MEDIAARCHH

Bow-kay Boka, Bowkur? Learn to pronounce Bokeh!

2017-04-09T22:28:00.000+01:00

At some point, aspiring to be photographers and enthusiasts come across the term "Bokeh". Most of us get fascinated by it but but never really get a firm grip on it's pronunciation. Hint why; it's most likely a foreign word ;) .

Luckily for us, Photo Gear News have a put together a fun video on how it's correctly pronounced, enjoy!

Source: fstoppers.com

Steroid Filter; Adobe Algorithm Copies Photo Styles

2017-04-07T13:42:00.001+01:00

Technically called “Deep Photo Style Transfer”, researchers from Adobe and Cornell University have teamed up to develop an algorithm that lifts the photo style from one image to another.

The software is developed on pre-existing technology used in Prisma app which copies painting styles however; the software’s algorithm produces satisfying photorealistic style transfers in a wide range of scenarios including transfer of weather, season, artistic edits and time of day more than 80% of the time.

Here are some examples of the algorithm in action: "A" is the reference image, "B" is the image to be edited and "C" is the output

Example I

Example II

This level of accuracy and faithfulness was achievable by;

(a) Constraining transformation to be locally affine in colour space from input to output in order to prevent distortions.

(b) Introduction of an optional guidance to the style transfer process to avoid content mismatch. This guide is based on semantic segmentation of the inputs.

Hopefully in the nearest future, a refined version of this algorithm will find its way into Lightroom and or Photoshop but do not bank on it for now.

Dive into the tech details behind the algorithm here, also get view the code and more samples via GitHub

Capture Right : Making the most of RAW

2015-12-30T22:53:00.001+00:00

Have you ever seen video tutorials of the advantages of shooting in RAW, being able to pull back immense detail after you take the shot then try the same thing but are not able to pull back some detail? Well, you cannot pull back lost detail because RAW is not a magic format and still obeys the laws of physics.

The aim of this tutorial is to show you how I capture the most useful set of data in one shot while taking a photo; making the most of a RAW file. It focuses on using the HISTOGRAM as a tool and gives an insight on how to read one.

Okay, before we suggest HDR ruling out this "one shot system", HDR is not always ideal for all situations for example, in shooting a scene with long exposure that consists of moving parts as the image for this tutorial. HDR is also not necessary in scenes with dynamic range less than 5 stops of light. As much as I would like to go into that last statement, it is a tutorial that deserves its own separate post.

Below are after and before images from just one RAW file.

After: Lightroom and Photoshop Processed

Before: Straight out of Camera

After seeing both images, we can see the immense amount of detail being pulled back into the shadows which appear black to the eyes. How is this possible? Let's jump into their histograms.

Histograms

Let us first look at the histogram of the "Before image". I have sectioned and annotated the histogram for easier understanding.

Note: Blacks are really dark shadows and Whites are really bright Highlights.

"Before image"

The idea of capturing the most useful set of data is to avoid clipping in both your Shadows and Hghlights. Clipping occurs when you have pixels with 100 percent Black values or 100 percent white values. Pixels with 100 percent Black or White values are lost data.

You can check for clipping immediately after a shot using the histogram as it's visible as "Blacks" climbing the left edge of the histogram or Whites climbing the extreme right of the histogram. This can be done inn camera if you use a DSLR, Bridge or Compact Camera. DSLR cameras can also help you check for clipping automatically.

Here is an example of a histogram with clipped Shadows and Highlights.

Clipping

The "Before image" Histogram has lots of information in the blacks, whites and highlights but the histogram does not touch or climb the left or right edge, although it is very close in the Darks, it does not clip therefore, the information is not lost. This means that we can shift those Darks towards the shadows to properly expose the image and still bring back detail.

Histogram of the "After image"

Finally, we are going to look at the changes made in Lightroom and why.

Changes made in Lightroom

As mentioned earlier, Blacks are really dark Shadows and Whites are really bright Highlights so in order to properly expose the image, I cranked up the shadow slider in Lightroom . Every other slider moved was done with artistic freedom. I pulled up the Whites because the image was taken just after sunset so I wanted that glow around where the sun had set which I consider to be really bright highlights "Whites" and pulled down the highlights a great extent because I did not want them competing with the Whites, this pushes them closer to the Mid-tones were I felt the sky surrounding the glow should be. The blacks where pulled back a little to create contrast and increase the dynamic range of the image.

