Tim

Oil and Water Abstract Photography How To

I am working on a 365 day project. In the first week of the project I explored different ways of making interesting abstract images using oil and water. This is a simple procedure that yields stunning results. All you need is a transparent pan or dish, something to prop it up on, a light source, an interesting background, olive oil and some water. To achieve good results fill your dish with water with it suspended above the interesting background, then pour oil into the pan. You can also use a spray bottle to get the oil into the pan. Experiment with focussing your lens at varying depths to alter your results. I made a video showing the procedure more in depth. Thanks for watching!

Nikon’s New 180-400mm Announced!

Nikon’s answer to Canon’s 200-400mm is here! The new Nikon 180-400mm with 1.4x Teleconverter. You can preorder it here!

Press Release:

About Nikon 180-400mm

Pros who spend time behind a super-telephoto lens know a hard truth: when you need a teleconverter, you often need it in a hurry. For these moments, Nikon proudly introduces the AF-S NIKKOR 180-400mm f/4E TC1.4 FL ED VR, a super-telephoto zoom lens with a built-in 1.4X teleconverter. Capture sports, events and wildlife in lifelike brilliance from 180-400mm, then, without breaking shooting posture, engage the integrated teleconverter and increase your reach to 560mm f/5.6 (840mm equivalent on a DX body). Incorporating remarkable advancements in optical design, autofocus performance, Vibration Reduction and durability, this lens is bound to become the new standard for serious field photographers.

Nikon 180-400mm Features

  • Professional super-telephoto zoom with Nikon’s first built-in selectable 1.4X teleconverter
  • Advanced optical design with 8 ED glass elements, a Fluorite element and Nano Crystal Coat produces unwavering image quality
  • Blazing fast subject acquisition and locked-on tracking, especially when used with Nikon’s 153-point AF system
  • Lightweight, durable construction with advanced weather sealing, internal focus and Nikon’s nonstick Fluorine coating
  • Next-generation Vibration Reduction (VR) system that starts immediately and includes three shooting modes

 

 

– Using links on this page to make a purchase directly supports this site, Thank you!

Inexpensive Chroma Key Paint

Recently I was tasked with building a small green screen that was attached to a small base with some hinges so that it could be lifted up and down as needed throughout filming. I had always known about the standard muslin chroma key backdrops but hadn’t really thought much about chroma key paint. When planning for this project I decided that it would be best to build it out of wood with a metal base. In concluding this I had to look for an alternative solution to the standard muslin chroma key backdrop.

The first solution that we had was a piece of poster board. This worked fine but was easily damaged and hard to keep in place. I probably could have attached this to the board/hinge assembly and been fine but I started thinking about paint. It didn’t occur to me that I needed a specialty paint, I figured I would just need some shade of green.

In doing research I came across this, which is the most expensive paint that I have ever seen in my life. I needed to paint a board that was less than 3 square feet, spending $75 wasn’t really an option. I took to the internet to find another solution. At first I was trying to figure out if there was something special about this paint but all that I could find is that it is just super thick latex paint that covers in one coat. I eventually stumbled across a blog which is where I found the information that I am going to pass along to you.

As it turns out there is a far less expensive option. It is known as a Home Depot Disney color called Gama Sector Green. Some kind human on the internet went through the process of going to Home Depot, getting all of the paint swatches that were close to a muslin chroma key green backdrop, and finding the one that matched. The pictures on the blog were pretty convincing so I decided to go for it. Unfortunately when I arrived at the Home Depot I couldn’t find it. I looked high and low and was unable to find this mythical Gama Sector Green. In fact, I wasn’t able to find any Disney colors at all. I eventually decided to ask the kind lady behind the counter if they still had it. She told me that if I had the name, they could probably mix it. Luckily they had it.

