More long exposure greatness here—this one is a 10 minute single exposure of The Twelve Apostles at night, Port Campbell, Australia. Photographer Axil Lonergan captured this cool shot at the end of a late evening drive down the Great Ocean Road.
The Twelve Apostles is a popular Australian tourist attraction on the coast in the Port Campbell National Park. There were never twelve limestone stacks; originally there were nine, but for some reason the name stuck. There are now only eight remaining—the ninth one collapsed spectacularly in 2005.
“The Twelve Apostles at Night” by Axil Lonergan (Via Reddit. Click image to see full size.)
Lonergan shot this image without an ND filter, as it was a completely moonless night. The glow you can see toward the right-hand side of the image are the lights of Port Campbell, but I think the soft, orange glow adds an extra dimension to the image.
Lonergan used a Sony NEX-7 camera with a Sony E 35mm lens. His settings were ISO 100, f/1.8, and 626 seconds.
Why did he use such a large aperture? Lonergan explains that it comes from his experience in wide field astrophotography. In that type of photography, wide apertures and high ISOs are used to get as much starlight into the image as possible before the stars start leaving trails. He focused to infinity, and because the objects he focused on were not close to the camera, everything appeared in focus even at such a low f/stop.
Instead of shooting with a high ISO, Lonergan decided to try ISO 100. For each step down in ISO, he doubled the exposure time and ended up with 10.5 minutes. This gives the image such a beautiful, ethereal feel.
Do you use a watermark for your photographs? If so, does it look clean and undistracting? Colin Smith from photoshopCAFE demonstrates how he turns his written signature into a watermark for his images:
How to Make a Signature Watermark in Photoshop
Draw your large signature on a piece of big white paper. Smith used a soft 4B pencil for more texture.
Take a picture of your signature from directly above it.
Upload your photo to Photoshop.
Open the Levels adjustment window and drag the white adjustment bar left to increase the white of the paper. The surrounding details should be erased, including creases, shadows, and smears. Move the black triangle to the right to embolden and thicken your letters. The middle gray slider can be used to clean up any unwanted yellowing by adjusting the black levels. Once it looks the way you want it, click OK on the levels adjustment bar.
Use the Lasso tool to make a selection around the entire signature.
Go to Edit > Define Brush Preset and click OK to save your new brush.
Click the Brush tool and choose white or black as the foreground color. This depends on what color you want the watermark to be.
Use the final brush in your list of brushes on the top left of your menu bar. The brush size should indicate how many pixels your saved brush is. Smith’s saved brush is 2589px.
Adjust the brush size with the left bracket key on your keyboard or by moving the slider left on the brush panel.
Click to place your watermark.
To save your new watermark to your Creative Cloud library, go to the Brush panel on the top right and click Brush Presets. Your watermark should be listed at the bottom of the brushes. Now, click and drag it into the Libraries tab.
All done! Sounds pretty easy, right? Give this project a try to see how a clean signature watermark looks on your work!
Drifts of snow and freezing wonderlands are coaxing out photographers to record the beautiful countryside in all its winter glory, but as many of you will find it’s not without its problems.
Photo by Christopher; ISO 200, f/22.6, 1/83-second exposure.
We are going to take a look at some of the problems that can get in your way of producing the images that you want and tips for achieving wonderful images.
First off, let’s look at exposure for landscape pictures and then look at lighting for portraits in snowy conditions.
Exposure
Your digital camera will like to do all the work; many of us use the auto light balance option on our cameras. In normal conditions, this works great and is certainly what my camera is set to most of the year, but snow is sneaky and confuses your auto settings, so we need to compensate for this.
When this happens and there is not enough ambient light to correctly light the scene, it is often helpful to overexpose by +0.3 to +1.0 EV for a better exposure value, achieving a truer whiteness but taking care not to overexpose too much and lose any detail. How much of an increase you will need depends on a number of factors, as all cameras have slightly different settings and the light around you is not always the same. So play around.
White Balance
The purpose of white balance is to equalize colors based on the lighting conditions. Snow is very reflective and will cause your DSLR camera sensors to misread the white balance. This will usually cause snow to look grey or blue.
You are not automatically going to know how to set your white balance, so take a number of shots and adjust your white balance; choose the setting where the snow is less grey or blue and closer to white.
Lighting..really? Really!
When lighting a subject for a portrait, you need to get as much of the subject in the frame as possible; this will allow the camera to take a better and more accurate reading and avoid the subject being too backlit, which will cause a silhouette effect. It’s best to take a meter reading from just in front of your subject, then light and set meters accordingly, but for amateur purposes the former is better, especially if you are relying on the camera to do the lion’s share of the metering.