Note: I did not include the processing done on the colours of the image because it's besides the point. That is why both histograms had just luminance values and no colour information. The colour processing was done in Photoshop.

Time Out with Ziffy Jacobs: Excitement

2015-12-20T15:09:00.001+00:00

Excitement

Winter wonderland (Hyde Park, London), there I was and could feel all the excitement within its movements. That I decided to explore with my shutter. Every shot was either at 1/10th or 1/8th of a second, slow enough to capture excitement and fast enough to slow down the moving crowd.

Enjoy!

Time Out with Ziffy Jacobs: The Nod

2015-12-20T00:21:00.000+00:00

The above Image

The above image was the target for today; supposed to be. I wanted to practice a new technique (exposure blending) I heard of earlier in the day but I couldn't because I had somewhere else to be just after the sunset. The technique requires you to blend images with different exposures and I wanted one of them to be with the city lights on, after sunset.

I turned up at the location (Westminster London) approximately two hours before sunset and had now, plenty of time to shoot things of interest. This I was doing till I saw a fellow "me"

Fellow "Me"

At this point was when and where I had the idea to create a short project called "The Nod". I got the term from a TV series (Black-ish). It was used to refer to that moment when you see your fellow black man and show a sign of recognition; "The Nod"

Below are the Nods I could capture. Enjoy!

Time out with Ziffy Jacobs: Time Slice

2015-12-14T18:12:00.004+00:00

Time Slice

I had come across time slicing while surfing the web a few months ago but I was not sure how to pull it off. I was actually scared of attempting it because it seemed too much for me at the time.

Recently (about a week ago), I came across it again while watching Dan Marker-Moore's "Creating a Time Slice" on YouTube and took it as a challenge. In the video, he spoke about using after effects to create his slices but I have little or no knowledge of that programme so I attempted to create my first Time Slice using Adobe Photoshop. I got my slices from a timelapse project Icreated a few months ago of the O2. It was a successful attempt so I went on to create two more.

Fisrt Time Slice.

1 More

2 More

After creating my second Time Slice, I was back to my "Time Out" theme; looking for points of interest as I found my way back home.

Axis

Slide

Coburg Wharf

Romeo Locks

Above Sea Level

The Real Users

Not Ashore

Time Out With Ziffy Jacobs: Another Place

2015-12-08T21:51:00.000+00:00

The photo gods were "literally" smiling at me when I decided to go and see Antony Gromley's "Another Place" at Crosby Beach, Sefton.

Photo gods.

After a 40min Journey, I was at Crosby beach and was ready to perceive. I first got pulled in by the little waves on a lake, "Crosby Marine Lake". Its a small lake right before you get to the beach where Gromley had his piece installed.

Little Waves

Welcome to Another Place.

Welcome to Another Place

There was a little bit of disappointment at first site because Gromley's installations are scattered all over the place and are far from each other. It was also quite windy and the beach had patches of water with natural dirt.

First Site

At this point, I was in doubt and it was strongly because I had pre-meditated shots (Sunset long exposed shots) in my head and nothing was really going according to plan. I decided to draw inspiration from the pattern of the sand as I drew closer to one of Gromley's installation which was closer to the water. The patterns varied as I drew closer and closer.

Moon

Desert

Canyon

Landforms

Finally, I get close to One of Gromleys installations and the day felt right again. I could now remember the smile from earlier on, the smile of the gods. I decided to make shots out of what the day had for me and so I began to perceive. I was able to percieve a beach, a sun dial and relativity.

Beach

Sun Dial

Relativity

As the sun got closer to the horizon, the strength of the wind increased simultaneously. Objects and pets began to obey the wind but the most obedient element on the beach was its sands. They softly but quickly hovered immediately above solid ground creating a calming effect.

Calming Effect

The obedient beach sand slowly began to swallow my feet and fill my shoes as it creeped through the joints on my camera and tripod. I had to leave now, myself and my gear were at risk. Bye bye Crosby.