Here is the code if you are also interested in picking this paint up. I had this made in the most inexpensive court of paint that

they had but I am assuming that if you needed something more robust they would be able to mix it for you. It’s important to get it flat. Too much gloss will likely cause your lights to reflect too much off the paint and interfere with the green screen effect. I can see a lot of uses for this paint. You could paint a wall, make a small screen like I did, paint other objects to blend in with a wall, ultimately the only thing limiting what you can do with this is your creativity.

Below you can see a video of me painting the board, talking a bit about the paint itself as well as touching a little bit on the green screen process. Thanks for stopping by! Have a great day!

 

Photography Light Box

A lot of people sell things online using only their phone to take photos of the products. A lot of products that are sold online are small and easy to light with an inexpensive diy light box. A light box gives you a nice even light over whatever you stick inside of it. It is essentially a soft box with the options to put lights on 4 of the sides. It can be used without light but putting lights on at least three of the sides gives the best results. I built two versions of the box. One of them can be built for $2 worth of materials, the other with about $20 worth of materials. In the videos below I show the process of building the boxes along with the materials that you will need to do so.

Pluto Trigger: Laser Test

I tested out the laser function of the Pluto Trigger. For those that don’t know, the Pluto comes with a laser. I had high hopes for this but unfortunately in the daylight situation it fell short. I still think that it could be useful in complete darkness but for daylight situations this is not a viable option. Check out the video below for a full showing of my tests and my results!

A Look at Focal Length

Focal length is the length of the lens. Common focal length ranges go from 16mm-200mm. There are lenses that go up to 800mm and beyond but for primary usage something in the 16-200mm range is usually sufficient. The top of the line Canon Zoom lenses cover this range. In the Canon line up 3 lenses are needed to cover the range: 16-35mm, 24-70mm and 70-200mm. There are multiple versions of each but all of them are excellent high performing lenses.

The lenses are engineered so that the maximum amount of glass in the lens is being used when it is being used on a full frame camera. When these lenses are used on a cropped sensor camera not as much of the lens is used due to the smaller sensor size. This creates the same effect as cropping the image which is why camera manufacturers talk about the cropped field of view. On Canon cameras it is typically a factor of 1.6x which means that if you have a 16mm lens on a cropped sensor camera you would need a 25.6mm lens on a full frame camera to duplicate the field of view. Clear as mud?

There are lenses that are made specifically for cropped sensor cameras and while those lenses aren’t compatible with full frame cameras they are typically made to have focal lengths that are equivalent to similar full frame lenses. For example Canon has a 10-22mm lens that can only be used on cropped sensor cameras. The crop factor for Canon’s sensors is 1.6x. So 10-22 on a cropped sensor will produce the exact same image as a 16-35mm on a Full Frame camera. This can be useful when it comes to needing more reach. For example, a 200mm lens on a cropped camera will give you the equivalent of 320mm. Below are examples of various focal lengths throughout the 16-200mm range using a full frame camera. For these photos the camera was fixed to a tripod, all camera settings were kept the same, the only thing that changed was the focal length and the lens.

As you can see there is an enormous difference between 16mm and 200mm. A slight amount of distortion is also evident in the 16mm shot. These shots are intended to give you an idea of what field of view to expect with each focal length. It is typically said that 50mm on a full frame camera gives close to what you see with your eyes. To achieve this same field of view on a cropped sensor a 35mm lens would be sufficient. Both of these lenses are extremely popular choices!

Thanks for reading, have a great day!

Pluto Trigger: Water Drop Tutorial

Creating water drop collisions with the Pluto Trigger can be an extremely fun and rewarding process. It can also be extremely frustrating. I will attempt to explain things here but I have also put together two videos to show the process of how to do it which are linked below. The first video shows the setup, I show 2 different ways to connect flashes, the valve, and your camera so that you can start capturing water drop collisions. In the second video I show the process of getting the two drops to collide. There are a lot of things that I didn’t cover in the video that pertain to getting artistic photos, I will mention those briefly here but do not plan to make a video on it at any time in the future.

