Lighting painting interiors.

Hello,

Today is like to share a process with you on how I like to light my interior images.
If you’ve ever tried to photograph a building interior, you know how tough it can be to properly expose all parts of the scene. You know how many areas tend to fall into darkness.

When this happens, many photographers will just try to recover the shadows with a brighter exposure or some dodging and burning. Unfortunately, that can lead to muddy results which often display a lack of texture and colour.

One technique that I like to use with modern photographic tools is light painting.

One method would be to literally stop down the aperture, wear an all-black outfit, and wave a light around for a 30-60 second exposure to fill in shadows.

Luckily, things are a bit easier these days. You can use a single Speedlight and see the results instantly.

I personally like to use a speed light and a remote to pull it off, (depending on how much power I’ll need.)

The aim here is to add light in spots that appear to have natural light falling on them – either from landscape lighting or interior lighting. Adding flash or hot light will dramatically clean up the quality of the light, by giving it direction and fall off. Whereas the ambient light may create a muddier appearance due to having no directionality, incoherent colour casts or being mixed with the window or interior lighting.

Above is an image of myself adding a pool of light onto a foreground part of the scene.

A couple of points to remember -

• The camera has to be on a tripod or secure point and does not move throughout the process.

• The camera has to be in manual mode to ensure that each frame remains consistent. Focus, exposure, ISO, colour temperature etc.

While using a Speedlight I use pocket wizard triggers, one on the flash, one in the hot shoe on the camera, and another as a trigger in my hand which is able to fire the camera and flash remotely.

Again here are a few more images of me moving around the scene adding more illumination.

(Schoolboy error though, this time I forgot to pack my coloured gels and so had a bit more photoshop work to do after the fact.)

Once all the images are captured, they are imported into photoshop and aligned.

Using a base layer, (without any flash) I add each illuminated frame on top.

Changing the blend mode to “lighten” and adjusting the opacity, I am able to change the intensity and have greater control of what is lit.

Finally using a layer mask, I paint out everything that is not required to help to keep the image clean.

The final example of this technique in use.

Personally, I think the before image would have been a flat, uninteresting image. By adding light to different parts of the scene I feel brings in greater interest and a more polished professional product for my clients.

If you have any questions or would like to know more about this technique,

please drop me a note.

Kind regards,

Lee

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Electronic shutter vs Mechanical shutter.

Hi,

just a quick one as i am sure a lot of you are more experienced with this than myself. 

Whilst traveling to work i was taking some pictures on the flight. To avoid the cabin crew scowl i turned the Fuji X-T1's shutter from Mechanical to electronic. 

It is permanently set on the Mechanic mode, as in the past, i accidentally put it onto electronic and it would not fire the off camera flashes. To prevent that happening again, it is a setting i do not change. 

This occasion due to the silence of the electronic shutter, it would be a perfect solution.

Just for a demonstration and comparison, as i didn't want to take pictures of the planes propellers.

Have a look at the two images. The top image is the conventional mechanical shutter. And the lower is the electronic. I found it really interesting how the shutters create different images. 

Thanks

Photography tool - image stitching.

Good morning, i hope that you are well. 

Today i'd like to share a quick thought on how you can use image stitching to over come problems.

I appreciate that this is nothing new, but with some fore-thought it can become a powerful tool in your arsenal. 

I was commissioned to shoot an office building. The front had no access due to very limited space and parked cars in my way. Even with the lens at 24mm it was simply impossible to fit the building into frame. So stitching is the only way forward. 

The above image was created with around 25 images. 

View fullsize

Here you can see the images used, 

the camera was mounted on a tripod and i systematically panned left to right making sure to over lap alot. The building took 3 passes.

Always best to have more frames than needed, than have pieces missing down the line. 

With each up date of Photoshop CC i have noticed that it is becoming much better at stitching. 

In the past it would have not been able to do this, and for these cases i use Autopano Giga 3.0 stitching software, but photoshop managed ok with this. 

Now by using a tilt shift lens, and/or a parallax tripod head, your job in post will be so much easier, but as i do not own either of these i had to make do. The majority of my time was spent straightening the stitched image. 

As with all panos, shoot in manual, turn white balance off auto so all the images remain consistent. 

I hope that this helps, and when you are trying to shoot a subject larger than your frame, that you remember this technique. 

Thanks

Lee

Scene lighting technique.

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Nikon D800 f7.1 1/8th ISO100

Good morning, 

Id like to share with you a lighting technique that you can use to light a scene, even when working on your own. 

The above image consists of 21 images, all shot and lit by myself, and i am even in the image, to add some interest. 

I will show you, how i take multiple images, all lit with off camera flash, and then the process i take in photoshop.