Flash is often avoided by photographers when photographing snow, but it can be beneficial in picking up detail that would otherwise be missed. It can add sparkle to a winter scene, and if you have subjects in the frame and are happy to lose some background detail it may make all the difference. Using your fill flash option can help fill in the shadows and the back lit subjects in the foreground.
Of course, much of this may be altered in post production but it would be wise to have the correct information there in the first instance. Once detail is lost from over exposure it is gone forever, and the same can be said for too much shadow. Putting up the exposure in post production may leave you with a grainy image.
If the detail is all there in a picture but you would like more light on the subjects, you can increase the exposure if you are happy to lose some of the background detail.
For static landscape scenes when the light is going using a slower shutter speed will give you a nice effect, however this should only be used in conjunction with a tripod or perhaps using a wall, otherwise too much camera shake will occur.
Other Things to Think About
Take out lots of batteries; they are used up much faster in freezing conditions. It can be useful to have them in a pocket close to your body heat.
Use camera cards better suited to extreme conditions, for example SanDisk Extreme.
Don’t allow your lens cap to get wet and then place it back on your lens, causing spots and condensation.
It sounds obvious, but keep your camera and lens dry.
Problems may occur when moving in and out of freezing conditions, so allow your camera to warm up slowly. Even better, if you need to start shooting again indoors then make sure you have a camera inside. Otherwise you may be stuck with a foggy lens while your camera warms up!
And the most important… Wear thick socks and gloves. I wear fingerless gloves with grips on the palms.
About the Author:
This article has been written by a professional Wedding Photographer in Gloucestershire, who recently had a lot of fun at a snow covered wedding and decided to share some experience that will hopefully help you to capture some beautiful images before it all melts. Happy shooting!
Just over the basalt peaks of Mount Arrowsmith, a truly incredible sight to behold loomed in the sky on a crisp winter night. For just a few moments, the clouds parted to reveal an incredibly rare super blue blood moon to photographer Jacob Klassen:
“Blue Blood Moon over Vancouver Island” by Jacob Klassen (Via Reddit. Click image to see full size.)
Today’s interesting photo is a composite image of the moody mountain and moon, capturing the phenomena in stunning detail. Each of the five sky exposures included illustrate a different phase of the blood moon, which results when the light of the sun reflects directly onto an eclipsed moon.
Klassen, a native of Vancouver Island, often utilizes the nature surrounding his home as subject matter in his photographic endeavors. Though many of the shots he produces are undoubtedly beautiful, this incredible event is likely to stay with the image maker for years to come!
Out of ideas for what to shoot next? These five stunning photo ideas from COOPH will help get over your boredom and capture some breathtaking photos of water and ice:
1. Frame with Ice
Place fruits, vegetables, or any other object inside a container. Pour water into it. Close the lid and leave it to freeze inside the freezer.
Bring it out when the water has completely frozen. Place the object on a reflective surface; Plexiglas is a good option. Light from two sides. Compose your shot, and fire away.
Don’t forget to experiment, as you can really take this idea and run with it.
2. Fire on Water
Create fire on water to make a stunning visual masterpiece. The technique is surprisingly simple. Add some food coloring to water in a container and top it up with lighter fluid. Light the concoction carefully. Let it burn while you snap away.
You can also bring on some of the leftover frozen objects and mix everything together for something even more visually stunning—fire on ice!
3. Long Exposures
Find some moving water—-a river, stream, waterfall, fountain, etc. Set up your camera on a tripod. Use a ND filter. Set a long exposure, and let your imagination run wild.
4. The Water Portal
You might also have to get your feet wet for this one. Place a mirror in the water. Make sure to catch reflection of something other than the water in the mirror.
You can also shoot some stunning long exposure shots.
5. High Speed Photography
Drop objects into a glass tank filled with water. Freeze the moment by using flashes. Use two flashes, one on either side, to get that perfect look and feel.
What are you waiting for? Go ahead and start using these tips to create your next masterpiece.
Star trail photography requires meticulous planning and staying awake for hours while everyone else is asleep, but the results can be stunning, as seen in this image shared by ill_infatuation:
Cho Gyeong-Chui Observatory With Star Trails, Gangwon Province, South Korea (Via Reddit. Click image to see full size.)
Cho Gyeong-Chui Observatory is located on Gwangdeoksan Mountain in South Korea. It’s named after a famous South Korean astronomer, who interpreted the Apollo 11 moon landing on the American Forces Korean Network. While interpreting, he got so over excited that he fell out of his chair!
We don’t have further information about the photographer or the technical details of the image, but that doesn’t stop us from enjoying this incredible sight!
