jeremy_esland

"Ella again" is just a cute baby picture. But the first one I think is terrific - it has interest, tension ... the framing breaks "the rules", resulting in a great image. You may not have intended it this way, but IMHO this pic is worth a thousand of the "correctly composed" type. Don't listen to the "theorists" - a good image is a good image, whatever the text book says about composition.

 

I just trimmed the distracting bit of blanket from the bottom edge and boosted it a bit with curves and sharpening.

 

Well done!

Interesting, but no - that's not it. The device I saw before is a box with two mirrors mounted inside and a means to attach the camera to the back of it. No electronics - just one two-mirror and one regular mirror.

My previous post seems to have been lost in the recent tech-glitch, but I

hadn't received any replies anyway, so I'll try again. Any help/clues would be

most welcome...

 

Some time ago I came across an ingenious device for portait photography and

video interviewing. It was a box, mounted in front of the lens, containing a

transparent mirror angled at 45 degrees and another mirror (parallel to the

first) off to one side. The idea was that the subject would see an image of the

photographer's face while actually looking directly into the lens of the

camera. It seemed particularly useful for children and pet portraits where it

is difficult to make them look straight into the lens.

 

Trouble is I now cannot find the bookmark I made, and endless Googling has got

me nowhere. Does anyone know of this device to at least give me a

manufacturer's name so I can find the website again?

 

Thanks for your help.

 

Jeremy Esland

Definitely start without any lights at all. Go buy a Nikon D200 with Nikon 12-24 or Sigma 10-20 lens and then go to www.dxo.com to get DxO Optics Pro. A tripod with a geared head helps too.

 

Jeremy Esland

www.jeremyesland.com

Some time ago I came across an ingenious device for portait photography and

video interviewing. It was a box, mounted in front of the lens, containing a

transparent mirror angled at 45 degrees and another mirror (parallel to the

first) off to one side. The idea was that the subject would see an image of the

photographer's face while actually looking directly into the lens of the

camera. It seemed particularly useful for children and pet portraits where it

is difficult to make them look straight into the lens.

 

Trouble is I now cannot find the bookmark I made, and endless Googling has got

me nowhere. Does anyone know of this device to at least give me a

manufacturer's name so I can find the website again?

 

Thanks for your help.

 

Jeremy Esland

Ooh! Look! Just realised I can post pictures...

 

Here's my recently built baby:

 

Lian-Li PC-V2000 case

Gigabyte GA-965P-DS4 board

E6600 processor

4GB RAM

Raptor 150

Raptor 37

4 x WD 500GB Caviar SE16 (2 x RAID-1 arrays)

2 x Maxtor 300GB (in RAID-1) (from old system)

Fanless video card (XFX 7600GT)

 

Disk mounting cage has since been modified to suspend it on elastic within that bottom compartment. Eight drives was making the whole case vibrate like an old washing machine - major source of noise!

 

Quiet and super-quick. DxO now eats RAWs at 15 seconds each versus ~1.5 minutes each on my old P4 3GHz machine.

 

Jeremy<div></div>

Don't know if you're still pondering this issue, Dan, but I'm in the mood for a bit of tech talk so here's my tuppence-worth:

 

As pointed out by another poster, your RAM choice is more expensive than necessary: the E6600 will only run memory at 677MHz. The DDR2-800 memory would only be used properly if you overclock the system (for example to 400MHz FSB @ 1:1 = 2 x 400 = 800MHz).. so save the cost of the 800 and get 3 or 4Gigs of "value" RAM instead. "Value RAM" just means "not overclockable", so it's all you would need.

 

BTW: The motherboard is not the best choice if you *are* going to overclock.

 

The motherboard has only 4 SATA connectors, which I'd find limiting: check the high price of PCI Express cards to add more SATA ports later! Remember that optical devices are going SATA now as well, so a board with 8 SATA ports is going to serve you better in the long run (and there are even a few boards around with 10 SATA ports).

 

Forget about all that PCIe SLI nonsense... strictly for playing games. The 7600GS is a lowish-end gaming card anyway, so SLI is a non-issue if that's your starting point.

 

Floppy will only be needed if you were going to overclock (it's often the only way offered to upgrade the board's BIOS).

 

Only two disks? Nah... get more! Raptor 150 for sys/apps, Raptor 37 for swap/scratch. Double up on the Seagate with onboard RAID-1 for that "always backed up" feeling of comfort.

 

Not all card readers are created equal: be sure that Mitsumi is not one of the r-e-a-l-l-y slow variety.

 

The P180 is a specialist "quiet" case: but I don't see any money allocated for a quiet (i.e. heat pipe tower) cooler to replace the noisy Intel stock cooler, or any Noctua super-quiet fans to replace the duds in the Antec. And remember that the Raptors are relatively noisy drives, and that there are quieter (and cheaper) 7200/16 drives than the Baracuda - like the Western Digital Caviar SE16.

