DPChallenge: A Digital Photography Contest You are not logged in. (log in or register
 

DPChallenge Forums >> Photography Discussion >> Photography video a day
Pages:  
Showing posts 1 - 14 of 14, (reverse)
AuthorThread
07/09/2016 12:09:29 PM · #1
Ok -- the forums have been really quiet.

I should be taking advantage of all of the videos that are on the net.

I hate videos -- I learn faster from a book. But those are harder to find these days.

The sofobomo or whatever it's called (someone can find the link, or I'll find it after the chocolate dipped orange cookies come out of the oven. :) is going on, and I've been meaning to do it for way to long, and never even started.

I didn't know what theme I'd do for said sofobomo (or whatever it is).

I've learned so much from people, I want to help some how.

So this is it! I'm going to watch one photography/photoshop video a day for 30 days. I'm going to use what I saw to create a photo. I'm going to post what I've learned from the video and post it here.

Feel free to join me! (you don't have to do the 30 days bit, but watch a video, play with what you've learned, and post it here. This could be fun!)

Back to the chocolate dipped orange cookies.
07/09/2016 01:11:35 PM · #2
Sounds good but why not try and MAKE a photography video each day for a month?
07/09/2016 01:19:34 PM · #3
Originally posted by nygold:

Sounds good but why not try and MAKE a photography video each day for a month?


Because I don't know all that much and I hate being in front of a camera. My video would be:

How to take wildlife photos:

1. Your canon 7d sucks at noise at even 400 iso, so try to stick to that or below.
2. Open your lens all the way since your canon 7d sucks at noise so that you can get as fast a shutter speed as you can.
3. Point, shoot and hope.
4. Chimp constantly.
repeat steps three and four about 200 times per animal and you might get something good. :)

07/09/2016 01:21:16 PM · #4
So the first video I'm doing is:

Four looks, one grey background

Simply because I could do this with flash. But every time I use the alienbees, I can't get my background to go dark. I assume it's because I have the flashes set way too high, but I haven't figured it out. So now it's time to play.
07/09/2016 01:42:54 PM · #5
As you work through this project you might want to post links to the videos you watch (perhaps with a brief review) in this thread:

Ultimate List of Photography Videos to Learn From
07/09/2016 03:21:05 PM · #6
Originally posted by vawendy:

...every time I use the alienbees, I can't get my background to go dark. I assume it's because I have the flashes set way too high, but I haven't figured it out. So now it's time to play.


In order to get that jet-black background, you need to have a much higher level of light on the subject, so it may well be that the flashes are set too *low* if you are seeing the background lighted by your ambient light. It might also be that light is spilling from your diffusers onto the background, so when yo increase flash power, you also increase the amount of light hitting the background. Gridding the reflectors can help to direct light so that you don't illuminate the background. More separation of subject to background will also help.
07/09/2016 04:07:04 PM · #7
Originally posted by kirbic:

Originally posted by vawendy:

...every time I use the alienbees, I can't get my background to go dark. I assume it's because I have the flashes set way too high, but I haven't figured it out. So now it's time to play.


In order to get that jet-black background, you need to have a much higher level of light on the subject, so it may well be that the flashes are set too *low* if you are seeing the background lighted by your ambient light. It might also be that light is spilling from your diffusers onto the background, so when yo increase flash power, you also increase the amount of light hitting the background. Gridding the reflectors can help to direct light so that you don't illuminate the background. More separation of subject to background will also help.


That's actually the first thing that I'm learning. My soft box is really large. My dining room is small. I'd been wondering if a grid would help, and the video shower the difference between gridded and not gridded. Big difference. He also said that a grid for your softbox is incredibly helpful in small studios.
07/10/2016 02:13:00 PM · #8
Ok -- so I started with

four looks, one grey background

but I didn't have gels, so I added:

Rembrandt lighting with one light

I have a small dining room and a really large softbox, so it was difficult.

I also didn't have a model, but I had a mannequin that was significantly taller than I was. So she ended up a torso on a chair so I could get on her height. Now she was significantly shorter than myself, so I sat on a chair, as well.



I posted lighting info in the comments of the photos.

First problem: Where do you meter? This was metered at the side a bit:



This was metered under the chin



The closer the light, the more difficulty I had in getting the right spot to meter.

Things I learned:

You can put your model right in front of the background when using a softbox. You don't end up with nasty shadows!



To get a black background, move the light close to the subject and move subject away from the background. The light drops off quickly. This might be a good idea when using flash, but when using a big softbox, you only get it to get darker, not black. There's too much light thrown around from the big softbox. The solution, they say, is to grid the softbox. They said that a grid is really, really useful if you have a small space. It makes the light more directional and doesn't end up falling on the background as much.

It also was difficult to get the softbox in really close, because it blocked the camera! So again, huge space, no problem, tiny dining room -- quite an issue. My softbox is way too big: 32x40. I thought it was better getting a bigger one for full length photos.



