With all the hoop-la about photo restoration, I thought I would go against the grain and do something different.

We’ve all seen the old photos of grandma and grandpa at their wedding, or uncle Ted at the birthday party.  These photos have probably been sitting in a box up in the attic without the proper protection, and have all but been destroyed.

Then we’ll see them restored back to their original state, or sometimes even better with added color and effects.

But what about those photos that haven’t yet made it to “vintage” status?  Well, I pulled up a few of my photos from the Army and decided to go try the process backwards – making newer photos look much older.

I chose the military photos because they just seem to fit the style I was after, but you could do this with any photo.

Here I am sitting in the back of my Bradley Fighting Vehicle after a
long day of training.

I used a combination of effects to achieve the look.  I first applied an old photo look to them using an Alien Skin Exposure 2 filter.

Here I am again with the ammo I was going to fire downrange.

I used the Black and White filter and chose an effect under the “Early Photography” folder.  If the effect wasn’t exactly what I wanted, I just played with it until I was happy.

This one is of a Bradley rolling down the trail.

After I got the look I wanted with the photo, I took it into PhotoFrame 4 to apply the frame.  This is one great plugin for Photoshop!

It was actually a little difficult deciding on which frame I wanted to use, but I finally settled on what you see here.

A couple of soldiers waiting on the Blackhawk.

So you see, you don’t always have to make photos look brand new and modern.  With just a little creativity and experimentation you can make a totally good photo into one that’s in need of some restoration!

If you’d like to know how I did this, I’d be willing to put together a tutorial.  Just let me know!

I love a good storm, crackling thunder and exploding lightning. Although it’s not very fun playing with metal rods in the middle of a lightning storm, they sure make for some awesome photos!

The day started off perfect, with 80 degree weather and sunshine. I even took a hike in the mountains for some photos. But later, the sky grew dark and I could see lightning start to drop from the sky off in the distance. What a great chance to try some lightning photography!

I’ve tried photographing the electrically charged bolts before, but with little success. That was mainly due to the lack of proper equipment. But this time I was prepared.

There isn’t much you need in order to get some great lightning shots; tripod, shutter release, and a camera. That’s all I used. Oh, and it helps to have some patience as well!

I set my ISO to 200 to let a little more light in but not too much. The aperture was set to 22 to get as much in focus as possible, and I used manual focus at infinity. Your camera doesn’t like to auto focus in the dark!

I set up in the bathroom upstairs because the window in there has the best view. I double checked all my settings, set up the camera, and shut off the lights. Now it was just a waiting game.

Another setting I failed to mention earlier is the “Bulb” setting. This allows you to hold the shutter open as long as you need, thus the need for a shutter release. For these long exposures you don’t want to touch your camera to avoid any vibration or movement.

I then would press the shutter, wait a few seconds, and release. Sometimes I didn’t get anything, and other times I did. It’s really hit and miss with lightning. You can’t wait until you see the lightning before you hit the shutter. By the time you do, the lightning is long gone. So pressing the shutter until the lightning strikes and then releasing the shutter will guarantee you get something.

Another option would be to buy an adapter specifically for lightning photography. It mounts to the hot-shoe and is triggered when it senses light. I would like to get one some day, but they are quite expensive.

Here are the best shots, out of about 50. Please enjoy!

This is a compilation of some of the above images. Although it’s a “fake” it makes for one spectacular image!

Thanks for reading!

The weather here in Wyoming has been dreadful!  I don’t mind a little rain now and then to green things up, but this is ridiculous!!  Today was no different, with showers scheduled the sky was dark most of the day.

I was supposed to be downtown at 5pm to get some footage for a new commercial advertising the Sheridan Street Fair, which will be the third Thursday every month until September.  Then I had to be at the softball fields at 7:40 for the first of two games tonight.  Well, as luck would have it, the games were canceled and I was able to stay at the fair a lot longer than planned.