First of all there are two, potentially three different ways to set the Pluto and Valve up in order to get results. The first and most simple way is to plug the Pluto into the valve and then plug the Pluto into your flash. For this you need one camera, one flash and nothing more to trigger them than what came in the box with the Pluto and the Valve. You can add more flashes to this method by purchasing wire splitters, which are available from Pluto, and splitting your wire out to as many flashes as you like. This method requires it to be perfectly dark as you will be working with long shutter speeds to capture the action. First set the shutter speed to 1-2 seconds. Then trigger the shutter so that it is open. Then start the trigger. The flashes with illuminate the scene and capture the image to the open sensor.

The second method, my preferred method, I plug the valve into the Pluto then plug the Pluto into the camera, the camera then fires the flashes using a wireless transmitter. I like this method because it allows me to work with the lights on. In this method I am able to set the shutter speed to 1/200 of a second which makes the entire scene dark aside from what is illuminated by the flashes. The flashes are then triggered with the wireless transmitter.

The third method I have not tested so I am not even sure that it works. The third method would be a hybrid method because the Pluto allows you to trigger your camera with IR. In theory you could plug the Pluto into your flashes with a wire and also use it to trigger the camera with the IR trigger. I think this creates too many variables but if you’re feeling spry you could give it a shot.

When it comes to the water basin I usually set the valve up about 1 foot above it, meaning that the bottom of the valve is roughly one foot above the top of the water. I fill the catch basin all the way to the brim, because of this I always make sure to have it inside of a second basin to catch the overflow. As for mixing the water I show how to do it in both videos. In the first video I mix in some borax, in the second I use just plain water. It’s possible to get great collisions without mixing anything in but I have found to get big stringy drops you need to add something. I have experimented with all sorts of stuff but I always use borax as a base. I have experimented by adding in some acrylic paint for color, food coloring and corn syrup. Keep in mind that adding things to the water changes the consistency and will also change the required settings.

Lastly, to get a drop to collide with another drop you need to get the first drop to fall, drop, hit the water then rebound to it’s highest point. This will give you a pillar. The best way to do this is to shut off drop 2 completely and just photograph drop one until it is at that point. Once drop one is at that point then add in drop 2. Keep in mind that the drop 2 delay will always be less than your flash delay, typically by a considerable amount.

When it comes to the artistic stuff you can add things to your water as I mentioned or you can use flash gels, interesting backgrounds, really when it comes to this there are no limits, use your imagination and have fun! If you have any questions that  weren’t cleared up by this or the videos please feel free to shoot me an email I will do my best to help you out. If you want to see some images that I have captured using the Pluto trigger click here.

If you found this helpful and would like to help me out you can use this affiliate link (or the one at the top of the article) to make purchases from Pluto, you can also become a supporter on Patreon.

Thanks for stopping by, have a great day!

Understanding Sensor Sizes

In the last article I discussed megapixels. Your camera operates by using a digital sensor to capture light. Each pixel senses light and sends the information that it senses to the camera for it to be processed into an image. Essentially each pixel captures 3 black and white channels, one red, one green, one blue and the brightness of each. This information is relayed to the processor of the camera as a digital string of numbers. The processor then deciphers the data and produces a color image. This is the basic premise of an extremely complicated process but I think that it’s enough information to understand the topic of the day: sensors.

 

As you can see in the photo there are many different sensor sizes used in the digital camera world. The smallest box is close to the size of an iPhone sensor while the “Full Frame” box is most closely related to traditional 35mm film. This is where understanding megapixels and how pixels work comes into play. Regardless of how large or small your sensor is X megapixels is X megapixels.

Since the iPhone is 12 megapixels and also the smallest sensor on our list we will use 12 megapixels as the reference point. 12 megapixels on the smallest sensor will give you very small pixels. In order to fit 12 million pixels on a chip that tiny, the pixels have to be small. As you go up in size and get a larger sensor the pixels can be larger on the sensor. What’s the benefit of larger pixels? Light sensitivity. A larger pixel will be able to detect light more accurately than a smaller pixel thus giving better image quality all around and especially in low light. Since capturing light is what photography is all about I’d say that larger pixels should be a priority.