White background I got close, but didn't really play with it a lot since I have a white backdrop. But basically you just stick a light behind you model, pointed at the grey background. I stuck a wig on the mannequin, because her plastic head was giving me the creeps. The issue with this is not to have it too bright, or you start overexposing the hair:



So they said, don't meter on the background, meter on the light falling on the back of the head. Have this metered to about the same as the light that's hitting the face.

This is where I lost the white, but didn't overexpose the hair. But it was interesting thinking of it that way. I need to play with that more.



Since I didn't have a gel, I switch to the rembrandt lighting.

Regular light from 45 degrees



This is what happens when you have the softbox directly to the side of the subject.



rembrant lighting with one light just moves the softbox straight forward, almost in front of the model. The interesting thing is, stand with your face right up against the side of your softbox and look to see what part of the model's face you can see. That's the area that the light will make it to. (see video if this makes no sense).



Again, I need to figure out what part of the face I want to meter. I assume I'll figure that out as I go along. I'm guessing meter under the chin for normal shots. Meter somewhat towards the side of the face for rembrandt so you dont get the side too bright and the shadow gets a tad deeper.

Ok -- That's day 1!

07/12/2016 07:53:57 PM · #9
I missed this earlier. Thanks for posting this. The video zooms through it making it look easy. It is interesting to get your thoughts on reproducing their results in practice.
07/12/2016 09:12:43 PM · #10
I've missed two days already :(

But after doing the lighting tests on the mannequin, here's the test of just moving the softbox forward for the one light Rambrand lighting.



I did add a linear contrast in photoshop. I'm not quite sure how to do that with the lighting...?

Message edited by author 2016-07-12 21:15:47.
07/12/2016 10:01:45 PM · #11
I'm following along, looking things up occasionally, with great interest. Thanks for taking the time to post your experiments.
07/12/2016 10:47:10 PM · #12
Originally posted by pixelpig:

I'm following along, looking things up occasionally, with great interest. Thanks for taking the time to post your experiments.


Ah! I didn't think anyone was interested, so I didn't bother to show notes on the next one.

I did a JoeyL tutorial that I bought a year or two ago. Since it's a pay thing, I won't post it all here. But I was going to post something:

For dodging and burning, I've seen a bunch of videos that say to create a new layer, set the blend mode to soft light, reduce opacity. Set the brush opacity down and anything you paint white will get lighter, whatever you paint black will get darker. I do that, but rather heavy-handedly.

What he uses the dodge and burn for was to even out the face a bit. And it's quite nice. Here is the face before the dodge/burn:



and after:



The one thing I kept forgetting was the setting. He'd hold down the alt key while clicking on the new layer button. Change the blend mode to soft light. Click the box to fill with 50% grey.



Then set the flow and opacity of your brush both to 10%. Now paint on the new layer. Anything you paint with white will get progressively lighter. Anything you paint with black will get progressively darker.

It's very subtle. So you're not doing deep dodging and burning. You're making subtle changes. The cool think is since you've told it to fill the layer with 50% grey, you can hold down the Alt key and click on that layer, to show only that layer, and you'll see your freaky dodging and burning face. Alt click to get all the layers back to where they were.



The link to the video is here. There's a charge for it. I've downloaded two of his videos, and while they were good and interesting, I didn't feel that there was really enough content to fit the price. But they were enjoyable.

learn from joeyl

Message edited by author 2016-07-12 22:48:55.
07/12/2016 11:17:23 PM · #13
Interesting!

Long ago, the comments I was reading from another talent said she customarily went all the way to one-pixel at a time to do her fine tuning. Put it another way, her attention to detail was merciless.

I think it is this attention to detail, all the way to one pixel at a time, that is a hallmark of the artist. At the same time, it's not the best place to start. IMO. After trying everything I could find, I finally have settled on global, auto adjustments for the beginning editing. I save the pixel-by-pixel attention for the very last.

I have tried a little bit of experimenting with artificial light, enough to respect how much study & work goes into it, enough to know it's not going to be my best skill. So I'm following along with your notes out of great interest in your adventure. You go girl!
07/12/2016 11:44:45 PM · #14
The non-destructive Dodge/Burn thing also works by creating a new (blank) layer in Overlay Mode and checking the box to fill it with the default 50% gray; then paint similarly with white to lighten and black to darken. It is usually a good idea to start out with the brush set to a low opacity so as to not suddenly overdo it ...
Pages:  
Current Server Time: 03/29/2024 05:48:49 AM

Please log in or register to post to the forums.


Home - Challenges - Community - League - Photos - Cameras - Lenses - Learn - Prints! - Help - Terms of Use - Privacy - Top ^
DPChallenge, and website content and design, Copyright © 2001-2024 Challenging Technologies, LLC.
All digital photo copyrights belong to the photographers and may not be used without permission.
Current Server Time: 03/29/2024 05:48:49 AM EDT.