the sensation of vertigo, a “falling away from oneself feeling”, feeling of unreality, or to suggest that a character is undergoing a realization that causes him to reassess everything he had previously believed. After Hitchcock popularized the effect (he used it again for a climactic revelation in Marnie), the technique was used by many other filmmakers, and eventually became regarded as a gimmick or cliché. This was especially true after director Steven Spielberg repopularized the effect in his highly regarded film Jaws, in a memorable shot of a dolly zoom into Police Chief Brody’s (Roy Scheider) stunned reaction at the climax of a shark attack on a beach (after a suspenseful build-up). Spielberg used the technique again in E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. It was originally used within Battlestar Galactica to depict the feeling experienced by characters when the ship utilises faster-than-light travel. However, the technique was not used again until the fourth season.

The Wikipedia entry on perspective distortion in photography is really interesting, too.

Previous WOTD - Nuke the Fridge

Mark Peacock’s gorgeous AT shelter photos

Saturday, November 29th, 2008 | Photos | Permalink | 3 Comments |

That’s Mark Peacock’s photo of a snow-covered Roan High Knob Shelter, which Mark says is the highest elevation backcountry shelter on the Georgia-to-Maine Appalachian Trail.

I noticed that there was something appealing about the picture I couldn’t put my finger on. Then I realized the depth cues were distorted using a wide angle lens. I checked the EXIF data on the full-sized version and sure enough it was shot with an 11mm focal length. I’m still learning to appreciate the usefulness of a wide angle lens, and this is a great example of how someone who knows what they’re doing can use one to good effect.

Life magazine photo archives online

Saturday, November 22nd, 2008 | Photos | Permalink | No Comments |

Google now has Life magazine’s photo archives going all the way back to 1860. To search the archives put “source:life” in your Google query.

“Men engineers forging replacement part on deck of ironclad, using their portable forge & anvil, aboard monitor designed by John Ericsson named the Lehigh, during Civil War.”

Via Ken Rockwell.

DXO Mark camera comparisons

Tuesday, November 18th, 2008 | Photos | Permalink | No Comments |

Neat stuff. Check out the comparison of the Nikon D40, D90, and D700. Body-only prices for the three are roughly $400, $1000, and $2500. The D90 and D700 score better on image quality, but the big difference is high ISO performance. The D90 is almost twice as good as the D40, but the D700 is more than twice as good again as the D90!

That’s consistent with what I’ve been reading: the D700 and D3 at high ISOs like 3200 or 6400 have no more noise than most cameras have at ISO 400. You can increase shutter speed by three or four stops and crank up the ISO with no loss in image quality.

To do anything similar without using high ISOs you’d need expensive large aperture lenses, and even then you couldn’t achieve the same low light performance. (And of course there’s nothing preventing you from putting fast glass on a D700 to get BOBW.)

I’m sticking with my D40 for now. I’ve not even had it a year, and there’s lots more I need to learn to wring more performance out of it. I wouldn’t mind having a D90, but what I really want is for the high ISO performance of the D700 to trickle down to sub-$1000 cameras. Rumor is that Nikon will release new low-priced DSLRs to replace the D40 and D60 in first quarter of 2009.

Hat tip to Nikon D40 Photographer, which despite the name is a beginner’s-oriented site with useful links no matter what camera body you’re shooting. To keep your ear to the ground of the Nikon world visit Nikon Rumors.

Friday Bird Blogging

Friday, November 14th, 2008 | Photos | Permalink | 1 Comment |

Looking through my bird book the happy couple appears to be Willets.

Pinhole photography with a digital camera

Friday, November 7th, 2008 | Photos | Permalink | 2 Comments |

Pics here. Instructions for making a pinhole “lens” from a spare body cap here.

The quality is nothing to write home about, but it’s now on my growing list of photographic techniques to try because it looks interesting and educational. And unlike some of the other techniques on my to-do list it’s cheap!

ADDED: Pinhole.cz. Galleries, cameras he’s built, and a Windows program for designing pinhole cameras.

Word of the Day: Intervalometer

Monday, November 3rd, 2008 | Photos, Word of the Day | Permalink | 1 Comment |

From Wikipedia:

In photography, intervalometers are used to trigger exposures. This is often done for a time-lapse series. It may also be used to start taking picture(s) after a set delay. For example, in aerial photography, one may want to delay the start until five minutes after take-off, to allow time to reach altitude.