Shooting a sunset motion timelapse is more difficult than it may sound. There are a number of aspects that go into making one that is really awesome. And just as in everything else, with a lot of parameters involved, it’s probable that something will go wrong. Morten Rustad shared this wonderful tutorial to get you off to a successful start:
Location
The most important thing to keep in mind when shooting a sunset timelapse is finding the right location. Ideally, the location should be without any distractions and give you an unhindered view of the setting sun.
Software Tools
The best way to plan your sunset timelapse is to know in advance the time when the sunset will take place and the path of the sun leading up to the moment. There are many tools to plan this, Google Earth being one of them.
On location you can use augmented reality apps to help you get a better idea of the sun’s path. Apps like PhotoHill can accurately predict the timing of the golden hour and blue hour.
Packing Tips
Make sure to pack as lightly as possible. Some of the best photo locations are also the most difficult to reach. This means you will have to hike up treacherous terrain. Packing light and only carrying the most essential tools lets you cope with the strenuous journeys a little more easily.
Rustad packs only his camera, one lens, tripod, ball head, filter, and a Syrp Genie Mini. The Syrp Genie Mini acts as a motion controller and an intervalometer rolled into one. He also packs a battery grip to extend the shooting time of his camera. He uses a Sony a7R II with a Sony 16–35mm lens.
The high resolution full-frame camera paired with the sharp wide angle lens is the perfect tool for shooting sunsets in stunning high resolution.
Aspect Ratio and Composition
Note the aspect ratio that you are shooting in and the aspect ratio of the final timelapse. Your camera is probably going to shoot in at 3:2 and the aspect ratio of the final timelapse will be 16:9. This means much of the top and the bottom of the frame will be cropped.
Pay attention to the composition. Rustad suggest using the Rule of Thirds. He also suggests keeping the sky in the upper third of the frame and the sun slightly to a side, not exactly coinciding with one of the intersecting points. Using this technique means you will need to find some interesting foreground elements, as well.
Camera Exposure
Now’s the tough bit. How to set the camera’s exposure. During sunsets, lighting conditions change rapidly. There are different methods of compensating for these changing lighting conditions. Rustad uses a tried and tested method. He adjusts the ISO manually to keep the exposures ‘constant’. This allows him to maintain a long, constant shutter speed.
The basic camera settings are 8 seconds, f/9, and ISO 100. ISO obviously changes as the light goes darker. Focus is set to manual. As a general practice, Rustad loves to keep his images underexposed by about one stop. This allows him to retain the details in the highlights. Shadows are more easily lifted than recover details from blown out highlights.
Make it a point to look at the back of the camera at regular intervals. As the exposure starts to get too dark, adjust the ISO manually. Make sure that you don’t dial an ISO number higher than your camera can manage.
Timelapse Parameters
It’s time now to set the exposure parameters. You would want to have a timelapse video which lasts for the entire duration of the sunset. Rustad uses the PhotoPills app to predict the exact movement of the sun’s path.
The next step is to set the Syrp Genie Mini. Taking the Earth’s rotation at 15 degrees every hour, Rustad sets the rotation at 30 degrees. The interval time between each shots was set to 15 seconds—enough for the shot to be taken and the Genie Mini to move into the shot.
Post-Processing
Import the images to Lightroom and LRTimelapse. The key frames are the ones where you adjusted the ISO manually. Select a frame immediately before and after for each adjustment. Save and import the metadata to Lightroom.
Make Lightroom only show the rated photos. Adjust the exposure of the photos and make sure that the exposures of the pairs of photos where the ISO changes happen are in sync. Import the images back to LRTimelapse. Click on Auto Transition and save again. Deflicker if necessary. Save and import to Lightroom again and export the files.
Your image sequence is now ready to be imported to Adobe Premiere for the final steps.
Is it a glimpse into the birth of the universe? This shot of a Mexican opal gemstone captured by photographer and gemologist, Danny J. Sanchez, is one of many of beautiful gems and minerals in his portfolio. It can take over centuries for an opal to mature into the precious gem we see here. Formed in the volcanic rock rhyolite, this opal gives us a beautiful glimpse into prehistoric times:
“Opal in rhyolite” by Danny J. Sanchez (Via Imgur. Click image to see full size.)
Sanchez uses a technique called photomicrography; he shoots through a microscope taking multiple shots at different focus points and then stacks them in post-processing to achieve a greater depth of field and focus. Because he can only shoot at a shallower depth of field, he oftens take up to 120 shots before he stacks them. He says he purposely shoots them to subvert scale so the viewer can explore things within the stone that may not have been seen otherwise.
The more we explore the finer details of a subject the more we are open to finding the building blocks of the universe.
