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Where the Heck Am I?

2011-12-02T17:49:00.001-07:00

Oh my. I'm still very much around folks, just been highly occupied with work. I have by no means forgotten about the variable ND filter / long exposure tutorial episode and one way or another I'll try to finish that up by the end of this month.

In the meantime I've been working on a few other projects. For one, my mother creates these really cool crocheted hats; some even have accessories like neck and wrist bands too. They're all made by hand and each is essentially unique or one-of-a-kind as she doesn't create duplicates. I built a website for her that I also administer, and every time she makes about 10 new hats I whip out the camera gear and take shots of her garments. In fact you can see those photos (and her lovely hats) right here: http://www.shadesofcrochet.com

For these shoots I use a paper-roll background and I have to say that I really love it! There are no wrinkles or seams to worry about in post, so editing the shots pretty much just comes down to a little color correction, cropping, and resizing for the Web. As for lighting setup, I have my Olympus FL-50 flash on the left acting as the main light source, a slave flash behind the styrofoam head illuminating the backdrop, a hot light (my three bulb fluorescent one) adding a little extra shine to the hats on the side-right, and a final slave flash on the far right (closer to the camera's position) to give some ambient lighting. All this is triggered by my E-3's built-in flash, set to 1/64 power; this is just enough to set off the slaves (I'm using a slave trigger for the FL-50). Works quite well overall.

The next project I've been hard at work on is a website for my dad's artwork. I'll post the addy to this later as we're putting the finish touches on that.

Lastly, I've been designing sunglasses that I'll be making out of wood. I think they look awesome and in my humble opinion are eco-friendly; there's enough plastic in our lives already. So why would I take on such a project? Interestingly, this all started because of my new eyeglasses I got a few months ago. I happen to have a huge head, so I often look for wide frames that fit comfortably. Luckily, I managed to find such a frame, but they were so wide that the plastic sunglasses I already had could not fit over top. After searching endlessly from store to store and not being able to find a replacement, I simply got fed up and made these:

Finally, a pair of sunglasses that fit perfectly well. The temples and frame are made from alder and the two wooden hinges on the side are poplar. The only metal in the sunglasses can be found in the hinge pins, and the only plastic bits are of course the lenses, which I took out of a previous pair of plastic sunglasses. Here's another shot:

I have a few more shots on my Flickr Photostream. Hopefully I can make an OK living from producing these unique items. I should be able to keep the costs down and make them affordable enough; perhaps I'll get lucky and some stores will carry them too... I will keep my fingers crossed.

Anyway, a busy life is a good one in my opinion, but it does detract somewhat from a few fun things and can wear you out a little. But I manage to recharge myself with a little gaming and reading at night, not to mention some music too. Do keep your eyes peeled at my Tweets (at least I've been using that more often lately) and my Facebook page for video updates. L8r!

Let's Focus a Little

2011-10-09T19:04:00.000-06:00

It's about time I wrote a new blog post! The cool thing is my life was made easier by a wonderful question from a wonderful Facebook fan regarding focusing, specifically on the topic of back-button and continuous or predictive AF. The manual focusing bit toward the bottom of this post is something I've added on my own.

Back-Button Focusing
Back-button focusing can be quite a useful feature to use and is generally found on the majority of DSLR models from almost any manufacturer. The person who asked me about this feature is specifically using an Olympus E-5, so I'll be able to reference some page numbers in the manual --specifically pages 105-106-- but for the rest of you, simply do some digging and I'm sure you'll find it in your respective booklets. In addition, back-button focusing on the E-5 is controlled via the Auto Exposure Lock/Auto Focus Lock (AEL/AFL) button on the upper-mid backside of the camera, so again refer to your specific manual to determine what button is assigned to back-button focusing on your system.

In a nutshell, back-button focusing allows you to use that little button on the back of your camera to lock focus or exposure. But of course the question is why would it be advantageous to perform such a task using the AEL/AFL button versus the shutter button. I mean one can just as easily half-press the shutter button to lock focus and exposure, then you can compose the scene, and finally full-press to take the shot. Well allow me to use an example to explain why.

A commonly used scenario is a photographer shooting a model for some portraits. Everything is fine and dandy if the model is more or less dead center in the frame. Pressing the shutter button will likely result in a sharp picture of the model with a fairly accurate exposure. But often, asymmetrical compositions are more pleasing to the eye so the model tends to be pushed off center. In such a case, the camera might not focus on the model but instead on the background, thus leading to a potentially out of focus and unhappy model.

Enter the back-button focus option... well almost. First off, many DSLRs have several select-able options on how to behave when the shutter button is half-pressed, fully depressed, or when the back-button is used. On page 105 on the E-5's manual, there is a nifty table describing each mode. For example, if your camera is set to single auto-focus (S-AF) and you're setup to use mode 2, then when you half-press the shutter the focus is locked but the exposure isn't, and when you fully press the shutter the exposure is only then calculated and locked; if you use the back-button in this case, then only the exposure is locked, but not the focus. It's not that this very complicated, but there are certainly quite a few setup options to choose from. By the way, check the menu on your Oly camera to change these settings; off the top of my head (since my cam is currently setup for product shots and I'm lazy to go get it), these settings are hiding somewhere in the "gears" icon area and it's either the A or B section (AF/MF or BUTTON/DIAL, respectively).

Let's return to our model example and now that we know about modes, we'll stick to S-AF but in mode 3; to clarify, half-pressing the shutter button will only lock the exposure, full-pressing doesn't do anything, and pressing the back-button (that is the AEL/AFL button) the focus is locked. So let's run through this:

Since the distance between the model and the photographer generally won't change much for a few poses and shots, we first point the camera on our subject and we'll press that back-button*. This locks the focus but not the exposure.
Now, as the focus is locked to the plane the model is in, we can put him/her off center and start shooting.
Every time we half-press the shutter the exposure will be calculated and locked, and upon fully pressing the shutter button the photo will be taken.

Cool hey? So an advantage we're seeing here is that the use of the back-button can make it easier to compose our shots. In mode 2 (as described above) and without using the back-button, one would have lock focus on the model (half-press) then frame the scene while will half-pressing the shutter button, then fully pressing when done... repeat. This takes extra time and if you had a good composition for one shot, you might not be able to exactly go back to that same framing due to all the extra motion required. In addition, since the focus has been locked once, taking shots becomes blazing fast as the lens does not to be refocused for each shot (even if the focus would be in exactly the same spot shot to shot).

In the resources section below I've linked to an article on Canon's website that discusses the many uses of back-button focusing. I strongly recommend reading it as it should provide you with a few more ideas and benefits to employing this method. And for those of your curious, the second link takes you to the PDF version of the Olympus E-5 manual, so even if you don't use the system, you can at least get a good idea of what I'm talking about here.

* Ok, another thing to complicate this. On most cameras, like the Oly E-5, the back-button has a memory option. If the option is set to ON then pressing the AEL/AFL button will keep the focus or exposure locked until the button is pressed again. If the option is set to OFF then the focus or exposure is only locked for as long as you hold down the button. The latter option can be useful in some cases, but as I've mentioned, check out that article from Canon on the topic.

Continuous or Predictive Focusing
Many DSLRs also have the capability to focus continually, depending again on how one's camera has been setup. On the Oly the option for continuous auto-focus is C-AF and in most modes starts working when you half-press the shutter button. So let's say you are shooting at a car race and you see a vehicle rushing at you (well hopefully not completely at you, as that could end poorly). Using C-AF you lock focus on the car by half-pressing the shutter button and as you keep half-pressing the camera continually adjusts the focus of the lens as the car, or whatever other subject in motion, rushes by. To take a photo of course, you simply fully press the shutter button. The back-button can also be used, but you might have to adjust the settings. The idea here is that you should... should have a perfect focus lock on the subject at all times, thus when you take the shot you should... should get that sharp image.

In all honesty, I think I've only used this feature on my camera for fun, merely to try it out. Those shooting action or sports subjects will likely find more use for it, but in most other cases S-AF or manual focus will do the trick. Nonetheless, go for it, try out the feature and see if works for you.

Manual Focusing
Lastly, I wanted to quickly touch upon manual focusing. I can't help but find myself using this method of focusing more and more often these days. Keep in mind, I generally shoot landscapes and things up close, so being a tad slower than the auto-focus system is ok in my case. But if you haven't given manual focusing a chance, I must suggest that you give it a try now and again.

For one, it can really speed up shooting, whether in good or bad lighting, as one of the slowest operations for almost all cameras is focusing. In manual focus mode the camera trusts that you've locked onto whatever you want and simply calculates the exposure before actually taking the photo. Calculating the exposure is extremely fast and virtually unnoticeable for us humans. When I've shot some macro images, I find that I can be much more proficient at selecting where I want the focus to be than trusting the machine to do it, and I've also realized a benefit when framing the scene. And I have to admit I get a little nostalgic about it; kind of feels nice to have more control than the silicon beast. Hopefully you'll find manual focusing as refreshing and frankly, useful, as I have.

That is it for now! L8r!

Web Resources
http://www.learn.usa.canon.com/resources/articles/2011/backbutton_af_article.shtml
http://www.olympusamerica.com/cpg_section/cpg_support_manuals.asp?id=1525
http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/camera-autofocus.htm

Time-lapse of Mammatus Clouds - Part 2

2011-09-16T22:30:00.000-06:00

Well this blog post is certainly overdue so I'll get right to it!

First off, I never intended to create a time-lapse movie of the thunderstorm that passed by on that warm mid-summer evening. Instead, I just wanted to take a few snapshots of the mammatus clouds which often form on the trailing edge of such storms. But after taking a few pictures it dawned on me that scene would make for an interesting time-lapse movie. The bad part about this situation was that the system was moving quite quickly and by the time I would have lugged out my tripod, placed my camera on it and started shooting, a fairly large portion of this storm would have moved beyond my humble line of sight in my backyard. So to heck with it I figured and I ended up hand-holding the camera for several minutes and ended up with four seconds worth of footage, a total of 120 frames --frames were two seconds apart.

Now if you viewed the video, you might have noticed that it seems quite steady; in other words not much shaky cam going on. Unfortunately that's not due to my incredible ability to stay completely still, but in fact good'ol Adobe After Effects and its stabilizer plug-in. It takes a brief minute or two to "run" the filter and voila, steady playback as if one had used a tripod. Honestly, although I really love that plug-in I would still prefer to use a tripod. For one, the filter would not need to be run which would save a little time and two, even though the video looks quite smooth, I'm certain there would be some minor improvement over the filtered version (looking carefully you can see just a little jittery movement once in a while).

And by now you are probably thinking that the pans in the video were also produced with After Effects. Well you'd be completely wrong! Just kidding. Yes, no big surprises there. Unlike the stabilization filter, I personally wouldn't for a second not consider using digital panning. I not only enjoy how smooth the result is, but also how the motion can be accelerated and decelerated into the pan, along with having the ability to create much more complex motion paths through the scene (that is to say, not just a linear route from point A to B but rather a twisting curve).

If you feel like experimenting with this type of pan, I can recommend a few things before you begin. As with the production of almost any type of movie, plan out what you will be shooting. Let's take for example a time-lapse of a ship harbor with a busy port in the foreground. Once you're at the location frame your scene and consider carefully the motion that may be pleasing. Perhaps you might start up close to capture the action of people docking a ship, then pan upwards and towards a large crane, finally panning to the right and zooming out to reveal the whole scene. Keeping your shot or framing wide will capture a great deal of action at once and resolution is generally not a concern as even an entry-level DSLR will provide more than enough pixels to roam around in, even if you choose not to increase the stills size to 100% during the editing.

In addition, I thought I'd make clear that I'm not against panning with a tripod or even something more sophisticated. I'm a huge fan of digital technologies, but there's just that something you can feel when you detect a hint of human behind the scenes (even if it's a stepper motor controller panning the camera, just feels more "real" in some ways; that unsteadiness in the footage that rears up briefly). Anyway, whichever method you choose I hope you have fun with it and come up with some great material.

I do have another episode in the planning stages on the topic of creating panoramas. I hope to get around to it soon and I have a fantastic idea for presenting it, but you'll have to wait and see what that is! No hints this time! ;) So off I run... I go to bed so late some days that I think I can get away with saying it's very early at 10:30pm. Yikes! L8r!

Time-lapse of Mammatus Clouds

2011-08-18T23:03:00.001-06:00

Well I finally uploaded a new video to my YouTube Channel! A quick thunderstorm passed over Calgary and just after it was gone and the rain subsided, I grabbed my Oly E-P2 and snapped away at the sunset lit mammatus cloud formations at the trailing edge of the storm. Old habits die hard and once again it's quite late, so I'll be writing up a second part to this post detailing how I created this video. Enjoy the quick show! L8r!

Yes I'm Still Around!

2011-06-17T15:06:00.000-06:00

I know, I know. It's been quite a while since I've produced a new video or written up a blog post for that matter. I've been terribly busy with some work around the house and that's been setting me back from my hobbies. It'll probably be another two to three weeks before I can start up the creative mill again.