This allowed me to get the footage I needed, plus some extra photos for myself.  If you live in the Sheridan area, you need to try and get down to the next one, which I believe is going to be July 16.  There is live music, food and beverages, and plenty of booths to browse through.  (Don’t forget to get your own custom temporary tattoo!)  I’m actually thinking of setting up my own booth to do a little advertising as well.

So anyway, here are some of the best shots from tonight.  Please enjoy!

Nice little face painting!

This guy was pretty funny. I had no idea Sheridan had 82 religious groups!

These guys were pretty good, considering they are only young teenagers! (Like 14 or 15 young!)

They closed Main Street for about 5 blocks for the fair.

Even the Drum & Bugle Corps made an appearance. And almost made my ears bleed!

I really liked this band, and this image!

Here they are again, huddled around the mic like they’re trying to keep warm!

The violin player was pretty sweet, too!

Finger-plucking good!

And this is a Burmese Mountain Dog, which happens to be my wife’s favorite. Beautiful dogs.

(On a side note…is it “Burmese or Burnese? I found both spellings while searching the net. I think it’s Burmese, with an “m”.)

Living 15 minutes from the Big Horn Mountains is awesome. I can take a short drive and be surrounded by pine trees, breath fresh air, and have infinite possibilities for great photos.

A friend of mine called this morning wanting to know if I wanted to go up the canyon for some whitewater rafting.  Do I?  Of course!  I loaded my gear and in less than 30 minutes I was at the site ready to take some great photos.

I hope you enjoy the pictures as much as I did taking them!  They were all processed in Lightroom 2 with various presets.

Editing photos can be a time consuming project, especially if you have hundreds of photos to go through.  So anytime there is a shortcut to the process, it’s a blessing.

I found one of these shortcuts the other day while working on some photos.  It deals with advancing photos while in the Library Module.

So I made a quick little video to demonstrate how this is done.  Enjoy!

Today, my photo class took a photowalk downtown.  It’s the first time I’ve ever gone out with other photographers to take pictures.  I usually enjoy going out by myself, for a little “me time”, but I can honestly say that it was great having other photogs there.

I’m usually a loner when it comes to photowalks, and enjoy the quiet to be able to focus and get lost in my thoughts.  However, going out on one’s own can have its drawbacks as well.  Having a group there allowed me to get their point of view on different shots.  We were all able to feed off each other and bounce ideas around.

And even though we were taking pictures of the same things, none of us ever had the same result.  Ah, the beauty of creative minds!

So if you ever find yourself short on ideas, just go out with a few other photographers and you’ll be able to spark your creativity once again.  I’ve chosen a few of my favorite images from the photowalk and would like to share them with you.

“Bank of Commerce – 1894

Conflicting Lines

Bleeding Windows

Josh

Pav

The Men’s Shop

Blue Gate

One Shot

Thanks for reading!!

Welcome to Part 2 of “How to Take Smoke Photographs”!

If you haven’t read Part 1, I suggest starting there.  I show you how to set up your equipment to take smoke photos.

Then follow along with this video tutorial, where I show you how to edit your photos.  The process is pretty simple and is limited only by your imagination.

Thank you for watching!  Please leave your comments!

I recently became fascinated with smoke photography.  The images that result from the random patterns of smoke are quite amazing and mezmorizing.

The images look difficult to create, with multiple colors and patterns, but it’s actually quite simple.

In this post today I’m going to show you exactly how to do it, from start to finish.  Enjoy!

First, let’s go over the equipment you’re going to need in order to take smoke photos.

Equipment

1. Smoke – The best smoke is from incense.  It lasts a long time, has a nice steady stream, and smells good!
2. Backdrop – I’ve found that using a black backdrop is the best when taking the photos.  You can use black posterboard, matboard, or a black sheet.
3. Light – As with any type of photography, light is key.  I tried a couple different setups and found that using one modeling lamp off to the side did the best for me.
4. Tripod – Placing your camera on a tripod is crucial to getting tack-sharp images.
5. Camera – This is self-explanatory!  However, I haven’t tried using a point-and-shoot camera for this.  You’ll want a camera that allows you to have full manual control.
6. Remote Shutter Release – This isn’t necessary, but it helps.

