What I Am Working On: Capturing the Action

Storm Ciara has been through our neighbourhood this past week. Lots of rain and high winds here. I’ve been doing my usual walking at times when things seem a bit settled. Even at those times, it has still been quite windy, leading to photos like this one:

ISO 25 f/2.2 4.15mm 1/1304sec

This file was shot with my iPhone in long exposure mode. I originally wrote about this technique and how to achieve it on my SE model of iPhone here.  I then edited this photo further in Hipstamatic:

ISO 25 f/2.2 4.15mm 1/1304sec

I have created a lot of similar variants of the landscape this week. Here is another from my Instagram:

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Bit Blowy. #stormciara #longexposure #hipstamatic

A post shared by Amy Maranto (@marantophotography) on Feb 10, 2020 at 11:31am PST

On Sunday, there will be more in my weekly wrap-up, both “as-shot” and edited in various ways. I’ve had plenty of time to work on the editing while listening to the rain pound on the roof and the winds test the limits of the local trees. Your thoughts on my images are welcome in the comment section below.

Cheers!

Added to Tuesday Photo Challenge, Action.

 

 

Trying New Things on my iPhone

It came to my attention last week that on certain iPhones, the new operating system has a feature that will help create a long exposure photo. Well, consider me distracted by a new thing! After a bit of tinkering, I managed to get this photo:

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When that thing you are experimenting with works! #longexposure with my #iphone #mondaymotivation

A post shared by Amy Maranto (@marantophotography) on Mar 4, 2019 at 4:40am PST

Cool.

I had done a bit of research on how to set things up and this article I found to be the most helpful. It’s an annoying site with a bunch of attempts to get you to sign up for things, but the article itself is good. One point mentioned that was not mentioned in other articles, is the bit about setting the timer. That’s an important step. The author also used a tripod. I do not use a tripod with my iPhone. My iPhone is my simpler camera, it’s the one that I don’t have all the gadgets and extras for, but that’s me, I can see where a tripod would be helpful for something like this.

Also, I would like to point out that all the articles stated that you had to have an iPhone 6 or better for this to work. It does also work on the iPhone SE.

Pretty excited about this feature! feel free to leave your thoughts below.

Cheers!

 

Travel Theme: Ripples in Stone

One thing that I like to photograph in my travels, even if I’m not wandering far from home, is cemeteries and other religious spaces.  This particular image is HDR and I shot it at night:

ISO 320 50mm 0ev f/6.3 1/5

It was 7pm when I shot this, so the sky was not completely dark yet, but the sun was down.  It was the longer exposure time that helped bring out the blue color of the sky.  The lighting on the statue of Mary meant that I did have to be careful not to have too long of an exposure or I would risk too many blown out areas with no detail.  I put the f-stop to 6.3 because I did want to show the ripples in Mary’s robes, that is one of the reasons that I also chose to make an HDR of this scene.  HDR can be a very powerful tool to capture detail.  I used a tripod to keep my camera steady as I took three exposures.  I used Photomatix to create this image and then did some cropping and sharpening in Aperture.

Have you ever created an HDR image from photos taken at night? how did it go, what challenges did you face? Did you blog about it? if so feel free to leave a link in the comment section below  Other thoughts about night photography or HDR that you want to share? feel free to do so.

This post was written in response to the travel theme over at Where’s My backpack? this week featuring ripples.

Cheers!

HDR at Night

For an assignment I had in my Digital Photography class we had to shoot HDR images at night.  Of the four that I turned in, this got the most response in the class critique:

ISO 200 50mm 0ev f/7.1 multiple exposures

The assignment required us to wait till sunset to start shooting.  As you can see I was shooting at the first allowable moment.  I really thought the colors in the sky would compliment the globe.  The other work around I used was to drag a lamp outside and place it behind me for additional light. Because I was dealing with longer exposures, I used my tripod.

This is five exposures merged in Photomatix to create the HDR image.  Because we were to make the photo look as “natural” as possible, I used the default setting.  I did some further work in Photoshop.  I darkened a few of the hot spots and cropped the image.

Cheers!

 

Travel Theme: Mystical

When I saw that mystical was the theme this week at Where’s my backpack?, I knew what I was going to be blogging about right away.  I have borrowed an infrared filter for the week, so here is a photo I took in the morning at about 8 am:

ISO 500 50mm 0ev f/10 87sec.

I put two others on flickr, so you can pop over and check them out if you like.

Cheers!

Travel Theme: Soft

I didn’t have to travel any further than my backyard for this week’s theme from Where’s my backpack?

ISO 160 50mm 0ev f/18 60s

This is a long exposure of the soft morning light.

Also, I just wanted to say thanks to all Veterans.  I remember.

Cheers!

Pumpkin times two

This is a photo I took of the pumpkin that my youngest chose to adorn our front step:

ISO 160 50mm 0ev f/5 85s

A lot of personality, kind of like the kid in question.  Anyway, this is an 85 second exposure because it was early in the morning, and this is a bit of a dark corner.  I had the white balance set on cloudy because I was hoping to warm up the photo a bit.  Once it was on my Mac I edited it a bit in Aperture.  Here is the same photo in black and white:

I personally prefer the black and white version but what do you think?  Please leave your thoughts in the comment section below.

Cheers!

Angles

I was puzzling over a photography assignment that was supposed to include angles.  By that I mean that it was somewhere percolating in the back of my brain.  What I was actually doing at this moment was taking long exposure photos in the dark.  Well, semi-dark, the sun was thinking about coming up.  It turns out the angle I was looking for was right in front of me:

ISO 160 50mm 0ev f/5 50.0s

Moonlight behind the tree, sunlight struggling to come up.  This is a 50 second exposure.  It turned out to be perfect for my angle assignment, so I headed back inside for a cup of tea.

Cheers!

Travel Theme: Bright

Last week’s theme at Where’s my backpack was spooky, so there were a lot of dark night photos.  It was a lot of fun, but this week’s theme is bright.  I was taking a lot of night photos this week, but as you can see, it was pretty bright out:

ISO 160 50mm 0ev f/5 21s

That would be the moon hanging over my house at 6:21am.  The moon was super bright, and there were not a lot of clouds.  This is a 21 second exposure.  You can see some stars as well.

Cheers!

One Last Night Photo

Just for fun I made this image for my night photography assignment:

ISO 160 50mm 0ev f/18 94sec

It’s a 94 second exposure with a laser pointer for the smile.

Have a happy Friday!

Cheers!