On the other hand, I have to admit that I really enjoy being away from the computer. Being online, whether literally on the Web showcasing and marketing my work or just on the computer producing and editing videos, is fun and all but very consuming; a lot of time and effort. But since I've been "away" from this virtual world for most of the time in these last few weeks, I've realized some benefits.

For one, I'm actually getting more physical activity, which is definitely a plus and something I could use even more of (not that I've lost a lot of weight yet though, grrr). In addition, a great deal of my time has been spent on cleaning things, so my environment is better organized. Just the other day I managed to get my MIDI keyboard back in my "digital" room and a few weeks ago my drum kit (a real one; Gigmaker from Yamaha) got some extra space. Perhaps I can start getting back into creating music again; one of these days I do want to finish that second album I've been saying I'd put together.

So it's not all bad news and when I do start up the shows again, I have a lot of interesting topics to cover. I keep getting some wonderful requests and they are certainly noted. Off I run once again, L8r!

Time-lapse Movie Using an iPhone

2011-05-17T21:10:00.000-06:00

That time-lapse episode I produced sure clicked something to the "on" position in my head because I can hardly stop thinking about it. Recently I've been tinkering with my iPhone and checking out apps that can accomplish this task; more specifically those that have an intervalometer feature. I also like free stuff and came across two programs, both created by JOBY, called Gorillacam and Frame X Frame.

After playing around with both apps I find myself much more attracted to Gorillacam even if it has been replaced by the newer Frame X Frame. For me the reason is simple, because Gorillacam saves full sized images while Frame X Frame only saves them as puny 512px x 384px files. The iPhone (3GS in my case) may not have a spectacular camera, but using its 3MP images I can create 720P HD videos. Yeay! The quality using those tiny pics was so lacking in my opinion, that I didn't even bother posting that test movie created using Frame By Frame. Boo! :(

Essentially, both apps are more or less identical but I believe there are more sharing options in Frame X Frame versus Gorillacam (like uploading to YouTube, Facebook, etc.). Personally, I like to have flexibility with my work and as such I'd rather have access to the full sized images. As you can see in the video, there's a slow upwards pan done with Premiere which wouldn't have been possible using the smaller files... that is unless I were to resize them which could degrade the video quality or created a movie with dimensions even smaller than those pics. Yuck. But for those individuals who aren't necessarily going for quality but something quick and fun with little hassle, Frame X Frame would suffice I guess.

So my choice will remain Gorillacam and I'm glad the company hasn't taken it down from the iTunes App Store. The interface seems to act a little odd during screen or page transitions, but if it wasn't for my iPhone's depleting battery power, all thousand frames of this movie would have been shot perfectly. Speaking of which, when I tried using Frame X Frame to shoot the time lapse series (saving as images and not directly into a movie file) the app crashed before it reached 300 frames. Not cool if you're shooting time-lapse movies.

I think I'll certainly be creating more time-lapse movies using my iPhone and I'll be more adventurous when selecting the locale. The movie you see below was shot through two glass window panes, hence the slight lack of detail and sharpness, and the view... well that's just looking out towards my backyard, so indeed nothing that spectacular. Although I always find the way the clouds move, evaporate, and appear from seemingly out of clear blue sky quite neat. As for my next Photography with Imre episode, I'm still not too sure what topic I'll be selecting, but there are a few viewer requests I haven't done yet so it's not like I have no choices (but feel free to make a suggestion!). L8r!

Part 2: Time-lapse Photography - Photography with Imre - Episode 36

2011-05-05T21:17:00.000-06:00

I couldn't be happier with how the time-lapse episode turned out. There's a lot of information in this show and I also have a few new and expanded details to add in this post. Don't forget to check out the Web Resources section below as well, because there are some really cool and awe inspiring time-lapse flicks to watch, amongst other cool sites to explore on the topic.

Intervalometers
In my video I talked a little about intervalometers and the ability to purchase "devices" that can be hooked up to the camera. More specifically, these are essentially "smart" remote cable releases that can be setup to take shots at particular time intervals. Some manufacturers make their own and there are a variety of third party ones available too; click here to see what's on Amazon for example. Since I haven't used any of these, I cannot recommend any models so be sure to do your own research on them.

Many DSLRs can also be tethered to a computer and controlled via software. Again, some manufacturers have an intervalometer feature in their programs, while in other cases you can purchase third party packages. There is a also a third option for the code savvy DIY-ers out there, which is to download a software development toolkit (SDK) from the manufacturer (if available) and program one yourself. I recently downloaded the Olympus SDK and if time permits, I'll be trying my hand at it.

Choosing a Time Interval
The time interval chosen will essentially set the pace for the time-lapse movie. In addition, depending on how long you planned your movie to be, the time interval might also determine how long a period is required to shoot the series of photographs. For example, if one chooses a slow pace for the movie with time intervals spanning two seconds and a movie length of 10 seconds, then at 30 frames per second (fps) one will need a total of 300 frames, so the time-lapse series will take a mere 10 minutes to shoot. On the other hand, let's say you want a time-lapse movie of the sun crossing the sky from rise to set in 10 seconds playback time. Well already you know that'll take a half of a full day to shoot, but let's do the math. Assuming that on this particular day the sun is "up" for 12 hours, here's what we need to know:

We already know that a 10 second long movie played back at 30 fps requires 300 frames
In 12 hours there 720 minutes (12 * 60 = 720)
We can divide the number of minutes by frames to get time interval needed for this shoot. Thus, 720 / 300 = 2.4 minutes between shoots or 144 seconds (or 2 minutes and 24 seconds); that's 25 photos in an hour

One hopes that if you're shooting something this long you can leave the camera safely alone to do it's work, otherwise you might be in for a busy day! Anyway... I'm sure you get the idea in regard to working out how many frames you need; quite simple math really.

But what isn't that simple to determine necessarily is to get the right look for the subject you're shooting. This is why I deliberately varied the time intervals during the city skyline time-lapse movie seen in the show. By doing so, the apparent speed things move at depending on the interval used became fairly visible. For example, at 15 second intervals the clouds drifted noticeably faster across the sky than at 5 or 2.5 seconds. But in my opinion, the subject alone doesn't solely dictate what time span(s) should be used between exposures, because one also has to consider the audience for the video and in many cases the creative aspect. Maybe a producer wants to use a quick time-lapse clip between action scenes in a short film to denote a hectic, frantic pace or feeling of excitement. On the other hand, a short time interval will result in smoother motion and could present a calming or peaceful effect; can also show more detail since things are moving so quickly in a scene. My ultimate suggestion here is to watch many time-lapse movies made by others and see what it invokes you in and then start shooting various subjects to see what you get and like.

Acceleration and Deceleration
I certainly haven't come across many time-lapse videos that use acceleration or deceleration, in other words, most I have seen use a constant time interval between each exposure throughout the whole movie. But nonetheless, when I have come upon it, the effect is quite cool.

Basically there are two major ways to achieve this, one easy, and the other being a bit more involved. The easy method is simply to shoot a time-lapse series with a constant interval and then speed up or slow down the resulting movie in a video editor. That's it. Or there's the more challenging method of varying the time intervals as time passes. Now a question does pop up. Does it make sense to bother varying the time intervals when you can do this without much fuss in an editor? Well perhaps some producers might feel that varying the time intervals keeps the movie "real", while others might believe that it's more cost/time effective to use software. Whatever the case, here's my view which you might find interesting.

If I were to accelerate a portion of a time-lapse movie then I would use a video editor. But for slowing things down to a crawl I would actually shorten the time intervals during shooting. Here's why. When you accelerate a video clip, the software basically drops frames in order to accomplish the effect. Another way of seeing this is that the visual difference between each consecutive frame becomes greater, thus motion will appear faster. If I was shooting a time-lapse series and making time intervals longer between each exposure to speed up the action, the end result will basically be identical because the difference between each consecutive image will be greater just as if the video were to be sped up using an editor. Essentially, I can save some time and effort by using the editor to get the same result.

On the other hand, if you've ever tried to slow down video using an editor, the motion generally becomes choppy or somewhat unnatural even with frame blending or other filters that are supposed to smooth out motion in such cases. This effect occurs because frames are reproduced multiple times in order to get that slow motion look. So to get natural and gradual decrease in speed, I would instead rely on reducing the time interval during the time-lapse shoot. This way, no frames would need to be doubled, tripled or whatever to get a reduction in speed.

The bad part about this is that it requires some planning before the shoot and potentially manual operation. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't know of any intervalometers that can gradually increase or decrease intervals --although for us programming folk, we could tether the cam to a computer and write software to accomplish such a thing. But anyway, this may not be as bad as it sounds and here's a few steps you can follow:

Consider how long you want the deceleration to last. Let's use 3 seconds as an example; at 30 fps that would equal 90 frames.
This effect usually looks better if it's more in-your-face than subtle, so hopefully the time intervals you're starting with are fairly long. To continue this example, I'll start with 15 second gaps.
The next thing to consider is the time interval you are ending with. Let's say... 1 second.
In this particular example, we're dropping 14 seconds off our time (15 - 1 = 14 easy). I take the total number of frames, 90 and divide it by 14 which equals 6.4 that I will simply round to 6 to make life easier.
What that means is that every 6 frames there will be a 1 second decrease in the time interval between shots. So the interval between frames 1-6 will be 15 seconds, 7-14 will be 14 sec., 15-22 will be 13 sec. ... and so on until you reach frame 90.

This might keep you a bit occupied for a while, but the end result should be a fairly gradual decrease in speed when the movie played back.

Tracking (Moving the Camera During Shooting)

In the show I briefly discussed tracking, a sidewards motion of the camera, and if you check the Web Resources section below you'll find plenty of links to professional and DIY time-lapse dollies and tracks (along with some pretty wicked videos that were created using them; some cinematography terminology links too). You'll probably notice that the videos tend to look more interesting if there are foreground elements fairly close to the camera, as those objects tend to create a stronger sense of depth and motion in the scene; perhaps keep that in mind if you're creating such footage. Maybe someday when I have more time I'll look into either building one of these units myself or getting one if it's not too expensive. And by the way, I'm not affiliated with any manufacturers mentioned here; their websites are posted for further research and information.

Putting it All Together
You might have noticed that I kept the part about putting a time-lapse movie together quite short in the video. If I was to present my version of how to do it, then I would be using Adobe After Effects or Premiere; those employing other packages would have to figure it out on their own anyway... which in my opinion is not very hard. With After Effects and Premiere, all you basically do is import the photos as an image sequence and then drag the clip to wherever you'd like it in the timeline. Then to add some pizazz to the footage one can start applying various other effects like color grading and vignetting or whatever else. Applying those effects are easy... it's using them wisely and creatively that can be more challenging.

I hope you have a lot of fun creating and watching your time-lapse movies. I certainly found a few surprises which I couldn't see when taking the shots, like those construction elevators running up and down the sides of skyscrapers being built and the motion of the crane on top of the building. I have no clue what to do for the next episode and not because I don't have any ideas, but too many! So perhaps I'll put it out to a vote on Facebook. L8r!

Web Resources

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time-lapse

http://www.digital-photography-school.com/an-introduction-to-time-lapse-photography

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intervalometer

http://www.mediacollege.com/video/shots/movement.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d1japIhKU9I - Great video on various filmmaking techniques

http://fstoppers.com/could-this-be-the-longest-slider-video-ever

http://nofilmschool.com/2011/03/adam-anthonys-the-maestro-creative/

http://nofilmschool.com/2010/12/how-to-create-time-lapse-dolly-hdr-shots/
http://www.diyphotography.net/a-timelapse-rail-from-bbq-rotisserie-motor
http://cinematography.wonderhowto.com/corkboard/new-motion-cheap-motion-timelapse-dolly-0116184/
http://ditogear.com/
http://www.instructables.com/id/Time-Lapse-Dolly/
http://www.bmumford.com/photo/dolly/index.html

http://www.petapixel.com/2011/04/07/gorgeous-time-lapse-of-the-space-needle-in-seattle/
http://www.youtube.com/user/canadianentropy

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jSaBHyH1fTc
http://vimeo.com/23237102

http://thecampsiteblog.com/2011/04/17/time-lapse-photography/

http://www.petapixel.com/2011/04/18/unreal-timelapse-of-the-milky-way/

Part 2: Photo Copyright Protection Tips - Photography with Imre - Episode 35

2011-05-02T17:48:00.000-06:00

Perhaps the episode on copyright protection tips isn't the most visual, but for those not familiar with the various ways to protect the copyright on your images displayed online, this show was a good primer. In this post I'll just be adding new material not in the video.

Before moving on and just like I pointed out in the show, I am not a lawyer or legal expert, so to be properly informed you should consult with a qualified intellectual property lawyer or legal expert in your area. Copyright laws usually differ depending on where you live, so keep that in mind as well.