Bye bye Crosby

Time Out with Ziffy Jacobs: 07/12/2015

2015-12-07T20:29:00.005+00:00

The Day Begins

The day begins. It is supposed to be Time Out with Kimberly but I sited Santa in excess, literally.

Literally

I stalked their activity for a few metres; turns out to be a race for charity. During my stalking experience, I was able to perceive Javelin, Low Rider, Happy, 534, Bunch of Santas, Many more Santas and a fellow Photographer.

Javelin

Low Rider

Happy

534

Bunch of Santas

Many More Santas

Fellow Photographer

Ok, done stalking for the day; Time for Kimberly. I meet her at hers and off we are to church. She wasn't exactly ready for the time out session because she had something planned, "an outfit" so she resisted as many photos as she could.

Resistance

We get to church in a few mins and it was over in a few mins. It was a very beautiful place to worship and I had a good few spiritual minutes.

Beautiful place to Worship

Oh yes, Shevy met us in church so we all left together. As usual, shevy went to scout in town and Kimberly got interested. I wasnt't, at most? Not really.

Together

My hands are tied now because I love my sister Shevy and helped her with some bags. After four hours of scouting, they both were hungry. Shevy got some KUFCA (KFC) and Kim got some Chopstix. I had got a nick name from Kim at this point. Two actually, "Stalker" and "Koi Koi".

Some Chopstix

After the munchies, we head off to Kim's. On our way, we met Elvis and Forever 2.

Elvis

Forever 2

Here is some Forever 2 Flavour!

Forever 2 Flavour!

We are at Kim's now after the "Flavour", Shevy left to her friends and its time for another Flavour.

Another Flavour

JPEG vs RAW: Why I started shooting JPEG again after two years shooting just RAW

2015-12-05T02:30:00.000+00:00

Before I ever knew about RAW files, I shot JPEG with my eos 1100d and had shot only JPEGs prior to 2013. What drew me to Shoot RAW was that awesome ability to recover detail in the highlights or to dramatically change exposure without losing detail. Yes, that’s what drew me to shoot raw but not why I found that so enticing. I shot raw because I thought it would make my images appear better as a whole and that I would not have to worry about spending time to learn how to get that correctly exposed shot; that shot that wouldn’t require tweaking a JPEG beyond its limits and losing data as a result.

Having shot RAW only for the past two years, my pictures did turn out better in terms of technical quality of an image but it stopped me from understanding what exactly what JPEG and RAW is. It also stopped me from understanding my camera as a whole.

From an easy point of view, RAW files contain all the raw data captured by your sensor while JPEG is an image format, an end product of a RAW file. This means that a JPEG from your camera is always the end product of a RAW file, irrespective of whether your camera is able to produce RAW Files or not. Hence; what separates a JPEG from a RAW file is choice, choice of allowing your camera's firmware process it into JPEG as an end product or you processing it via another programme or software.

So why choose to shoot in JPEG again? Why choose to let my camera process its raw data? To the first, I say it helps me understand my camera through making use of settings that affect the processing and outcome of raw data and to the second, it saves me loads of time and space as RAW files are much larger than JPEG. This as a whole lets me see the true possibilities and power of what camera I posses. It also enables me know and push it to its limits.

Straight out My Camera, (resized for web)

Next Post: When I shoot in JPEG.

Time Out with Kesh (CEO)

2015-12-04T19:02:00.000+00:00

It was a good day to stay indoors till I saw the light!

The Light!

Today's time out is with Kesh, (CEO). I Had no business spending the day with him prior to "The Light". He was headed for the city centre (Liverpool) to get some toiletries and make some complaints.

Lets begin with him in the living room completing the episode of top gear he was perceiving while he took a look out his window then move on to a selfie in the elevator as we both head downstairs.

Looking Out

Selfie in the Elevator

Okay, back on track. I had seen an exhibit being put up on my "Time Out" with Shevy from yesterday and today, it was all set up so I was able to seize the view while I left my talent to stay ahead of me.

The View

Ahead of Me

Next up, we walked into a gathering and stared at them for a while till we realised not all of them were real. Some of them were installations, lifeless super human size installations. It was a new series of statues that wasn't present a day ago.

Lifeless Super Human Installations

My Talent was eager to see the super cars from my time out with Shevy but to our suprise, there was a bit more to feast our eyes on.