This is also why I mentioned megapixels not being everything in the article about megapixels. 12 megapixels on a small sensor are not equivalent to 12 megapixels on a large sensor. It may seem like the same thing, and you’re effectively getting the same number of pixels but the quality and the performance of those pixels will be very different. This is also one reason why large prints made from photos that were taken with cell phones often look atrocious. Optics also plays a major role in this but that is a topic for another day.

Thanks for stopping by!

 

The Megapixel Myth

It seems that every time someone asks me about which camera to buy the word “megapixel” comes flying out of their mouth. It’s as if this mysterious megapixel is some sort of end all be all in camera conversations. If the camera has more megapixels it’s obviously better, right? Camera companies and their marketing departments have tried exceptionally hard to get people to believe this, and it has apparently worked. The fact is most people aren’t really even sure what a megapixel is, or how it relates to image quality.

First we need to understand a few things. In the print industry a professional quality print is typically 300dpi which is the resolution and means that there are 300 dots printed per inch. This is the standard for something viewed up close, meaning anything viewed from 2 feet or less. As you get farther away from the image less dpi are required for the image to appear clear to our eyes. However if you print something at a lower resolution it will look fuzzy up close, so keep that in mind when you’re ordering prints. This was a very brief crash course on DPI and printing resolution and should give you enough understanding for us to continue talking about the main subject here, megapixels.

A megapixel is defined as a graphic unit of resolution equivalent to one million pixels or exactly 1,048,576 pixels. This means that the width of the image multiplied by the height of the image equals one million pixels. The iPhone 7 has 12 megapixels while most current point and shoot cameras are in the 18 – 20 megapixel range while current DSLR cameras start at around 18 megapixels and go up from there. This means that the lowest camera resolution currently readily available for purchase (late 2017) is 12 megapixels. But do we really even need 12 megapixels?

To properly answer this question let’s take a look at how many pixels are needed to make a 300 dpi print in common sizes. But first what is a “common size?” In my years of taking photos I have covered many events where I offered prints for sale, including; weddings, engagements, newborn photos, a school semi formal and senior portraits. In all of the sessions I completed not one person, ever, ordered a print larger than 11×14. This also rings true of what I see in peoples homes. Most people have framed photos throughout their home with the most common size being 4×6 or smaller with the occasional 8×10 or 11×14. That’s not to say that people don’t order larger photos but in my experience 11×14 is the absolute maximum that people are going to order.

An 11×14 photo at 300 dpi is 3,300 x 4,200 pixels, or 13.8 megapixels. Drop that 11×14 down to 275 pixels per inch and you have your 12 megapixels. The drop in DPI will likely be noticeable to a keen observer but the average passerby will never notice the difference. Also worth noting here is that you aren’t likely to be staring at an 11×14 from 2 inches away, more likely is you’ll be viewing it from a couple of feet, or more, away which will make the drop in DPI even less apparent.

Does this mean that you should go out and print a bunch of 11×14 images from your iPhone? Or that a standard point and shoot is going to give you the same results as a DSLR? The answer to both questions is “not necessarily.” There are other factors at play that are far more important than resolution, such as sensor size and lens quality that are beyond the scope of this discussion.

In conclusion, megapixels aren’t important for the casual user. If you never intend to print something larger than 11×14 10-12 megapixels should suit your needs just fine. For years I shot with a Canon 40D which has 10 megapixels. All of my paid gigs were shot with that camera and I never had an unhappy customer. I have even printed 20×30 posters for my own personal use with images from that camera and they look great. If I were to make a billboard or some enormous prints for a gallery show I may be more worried about it but for standard sizes 10 megapixels is more than enough to get you by. My advice is to worry less about megapixels and more about the sensor and lens quality.