Additional Thoughts about Digital Watermarking
In the video I simply stated that using a digital watermark on your photographs is basically your choice; indeed it is. But many of you still might not be sure which type of watermarking, if any, you should utilize or would be best for you. So here are some additional considerations you could take into account:

No watermark: If you are purest and like to show off your photos without any potentially distracting markings, then this is the choice for you. Obviously, the copyright of the image is still yours whether you have the notice there or not, and usually most people have text under the photo or on a legal page explicitly declaring the material is copyright and may not be reproduced without written permission. Those who might take your material without consent won't have much difficultly as there are no markings to remove, so I would recommend keeping the images at a fairly small size; this makes them more or less unsuitable for print reproduction at the least.

Visible watermarks: If you've seen any of my photos, you'll see this is the variety of watermark I use. Specifically, I keep the copyright symbol, my name and address of my YouTube channel in one of the corners of the image at a readable but not very intrusive size. Although I don't want my material used without my permission, I take the approach that I'd rather not hide my shots behind what could be a very distracting message. In addition, my name and web address does promote me and my work, so you could consider putting your own web addy or company name on the photo. The only thing to keep in mind about this is that if you are sharing your pictures on various websites, some guidelines may prohibit you from using them, but I've personally found this to be fairly rare.

And as seen in the video, if you're more concerned about your work being stolen, you could use a larger water that is faded across the image. This certainly hides more of your work, but it's also considerable more difficult to remove without damaging the photo.

Hidden watermarks: These sneaky methods of incorporating your mark could be used if you feel such a measure is necessary to protect your work, and allows you to use methods to prove the images are indeed yours. There are a few software companies that create such software and there are a couple of DIY methods too. I personally have mixed feelings on this. On one hand, I can't find anything "wrong" with doing this and it could be advantageous in various cases to prove the image(s) is/are yours. On the other hand, if someone in some far off country steals your photos then you're more or less out of luck unless you have lots of cash to burn just to take down a pic or two (even other methods can't really help in those cases). But I have a feeling that larger stock photo companies might employ this method; these organizations generally not only have the money, but several offices in various countries making it easier to handle such problems.

A Little More on Photo Sharing Websites
There's not a lot more I want to add in this section, but it's worth mentioning that not all of us want to be so strict with our photos. If you're open to sharing under some circumstances, some sites like Flickr allow you to change the copyright status on your photos. Notably, you can select a Creative Commons license, and you can read more about it by clicking that link (or in the Web Resources section below).

For some photographers, a major benefit to allowing others to reproduce and use their work is to gain exposure (no pun intended). Keep in mind, there are literally hundreds of millions of photos on the World Wide Web and many of those pictures are can be quite alike. So imagine this. A major advertising firm comes along and sees your photo, but notices the strict copyright. They see another photographer's image that basically looks the same but there is a less restrictive license on it; one that would allow them legal and easy use of the picture. The firm selects the other photographer's shot, gives him/her credit and that photographer just might see a little increase in business. It's something I'm personally considering because it's not like my shots are making much money unfortunately and more exposure (no pun intended again) would be nice. Hmm...

Copyright Protection Methods if Building Your Own Website
If you've decided to take the approach of displaying and even selling your photos on your own website, here are a few of my thoughts on that matter:

As mentioned in the video, you can still employ the tactics of adding watermarks if you wish and even embed your copyright info into the files. Also consider keeping the original image files off of the website unless there's a good reason to have them online and keep the previews around 1MP in size (about 1,000 pixels wide or high, whichever is greater).
Often times a copyright note, separate from the one on the image, is displayed under or somewhere near the photo. I also recommend adding a copyright notice on a legal page for example.
Although not foolproof, you could disable right-clicking via JavaScript, or there are some clever ways of using CSS and placing images on the background. But always keep in mind that if you can see an image, graphic, photo, or almost anything else on a website, there are ways of saving/copying that material.
Again, not foolproof, but the gallery could be created in Flash. This does bring up some issues though such as the potential difficultly/cost involved in creating one and compatibility with some mobile phones.

And that more or less sums it up. In the next few days I'll be working hard on the time-lapse post. L8r!

Web Resources
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_watermarking

http://www.gimpdome.com/gimp-general-use/hidden-watermarks-in-gimp/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Millennium_Copyright_Act

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_Directive
http://creativecommons.org/

http://www.copyright.gov/

http://www.cipo.ic.gc.ca/

Time-lapse Photography - Photography with Imre - Episode 36

2011-04-30T21:23:00.000-06:00

Well the highly anticipated time-lapse episode is done and ready to be enjoyed! This show turned out awesome and I'm glad I put up with the crappy weather to do the time-lapse movie of city skyline for this program; it worked perfectly as an example. One day when I have more time and the weather is more cooperative, I'll go back to the hillside and do a proper one with a nice slow pan and likely using a two second interval. So do enjoy the show and now I have to write two blog posts as I haven't finished the copyright one yet! L8r!

Photo Copyright Protection Tips - Photography with Imre - Episode 35

2011-04-26T16:44:00.000-06:00

I was so excited after reading a viewer's message suggesting an episode on how photographers can protect their shots online; such an awesome topic! Awesome enough that I put off that poor time lapse show I've been meaning to do now for ages!

Keep your eyes peeled on the supplemental blog post as I'll have more information, especially about some precautions one can take when you build your own website, versus using a photo sharing one like Flickr. Enjoy and L8r!

Been a Little Quiet Lately... Running this Biz of Photography

2011-04-18T17:14:00.001-06:00

A little too quiet if ya ask me! :P But I've decided to quickly pop up in the form of a blog post --although I have a feeling most of you are waiting eagerly for a new Photography with Imre episode. Soon! I really do want to get'er done! ... I've been watching too many spaghetti westerns lately.

So what has been keeping me so busy (other than old western flicks and playing Bioshock 2 for hours on end)? A couple of years ago I used to have a website dedicated solely to my photography. It was a really simple HTML site with prints of my shots for sale using PayPal's shopping cart. But at the time I was up to my eyeballs in university classes and a regular day job, so when it came time to renew the domain, I just let it be.

But with all the fun I've been having with my YouTube videos and a decent amount of traffic making it worth my while to do more with this venture, I recently redesigned my personal website by gearing it towards the videos and music I produce. In addition, I thought it would be nice to start selling my prints again, so for the past few of weeks I've been developing my own shopping cart system using PHP (I would've used ASP.NET but decent hosts can be pricey). Just before starting to write this blog post did I finally finish it, along with a lot of other things one might not at first consider. If you too are thinking about starting something like this, you might find this walk-through of what I did interesting. But as usual, here's the legal spiel: although I'm fairly well educated and have experience in the realm of business, I'm not a lawyer or legal expert, so you should consult a qualified individual for advice applicable to your region and specialty. Ok posse, let's giddy up...

The Online Store
I don't want to spend too much time here, but it's worth mentioning a few points to consider if you're thinking of selling your prints online. Now I happen to be a programmer so I could create the online store I wanted, but whether you program one yourself or get an off-the-shelf solution, there are a few universal things that come to mind:

The store should be easy to use and navigate for customers - There's nothing worse for a shopper to deal with than a buggy system or one with a difficult learning curve; not good for the reputation either.
The store should be easy for you to use - Not only will your customers be the ones utilizing your store, but so will you. Prints and descriptions don't upload themselves. Complicated or poorly designed systems might be wasting your time and in most cases, you'd rather be selling than learning such a system.
Flexibility and customization - Again, I created my store so it fits perfectly into my site design, but some might have agreements that prevent you from changing certain aspects of it, while others might simply be too challenging to easily integrate for most. Branding is an important facet of business, so I'd recommend selecting a store that you can customize to blend into your site. In regard to flexibility, many off-the-shelf solutions generally have far more features than you'll need, so hopefully you can find one where you can remove and ignore undesirable elements.

When I designed my store, some key points I wanted was...

The ability to use any type of product not just prints. I might consider selling my wood carvings someday, so by designing more openly, my store can accommodate almost any kind of product.
A simple search bar allowing for customers to filter for a specific category of product, by name in ascending or descending order and the ability to show a certain number of results per page.
The ability for customers to easily modify or remove products from the shopping cart.
A summary page before sending the transaction through to PayPal for processing; this gives people a chance to review their order just to be certain everything is the way they want it to be.
A verification checkbox to force customers to read and agree with the terms of my online store. This is a nice way to prevent some incidents where a person was too lazy to bother reading what the policies are before ordering.
Hit tracking for pages and specific products. This can be helpful to see trends and determine which prints are worth discontinuing and which ones should be promoted more, etc.
A simple administrative area where I can view, add, edit and delete the products in the store.

I wouldn't say this was very difficult to program by any means; it certainly took more of my brain power to design and develope the iPhone game I released a while ago. But doing something like this is still a serious commitment of time and energy, even if you're going to integrate an existing solution. And for those of you seeking suggestions for online stores... I hate to say this but I actually don't have a clue what's out there. As a geeky programmer, I actually enjoy the challenge of building my own stuff, so I haven't really looked. Use the power of Google my amigos.

Have a Plan!

This is a really important area of running any business, not just an online store, and also helps with developing content such as a frequently asked questions (FAQ) page and legal agreements between you and your customers. There are lots of things to consider here and depending on what your preferences are this list might get a whole lot bigger:

Will you offer a warranty? If so, how will you handle such issues? What does your warranty cover? For how long? What might cause the warranty to be voided?
Will you offer customers the chance to return goods? If so, under what conditions? Any time limits? Can customers get a refund or exchange of goods? How will you handle tough customers or ones that have damaged goods?
If you sell a product, you'll likely need to get it to your customers, so remember shipping. What shipping methods will you use (e.g. postal service, couriers like FedEx)? What does it cost to ship your product? How about two products or more? What happens if your product is damaged by the shipping firm; how will you handle such issues?
It's also important to consider how you'll track orders that you've gotten. It's nice to know if you're making a profit or if that new marketing campaign is worthwhile.

The FAQ
In an online store, you're not really there to converse with your customers and answer any questions or concerns they might have. This is where the FAQ page comes into play. If you take a look at mine, you'll see I've covered several things like why I've made prints available in only certain sizes, about my copyright, suggestions on frames, shipping, discounts, etc. In addition, a link to my contact page is clearly visible so that people can get in touch with me if they have questions or concerns not answered on the FAQ page.

The Terms of Sale
In this day and age, legal agreements are all around us and no longer does it take a handshake or physical signature to be bound to one. Just by surfing most websites, you implicitly agree to how that organization may use your information and what liabilities they can be held accountable for if things go awry (usually very little!). As mentioned above, I placed a checkbox on my shopping cart page that must be selected in order for the transaction to continue. I've never liked the approach of being shady with legal terms; I'd rather put them right out there for everyone to see and as far as I'm concerned this can help avoid problems down the road. So when customers on my store are ready to move on, they must check the box and it is my hope that they have actually bothered to read the terms, as well as understand and agree to them. In the case that a customer didn't bother to do so and an issue arises, it's very likely I would have the upper hand in a legal case... hopefully though, that will never happen.

Not to sound overly protective or anything, but I'd like to add that the content I wrote on my website is copyright and shouldn't be copied... not necessarily because it would be such a terrible thing, but rather for these reasons:

I wrote that material myself and although I believe it's perfectly legal, it's better to have a qualified lawyer write this kind of content.
If you write such material yourself (even if a lawyer does it for you), I firmly believe you'll have a much better feel and understanding of your own business. In other words, you can tailor make content that perfectly fits your website and/or company policies.
I also think that it's a great learning experience in regard to understanding how much can be involved with something so seemingly simple.

By no means is this an exhaustive post. Running a business is no small feat. I've certainly learned a lot about this as I've owned a company since 1995 and have two master's degrees in the field (MBA and Master of Project Management)... but I still have a lot to learn as it is! Anyway, at the least I hope you have found some use out of this post and I wish you good luck if you venture out on your own. And yes, soon I will be done the time lapse episode! L8r!

Phat... umm... ok... fat.

2011-04-08T17:40:00.000-06:00

I suppose I'm more or less in the same boat as many people... except I've gotten to the point where my ship is sinking as it can no longer support my weight. :P

The one thing --amongst other things-- I've never enjoyed much living here in Calgary is that almost six months out of the year sucks. It's either cold during this time period or the landscape looks terrible... well I think it does; everything is brown and dirty if there's no snow. Sure the summers are nice but they don't last long and the beautifully colorful seasons like spring and fall are so very short. But I digress.

My issue right now is that I've packed on far too much extra fat and I need to get rid of it. However, now that it has started warming up, I can dare myself to venture out beyond the backyard. I'm sure my dog would appreciate the walks and in about a month I can oil the chain on my bike and take it for a spin on the paths.

And as you can guess, I'll probably have my camera with me to capture whatever things and moments jump out at me. Who knows, I might even make a video or two about my "adventures". Speaking of which, I should be finished the time lapse episode in the next few days, so do stay tuned for that! L8r.