Now that we have our equipment, let me show you how I set it up.

Pretty simple setup.  I have a black sheet as the backdrop that’s pinned to the wall and draped over the bed.  The one modeling strobe is set up on the left fairly close to the smoke.  And the tripod is set up in front.

Here is a closeup of the incense sitting on top of a box.  Since I’m aiming for just the smoke, I don’t have to worry about covering the box.

Settings Used

Now that we have everything setup, you may be wondering what settings to use on your camera.  This is what I used:

• ISO – 100
• Shutter Speed – 1/250
• Aperture – f/5.6  (I also used f/11 to get more in focus)
• Focus – Manual (Focus on the incense stick in automatic mode, then switch to manual and leave it alone.)

You may need to play around with the settings to get the effect you’re looking for.  I started with f/5.6 and then moved to f/11 when I noticed that some of the smoke was out of focus.  I left all the other settings the same and it seemed to work well.

I first tried using a snoot on the strobe to pinpoint the light where I wanted it, but it wasn’t giving me enough light.  The strobe was set to 1/4 power, so I might have been able to increase the power with the snoot attached.  (That’s for another day!)

I took the snoot off and shot with the strobe at 1/4 power still.  I had to move the strobe a little farther from the backdrop and angle it a little more because it was hitting part of the backdrop.  You don’t want any light falling on the backdrop to keep it as dark as possible.  This will help later in post-processing.

Now that everything is setup and your camera is ready, it’s time to take some photos!

I just sat there watching the smoke, waiting to capture the cool designs rising up from the incense stick.  Sometimes I missed, sometimes I got it.

What I did notice, however, was that the strobe was actually disturbing the smoke some.  Since it was so close to the smoke, every time it fired I could see the smoke move.  This was never really a problem, and probably gave me more designs to shoot at.

You may have noticed that I never said that I shot in total darkness.  Some people will say this is important, to be able to concentrate the light on the smoke.  However, I found that leaving the overhead light on did absolutely nothing to the photos.  Since the strobe was so powerful and I was shooting into the black background at a decent shutter speed, there was no problem leaving the light on.  It actually helped me be able to see the smoke!

The most important thing to remember is that you’re not going to take 50 shots and have 50 usable shots.  To give you an idea of how “hit and miss” this can be, I took 260 shots and kept only 37.  That’s only 14% that were somewhat usable!  And I probably won’t use all of those either.

So be patient and have fun!

SIDENOTE: I thought about doing this all in one post, but I’m going to split it up and go over the post-processing in the next post.

Thanks for reading, and leave comments if you’d like!

Continue on to Part 2 where I show you how to edit your smoke photos!

We’ve covered a lot of information so far on the Exposure Triangle.

Part 1 talked about Lens Aperture, what it is and how to adjust it.

Part 2 covered Shutter Speed and how it affects the exposure of an image.

In this third and final part, we will be covering ISO and why it’s important to the Exposure Triangle.

ISO actually stands for “International Organization for Standardization”.  Does that tell you anything?

Not really.  As a matter of fact, shouldn’t it then be “IOS”?

Anyway, knowing what it stands for isn’t all that important.  What is important is knowing how it affects your images and the Exposure Triangle.

Back in the film days, (I say that like film is extinct!), ISO was your film “speed”.  You could buy 100 film, 200 film, 400 film, etc. depending on where you were going to be taking pictures.  And if you wanted a different ISO film, you had to take out the old roll and replace it with a new one.

What a pain!

Now that we’re in the “digital age”, you can select your ISO setting right in the camera without having to change film.

Each camera make and model is different in how you do this.  Refer to your camera’s manual for instructions if you are unsure.

The Differences in ISO

So what do those numbers mean?

Basically, the lower the ISO number, the less sensitive it is to light.

For example, if you were going to take pictures primarily outdoors with plenty of light, you could choose ISO 100.

But if you wanted to get pictures in a dimly lit church, you would choose a higher ISO, like ISO 800 or 1600.

You’ll also notice that ISO numbers are doubled.  For instance, 50, 100, 200, 400, 800, etc.