Here you can see me using an off camera flash head on a pole, with the trigger in my right hand firing off the flash and camera shutter remotely. 

View fullsize

Click on image to enlarge.

The final image is composed of 21 frames. 

The camera was mounted on a tripod. White balance taken off auto, manual settings, and with me using back button focusing on the camera, i know when i press the remote, the camera will not try and focus, making all the images consistent. 

Quick tip, 

Like when making panos, my first image is a large image of me, so i can find the set easily in bridge. 

Also this is a great way to make sure that the flash and camera shutter both fire correctly. 

As when using pocket wizards as the remote, the flash PW has to be set to a channel higher and some times i forget this, and so it is always a good idea to test everything before getting started and walking far into the scene. 

Using bridge i select all the images that i want to use, and from here you can easily load them into photoshop as a single document with 21 layers. 

Now turn off all layers, and starting from the bottom layer i work my way up through the stack, turning on, one layer at a time, changing the blend mode to Lighten. 

With the blend mode on lighten, the flash light will show. 

Also you will see indicated in this image the hot spot of the flash is in the image. This is easy to mask out. Also i remain in the image by some strange artefacts, just simply mask these out. 

After some cleaning and tweaking here is the before and after image.

The before being unlit. 

It is a subtle difference, but one i find takes your images to that next level. 

If you have any questions, feel free to comment and i hope to help. 

Thanks

Lee

Infrared black and white processing.

Morning, i thought id share a couple of images taken at the local using the infrared filter.

Above are two images, one was taken normally and processed to black and white, where as the other is an infrared image then processed to black and white. 

As you can see there is quite a difference. The infrared image was shot at a longer exposure and so the water will obviously look quite different but i do like what happens with the foliage. 

Nikon D800 70-200@200mm f3.5 1/80th ISO5000

Leaves high in a tree. I liked how the light was illuminating a small section. This again is a processed infrared image. This is a noisy file due to the high ISO used. I was trying to gain a fast shutter speed to eliminate any motion from the wind blowing the leaves. 

Nikon D800  70-200@70mm f8 13th ISO800

I have noticed that along with the Sky, water goes blue also. 

Thanks

Infrared Tree.

Good morning, 

Attached is an image taken using an infrared filter. 

Now with taking a few of these i am slowly learning what to expect. 

So far i am liking images of trees against a sky background. The sky looks fairly normal and foliage looks interesting. I have learnt that if there is no sky and you fill the frame with only foliage the results are not that pleasing. I even had a play with a couple of portraits and skin looks awful. 

Nikon D800  70-200@75mm f5.6  6th ISO100

I hope that you enjoy these images and my thoughts and learning as i progress using this technique.

Thanks

Infrared lens hotspot.

Good morning. 

If you have purchased the infrared filter as i previously mentioned in a blog post couple of weeks ago, and have been shooting with it, you will have noticed the strange colouring that you have received. 

The bright red file is normal, Prior to shooting setting a custom white balance is recommended. A lot of advice i have read is setting it again green grass or foliage. For the below image being a city scape there wasn't much grass around, so i chose to shoot in RAW and play with the white balance later in post. 

Infrared blocking filter Hoya R72 Lens hotspot 24-70mm F2.8 Lee Ramsden

Infrared blocking filter Hoya R72 Lens hotspot 24-70mm F2.8 Lee Ramsden unprocessed out of camera

One thing i have learn is the visible hot spot in the centre of the image. I shot this using Nikons 24-70mm f2.8 and lens hot spots are a most common problem encountered when shooting infrared light. They usually manifest in the form of a bright circle, sometimes in the shape of aperture leaves directly in the center of the image. The problem is exaggerated as you stop down (increase f stop number), with the spot becoming more prominent and defined. 

Hot spots can be caused for a variety of reasons, the most common of which is the coating on the inside of the lens barrel being reflective in IR light. Another frequent reason is light interaction between the coatings of the lens elements. A less common reason is light interaction between the lens elements and the imaging sensor(usually the micro-lenses) in the camera. In this case using the lens on one camera model may have no hot spot issues and on another model there could be prominent hot spots.

Unfortunately, if your lens has this issue the only solution is to simply use a different lens altogether. Fortunately the majority of lenses don’t have this problem or the problem is very minor and normally not visible in images.

Once i find a suitable lens and am happy with the results ill report back. 

If you have any suggestions to use on a Nikon body id like to hear your views. Feel free to use the contact page.

I hope that you enjoy these images. This is a new technique and something i am enjoying playing with. 

Thanks

Infrared Black and White. London

Nikon D800 f8 3min ISO400 24-70mm@28mm

Morning, 

Here is a Black and White processed infrared image of London's MoreLondon area, with the town hall and the Shard building. 