Part 2: Mandolin Bridge Adjustment - A Note with Imre

2011-04-01T21:24:00.002-06:00

I just spent a little time contemplating what additional material I could include in this post, but I realized there is't a whole lot. After all, it's not very complicated to adjust the position of the bridge and I'm quite satisfied with how my video turned out, so I'll do a quick summary along with a note about string height. And before moving on I want to mention a couple of things. First, I'm not a luthier (instrument builder) so the material below is based mostly on my research and second, if you don't feel comfortable adjusting things on your instrument then I recommend you seek out a professional who can do this. Also, do be careful if you choose to undertake this operation, because there is a chance you could damage the mandolin, especially the finish.

I'm a fan of numbered lists, so here's what I did to adjust the bridge on my mandolin, which, in case you're wondering, is an Epiphone MM-50:

Determine if you need to replace your strings. If they sound alright then by all means leave them on. In my case, I restrung my mandolin as the strings were quite old and sounded a bit dull. As mentioned in the video, if you need to restring then allow time for the new ones to adjust by playing rigorously for about an hour or letting the instrument sit for a few hours.
Loosen all of the strings to a point where the bridge can be moved around easily enough that it won't scratch the finish and yet stays put when not nudged.
At this point, you can not only shift the position of the whole bridge, but also the strings on the saddle (generally, the saddle is the raised portion on the bridge the strings run across; the bridge is the part touching the top of the instrument. But there are some mandolins where the bridge basically plays both roles and I've seen this simply referred to as the bridge). As you saw in the video, I positioned each pair of strings into the middle of their respective sections (except for the bass pair as they kept slipping back into their original grooves).
Then I looked down the neck of my mandolin from the head to the tailpiece. This allowed me to quite easily see if the bridge and strings were roughly centered in comparison to the fret board. Plus, this is also a nice way to determine if the spacing between the strings are even or not (each string in a pair and distance between string pairs).
If the notes you're fretting get sharper (higher in pitch) then you need to shift the bridge down towards the tailpiece and if the notes get flatter (lower in pitch) then shift the bridge towards the head. Because thicker strings need to be a little longer to provide the correct intonation, you might very likely need to lower the bass side of the bridge.
Since it's difficult to know where exactly the bridge needs to be, you'll probably have to tune up, loosen the strings and shift the bridge a few times, but in the end I have a feeling you'll love the "new" sound. Now I would like to add that you might know what the scale length of your mandolin is, but based on my experience, that value might not be exactly right. For instance, the treble side of my bridge is about 13 7/8" and the bass end is about 14 1/8", but according what I've seen, Gibson/Epiphone mandolins have a scale length of 14" (er... I've also seen references to 13 7/8" though).

Now as you're adjusting the position of the bridge, you might also want to check the action and set that to a comfortable/appropriate level is needed (I left mine as is; was at a good height in my opinion). On most mandolin bridges there are two screws that can be turned on each end of the bridge, so when you're strings are loosened up, give them a spin if desired.

That concludes this post. For those wondering where the photography is, fear not! The next episode will be on the topic of time lapse and is due for late next week or so. L8r!

Web Resources

http://www.mandolincafe.com/forum/showthread.php?49760-Don-t-Understand-quot-scale-length-quot

http://www.mandolin.org.uk/tips/bridge.php

http://liteways.tripod.com/Mandolin/Mandolin.html

http://www.fretnotguitarrepair.com/repair/mandolin/bridge.php

http://smart-instruments.com/gal95.html

Mandolin Bridge Adjustment - A Note with Imre

2011-03-28T22:09:00.000-06:00

For whatever reason, this video was probably the slowest to upload on YouTube! Not a huge file either... must be a lazy Internet connection. Anyway, do check out the video if you're interested in reducing the amount of sharpness or flatness you might be getting while fretting notes on your mandolin. I'm glad I got off my butt, put new strings on her and played with the bridge position until it became essentially perfect. I'll write more in a few days as I should be off to bed now! L8r!

Part 2: The Histogram - Photography with Imre - Episode 34

2011-03-25T19:47:00.000-06:00

I managed to produce the histogram episode quite quickly and overall it turned out well. I'm not going to elaborate much here other than to discuss clipping a little more, along with presenting a method you can use to help train yourself in analyzing the histogram on your camera; especially useful for those of you new to this.

A Second Take on Clipping
Now that I look back at my script, the segment on clipping could have been put more simply or at least in a different manner. First of all, if the dynamic range of a scene you are taking a picture of is greater than what the imaging sensor of the camera can handle, then the image can have clipping in the shadows, highlights or both regions. Unlike our eyes that can see a much broader range of tones, for a given exposure the camera can only capture a portion of that and this is why some dark areas of certain scenes turn out pure black on the photo and bright areas turn pure white. What is crucial to understand is that clipped areas are completely void of detail. Taking a standard three channel (red, green, blue) image file, all three channels either have 0 (zero) or 255 as their values (so R0, G0, B0 or R255, G255, B255). As long as one color channel has a different value (like R0, G1, B0), then some image information exists, which means there is a possibility to recover a bit of detail (often though, lightening very dark areas results in noise appearing and bright areas that are darkened can look somewhat unusual and washed out).

Depending on the model of camera you have, you may be able to view a histogram in real-time (e.g. live view) or after the shot has been taken during playback or review mode. Signals (light in this case) below the signal-to-noise ratio of the sensor are clipped to black (in other words, there aren't enough photons filling up the photosite(s) to register above the noise level of the electronics) and if photosites on the sensor are saturated with photons then we see blown highlights (think of a bucket overflowing with water; you might try to put more water in, but the amount of water is "clipped" to whatever the bucket can hold).

Many image editing programs also provide histograms. Clipping in most image editors refers to pixels with all color channels having either no data (all zeros) or being at full intensity (255). There's a really good definition given in the help file for Adobe Camera Raw; I love their use of "overbright" and "overdark"... gives me ideas for some horror story... "the Overdark Lord was greater than evil itself." :P

I'd also like to clarify the use of file formats in this context. For example, if you take a picture and your camera is set to save the image as both an 8 bit JPEG file and a 14 bit Raw file, the tonal range of both file formats will be identical. Now you're probably thinking that's incorrect, but think about it this way. First of all, just because the camera is using a different file format does not mean it's using a different sensor. Unless you have a funky camera, only one sensor is used to capture the image and that sensor has a certain dynamic range (usually around five or six stops). Period. So the darkest and lightest points of either a JPEG or Raw file are essentially the same (I say "essentially" because JPEG files are processed by the camera, so for various reasons, like what the contrast setting is, the tonal range might be a little different).

But why is it then that you can "pull" more image detail from a Raw file? I'll use this analogy. You have two perfectly identical loafs of bread; exactly the same size! One loaf is cut into ten slices, while the other is cut into 50 slices (and no funny business, the cuts don't waste material so your loaf doesn't change in size just because you have more slices). Now if you look at the two loafs of bread, they are still the same size --same tonal range-- but one has more detail because it was sliced into 50 pieces. Taking this back to actual images, an 8 bit file provides you with 256 (0-255) brightness levels to work with, wheres a 12 bit Raw file has 4096 levels and a 14 bit one has a whopping 16,384 levels. Because you have more data to massage, you have the ability to lighten up seemingly black areas or darken seemingly white zones, thus "pulling" out those wonderful previously hidden details. There is more great info on this if you check out the last link in the Web resources section.

Anyway, I hope that clarifies the clipping segment of the video, especially where I said, "an 8 bit per channel image can clip more easily, so-to-speak, than a 16 bit per channel image." Now you can see it means you have more data to play with in a 16 bit image versus an 8 bit one... my bad homies, didn't mean to be shiznitting with the down low.

A Little Self Training
Ok. In the video I said I'd write about a method you can use to help train yourself in understanding what the histogram on your camera is trying to tell you. On my own cameras, I've consistently noticed that if the image seemingly appears properly exposed on the camera's display, they are actually underexposed when I view them on my computer monitor. Those images appearing a bit overexposed on the cam's screen are generally exposed properly. This is why using the histogram can be helpful, but for novice shooters it might be hard to relate what a well exposed histogram looks like. In addition, since virtually every photograph has a unique histogram, it takes a little bit of experience to gain that intuition about which one looks about right. So if you think you need a little help in this area, then feel free to follow the simple steps below:

Get out there and take some photos, but be methodical. First, if possible use a tripod as you'll need identical shots. Second, use the bracketing feature of your camera to take three shots varying the exposure by 0.7 (so you'll have one shot at -0.7, 0.0 and +0.7). If your camera only does half-stops, then use that and if by chance your cam does not have a bracketing feature, then adjust manually via EV compensation. At this point, ignore the histogram; all we want are three photos of a scene. Take a bunch of shots of various locations, some darker, some lighter... whatever.
Download the shots into your computer, but DO NOT delete the photos off the memory card.
Now open up a file on the computer and also display the same photo on your camera with the histogram feature.
And you're probably getting the idea now, but keep doing the same thing for each shot, each time comparing what the image on the computer monitor looks like in comparison with the one on the camera with it's histogram.

By comparing what the photos looks like on the two devices, you'll start to get a feel for what histograms look like for well-exposed shots, along with those that didn't turn out.

As a final note I want to add that it appears I've placed a great deal of emphasis on histograms, but keep in mind that you don't always need to use them and depending on what you're shooting they might not be that useful. In addition, it's not like the exposure has to be absolutely perfect or else the photo is junk. I personally don't necessarily believe there is such a thing as a perfect exposure to begin with, as our personal tastes or creativity will alter that definition and there's a fair amount of leverage to correct some issues in editors. Nonetheless, with some time and practice, I'm sure most of you budding photogs will start to see the benefits to histograms and when they're worthy of employing.

If all goes to plan, stay tuned for the next episode on time lapse photography. Happy shooting! L8r!

Web Resources

http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/histograms1.htm

http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/histograms2.htm

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/understanding-series/understanding-histograms.shtml

http://www.photoxels.com/tutorial_histogram.html

http://www.dpreview.com/learn/?/key=histogram

http://help.adobe.com/en_US/Photoshop/11.0/WSfd1234e1c4b69f30ea53e41001031ab64-768ba.html

http://www.dpreview.com/learn/?/key=tonal+range

http://www.chromasia.com/tutorials/online/curves/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clipping_(photography)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clipping_(signal_processing)

http://help.adobe.com/en_US/Photoshop/11.0/WSF1B29B95-2419-4b50-A058-A5FE2D7E5E6F.html

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/understanding-series/u-raw-files.shtml

The Histogram - Photography with Imre - Episode 34

2011-03-22T15:57:00.000-06:00

Well I managed to get this episode done fairly quickly in about 15 hours start to finish. Plus, I think it turned out to be a great primer for those who are not familiar with histograms. Supplemental post to follow in the next few days as usual!

Um... yea I know I said I'd do time lapse photography next, but well... ok I have no excuse! I'll try to make that the next show! L8r!

Shooting Birds in Flight

2011-03-14T20:15:00.000-06:00

I got a message from a subscriber of my YouTube channel today about taking photos of birds in flight. This individual expressed problems of getting a fast enough shutter speed, especially due to how cloud cover often blankets the location this person is from and reduces light intensity, which has resulted in some blurry shots. Hopefully my advice to follow will be of some assistance and those blurry shots will turn into some detailed and stunning captures of those featured creatures gliding gracefully through the air. To make this a more complete post about this topic, I've added more detail about shooting birds in general. Please keep in mind too that these suggestions and techniques are what I tend to use and as such they may not work for everyone in every case. So always feel free to experiment.

Focusing
One of the first steps to ensuring a nice sharp image is to get the scene/subject in focus. Birds swooshing through the air can make this somewhat more challenging, so here are a few suggestions I'll offer based on what the background is like.

Bird Against Clear Sky or Even Cloud Cover: The clear sky bit makes sense here; simply imagine a nice blue sky without any clouds. But by even cloud cover I mean a sky that is cloudy, but fairly evenly throughout; in other words there are no puffy or wispy clouds contrasting against a blue sky, but rather that dull light grey tone up everywhere you look.

In cases like this there are a couple of modes you can try to get a sharp lock on your feathered subject. The first mode is to employ the center focusing dot on your camera, aim at the bird and start clicking the shutter button. Overall this method has worked fairly well for me, but I've noticed some issues. It's hard enough as it is to track a flying creature, so I've often ended up with the center focus dot on the sky next to the critter. Since there's nothing much the camera can focus on, the lens starts hunting unsuccessfully and by that time the bird is long out of focus and out of frame.

Instead of using just that single dot, I've instead found myself selecting all targets (or area focusing mode) more often for birding. Since the background is simple and lacks contrast, the bird wonderfully stands out against the evenly toned sky. So even if its off center, one of the those many focus points will register the bird and the focus should lock. Some sources say this mode is somewhat slower than just using a single dot, but in my experience --specifically in this case-- I've found that point fairly moot (in cases where the subject and background are more complex, then indeed the system needs more time to focus... keeping in mind that time is generally very small, around one or two tenths of a second).

