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. 

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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. 

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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

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.

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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