My next blog post on Monday i will be showing the out of camera file compared to the processed colour version. And explain why there is a visible hotspot in the centre, due to the choice of Lens. (This won't happen again, i am enjoying the learning curve with these.)

Thanks

Lytham Time lapse iPhone images.

Here are a few iPhone images taken whilst i was waiting for a time lapse set up to complete.

As you can see from the above image i had 4 and a half hours to kill...

The Kessler Cineslider. So far I'm pretty impressed with this bit of kit. Each time i take a time-lapse it gets tweaked and set up slightly different. Using lighting stands and moveable heads with the aid of a spirit level helps no end in getting the shoot straight from start to finish. 

My old Nikon D700 is now used for the time lapse work.  

Lytham green and windmill. 

Helvellyn composite images.

Hi, i thought id share the images that i used to create the image bellow.

The top left image was me putting my idea down as a drawing.

The Helvellyn page was created in photoshop with taking some information from Wiki.

Also i used a wood effect background which was warped and pulled about to make it fit into the scene.

Composite with a snow machine in the garden.

   Nikon D800 f10 1/125th ISO 100

Good morning, hope that you had a good weekend.

This was the set up, pretty straight forward really. Two light sources, both camera left. The elinchrom ranger in a large octa positioned in front of myself, so the light was feathered and soft.

with a bare elinchrom quadra behind back lighting the snow.

With a snow machine you can see on the left of the image.

The image was shot with grey paper background intentionally to aid in the photoshop work afterwards.

Image set up and execution around 45 mins, and all photoshop work an hour and half.

Some times these images can take a lot more, but having the final goal in your mind and through experience you can achieve that goal much quicker and have a nicer final product.

  Nikon D800 f10 1/125th ISO 100

Volvo V50 - play with a car rig.

Nikon D800 f10 1/30th ISO800 (multiple flash exposure)

I know that we are all guilty of this, i purchased some camera kit, and it has just sat there for months unused... (this is just me? - yeah right)

And so it was time to have a play. I purchased some car rig - mounting equipment. For making the movement shots you see in magazines.

Nikon D800 f5 1/13th ISO 800

Here is a final shot, with using a slower shutter speed to give the sense of movement, i would of been blurred in the shot, and so inside the car is a strobe light, set to rear curtain sync to give a pop of light to freeze me, and make me sharper. 

I triggered the camera and flash using pocket wizard 3's. I find these work a treat. I have one in my hand, and when i press the button the camera fires, and the flash. 

Nikon D800 f3.2 1/15th ISO 400

A Shot of the mounting system attached to the bonnet. 

Nikon D800 f5 1/13th ISO800

Added another pole to extend the reach of the camera. I felt the camera was too heavy for this though, as the poles were worryingly bending, and so only a very slow speed was used when driving.

Here is a short Video of the top image, being taken and processed. 

Thanks

Lee

A subtle technique, but goes a long way..

Hello, here is a little tip which i have recently picked up and thought id share as it makes such a lovely difference.

When working on images of buildings here is how i now add contrast.

Rather then use contrast adjustment layer, i created two levels layers, one darker and one lighter - both with black layer masks.

Now take your time, and paint in, where the face of a building is lighter, make it lighter and the dark side darker. It takes a little time, but certainly gives your image much more depth and a 3D feel to them.

 This image has the effect turned off. 

The extra layer you can see is a contrast adjustment layer to the lighter layer.

Here is the final image with the contrast technique added. 

Subtle but certainly makes a lot of difference to the image.

Polarising Filter.

 Hi,

Today is just a quick post, but wanted to try and show the importance of using a circular polarising filter. Here you can see from a shot of London from the View at the Shard, i had to shoot through a window.

This image you can see the reflections in the glass from inside of the building. 

By using a polarising filter, it is not perfect, but seriously cuts out the reflections and so saves you much more time having to edit less.

Like always if you have any questions please feel free to post in the comments. 

Hope that you enjoy the rest of your Sunday... 

The above image would not have been able to been created so clean without a polarising filter. 

Please feel free to share this post on your social media, giving credit to the photographer Lee Ramsden www.leeramsden.com

Thanks

Lee Circular Glass Polariser 100x100

Lee Filters

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77mm HOYA PRO1 Digital Filter Circular Polarizer PL DMC Filter

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The view from the Shard London HDR image break down.

Hi, hope your keeping well and have had a good weekend. 

Here are some images from the previous London landscape image that i have posted. 

I wanted to show the images used to create the final image. 

I clamped the camera down to the handrail using the Manfrotto Magic arm and using a cable release i rattled a few bracketed frames. 

I have included the metadata on each image, but other then converting to jpg, they are straight from the camera and in the order the camera took them and i added to Nik softwares HDR efex pro 2.