Busier Backgrounds: Things get more interesting when the background is busier. Take for example a bird flying against a scenic landscape (e.g. a forest, mountains) or city skyscrapers. In this case, area focusing mode may not be a great choice as the focus could very well be hit and miss... mostly miss. In such situations, I've either gone back to using the single center dot for focusing and tried my best to follow the subject or have used manual focusing. Manual focusing is tricky on the fly but if a bird is at rest, like on a street light post, it's a cinch to perform. So when the fellow takes flight, you are already have perfect focus. Now this is not with its downside though, because if the bird flies towards or away from you, it may go out of focus. Therefore, one has to hope the bird flies more or less parallel to your position. I recommend trying out a few of these techniques and I'm pretty certain you'll find one that you favor and works quite well.

Lens, Camera Mode and Settings
Shooting birds can essentially be called a sub-category of action photography, so many of the considerations you find there can be applied here.

Lens: It pretty much goes without saying, but with most photographs of this nature a long lens is required (unless you want tiny dark specks as birds). Thus, we're likely looking at a range of at least 300mm to 600mm or even larger if you have access to such equipment. A fast lens can be beneficial too, as less light loss will allow you to use faster shutter speeds in situations where, for example, cloud cover is blocking sunlight. On the other hand, shooting stopped-down a little, like around f/5.6, might yield slightly sharper images and a bit more depth of field (DOF), although that's not as critical; the distance most birds would be at means the DOF will be fairly large anyway. Even an aperture around f/8 will very likely provide a sufficiently blurred background, but as usual, take a few shots and adjust to your liking.

Shutter Speed and Mode: Not only would the person who asked the birding question like to get sharp photos, but so would most of us when shooting these airborne lifeforms. Therefore, to ensure a quick enough shutter speed, I strongly recommend shutter priority or manual mode. With shutter priority, you can force the camera to use a specific shutter speed and the machine will adjust the aperture and sensitivity (if set to auto) accordingly in order to get a good exposure. For focal lengths of around 300mm, 1/500 of a second should freeze the action, but of course use 1/1000 or even 1/2000 if you're noticing that blur is still occurring or if you're using a lens with a longer focal length (... err, just because you're using a longer focal length lens doesn't mean you have to use a faster shutter speed, but if you're hand holding, it can help prevent hand-shake effects for some photographers).

Now I also mentioned the use of manual mode, where you can force the camera to use whatever shutter speed and aperture you want. The advantage with this mode is that if you want the aperture to be something specific (e.g. you want f/5.6 because the lens is sharper in that range, or you want f/2.8 to ensure the lens stays wide open), then you can force the camera to entirely do your bidding.

Whichever of these two modes you choose, you'll likely have to play with the numbers to get the right exposure on the bird; not too dark (details lost or too noisy when processed to be lighter) nor to light (loss of contrast and details washed out). In addition, don't be afraid of pushing the sensitivity higher up if needed if you're finding the exposure is too dark. Many cameras, even some models a few years old, still produce good quality images up to 1,600 ISO and if you shoot in RAW, you'll have a fair amount of control at your fingertips to eliminate much of that noise (or you might already have software/plug-ins dedicated to noise reduction). Of course if you want to keep noise at a minimum, then try either a larger aperture or slower shutter speed setting first.

And before moving on, remember to use the high speed sequential shooting feature on your camera. Pressing the shutter button repeatedly while panning will make things more difficult than they need to be. This is also where traditional mirrored DSLRs still have a major advantage over the electronic viewfinder (EVF) types. Although the mirror slapping up momentarily blacks out the picture, you can still see the subject moving along quite clearly, whereas EVF cams generally show you the last photo taken for a split second.

Funny how manufacturers haven't caught onto the idea that if you're in sequential shooting mode on an EVF type camera, why the heck not just keep showing the image as normal to the photographer? I mean think about... seeing the last image taken for a split second is basically useless, as it's not enough time to give the photos a good examination for anything in particular and it's of little to no help in keeping up with the subject in motion (especially for more unpredictable movement). Personally, and I have a feeling most photographers would agree with me, as long as I can trust that the machine is capturing images while I'm pushing down the button (ok, show me a bloody red blinking dot in a non-intrusive spot), I don't need to see the screen blacking out or the last pic displayed momentarily; I'm more than happy to review the results afterwards. And if any of you manufacturers out there implement my idea, I'll gladly let you know where you can make my royalty payments to! :)

Tripod/Monopod vs. Hand Holding: Whether you choose to use a tripod/monopod or hand hold your camera plus lens is mostly up to you and is generally a personal choice. However, if you have a fairly long lens, it can become tiring to hold the thing for an hour or two, and panning along with the subject can be smoother (but perhaps not as flexible as hand holding).

Almost any type of tripod can be used but certain types might have better results. For example, less expensive tripods with the head build-in might not allow fine control over tension and might not have a quick release plate, thus making removal of the camera more cumbersome and slow (e.g. maybe a quick change in position is needed to capture another subject or a bird in an usual location). On the other hand, more flexible tripods that can be fitted with various types of heads may be more to your liking. Perhaps a ball head can give you the freedom you need to quickly pan around with a single tension control, or a three-axis (aka three-way) head is more to your fancy as you can constrain the panning to a single plane (e.g. horizontal, thus keeping bobbing to a minimum; could help keep a certain composition too, as you wouldn't pan to high or low).

A monopod may offer a more compact and lighter weight solution to help with panning and I've certainly found them great to use, especially for horizontal movement as you can simply rotate the thing left or right. But adjusting the camera's gaze vertically is a bit unusual, as it can place one in an uncomfortable position.

So that concludes my quick post on shooting birds in flight. There's certainly more information out there that could be applied, but I believe this is a good starting point for those interested in this subject matter. Good luck and happy shooting! L8r!

Check out the new look of my website!

2011-03-10T18:56:00.001-07:00

Web design has never come that easily to me. It's unusual because I can certainly tell if a website looks professional and is well developed, but drawing something up that looks like some of those awesome sites out there... eeek!

Nonetheless, I think I did fairly well with the redesign of my personal website; feel free to comment and let me know (be nice! LOL): imrezbalint.com

The "old" version of the site was a little simpler looking and concentrated more on my IT skills (programming, Web application development, etc.), and although I'm not quitting that work I'd rather emphasize my "Photography with Imre" series and other creative projects. As time goes on I'll be adding more resources to the site (i.e. more links and more useful content of my own creation), so at some point the website will become a virtual entertainment and educational hub. Considering it took me two (very full) days to do this, I actually have high hopes on this venture!

Please feel free to make suggestions; anything can help! L8r!

Part 2: Intro to Action Photography - Photography with Imre - Episode 33

2011-03-08T12:09:00.001-07:00

I already said it, but man did I have fun creating the action photography episode! Gigantic topic though but hopefully the show gave people a good idea of what it's about. Speaking of which...

The Subject is Key
... it is indeed all about the subject and I don't just mean you have to get the thing you're shooting in the frame. Since I hit up this subtopic quite thoroughly in the video I won't spend much time on it here, but I can't help emphasize it a little. Virtually everything such as the camera equipment you'll need for the shoot, the location you select, perhaps the time of day and camera settings will depend largely on the subject. In addition, some research might also improve the composition of the photographs. It's like the examples I provided in the video. Skateboarders doing tricks might look better with a wide angle lens, flash and a large depth of field (DOF) to capture cool moves, while certain motocross shots will be more impressive with the background motion blurred and a smaller DOF.

Preparation also fits into this realm. Since action photography can encompass many different types of subjects, consider creating a checklist so important details don't slip the mind (especially if you're shooting for money). Be mindful if shooting at various events where a permit or permission might be required to photograph. Although laws differ from place to place and I'm no legal expert so I recommend you ask someone qualified, generally speaking if you're on private property then you usually need some sort of permission. In some cases it's clearly allowed and nothing written is required, whereas I've read some articles stating that certain sporting stadiums only allow focal lengths below a certain value (e.g. 200mm or less) and in some cases you need to be a VIP with an ID tag dangling around your neck.

Setting the Shutter Speed and Camera Modes
In most action photography scenarios, the shutter speed is key to making the shot work. For example, if you need a very high shutter speed to completely freeze the action, then you'll likely be looking at something around 1/1000 of a second (I have visions of a speed boat race in my head with rooster tails flying out the back). If your camera is set to auto mode, the results will likely be unpredictable; simply said the camera will decide what shutter speed and aperture to use (I'll discuss sensitivity/ISO in a moment). So in some cases the action might be nicely frozen, but in others (perhaps due to lighting conditions) the detail might be blurred as the cam decides to slow the shutter in order to get the right exposure. Aperture priority may not be much help either (although it's worth mentioning that this mode might very well work for many cases, except in places where a very particular shutter speed is required or desired). Sure, you could open the lens as wide as it'll go, which would deliver more light to the sensor and help increase the shutter speed, but your DOF may be too small to your liking.

So this is where shutter priority and full manual mode come into play. Let's examine some of the pros and cons to these modes:

Shutter Priority - Pros

You can set the shutter speed to almost anywhere you want
Camera will decide on using the appropriate aperture to get the right exposure

Shutter Priority - Cons

Depending on the shutter speed set, the camera may not be able to produce a good exposure (e.g. aperture may not be adjustable to where needed; a shutter speed of 1/8000 may need the lens opened wider than it can go, thus underexposure results)
DOF might not be what you would like it to be as the camera manipulates the aperture

Manual Mode - Pros

You are the master; you can basically adjust any setting to wherever you want on the camera
Excellent for specialized cases such as fireworks

Manual Mode - Cons

To confirm exposure, either test shots must be taken or a light meter has to be used; one is a bit slow to setup and not everyone has a light meter
If sudden changes in lighting conditions occur, then the exposure settings need to be adjusted. Think of a cloudy sky and shooting that boat race. Everything might be ok when the sun is out, but when clouds obscure the sun, the drop in light intensity will likely result in an underexposed photo.
Might be tricky to setup if a novice

The choice between shutter priority and manual mode must be made by you. As much as I'd love to suggest something, the problem is that everything from the type of subject you're shooting, to lighting conditions and even personal preferences must be considered; there are simply too many factors. But with what I've presented and some further research and experimentation on your own, I have a feeling you'll start to get a feel for it (seriously, experiment lots!).

Now I'd like to discuss sensitivity as it plays a significant part in getting the correct exposure. As with some other settings on your camera, you can leave ISO at automatic or set it yourself. Leaving it at auto means that the camera will decide when the sensitivity needs changing. There are some trains of thought on this as with anything, so I'd recommend that you again experiment and discover how your camera behaves. Personally, I tend to set it myself, as I usually go for keeping the noise as low as possible. On the other hand, leaving it at auto may give you some extra flexibility. For example, if you're shooting in shutter priority mode, then the camera could set both the aperture and ISO to get the right exposure; this may overcome certain cases where an adjustment to aperture alone isn't enough (Think back to the example in the cons section of shutter priority. If the lens cannot be opened any wider then the ISO could be increased, perhaps making the sensor sensitive enough to light to get a good exposure at 1/8000 of a second).

It's in the Skills
Having the right equipment and being able to push some buttons on the camera are only small parts to being an effective action photographer. In my opinion, the ability to "feel" the shot is another significant issue. In other words, the skill of the photographer to nail the composition of the shot and be able to anticipate what would work in regard to factors such as lighting, background and time (i.e. getting the right moment(s) to capture the images), amongst other things is key. I'm the type of person to believe that some people have a natural ability to do this, while others can learn and hone their skills by practicing often. To at least provide something useful in this regard, I've created a list below with a few things that might help you get started:

Practice panning the camera so you can follow subjects in motion. And don't just pan, take shots during the motion to get used to pressing the shutter button while doing this.
Sometimes it's convenient to shoot handheld versus using a tripod or monopod. Practice holding and taking shots with a large lens to get the feel for it, but keep in mind the focal length reciprocal rule, which works as follows. Let's take a 600mm lens, which in fractional terms is 600/1 (600 "over" 1). So the reciprocal would be 1/600... so to get a potentially blur free shot, use a shutter speed of at least 1/600 of a second. Of course you might need a faster or slower shutter speed in some cases, but it's a quick guideline to go by.
Try unusual angles and not just those from a high or low perspective, but consider banking or tilting the camera. Often you can better fill a frame with the subject and create more interesting shots with the horizon off-kilter.
If the possibility exists, experiment using a flash; either on your camera or remotely triggered in various locations.

There would be so much more to write about, but I think I'll stop here and if anyone has questions or if I think of something useful, then I'll zero-in on that matter and create a new post.

The next episode will be on time lapse photography as that topic had quite a few requests. L8r!

Web Resources
http://www.steephill.tv/photography/action-photography-tips.html
http://photography.about.com/od/takingpictures/a/actionphoto.htm
http://photo.net/learn/sports/overview
http://www.digital-photography-school.com/aperture-and-shutter-priority-modes

Anatomy of a "Photography with Imre" Episode

2011-02-27T15:45:00.001-07:00

I thought I'd write a "behind the scenes" post as I've had some viewers ask various questions about how I produce my "Photography with Imre" episodes; things like what camera I shoot with, software I use to edit the footage and how long it takes me to create a show. Now I've answered those questions directly, but I think it would be more fun to go through the whole process. In general I stick quite closely to the order of steps presented below, although sometimes I break the rules if the situation merits it.