 

Two DVD drives? Why? - Only possible gain might be in copying disc-to-disc a bit faster than going disc->HDD->disc, but otherwise save on one.

 

Windows XP? Why? Vista! Ignore all the nonsense about the alleged problems: it works just dandy, for Photoshop and just about everything else (unless you have a 1986-vintage Hokey-Kokey scanner or a few of the very high-end modern scanners).

 

Conclusion: different motherboard (probably with Intel 975/965 rather than Nvidia chipset), more disk (and therefore more SATA ports).

 

Hope this is in time to help.

 

Jeremy Esland

I used to run all my shots (mostly from a Nikon 12-24 zoom) through PT Lens, until I purchased DxO Optics Pro: stunningly good results.

 

I've tried every method/plugin/trick for correcting keystoning (incorrectly referred to as perspective distortion) and have found that Andromeda's LensDoc is by far the quickest and most intuitive to use.

 

But what really revolutionised my use of this great lens for architecture was the purchase of a Manfrotto geared head. Now I line up the camera dead true, take the shot and don't have to correct any keystoning in the computer.

No amount of dodging/burning or Highlights/Shadows tweaking will allow you to exceed the maximum brightness range of a digital camera's sensor, which is around 9 stops, I believe.

 

I earn my living photographing houses in a sunny country (Portugal). When photographing a living area that looks out onto the pool, I want both the inside and outside to be correctly exposed. I could fool around for a long (unprofitable) time masking out two separate exposures, I could fool around for an even longer (even more unprofitable) time setting up lights to bring the interior illumination up to the necessary level, or I could do the sensible thing and use PotatoShop's HDR to blend multiple exposures and get a professional result in five minutes flat.

 

The main problem with HDR is that you (usually) need more than the three exposures that most resources quote (I use 7 or 9) and you need to practice (both with the camera and with the computer end of things) before you can get reliable results. Plus, of course, your subject MUST be static: even wind blowing trees can spoil your efforts.

 

And it doesn't help when you see the grossly exagerated pictures posted on Flickr which lead you to believe that all HDR images look like they were taken on Mars.

 

For architectural work, it's invaluable: revolutionary, even.

Oh, and this reminds me of the old David Bailey story: he was being questioned by some photography students, who were asking him what kind of lighting he preferred. "Available light", he replied. But the students persisted, wanting him to specify exactly what type of available light he favoured. Exasperated, he snapped at them: "Any f***ing light that's available!"

 

;-)

If you're going to photograph interiors on behalf of the architects that designed the building, using photographic lights is a bit like asking for salt before you've tasted the chef's creation.

 

That aside, supplementary lighting is used by interior photographers mostly to boost the interior light level to something closer to the exterior level so that the film can cope with the dynamic range.

 

You are fortunate in owning one of the new breed of digital SLRs that has a useful feature for just the kind of work you want to do. In the past, SLRs had a bracketing feature that allowed, at best, 3 shots plus or minus up to 2 stops. Primarily designed to guarantee a good exposure with narrow-latitude reversal film, this feature migrated onto the "first generation" digital SLRs without change. But with the latest version of Photoshop (and several other programs) you have available to you a much more flexible, quicker (and cheaper) solution to the dynamic range problem than buying a truck-load of lights.

 

HDR (standing for High Dynamic Range) is a technique for "blending" multiple exposures of the same (static) scene in order to yield an apparent increase in dynamic range of the finished image. You'll understand why a say "apparent" when you get to try it yourself.

 

Trust me, once you've had a bit of practise with this technique, and have learned how to guage the appropriate number and range of exposures to make on site, you'll never think about buying any lights again.

 

The feature in the D200? Up to *nine* auto-bracketed exposures plus or minus one stop each. Nikon added this to the D200 (and presumably will also add it to all their future new models) specifically to support HDR imaging. (If anybody else can think of a reason to need nine auto-bracketed exposures, please correct me.)

 

I'd strongly urge you to try it before thinking any further about lights.<div></div>

Final thought...

 

Aquarium suppliers are a good source for "high CRI, daylight" fluorescent lamps. Also try greenhouse/horticultural suppliers. Seems marijuana and guppies have the same needs as photographers ;-)

Oops! Too keen to press the "send" button.

 

Background: get two ceiling light units each of which takes two 5-foot tubes, making sure they have electronic ballasts, not the old transformer type. Something like this: http://www.ahsupply.com/96watt.htm - the important thing is to have tubes of roughly the same colour temperature and CRI as your other lights.

 

Hang/bolt/prop/hold/place them vertically one each side of the mannequin (and behind it) facing the back wall so that they light it evenly. Make sure they are just outside the field of view of the camera (another good reason to move the camera back and zoom in a bit more).