Most cameras have very basic intervalometer functionality, the “self-timer”. A self-timer can be used to delay taking a picture for short time. The delay is commonly used for the photographer to get into the picture. A self-timer is so basic such that most people do not think of it as an intervalometer.

One of the more common types of intervalometers is the timer that is used to turn lights on and off at set times. These are commonly used by people when they go on vacation. There are also a large number of commercial and industrial applications for even such basic intervalometers.

Previous WOTD - The Mendoza Line (baseball)

Intervalometer for Nikon D40 and D60, others

Monday, November 3rd, 2008 | Photos | Permalink | No Comments |

Following up on a recent post on intervalometers (time lapse timers), Dave at Pervasive Light points to this model, which works with the Nikon D40, D60, and many other models. So if you’ve been thinking of buying me something for Christmas …

Answer to “which way is the seagull flying?”

Thursday, October 30th, 2008 | Photos, Polls | Permalink | 5 Comments |

Is it flying towards the camera or away from it? Answer after the jump.
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EXIF viewer plug-in for Firefox

Tuesday, October 28th, 2008 | Photos, Tech | Permalink | No Comments |

FxIF is a Firefox plug-in that displays EXIF data that cameras record to image files. Once it’s installed just right-click on an image and choose Properties to see what settings the photographer used. It’s almost like View Source for photographs.

Note that some image software trashes the EXIF data, so sometimes there won’t be anything to see. For instance, here’s the original photo I uploaded and that I used to generate the EXIF data above. Here’s the smaller preview that the WordPress software that runs this blog created. In the process of downsizing the image WordPress threw out the EXIF info.

Thanks to Ken Rockwell for the tip on customizing the D40’s EXIF comment setting.

Seagull optical illusion

Tuesday, October 28th, 2008 | Dancing Baloney, Photos, Polls | Permalink | 1 Comment |

Is the bird flying towards the camera or away from it? No fair using photo enhancing software, but you can click to embiggen.

Answer Thursday. UPDATE: Here’s the answer in a picture.

Previously:
- Which Way Did She Go? (Optical Illusion)

Cades Cove Pictures

Sunday, October 26th, 2008 | East Tennessee, Photos | Permalink | 1 Comment |

John Cable Mill:

Primitive Baptist Church (photos by Melissa):

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Time-lapse photography remotes

Wednesday, October 22nd, 2008 | Photos | Permalink | 2 Comments |

I never even thought about doing time-lapse photography, but it sounds fun. These inexpensive remotes work pretty well according to some of the folks over at DPReview Forums. Unfortunately they don’t make one for my camera.

Nikon D40 for $415 shipped (expires October 26)

Wednesday, October 22nd, 2008 | Photos | Permalink | No Comments |

Coupon code here.

Farm animals, Louisville, Tennessee

Tuesday, October 21st, 2008 | Photos | Permalink | 1 Comment |

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Where’s he flying? The pelican ain’t telican

Tuesday, October 14th, 2008 | Photos, Travel | Permalink | 4 Comments |

Couple photography notes. That last picture is interesting. It works in spite of the fact that most of the bird is out of focus, and the reason it works is because the eyes are in focus, and the eyes are what counts. It’s like Tom Geisler said - for pictures of people and animals make sure the eyes are in focus because that’s the first thing our brains are hard-wired to look at.

The other interesting thing is that I was shooting with a polarizing filter. It pretty much lives on my 70-300 zoom lens. I never take it off. As I was panning across the sky to shoot the pelican the polarizer’s angle relative to the sun was changing, which meant that the degree of polarization was changing. That’s why the blue of the sky looks different across the frames. If I ever set out to shoot a sequence like this again I’ll need to remember to remove the polarizer.

I popped another photographic cherry today

Monday, October 13th, 2008 | Photos | Permalink | 4 Comments |

When I got home from Florida I had a package waiting for me, and it couldn’t have been better timed. It was a camera cleaning kit. After a week on the Florida coast my camera needed it. It had sand everywhere from the beach and I had spots on my sensor from months ago beforehand, to boot.

The rocket blower helped get rid of the grit I could hear every time I attached a different lens. Then I followed the instructions to clean the spots off the sensor, which is the digital camera’s equivalent of film. Technically, I cleaned the low-pass filter that sits a couple of millimeters off of the surface of the sensor. Cross your fingers that the cleaning will get rid of gremlins on my pics like the ones visible below.

Cleaning the low-pass filter is slightly nerve-wracking the first time. It’s nice to do it on an entry-level DSLR like the Nikon D40 instead of something higher-priced. But really, it’s no big deal. Press lightly and it’s all over within seconds. When you’re buying cleaning solution buy the smallest size - it only takes a few drops.