Hmm... ok! I think I've got it!
It almost goes without saying but the topic of the episode comes first. When I started my photography series I went straight for the basics; aperture, shutter speed and sensitivity. As time continued the choice of topics became more difficult to select and not because I was running out of them, but rather the contrary. I find that the more you learn, explore and poke and prod, the more there is to discover. As of writing, my most recent episode was about action photography. Although I feel it's a good primer for those interested in the topic, virtually each and every subject under this umbrella could be further investigated. For example, photographing aircraft, fireworks and a basketball game could all be considered to be in the realm of action, but each subject has very different needs in regard to camera settings, human skill set needed (e.g. panning ability, good feel for composition on the fly, reflexes) and equipment requirements.

I can also add that more commonly you wonderful viewers and fans out there are making the topic of choice easier through your suggestions and interactions on my various webpages. Keep'em coming and I'll try keeping up!

Research, Research and More Research
Once the topic for the next episode is selected, I begin the hunt for data and information. Although I might have a good understanding of certain subjects, I've come to recognize two major patterns that frequently develop. The first is fairly evident in that certain types of information enlighten me on something I did not know, thus I can include such details in the video. But surprisingly often, the flow of the episode, or how/in what order I present the goods are changed. A couple of examples of this are the white balance (WB) and polarizing filters episodes. Even though I had a good understanding of WB and the Kelvin temperature scale, the black body radiator was both new and fascinating to me. As such I started off the episode with it instead of getting right into WB settings and when they should be used. Pretty much the same goes for the polarizing filters show. At first I wanted to present the effect the filter has and when they could be used, but I started with an explanation of how they work.

Almost all of the materials I examine also end up in the "Web Resources" section of my supplemental blog posts. Some topics are far to vast to cover in great detail in a single episode, and some information is really cool but just isn't necessarily that important. So, those people interested in finding out more can peruse through those pages. Anything else that I usually add is from memory; having learned something ages ago from books/magazines or speaking with other photographers.

The Script
The first few episodes I created were not scripted; just thought through and winged. Looking back, I wish I had taken it a little more seriously, but then again, I never imagined I'd have over 1,100 subscribers and YouTube would ever make me a partner. But as I started to gain more viewers and topics became more challenging to discuss (and to reduce errors), scripting each show has become a standard.

As with most styles of writing, I begin by creating a quick outline that allows me to see the overall flow of the episode; intro, topics to cover in order, ending. In addition, this begin a more recent development, I consider the style and personality the show will take on. Notably, in my HDRI episode I went to the Calgary Zoo to both capture the stills and the video, same idea for the IR program where I went to a lake, my astrophotography show took place in space (Okay! Cartoon space!) and the action photography video was done in a semi-comic book style, which also introduced another series I'm working on. It takes me roughly a day to write one up start to finish.

I could present my videos in a very methodical and lecture like manner, but for one, I believe that more entertaining programs help people enjoy the show and even learn better. Perhaps it's not true for everyone, but during my university days I certainly had a lot more fun and better experiences in classes where the instructor was energetic, engaging and had a sensor of humor. And two, I love to do creative things --used to make 2D/3D animation work for corporate videos and television many years ago-- so this gives me a nice way to express myself and exercise the brain matter.

Do you hear me now?

One of the first things I do after writing the script is record the voice over or narration. In most cases, the video, graphics and even animations are timed in accordance with the text, so indeed, without having the audio to begin with could pose quite the challenge.

My microphone of choice is the Olympus LS-10 (yes I know, I have a lot of Olympus things) and I use Adobe Soundbooth CS4 for editing, mainly to delete dead air between paragraphs, put segments together and maximize the volume. This whole process takes me around twenty to thirty minutes.

And... Action!
The script for me is like a screenplay. Once I have that done I can begin shooting the photographs and footage needed for the episode; in some cases I already have pics to use, so I just browse through my collection and copy the ones I want into my episode project folder. Many of my vids also have various diagrams, graphics and animation to help explain the subject matter, so these too are created. I tend to favor Photoshop for editing my shots, Flash CS4 Professional for 2D animation, and a combination of Photoshop and Flash for the graphics work.

I currently use my little Olympus E-P2 to shoot the video, generally with the kit lens, but for the first few episodes I employed the Casio EX-F1 (which I still use on rare occasions). Since many videos are just shot in my bedroom (don't get any ideas!) the window and fluorescent bulbs in the room provide enough light. However, if more is needed then I'll use my studio hot-light that has three 5000K fluorescent bulbs.

This portion of production by far takes the longest time period to overcome. Episodes mostly comprised of video take the least time, as I simply shot and edit; let's a few hours. On the other hand, graphics and animation heavy shows can often take me two to five days to complete.

We'll fix it in post.
Let's see... Audio recorded? Check. Video shot? Check. Graphics, animations, etc. done? Check! All that's left to do is mash the digital goodness together so it forms a nice cohesive program. Adobe Premiere is the editor I use. Not only do I use it to transition between clips, but frequently for simple animations too. In the action photography episode, the backgrounds and Richard Steel were high resolution images, which allowed me to scale them to various sizes and shift them around in order to give the appearance of movement. Combined with a few other effects like directional blur and fading, some simple, quick and nifty effects can be produced. I render out to 720P HD video and until recently I stuck with the WMV format, but from episode 33 onwards I'll be using H.264; much better quality and the video goes live much faster on YouTube. Total editing time usually runs me four to eight hours depending on how complex the show is.

That's a wrap!
Once the video is uploaded I can sit back and relax until I produce the next show. One of these days when I manage to steal some free time, I'll tune my skills up with After Effects. I have a feeling that some of its features could speed up a process or two, especially since I'm getting into more graphics heavy episodes and potentially a music video or two.

Well off I run for now. Later in the first week of March I should hopefully get started on the supplemental post to action photography and shortly after that I'll be planning out the episode on time lapse photography. L8r!

Intro to Action Photography - Photography with Imre - Episode 33

2011-02-23T20:33:00.001-07:00

I'm happy to say that the action photography episode is done and live on YouTube, so do give it a watch. And for those of you curious about who Richard Steele is... well now you know! He's a fictional comic book like character I came up with in the last couple of weeks and I'll be producing a series about him called Second Shot. But yes, I'm holding back on details about him and the show, so you'll just have to stay tuned to find out more.

Boy did I love creating this episode though! I got some serious practice editing shots too. But enough about that. If it's one thing that popped out at me the most as I developed this video, it's that action photography encompasses a huge realm of smaller subjects with their own unique requirements. So if you have specific questions about action photography, then feel free to ask away and I'll answers some of those Q's in my supplemental blog post (you can post a comment below, on my Facebook wall, tweet me, or send a message through YouTube).

This episode came as a request from several viewers and I did a little vote on Facebook to see if the next show would be this topic or time lapse. Since time lapse has also been requested a few times, that's the topic I'll be hitting up for the next episode. L8r!

Woot! I got accepted in the YouTube Partner Program!

2011-02-14T18:34:00.000-07:00

I certainly got what I consider a really cool Valentine's Day treat! A few months ago I decided to apply for the YouTube Partner Program and this afternoon my inbox presented me with the surprise. Although I did have some work to do today, I couldn't help but put it aside so I could enable some of those nifty features on my channel like that awesome banner atop the page. As time permits, I'll also be updating many of the video thumbnails to something a little more catchy. And... woohoo!!

Aside from that, around the middle of this week I'll start working on my next video, which will be on the topic of action photography. In fact, I've already been jotting down a few ideas and doing some research that has whipped around how I'll be organizing the show. I will only tease you now, but after the episode has been produced I'll do some explaining in the supplemental post.

Here's a quick fun fact before I end off this post. My last name, Balint, which is Hungarian, translates into English as Valentine. And in Hungary there is a name associated with every day of the year, so of course today is Balint day; here's a Wiki article on it... happens to be in Hungarian, but using Chrome should translate the page adequately. So there ya go.

Happy Valentine's Day Everyone!

The Quick Exposure Quiz

2011-02-04T13:13:00.000-07:00

A few days ago I posted a quick quiz on my page on Facebook and I promised a blog post to explain it for those who might not have been sure of the answer. So, below are the three exposures (sensitivity - aperture - shutter speed) I provided and the question was: if you took a photo of the same scene, would the pics look identical or different?

A. ISO 100 - f/5.6 - 1/60 sec.

B. ISO 400 - f/8 - 1/125 sec.

C. ISO 3200 - f/11 - 1/500 sec.

Strictly Exposure
In regard to exposure, A, B and C are identical. In fact, you could put your camera into manual mode and take three photos of the same scene with these settings and the shots should look very much the same (in the section below I discuss some other effects that occur).

In making up this quiz, I decided to stick with standard values for sensitivity, shutter speed and aperture. Therefore, you can use full-stops to figure out any differences between the exposures. In case you're not familiar with the concept of "stops" in photography, I'll give a brief explanation here and I've added a few links to the resources section below on the topic.

First off, a stop can be applied to sensitivity, shutter speed or aperture, as it basically represents a doubling or halving of the intensity of light. So in regard to:

Sensitivity: The standard sensitivity (ISO) scale includes, but is not limited to: ...100, 200, 400, 800, 1600, 3200... Each of these values is one stop apart with each successive value being twice as sensitive to light as the value before it. As an example, 400 ISO is twice as sensitive to light as 200 ISO. 100 ISO is half as sensitive to light as 200 ISO. 400 ISO is four times as sensitive to light as 100 ISO.

Shutter Speed: The standard shutter speed scale includes, but again is not limited to (values in seconds): ...1/500, 1/250, 1/125, 1/60, 1/30, 1/15, 1/8, 1/4, 1/2, 1... As you've probably guess, these values are a stop apart, with each successive time being twice as long as the previous; in terms of shutter speed, the shutter would be open for twice as long, thus allowing twice as much light to fall on the focal plane. Of course the reverse is true, each value preceding the next is half as long, thus a shutter speed of 1/60 of a second opens the curtains for half as long as a shutter speed of 1/30 of a second.

Aperture: Lastly, the standard aperture scale includes, but is not limited to (from small to large aperture): ...f/22, f/16, f/11, f/8, f/5.6, f/4, f/2.8, f/2, f/1.4, f/1... You guess it, each value here is one stop apart, and each successive value allows twice as much light through as the one preceding it. For example, f/2.8 allows twice as much light through as f/4 does. f/4 allows half as much light through as f/2.8 does. f/2.8 allows four times as much light through as f/5.6 does.

Before moving on, you may have noticed that you have a lot more options available to you on your camera than just these standard numbers. Those "in-between" values, like f/3.5 or f/4.5 and other shutter and ISO values not shown here, are generally a third apart. Unlike the good old manual cameras many decades ago, these silicon brainy ones of today can easily accommodate/calculate such a variation of settings, thus providing photographers with a finer degree of control if need be.

Now I still briefly want to go through the quiz, and as you'll see, using the concept of stops will make this task quite simple. I'll be relating both "B" and "C" to "A". By the way and for those unfamiliar with this, positive stop values mean you are moving to a higher ISO, widening the aperture or using slower shutter speeds (in a way, methods of increasing light), whereas negative stop values mean you are moving to a lower ISO, closing the aperture or using faster shutter speeds (in a way, methods of reducing light).

B and A: "B" has an ISO difference compared to "A" of positive two stops, one from ISO 100 to 200 and another from 200 to 400. But "B" has a negative one stop (or one stop down) for aperture and the same negative one stop difference for the shutter speed. Thus, no change: +2 + (-1) + (-1) = 0

C and A: "C" has an ISO difference compared to "A" of positive five stops: 100 to 200, 200 to 400, 400 to 800, 800 to 1600 and 1600 to 3200. "C" is two stops down in regard to the aperture: f/5.6 to f/8 and f/8 to f/11. "C" has a negative three stop difference compared to "A" in regard to shutter speed: 1/60 to 1/125, 1/125 to 1/250 and 1/250 to 1/500. Thus, no change: +5 + (-2) + (-3) = 0

For photog newbies, this may also make it clearer why a negative EV compensation (like -0.7) will darken the photo whereas positive compensations (like +0.7) lighten the image. Depending on the mode you're in, the camera manipulates the aperture or shutter speed to under or over-expose the photo, respectively.

Other Considerations
In my quiz, I was not specific in regard to other image artifacts that would occur due to those exposure settings, but thanks to some eager folks, those things did not go unnoticed. One of those things is depth-of-field (DOF). "A" has an f-number of 5.6, which would produce less DOF than f/8 (B) or f/11 (C), which for example could mean a blurrier background behind the subject in image "A" or conversely, an overall sharper image for "B" and "C". Next, the amount of noise in each photo would vary. There might not be much of a difference between "A" and "B", but "C" at 3200 ISO would surely produce more digital grain; add in the effects of noise reduction and the image might also be softer/less detailed than the other two. And lastly, also thanks to a fan on my page, the difference between the shutter speeds could play a role, especially if the subject is in motion. Time would be more "frozen" in "C", but a 1/60 of a second shutter speed in exposure "A" might result in that subject being blurred (or the background if following the subject; whatever the case).