 

Switch the back lights off, meter, hold, then switch the back lights on and shoot: i.e. you are exposing only for the subject and allowing the background to be greatly overexposed.

 

Just another thought that may be part of your green-cast problem: fluorescent lamps take a minute or two to "settle down" - this in itself could be causing the seemingly inconsistent results.

 

Ever wonder why pro studio gear is so expensive? ;-)

You're getting closer ;-)

 

My guess on the green-cast issue is that the lamps in one light are older than the other. Cheap fluorescent lamps tend to deteriorate with age. The test here would be to swap the bulbs from one light to the other and see if you get the exact reverse of your previous problem.

 

To clear up on this: here's my recommendations:

 

1. move the camera further back and slightly lower, then zoom in to restore the framing you want. Your shots exhibit a bit to much "close-up" perspective.

 

2. Move that top light to the side. All that the top light is doing is "flattening" your shot and producing the distracting highlight on the neck-cap of the mannequin. Paint the side walls blacka or hang balck velvet on them.

 

3. Use Photoshop or any similar program to boost the "pop" factor: first "Levels" to extend the histogram to both ends, then "Curves" to boost contrast (use a gentle S-shaped curve), then "Hue/Saturation" if necessary to boost the colour, then resize to your final dimensions, then "Unsharp Mask" to make the image "crisp".

 

Email me a camera original image to jes1111@gmail.com and I'll make it "pop" for you.

 

 

 

:-)

Full marks for persistence ;-)

 

The green cast is a product of fluorescent lamps that are not "full spectrum". I suspect that the lamps in your original light are of a different brand and therefore different spec to the new one. If you had two lights of either type, the camera's auto WB would dial out the green cast, but it simple cannot cope with two radically different type of "light" being mixed. There are three criteria for successful fluorescent lamps, photographically speaking:

 

1. The colour temperature, although this is of less importance with digital (if fluorescent is your only light source) since the WB feature should cope with any colour temperature as long as it is consitent across all you lamps.

 

2. The CRI (Colour Rendering Index): this is a measurement of how well the light produced approximates to sunlight, i.e. does it contain all the colours of the rainbow, as sunlight does? Most fluorescent lamps have a CRI of around 80 (out of a possible 100), which indicates that they are seriously deficient in some part(s) of the spectrum. This is what produces the green cast. A good "photographic" fluorescent should have a CRI of 90 or more, indicating that its spectrum approximates well to the full spectrum.

 

3. The frequency: old fashioned fluorescents use a transformer ballast which means the lamp is actually flashing 50 (or 60 in the colonies) times per second: not desirable if your shutter speed is around the same as the flashing interval ;-) ... Compact fluorescent lamps (like the spiral type) use an electronic ballast with a very high frequency. A high quality 3, 4 or 5 foot fixture may also have an electronic ballast, but a cheap one will certainly have a transformer type.

 

Check that your lamps are all the same colour temperature. Check that all your lamps have the same CRI.

 

If the temperature or CRI is not specified plainly, look for clues in the model number or elsewhere in the description: 5700 degC or thereabouts is commonly referred to as "daylight type" and is desirable since you can mix it with daylight or flash; Osram and many others use codes like "954", meaning "CRI 90+" and "5400 degC".

 

One last thing: why have you placed your second light directly above the mannequin like that? What natural lighting condition are you trying to emulate? I really think you'd be better off using it as a fill on the right of the mannequin. It strikes me that you are frustrated with your results because you are not *in control* of your lighting. I would paint the left and right walls black (since they are very close to the subject) to eliminate uncontrolled reflections from them (or hang black velvet) and then (and only then) will you be in full control of the light that is illuminating your subject matter.

 

Good luck.

if you are shooting digital, try using Photoshop's HDR feature... blend multiple exposures to cover the whole range from dim corners to windows, without using any additional lighting at all. After all... the human eye can presumably see all it needs to see in that room, so why change the character of it with artificial lighting?

Something I forgot to mention: looking at your "setup" photo, you are already using a reflector: that wall on the right is filling in the shadows which would otherwise be cast on the right (mannequin's left) side. Hang a large piece of back velvet or similar on that wall, then use a 3 foot by 2 foot foam-board as a reflector which you can *control* by varying distance and angle.

 

Your other post refers to a colour-cast problem, mentioning an overhead light. What is that? Can you post a picture of the *whole* setup?