More info at CleaningDigitalCameras.com. The kit above also has good instructions.

Oleg’s tilt-shift photography

Thursday, October 9th, 2008 | Photos | Permalink | No Comments |

When I met Oleg Volk at the Manchester Appleseed shoot I noticed something funny about the lens on his Canon camera. It had a big squared-off area close to the camera body. I asked him if it was a PC (perspective control) and he answered in the affirmative, then explained why he used it.

Perspective control is also called tilt-shift. It allows you to alter the angle of the lens elements inside the lens body. The best-known use for tilt-shift photography is architecture. Using a tilt-shift allows you to keep the architectural lines straight, even when shooting tall buildings from the ground. (You can sort of fake correct perspective using Photoshop.

Oleg explained that he used tilt-shift because he often photographs rifles and shotguns for product literature and for his right to keep and bear arms work. To get the entire longarm in focus he has two options. One is to photograph the gun perpendicularly from the side so that the gun is in the same focal plane from one end to another.

That works, but it provides a boring perspective that’s visually unappealing. By using the tilt-shift lens Oleg can photograph the gun from an angle yet keep every part of the gun in focus. That’s how he made yesterday’s photograph.

Photokina announcements and new Photoshop CS4

Wednesday, September 24th, 2008 | Photos, Tech | Permalink | No Comments |

The Photokina photography show is this week in Cologne. Digital Photography Review has a roundup of news.

Lots of cameras and lenses debuted, but the big software news was version 4 of Adobe’s Creative Suite, including Photoshop CS4. Wired and Macworld have previews. There’s also an extended version of CS4 with more 3D features.

CS4 uses your video card’s graphics processor unit (GPU) to accelerate many operations. Besides just speeding things up, Adobe has used the new-found speed to make some preview operations available that weren’t practical before. For instance, instead of typing scaling factors into a dialog box and waiting for the results you can now scale images up and down in a live preview by dragging your mouse.

CS4 is available in a 64-bit version. With 32-bit operating systems and 32-bit processors you’re limited to 4 GB of RAM. No matter how cheap RAM becomes or how much you can afford, a 32-bit operating system can only address 4 GB of the stuff. (2³² = 4,294,967,296 bytes, which is 4 Gigabytes.)

In theory a 64-bit operating system you can address up to 17.2 billion gigabytes of RAM, though 64-bit versions of Windows are limited to 128 GB and most 64-bit processors also have limitations.

Test your color IQ

Monday, September 22nd, 2008 | Photos | Permalink | 4 Comments |

Color perception test at xrite.com. A perfect score is zero (no mistakes) and a bad score can be over 100. I got a 4, which surprised me a little. I didn’t think my color perception was that good.

Red Honda on the Dragon’s Run

Thursday, September 18th, 2008 | Best Of, Photos | Permalink | 3 Comments |

Your eye is better than your camera

Wednesday, September 17th, 2008 | Photos | Permalink | 1 Comment |

I gave the digital photography talk last night at the East Tennessee Mac Users Group. We had a good turnout and folks stayed long beyond the usual meeting time, so things went well. I enjoyed it and learned a few things in putting together the program.

One idea I tried to emphasize is that a camera is usually much less capable than your own eye. A dark room that has enough light to walk around in, or even enough light to read by, is too dark for most lenses to take a picture in without a flash. Your eye is better than the lens.

While getting ready for the talk I found a few interesting facts about the human eye. According to one source the eye has a resolution of 576 megapixels, compared to 36 megapixels in the most expensive cameras, and 12 or less in most.

Someone else calculated that the human eye has an aperture of 3.2 Someone else opined the aperture was 2.25. Either is better than most lenses. The eye has a maximum ISO of around 800, which gives good low-light performance.

Sometimes the biggest challenge in photography is trying to get the camera to see what you can see without trying.

No more gas

Sunday, September 14th, 2008 | Best Of, Photos | Permalink | 1 Comment |

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Piaggio MP3 three wheel scooter pictures

Thursday, September 11th, 2008 | Photos | Permalink | 2 Comments |

At first glance the MP3 looks tipsy, like a three wheel ATV with the front and back wheels reversed. In use the two front wheels have independent suspensions that compress differentially in turns. Watch this YouTube clip to see the Piaggio MP3 in action.

Piaggio Web site.

Previously:
- Stella Scooter Pictures from Knoxville’s Old City
- Smartcars Everywhere