I really enjoyed creating this quiz and I believe those involved did too, so I think I'll be coming up with more of these in the future. Plus, I also had a vote going to determine which episode I should produce next and the "winner" is ACTION PHOTOGRAPHY (ouu caps lock for excitement)! For those who wanted time-lapse photography, don't fret as I'll be doing that one in the future too.

Web Resources
http://www.digital-photography-school.com/reversing-the-inverse-square-law
http://www.geofflawrence.com/photography_tutorial_inverse_square_law.htm
http://www.uscoles.com/technical.html
http://www.uscoles.com/fstop.htm
http://www.photonhead.com/beginners/stops.php
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shutter_speed
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F-number
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Film_speed

Astrophotography, Part 1; Supplemental Post (B) - Photography with Imre - Episode 32

2011-01-29T20:24:00.001-07:00

In this supplemental post I'll be discussing photography using telescopes, in contrast to part "A" of this two part text that is focused on photographing the night sky without one.

A Little about Telescopes and Eyepieces
Before getting into the photography side of this topic, let's first take a quick look at the three families of telescopes that I mentioned in the episode. I've only written fairly quick summaries below with the intention of providing you with some overall information. If you are interested in finding out more (and believe me there is a lot to learn about scopes), check out the Web resources section.

Refractors: Refractors are basically your classic telescope style; a tube with an objective at the front and eyepiece at the back. The objective is usually comprised of two or three optical elements, the former design generally referred to as achromatic and the latter as apochromatic. Both designs reduce the effects of spherical and chromatic aberrations, but apochromatic ones are more effective. As such, these versions tend to cost more, but for those with cash to spare and the longing for very good optical quality then they're tough to beat (within reason of course). But it's not like the achromatics are that bad either and are still a great choice for those on lower budgets.

There are some nice advantages to refractors, one being that they are very easy to use and most don't require collimation (alignment of the optics) out of the box as that has been done at the factory. Since there is nothing in the way of light getting into the tube as there is with reflectors and catadioptrics, no diffraction spikes/effects occur so you get lovely tiny round dots for stars (no "X" shapes). On the downside they tend to be quite pricey for their size. Last I checked, a 6" achromatic type is around $2,000 with high-end apochromatic ones (like Takahashi telescopes with fluorite lenses) coming close to or just over the five figure mark. In contrast, a 10" Newtonian reflector on a dobsonian mount is about $1,000. Fast telescopes (e.g. f/7) of this type also tend to exhibit more chromatic aberration than slower ones (e.g. f/16).

By the way, some spotting scopes have the ability to be attached onto cameras; they are basically refractors. I have a couple of these, one of which is this model: http://www.amazon.com/Opteka-650-1300mm-Definition-Telephoto-Olympus/dp/B000RLF35E/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1295552730&sr=8-4 Although it doesn't provide outstanding image quality, for its price, it's a ton of fun to play it! I'm digressing...

Reflectors: Unlike refractors, reflectors have no lenses. Instead, mirrors are used to focus incoming light. This has several advantages over using glass (or fluorite) lenses, in that chromatic aberration is no longer an issue as mirrors can focus all frequencies (colors) of light into a single spot. However, for our purposes there are two common types of mirror shapes used in these types of scopes to focus light, one being spherical and the other parabolic. Spherical mirrors suffer from, you guessed it, spherical aberration, which means that parallel rays of light do not get focused into a nice little spot (hence a softer versus sharper image). This is the advantage that parabolic mirrors have, because in their case parallel rays of light are focused into a more precise spot, thus yielding better image quality.

So why are telescopes made with spherical mirrors then if they are inferior to parabolic ones? Well, primarily cost. Spherical mirrors are easier to grind/manufacture and for smaller telescopes, say 5" or less, the effect of spherical aberration isn't as noticeable as it is on larger and faster scopes. I can personally say this is true as I own a 4" Bushnell with a spherical mirror and a 10" scope with a parabolic one, both Newtonian designs. Indeed, the smaller 4" scope actually has very good quality in comparison to what the 10" delivers, aside from the obvious such as more light gathering ability and resolution advantage of the larger one.

Reflectors, such as the common Newtonian (see figure 1; figure 2 shows a closeup of the focuser with an eyepiece in it), are overall quite inexpensive and can produce stunning results, but do have a few disadvantages. Faster scopes of this type, around f/5, have visibly more coma, which makes stars towards the edges of the image look like little comets. This may not be much of an issue if one is just viewing with the naked eye, but photographers might not take well to this artifact. However, this effect can be corrected with various types of eyepieces, an example of this being the 7mm Speers-Waler you see in figure 5. Another matter concerns collimation, the lining up and adjustment of the mirrors/optical elements. Having done this a few times with my scopes, I can comment that it's not very difficult to do, but can be a little time consuming to get it just right. The better the alignment of the mirrors, the better/sharper your image will be, so it's a necessary aspect to such telescopes; there's more information on the art of collimation in the Web resources section below. The last item I'll touch upon is the secondary (aka diagonal) mirror; this mirror held by its four supports (sometimes one on smaller scopes) is affectionately known as the "spider". This smaller mirror, in comparison to the primary, is what redirects light to the eyepiece on the side of the telescope body and blocks a little bit of it from getting into the tube. But this amount of blockage is usually quite minimal, generally a loss of light in the single digit percents. Some photographers may not like the diffraction spikes caused by the spiders "legs". You've surely seen this on some astronomical photographs where stars have "X" like spikes extending out from them. As with most things, this is a personal like or dislike. I don't mind the look of them myself.

Catadioptrics: And now we come to the last type of telescope I'll discuss here. These are very similar to reflectors, but with a couple of slight twists. In regard to similarity, both reflectors and catadioptrics have a primary and secondary mirror, but in catadioptrics the secondary mirror does not reflect light out to the side. Instead, light is funneled back down the tube and through a hole in the primary mirror. As such, the eyepiece holder is at the bottom of the scope. In addition, there is a lens at the front of the scope which plays a role in getting light to focus more accurately off the primary mirror; this is termed "corrector plate" in Schmidt-Cassegrain scopes and "meniscus lens" in Maksutov types. These are very popular scopes as they aren't very expensive, although more than Newtonian reflectors, and they are usually sealed units with the mirrors/optics aligned at the factory, hence requiring minimal maintenance. Overall there are fairly few downsides to catadioptrics. Cost can be seen as one as they are a tad more than reflectors, and the secondary mirror blocks a little light from getting in, but not a major issue.

Again, I'd like to emphasize that there is a great deal more information available about telescopes and if you'd like to find out more, feel free to check out the Web resources section below. Some of the links to go Wikipedia, but after perusing through the articles they seemed to be accurate.

Now for a little bit about eyepieces; figures 3, 4 and 5 show a few of mine. As with telescopes, there are a surprising number of different types out there from simple (and outdated) one lens designs to complex (and usually expensive) multi-element types like Plossls, Erfles and Naglers. In a nutshell, each type has its pros and cons, generally hovering around factors like image quality, field of view and eye relief. Some are also better for looking at dim objects like star clusters or nebulae, others for planetary viewing. There are three common sizes in regard to the eyepiece barrel, the part that slips into the telescope's focuser. Your cheap department store variety of scopes usually have a focuser that can only accommodate 0.965" (24.5mm) eyepieces, whereas many higher quality telescopes you can purchase from dedicated telescope shops accept both 1.25" (31.7mm) and 2" (50.8mm) eyepieces (usually an adapter is needed or is supplied with the scope; see figure 6). My recommendation is that even if you don't have a large budget, at the very least try to get a telescope with a 1.25" focuser, otherwise you may find it difficult down the road to locate good quality eyepieces in the 0.965" size. In addition, those really cheap scopes are exactly that, cheap; you do get what you pay for.

Barlow lenses can be used with eyepieces as they can increase the magnification you can achieve. Common factors include 1.6X (figure 8), 2X, 3X and some are variable (see figure 7). If you're on a budget, Barlow lenses can be a nice way to increase your magnification without requiring additional eyepieces, even if it means some loss of light.

Playing with Numbers

Most of us with telescopes love the fact that we can get massive magnification with them, but it has to be understood that there is a limit. Unfortunately, many department store variety of scopes advertise that their small units can provide ridiculously high values, such as five or six hundred. As far as legal issues go, this is true; put together the appropriate eyepiece with a Barlow lens and there you have it. But in regard to seeing anything useful other than a horribly blurry, faint blob of some sort in your eyepiece, not going to happen. So to roughly find out what a telescope is reasonably capable of in terms of magnification (still yielding a fairly sharp, good quality image), I like to use the following which from experience has proven quite valid: multiply the size of your scope in inches by fifty, then divide by two. So if I use my 10" scope as an example, then (10 X 50) / 2 = 250. For you metric folks out there, you can take the size in millimeters and multiply by two, then divide by two and you'll get nearly the same answer. The "seeing" quality will also affect this, but I've dedicated a section to that topic below.

Ok, so now we have an idea of what the telescope is capable of, but of course you likely won't always be using your peeper tube at this level of magnification. Many night sky areas are just gorgeous with a wide field eyepiece that provides very little magnification, like under 50. Therefore, to find out what level of magnification you're getting with a particular eyepiece, simply divide the focal length of the scope with the focal length of the eyepiece. My 10" Newt has a focal length of 1,200mm and one of my favorite eyepieces is 7mm, so 1,200 / 7 = 171. A 28mm eyepiece on the other hand will give me 42.9 times magnification.

Camera Adapters
To begin with, there are actually quite a few different ways that a camera can be attached onto a telescope. When using an SLR (digital or film), you can often find a t-mount adapter for it (see figure 9). These adapters have a mount on one side that attaches to the camera and a threaded side that screws directly onto some eyepieces, an adapter ring on an eyepiece, or onto a camera adapter (see figures 10 and 11). Some camera adapters, like that shown in figure 10, allows a 1.25" eyepiece to be slipped into it (of course not all of this size will fit). If you have a point and shoot model, one of these types of adapters can be used (sorry, I was lazy to take a photo of mine). The camera is screwed onto the small base and that "O" shaped section is tightened around an eyepiece. Then the height and position of the adapter is adjusted so that the lens of the camera is as close as possible to the eyepiece. On point and shoot cameras with larger lenses, don't be surprised if the image shows vignetting. Those cams with tiny fixed (no zoom that is) lenses generally work well, especially with eyepieces that provide large eye relief; many of the images in the episode were taken with such a setup and turned out quite well.

Do-it-yourselfers have also created their own mounts. In fact my old Fuji was in a holder I made out of nothing more than paper, chopsticks as a frame and lots of tape; worked great on the 7mm Speers-Waler. I've also seen old film canisters modified to accept webcams, and you can purchase CCDs made specifically for astrophotography, but I'll let you poke and prod around the Web to find out more about that.

Cool it! "Seeing" what I'm saying?
At this point I could probably get right into photography with a telescope, but you might be a bit disappointed with the results, especially if you aren't familiar with thermally stabilizing your telescope or bringing it to equilibrium with the environment's temperature before using it. "What!?" you say. All it really means is to let your telescope's temperature match the temperature it is outside (usually cool down). For example, there's a scope indoors at room temperature, about 21C (70F), but you want to take it outside where the temperature is only 10C (50F). If you looked through the scope the moment you took it outside, and for a while afterwards, I can best describe the appearance of the image as if it was underwater. This is caused by a couple of factors, one being that the mirrors and/or lenses (depending on the scope you're using) are contracting and deforming as the material looses heat energy. This movement is incredibly small, microscopic, but more than enough to ruin the quality of the image. In addition, as the scope looses heat it causes weak air currents to form, which also degrade the image quality. Reflectors, with their wide open and unsealed tubes, are most prone to this.

The greater the temperature difference, the longer the time it will take for the telescope to reach this equilibrium. I remember taking my 10" Newt outside when it was a chilly -20C (-4F) and it took over two hours for the image to stabilize. Of course in other not so extreme cases this time span decreases to around under 30 minutes.

Now I've already touched upon this a little in part "A", but "seeing" conditions play a big part in not only how well you can see objects through your telescope, but also how photographs will turn out (or not). Upper level winds/turbulence high up in the atmosphere, level of humidity in the air, amount of dust/pollution and light pollution all play a part in adding gunk between you and the stars, planets and other celestial wonders. It's a combination of these things that make stars twinkle, and indeed, less twinkle is usually a good indicator of better seeing. On some days you'll find that you can easily see the dark division in the rings of Saturn, while on other days it's just a bright oval shape... yet seemingly to our eyes the dark night sky may look no different on either occasion.

Anyway, seeing is nice to know about because if you know what to look for it may save you some time and effort. Imagine if you're about to spend around three hours worth of time taking multiple exposures of some faint bodies in the sky, only to discover that waiting a day or two would have resulted in much clearer photographs. One thing I've certainly become accustomed to when working with my telescope is being patient; whether hunting for that dim nebula, focusing carefully or just plain waiting for the camera to finish exposing.