Nothing mysterious or extra-clever used for that last example shot. Look at the mannequin's neck for the clues: main light slightly above the shoulder and only just in front of the mannequin. Reflector or fill light to the right, hard to tell which. The main light is natably "hard", i.e. the shadow edge is only slightly diffused. My guess is a small softbox on the left and another (set to give less light) on the right (although it still could be a silvered or white reflector on the right). Plus, of course, one or two background lights to force it "wash out" like that. It will undoubtedly have been processed in Photoshop to tweak it. Your camera/light combination could do this shot (by removing the umbrella and using a reflector, plus getting a couple of big-mamma ceiling fluorescents to light the back wall as previously suggested) although you may have trouble getting the exposure just right if you are on Auto using exposure compensation. Should be possible though.

 

Don't be shy of post-processing with Photoshop or similar: it's easier than you think.

The reflector board will not necessarily make it "better", but it will give you "control" over the light. You *may* find that the combination of the "bare" light and the reflector board will remove your dislike of the "look" from the bare light alone.

 

Nevertheless, you will need to use software to get the pop you're looking for. The purists will tell you that it can be done with only correct lighting and perfect exposure, but for ordinary mortals like us, Photoshop is the way to get from "reasonable shot" to "pop".

 

I have foodled with your latest shot in Photoshop (albeit on the lo-res jpeg posted) and done only two things: applied a Levels correction and then Unsharp Masking. The inset graph on the attachment shows the levels histogram: your camera did a perfectly good exposure, but you can see that the graph doesn't reach either end (pure black on the left and pure white on the right). By moving the little arrows inwards as shown, you can stretch the tonal values in the image so they do indeed cover the whole range from black to white. Then add a bit of sharpness (another important component of "pop") and... voil�!

 

The only other thing I'd say about your images is that you should try moving further back and zooming the lens in so you get a more natural perspective. Your latest shot looks like you've left the camera on its default "wide-angle" zoom setting. Remember that portraits (of which this is a variation) are usually taken with a "mild telephoto" lens in order to present a natural perspective.

 

Good luck.

If indeed you must "make do" with the kit you have, then ditch the umbrella (notice your competitor's shot is actually using a hard/contrasty light) and get youself a large sheet of polyfoam to act as a reflector. Position your one light higher than you currently have it (or lower the mannequin ;-) and at a fairly oblique angle to the mannequins chest (to produce some "modelling"). Then use the reflector board to fill in on the other side, playing with position and angle until it looks natural.

 

With one light you'll never achieve the white background, since that relies on flooding the background with light so it effectively overexposes to "pure white". You could get a couple of household 5 foot fluorescent fixtures (with the same/similar color temperature), position them vertically left and right just outside the camera's view to light the background. The type with a built-in silvered dish reflector behind the tube (but no diffuser) will work best.

 

Are you using Photoshop or similar? Your "first picture" was rather short on contrast. Learn how to use "Levels" and "Curves" to add/fine-tune the "punch" that your picture lacks.

 

Hope this helps.

What you are suffering from there is indeed "glare", i.e. the curved surface is reflecting the light source itself directly into the lens of the camera. Put another way, you are looking at a reflection of the light source which is, of course, white. This problem is probably compounded by the area surrounding the subject being white as well. You'll be better off surrounding the subject with black material (including behind the camera) and then moving your lights around to find the position that produces the minimum reflection of the light on those curved parts.

 

A polariser will cut down the reflection a little, but I doubt that it will do so completely in this case.

 

I'd recommend a copy of "Light, Science & Magic" by Fil Hunter and Paul Fuqua. Easy to read and understand: you'll see immediately (Chapter 3) why you are having problems.

I looked at your portfolio and it strikes me that light (or lack of it) is not really a problem. Personally I have always avoided trying to light interiors as it requires a lot of kit (of the expensive variety) and a lot of time to use it effectively. In this digital age there are other tricks we can use to balance the available light. For example, Photoshop CS2 has a feature called High Dynamic Range images: set your camera on a tripod, take two images (one exposed for the brightest parts of the room, one for the dimmest parts) and let PS do the rest. Such trickery is impossible (or nearly so) with film, so supplemetary lighting was the only way to solve the dynamic range problem.

 

Further, you need to acquire two Photoshop plugins:

 

PT Lens (free from http://epaperpress.com/ptlens/ but I suggest a contribution to this most excellent fellow) will correct the obvious barrel distortion in your images.

 

Andromeda Lensdoc (http://www.andromeda.com/main/lensdoc.php) is by far the easiest way to correct the keystone effect.

 

For my own interior work, I never use any supplementary lighting at all. See examples at http://www.premiervillas.net - most of the photos on there are mine (read: if they're good, they're mine, otherwise they're someone else's ;-), taken with a Nikon D70 handheld with a Nikon 12-24 lens then corrected in Photoshop CS2 using the above mentioned plugins. Not "perfect" architectural photography, but not bad for one hour max on-site, followed by a couple of hours on the computer for each property photographed.

 

If you really want to get into using flash, be prepared to spend a lot of money on kit and anything up to half a day to light EACH shot :-)

 

J