Here is the first base image. In face i quite like this exposure but i personally prefer having the extra range to play with. 

And finally this is the out put from the software. As you can see it has little punch, no halos. or even much contrast going on. But the key is to get a nice base to start with, and then bring this into photoshop and make it your own.

I have tried many different HDR software on the market and not one will you be able to click process- done.

But i do think that this is a good thing, no 2 images will ever be processed the same and so this way it makes you take your time and make something unique and more realistic.

Here is the final image. 

Thanks.

Lee

The View at The Shard London photography tips.

Hi, how are you? 

I hope that you are well, while I'm stuck out at work on the rig for a month....

Last week I took a trip to the new viewing platform in the Shard building- London.

72 floors high you get an incredible view of London.

You have to book in advance and pick your time slot, I was particular in that I wanted the sunset to dark.

After googling the timings I was happy that we would catch the setting sun, but just had to have our fingers crossed for the weather :0)

As you can see, we were so very lucky in the weather front, after so much snow and bad weather recently.

I wanted to give a couple of tips that i found so handy while shooting here.

and these tips will not only help if you fancy going up the Shard but I'm guessing 99.9% of tourist locations.

Tip 1

- The venue Tripod ban...

A lot of tourist venues have a tripod ban and so you are not allowed to enter with / or use one.

As you can see i over came this by using a Manfrotto magic arm, and super clamp. 

The security observed me using this and did not bother in the slightest. 

While using the clamp and magic arm, i treated it like a tripod and so was using my cable release to gain much longer shutter speeds. 

Tip 2

- Don't for get your polariser filter.

To try and reduce the reflections you gain shooting through the glass, a circular polariser filter is not perfect, but cuts down the problem loads. 

Nothing will stop the other members of public and their point and shoots, using the flash - still amazed at what they recon the on camera flash will light up. 

That its, i can really recommend the Shard, it was a fantastic experience. 

Keep in touch in the comments bar bellow...

Thanks 

Lee

Manfrotto Super Clamp without Stud

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Manfrotto Magic Arm without Accesories

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A Brett Harkness training course.

Recently i attended a Flash lighting training course ran by the talented Brett Harkness. 

I throughly enjoyed myself and walked away with a head full of gold and things to try out to my own images. Here is the

training website

There are heaps of amazing courses to choose from, i can see where a lot of my future pay cheques are going.

Brett's bio -

"I have been a professional photographer in the uk now for over 10 years, previously working in the USA in Miami as a cruise ship photographer. In my eyes I am a photographer. I don't see it as a job, but who I am. I could be seen as the "go to" guy for all things people! I love to take photographs; whether it is a wedding, family shoot, commercial or travel assignment, fashion campaign or whilst teaching on one of our many courses."

I booked onto this course as i was blown away by Brett's images, if you want to be the best, then you learn from the best. 

There are so many tutors out there at the moment, who are offering high-end wedding training, and they have never done a high-end wedding -

Where as Brett does day in- day out... 

-The following images were taken on a course, Lighting positions, models, outfits, locations all chose by Brett and his team. -

An Edit from Glyn Dewis course.

With having a couple of images, one of Dave above and Steve below taken in a studio, i wanted to play and create something a bit different. The lighting and images of the guys were taken on a Glyn Dewis course, but these edits are made up of my own ideas and my own stock images. 

Attending a photoshop based course, you learn techniques, and tips on how to improve.

I find that it also inspires me to push the creativity and want to make up my own images.

Thanks 

Lee

Glyn Dewis Photoshop Course.

I recently attended a second course ran by

Glyn Dewis

and was thoroughly impressed.

Here are some images that were taken and edited on the day.

Glyn teaches you how to take an image in the studio like the above, and then how to edit to the one below 

I have attended a couple of these courses now and throughly enjoy them, No matter what level of "photoshopper" you are, you will learn heaps from the new Kelbyone Photoshop world tutor.

Glyn's style of teaching is fantastic, he has loads of energy and you can feel the passion of what he teaches he clearly loves. I would strongly reccomend a course of his.

At the end of the course Glyn doesnt just shut the door behind you... The majority of the class heads over to the local curry house which is a great way to chill out and chat with like minded people.

The model above is the UK NAPP founder Dave Clayton, who is a great guy. And as you can see likes to dress up and have a laugh.

Cheers Guys, once again another fantastic course, learnt loads, met some great people and had a good crack in the process which is what its all about.

Compositing.

Here are some images from the Oliver Neville shoot that i wanted to play with and do some composites. 

I really enjoyed using studio lights but i do like to try and create fun images. The idea behind this shoot was to show that come and have a studio shoot with myself, and i can make some images to help your business. Ill show some examples of this in my next blog post.