Photography Using a Telescope
In my video I discussed two methods of photography that can be performed with telescopes, but actually there are three (I made little boo boo) and I discuss them in a little more detail below. Since I have experience using digital SLRs in this case, that's what I focus on --just a fair warning that if you're looking for CDD, webcam or film astrophotography material you'll have to do some Googling on your own.

Prime-focus: As mentioned in the episode, you simply attach the camera body directly onto the telescope's focuser without using an eyepiece or any camera lens. Indeed, this basically turns your scope into a huge lens. Although you don't get a lot of magnification, you don't lose a lot of light either as no lenses get in the way. On my 10" scope (1,200mm focal length) I can basically image the full moon, or about half a degree of the sky. This is also a wonderful method to take some wide-field shots.

Eyepiece Projection: To err is human... :P In the video, I said that attaching your camera body to an eyepiece (no camera lens used) is the afocal method. In fact, I messed up on the terminology. When you attach the camera body to a telescope without a camera lens but are using an eyepiece, you are employing the eyepiece projection (aka positive projection) method. The image the eyepiece delivers is projected directly onto the camera's focal plane (the sensor or film). Thankfully though, the photographs of the planets reflected afocal photography, as the Fujifilm FinePix 40i camera I used has a fixed lens and I was taking pictures through an eyepiece.

Afocal: The afocal method is similar to eyepiece projection, but differs in that a "regular" camera lens is attached or you're using a point and shoot model, which of course has the lens built in. For example, an eyepiece is in the focuser and a point and shoot camera or a dSLR with a lens attached is used to capture photographs.

With both the eyepiece projection and afocal methods, you may experience vignetting depending on the eyepiece you use. But unlike prime-focus, you can achieve much higher magnification levels.

To track or not to track?
With a telescope, not only is the image magnified, but so is the movement of the celestial bodies as they pass across the sky. For example, if I'm looking at Jupiter with my 7mm eyepiece, which gives 171X magnification, every 5-10 seconds I have to nudge my Dobsonian mount a little to keep the gas giant in view.

In regard to photography, this means that the use of long exposures will be next to unusable; even shutter speeds around 1/2 second might end up producing a soft image. So if you do not have a tracking mount at your disposal to counteract the earth's rotation, then you need to look for ways to reduce the exposure time. This means doing such things as using the brightest lens you have wide open (if utilizing the afocal method) and bumping up the ISO as high as you dare. Your selection of eyepiece will also play a role in this too, as the higher the magnification gets the darker the image will become. Then you'll likely need to use slower shutter speeds to get reasonably well exposed photos, but the result may be undesirable. Lastly, you'll also very likely be limited to the brightest of objects in the sky; the moon (easiest target, even at high magnification it's still very bright), Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, maybe Neptune if you have a large scope, bright stars, some open clusters, and maybe a couple of nebulae (again with a large fast scope).

On the other hand, if you have a tracking mount then long exposures become easier to perform (assuming of course that the mount has been properly polar aligned or set up). Since the shutter can be held open for several minutes, you can start to see stunning details develop on photos that would otherwise remain invisible with previously mentioned methods. For example, dust bands in galaxies and even color from otherwise dim dark gray objects come forth. And although I won't get into this, you can also get various filters, like H-alpha, to bring out details that wouldn't normally show up. When thinking of tracking mounts, most people envision an equatorial or alt-azimuth fork style that is driven by a motor. But there are a few manual tracking mounts out there such as the barn door tracker. Motorized tracking mounts aren't inexpensive (especially better quality ones that can support larger scopes), so for those who are happy using a long lens on their SLR to take some celestial shots, these are easy to make and, best of all, quite inexpensive.

Stay Sharp
Before ending this post I want to briefly discuss focusing. I talked a little about this in part "A" in regard to using the camera with a regular lens, but using a telescope can be a bit trickier. Speaking of tricks, there are a few that can be used to make things easier, but I'll start with some of the simple things first. Like astrophotography with a regular lens, aim for the moon. It's so far away that once you focus on it, stars, planets, etc., should all be in focus as well. Be warned though, your night vision might be temporarily compromised due to the brightness of earth's companion. If you're shooting using the prime-focus or eyepiece projection methods then of course the telescope's focuser will need to be adjusted, and if using the afocal setup, both the focuser and camera lens might need to be varied to get a sharp image. Planets and bright stars can also be aimed for in the moon's absence as they can generally be seen well enough.

By chance if you've already tried focusing on planets or stars, you might have noticed that it's still quite cumbersome to perform. The camera's LCD screen or viewfinder just doesn't give you as much luxury as using your own eyes directly with an eyepiece. But that's where some clever people came up with masks that you can temporarily attach to the front of your scope to aid with focusing. The cool part is that with a little effort these masks can be made with supplies as simple as a knife, cardboard and duct tape. Below are some links to these masks so you can read more about them:

Bahtinov mask
Carey mask
Hartmann mask / Scheiner disk

Keeping to the topic of nice sharp images, when shooting bright objects, strongly consider using your camera's mirror lock-up feature and if possible, use a remote to trigger the exposure. For example, if you just use your finger to press down on the shutter button, you'll likely notice that the telescope vibrates slightly for a few seconds; poorer quality mounts tend to be more prone to this, but even sturdier ones can exhibit some flex. Since the shutter speed for bright objects is quite fast, the resulting vibration form the button press may ruin the image. But by delaying the actual exposure for a few seconds this issue can easily be overcome. Now if you're using a point and shoot camera, or there is no mirror lock-up feature, not all is lost. In situations like this you can hold a matte black card in front of the lens, press the shutter button, wait a few seconds after the exposure is triggered, and then quickly move the card away from the lens; poor man's mirror lock-up. Remember to add a couple of extra seconds to the exposure time to compensate for this action.

Although I think I've broken a personal post size record, I've barely scratched the surface of astrophotography. In case you have a question or two, feel free to ask away and if I know the answer I'll be glad to help or point you in the right direction, likely in the form of a blog post. I definitely need a break from all this writing and I have yet to touch my paper airplane-a-day calendar, so I think I'll try my hand at that. L8r!

Web Resources

Telescope related:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Achromatic_lens
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apochromat
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Refracting_telescope
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reflector_telescope
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newtonian_telescope
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catadioptric_system
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schmidt%E2%80%93Cassegrain_telescope
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maksutov_telescope
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eyepiece
http://www.skyandtelescope.com/equipment/basics/Guide_to_Eyepieces.html?showAll=y&c=y
http://www.celestron.com/c3/support3/index.php?_m=knowledgebase&_a=viewarticle&kbarticleid=2213
http://www.celestron.com/c3/support3/index.php?_m=knowledgebase&_a=view - Lots of articles here
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equatorial_mount
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altazimuth_mount
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GoTo_(telescopes)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barn_door_tracker
http://www.nightskypix.com/equip/ScotchMount.htm

Astrophotography related:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astrophotography
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prime_focus#Prime_focus
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afocal_photography

Astronomy magazines:
Amateur Astronomy
Astronomy
Astronomy Now
SkyNews
Sky and Telescope
The Astronomer

Telescope manufacturers:
Bushnell
Celestron
Meade
Orion
Questar
Sky-Watcher
Stellarvue
Takahashi
TeleVue
TMB
Vixen

Collimation:
http://legault.perso.sfr.fr/collim.html

General astronomy sites:
Astronomy Pic of the Day
Canadian Space Agency
ClearDarkSky
European Space Agency
Heavens-Above
NASA
NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Royal Astronomical Society of Canada
SEDS
SETI
Science @ NASA
SkyChasers.net
Space.com
SpaceWeather
Institute for Space Imaging Science

Astronomy related software:
Aberrator
AstroStack
JupSat95
Registax
Sky View Cafe

Figure 1 - An old photo of my 10" Newtonian telescope on its Dobsonian (an alt-azimuth) mouth. A 28mm eyepiece is attached and you can also see the blue finderscope on top.

Figure 2 - Close-up view of the eyepiece holder and finderscope.

Figure 3 - A 1.25" 10mm Plossl eyepiece. Decent quality for viewing purposes.

Figure 4 - A 2" 28mm Plossl eyepiece. Excellent and bright wide-field viewing with this optic.

Figure 5 - This is my pride and joy, a high-end 1.25" 7mm eyepiece; almost 90 degree field of view, razor sharp and huge eye-relief which works well for photography and those who wear glasses. You can't quite tell from the photo, but this thing is huge; almost hard to wrap your hand around.

Figure 6 - Unlike cheap telescopes, higher quality ones require you to place an eyepiece adapter in them depending on the size of eyepiece you want to use. On the left is a 1.25" adapter and to its right is a 2" one.

Figure 7 - Here's a 1.25" variable Barlow lens. You put this into the telescope first, then the eyepiece goes into this unit, and the image is magnified by the value its set to. I've rarely used this one at 3X as the image becomes quite dark and somewhat soft.

Figure 8 - And here's my other Barlow lens, this one being a 2" model which magnifies the image 1.6X.

Figure 9 - Back almost a decade ago, I got this t-mount adapter so I could place my father's Contax camera (35mm film type) onto the telescope. This one didn't see much action and these days I use the Four Thirds one for my Olympus digital SLRs.

Figure 10 - This is an interesting 1.25" camera adapter (notice the threaded portion where the t-mount would screw onto) as you can either use it as an empty tube (prime focus) or place an eyepiece inside of it (afocal).

Figure 11 - This is also a camera adapter, but a 2" model.

The Sky That Didn't Get Away

2011-01-16T20:39:00.000-07:00

In the past few days, including most of today, I have been busily reviewing and editing some of my old digital photographs; some dating back seven or eight years. Only a couple of hours ago did I finally upload just over 100 photos, but I still have thousands of shots to go through, literally. If you check out my Flickr Photostream, you can peruse through these images. For interest, keep your eye on the camera I used for each pic; you'll see images from the now quite old Fujifilm FinePix 40i, the Sony DSC-S60 and the classic Olympus C5050Z.

But anyway, that's not the purpose of this post. Instead, it is about the image that you see below and I recommend you take a quick peek at the full size version; at least you can see some of the fainter stars. This photo brought back some fun memories for me. Succinctly, when I was attending university for my BSc in Computer Information Systems degree, I was told about a programming competition held at the University of Saskachewan and I decided to enter it along with a few other students. Since we were in Calgary, Alberta, this meant we all had a lengthy drive to Saskatoon. Although the scenery was a tad drab (it is the prairies after all) the drive was alright as the company was good.

Jumping ahead, we got to Saskatoon, checked into our cheap hotel, participated in the competition the next day, then had dinner and started the seven hour drive back to Calgary. During the trip to Saskatoon I rode with an instructor from the school and two fellow students, but a third student decided to take his own vehicle and drove alone. On the way back, I decided to keep him company and we chatted about various topics from the competition to daily life. Then a brief quite period manifested. I remember looking ahead, staring out at the headlight lit highway streaming at us and the nearby glow of the instructor's taillights ahead of us. It was just a little after eight in the evening, already completely dark, and we were somewhere close the border between Alberta and Saskatchewan. I got bored watching the yellow and white lines on the road entertain me, so I turned my head to look out the window next to me. This is where things got interesting.

Sounding quite excited, I asked the student to pull off to the side of the road. I told him that I just had to see the sky without a glass window in the way. He hunched closer to the steering wheel and peered up, and within a few moments flashed his headlights to let the lead car know we were stopping. Once we stopped I hopped out of the vehicle and by that time the folks in the car ahead where getting out also. They asked if anything was wrong and my driving buddy and I said, "nope but look up."

My eyes gazed up at the sky, quickly adapting to the darkness. For the first time in my life I saw the Milky Way. There were so many stars together in that galactic band that it actually did appear to softly glow. Unlike the long exposure photographs of our galaxy, I couldn't see its color, but still... it was awe inspiring to say the least. And because of our location, almost literally in the middle of nowhere, not a hint of light pollution spoiled the view as can be seen in the long exposure photograph below; that sky was an even pitch black. If only I had a dSLR and a wide-angle lens with me at the time (not to mention a tripod), I would've been able to capture this wonderful sight in much more detail. But alas, I had to make do with what I had. Since I couldn't handhold a 30 second exposure, I rested the camera on the student's vehicle by propping it up at an angle against the windshield wipers and managed to snap a few shots.

I wouldn't call this a great shot by any means, but it does remind me of something that was special to me. Considering a relatively inexpensive point and shoot camera developed this image, the color of a few bright stars can be seen a bit (plus a couple of hot pixels!) and evidence of how dark it was is clear. Oh well, at the least if I'm ever out in the middle of nowhere again, I'll be much better prepared. I've also been reminded by this that sometimes it's important to just take the shot if you can; don't let that moment get away --perfect picture or not.

Taken October 29, 2005 with the Sony DSC-S60 - 30 second exposure, 200 ISO, f/2.8 - Constellation of Cassiopeia visible middle left.