Each jump in ISO results in doubling the sensitivity to light.  So ISO 400 is 8 times as sensitive to light as ISO 50!

However, a higher ISO results in more noise being visible in the image.

Without getting too technical, noise simply refers to how grainy an image is.

The two sample images below show the difference between ISO 100 and ISO 1600:

ISO 100

ISO 1600

They don’t look too different, do they?  But let’s take a closer look to see the real difference.

ISO 100

ISO 1600

Now that’s quite different!  You can really see the noise in the second image.

How does ISO fit into the Exposure Triangle?

Since ISO is the sensitivity of your sensor to light, then choosing the correct ISO for the situation is crucial.

If you’re in a dimly lit location, you would want to choose a higher ISO so that your shutter speed wouldn’t be too slow.  This is especially important if you don’t have, or can’t use, a tripod.

By sacrificing a little image quality, you can now take an image you normally wouldn’t be able to without camera blur due to movement.

We have now covered all three components of the Exposure Triangle; Aperture, Shutter Speed, and ISO.

And hopefully you now understand how each one plays a roll in obtaining the correct exposure.

If you have any questions or comments about the Exposure Triangle, please feel free to leave a comment below.

Part 2 – Shutter Speed

Last post, “Lens Aperture Explained – Exposure Triangle Pt.1″ was the first part in this 3-part series on the Exposure Triangle.  If you haven’t read it yet, you can go there now.

Today we’ll be going over Shutter Speed, what it is and how to use it to your advantage.

If you’ve ever taken a picture, you know that you must press the shutter button in order to capture the image.  But what exactly is the shutter?

According to Wikipedia:

• “In photography, a shutter is a device that allows light to pass for a determined period of time, for the purpose of exposing photographic film or a light-sensitive electronic sensor to light to capture a permanent image of a scene.”

The camera’s shutter is always closed until you press the shutter release.  This prevents light from entering the camera and hitting the sensor until you’re ready to capture an image.

In TTL (through-the-lens) cameras, there is also a mirror that moves out of the way when the shutter button is pressed.  With the high-end digital cameras there is an option to have the mirror move out of the way on the first press of the shutter.  Then a second press of the shutter button opens the shutter to take the picture.  When the shutter button is released both the shutter and the mirror move back into place.  This is know as “mirror lock-up”, and you can find more information about that in your camera’s manual.

So now that we have an understanding of what the shutter is, let’s look at how it affects your exposure.

As mentioned above, an open shutter allows light to hit the sensor, creating an image.  Therefore, the longer the shutter is left open, the more light enters the camera.  The less time the shutter is open, the less light enters.  Pretty straight forward so far.

If you’re taking pictures outdoors on a nice sunny day, you want a faster shutter speed.  This will allow less light in giving you the correct exposure.

On the other hand, if you’re taking pictures indoors, or outdoors with less light, you need a slower shutter speed to allow more light to enter the camera.

How is shutter speed measured?

Shutter speeds are represented by fractions of a second; 1/30, 1/60, 1/80, 1/100, etc.  This is usually shown by just the second number.  For example, “500″ means 1/500th of a second.  Shutter speeds of 1 second or longer are represented with a ” after the number.  For example, 30″ represents a 30-second exposure.

There’s one more symbol you might see relating to shutter speed, “B”.  This is the “Bulb” setting, which allows you to keep the shutter open as long as the shutter button is pressed.

How do you adjust the shutter speed?

On digital cameras you can adjust the shutter speed by using the cameras menu system and dials.  Each camera make and model will have its own system of selecting these modes.  If you’re not sure how to do it with your camera, refer to the camera manual.

So now we know that the shutter speed has a direct impact on exposure.

Next, let’s take a look at some examples of how shutter speed affects the image exposure.

Under Exposed

Over Exposed

Correct Exposure

*Note: The white balance of these images is wrong. But that’s not what we’re worried about now!

You can see that the shutter speed is very important in achieving the correct exposure!

Next, we will be covering ISO and how it affects the Exposure Triangle.  Stay tuned!