Super Car From Yesterday

Feasting My Eyes Through the Lens

CEO (Talent) Feasting

CEO's Feast!

We stop our feasting after a few minutes and walked past Temple Lane. I got a shot of Liverpool Radio City Tower while my Talent was on his phone messaging away.

Temple Lane

Liverpool Radio City Tower

Messaging Away

We arrive at the "complaint place", he speaks a few words and we head to tick off the last task for the day. He stops after a while and waits for me to catch up with him, I caught up and let him stay ahead again and again till we walked into his previous boss.

Complaint Place

Kesh Waits

Ahead Again and Again

Previous Boss

Now, we are at the city centre, St Johns and very close to the radio tower and I think Santa may have mistook it for a super chimney.

Super Chimney

We get to Clas Ohlson in the city centre which was his final stop for the day. In there, he wonders why the tools to clean a pressing iron was more expensive than the iron itself, enjoys the stores audio up-close, got excited about a fountain speaker, I buy a camera bag, he buys a selfie stick and we head out to other stores. Yes, I was mistaken; that wasn't the final task.

Wonders

Audio Up Close

Fountain Speakers

I had an urge to get a general purpose shoe so we went to more stores. The first I got told off taking photos of the mannequins. It got to me but only because I had slightly over-exposed the only shot I was able to take.

Slightly Over-Exposed

Now we are at the third store, he's just cool climbing up the stairs, he texts a little bit more as he waits, I get my shoes then we arrange to meet up with Shevy. She turned out to be in the city centre as well. Shevy was hungry so she had lunch and we bumped into Kimberly!

Cool Climbing Up the Stairs

A little bit More

My Shoes

Met Shevy

Shevy Gets Some Food

Kimberly!

Kesh and I set off home afterwards and had to stop at this point because my hands were too full. We helped Shevy carry her bags.

Time Out With Shevy

2015-12-03T19:34:00.001+00:00

Today's images are with; Shevon (Shevy). The day wasn't exactly my cup of tea until the sun gave it some light. We were headed for town to do some grocery shopping and some shopping.

Shevy

Today Lit Up

Shevy in Today's Light

After walking for a while, I tried to stage a scene but it was way too cold for her to stay focused and she didn't really know exactly what I was trying to achieve.

Staged

Suddenly, the sun was away and I was back to the cup of tea that wasn't mine. I left her to travel in her own pattern as I tried to perceive her through the lens.

Shevy Through The Lens

This was up until we saw some super cars, an F1 racing car and Lita. Lita wanted a photo beside one of the cars and Shevy got a bit excited. We did not know Lisa.

Super Cars

Lita

Selfie on the Way

Perceiving through the lens came to a halt after this point because I got occupied with traffic and helping her and myself out in stores but I couldn't miss this shot.

This Shot

Time Out with Ziffy Jacobs

2015-11-19T09:28:00.001+00:00

Perception is a Mirage of Knowledge

Time Out with Ziffy Jacobs is a photography session that aims to create images with context; images that project the essence of self and character with reference to time and space.

In order to achieve such images, the process of photography is void of control over both self and character but decisive of time and space therefore; I shoot not in the best light but in the best space and time with available light [natural light].

I believe that the best space is wherever essence can be expressed or complemented be it at work, the car, the lake, the park, at home etc. The best time is any and every time with reference to that space.

"Epic Strut" : Fredrick Bond

2015-02-03T19:07:00.000+00:00

Always wondered who was the brains behind this awesomeness and I decided to find out today. Its "Fredrik Bond" director from Sonny London.

Never heard of him before now but it turns out he is very well known especially for his movie: The Necessary Death of Charlie Countryman.

Every bit of the video (Ad) I found so well planned and carried out, from the expression of "epic" on his face (Michael Van Schoick) to the awe on the faces of the passers-by, the perfectly choreographed struts and the voice and expression of Sharon Osborne.

It turns out the main guy (epic man) had never done an ad before and was a fresh cast. Also, part of the inspiration was from "Beyonce's Butt".

The bum isn't real as well and there wasn't any CGI involved.

Agency: Mother

Production Company: Sonny London

Michael Van Schoick - Epic Man

Sharon Osborne - Voice

The Pussycat Dolls - Don't Cha