Share your July Photos (2023)
Quote from Cory Maben on July 13, 2023, 8:02 amQuote from Gideon Liddiard Photography on July 13, 2023, 7:13 amThe final set of images from last weekend's gig.
I really dig the second image, with the green lighting and the spot of red. I'm not sure if it's editing or a consequence of the red-green lighting, but I like how his face is has the correct colors for just a moment. Very cool.
Thanks. The green light is from the lighting in the cafe the gig was at, the red was coming off the lights from the gear Charlie was using.
I brought the red out a little more in editing, but it looked great on the day and I'm happy I managed to capture it.
Quote from Cory Maben on July 16, 2023, 10:56 am[...] I could also put my SD1 on there and so I did really quick, not great shots, I just wanted to see what the images would look like:
SDIM2860 by Cory Maben, on Flickr
Not great? You're fishing for compliments. I like that image in many ways: the story, the atmosphere, the composition - I don't know how to make it better.
Speaking of shutter speed, anything below 1/15th of a second suffered softness from the mirror slap, although I suspect on a heavier tripod I could get around that.
Is there a hook at the underside of the top of your tripod? That's for hanging some weight on it or to tense it up with something on the ground. Perhaps that would be sufficient.
E.
Quote from James Warner on July 15, 2023, 8:39 pmQuote from KankRat on July 15, 2023, 3:13 pmwith the 100mm token. DOF is too shallow.
I was just looking at those bugs the other night wishing I had a macro with me 🙂
Try the 300 prime.
Is that your greenhouse?
Quote from KankRat on July 16, 2023, 3:21 pmQuote from James Warner on July 15, 2023, 8:39 pmQuote from KankRat on July 15, 2023, 3:13 pmwith the 100mm token. DOF is too shallow.
I was just looking at those bugs the other night wishing I had a macro with me 🙂
Try the 300 prime.
Is that your greenhouse?
Not my greenhouse, but it's inspired me to surround my future greenhouse with wildflowers one day. What a look! 😀
@corymaben you are on a roll this month! What a great serious of night images. Very different from the kinds of things I shoot and the looks I go for. I dig it. I like the serious of wide angle low to the ground shooting up. I think that's a unique perspective on the night shot that I haven't seen before.
Mamiya ZD out on a walk tonight:
Quote from Cory Maben on July 17, 2023, 6:20 amHere are some photos from last night and it is the proper start of my photography project:
DSC01666 by Cory Maben, on Flickr
DSC01653 by Cory Maben, on Flickr
DSC01648 by Cory Maben, on Flickr
DSC01644 by Cory Maben, on Flickr
DSC01640 by Cory Maben, on Flickr
I'm very keen on feedback if you guys have any at all. I think I've developed the aesthetic but I can see how it could get visually exhausted. So for my project I need to become selective in which shots I include. Finding some kind of distinct feeling or implication or atmosphere specific to a building is necessary to it being included in the set, rather than it simply meeting just the aesthetic criteria. It needs to mean something more than just I enjoy how it looks.
As an aside on my first time using a tripod; I cannot believe how long I resisted using one! It feels instantly like exactly h0w I wanted to be shooting and I think I mostly resisted on account of 'camera anxiety' -being afraid of drawing too much attention to myself, but as I've realized the tripod makes everyone more comfortable, not less. It's a clear, confident statement of exactly what you're doing and that tends to clam people down.
Great work, and a seriously interesting project, which reminds me a little of Todd Hido's work, but with more than enough to differentiate it.
If I was going to be critical (you did ask) I would be interested to see versions with the perspective corrected, which may or may not work better - I'm genuinely not sure; and for me the first and last shot really standout because they strike the right balance between subject isolation in the dark and having 'just' enough foreground detail to place them somewhere. That balance in those two gives them a real liminal feel that makes me want to know more.
Quote from Cory Maben on July 18, 2023, 7:54 amQuote from Gideon Liddiard Photography on July 18, 2023, 6:50 amQuote from Cory Maben on July 17, 2023, 6:20 amHere are some photos from last night and it is the proper start of my photography project:
I'm very keen on feedback if you guys have any at all. I think I've developed the aesthetic but I can see how it could get visually exhausted. So for my project I need to become selective in which shots I include. Finding some kind of distinct feeling or implication or atmosphere specific to a building is necessary to it being included in the set, rather than it simply meeting just the aesthetic criteria. It needs to mean something more than just I enjoy how it looks.
As an aside on my first time using a tripod; I cannot believe how long I resisted using one! It feels instantly like exactly h0w I wanted to be shooting and I think I mostly resisted on account of 'camera anxiety' -being afraid of drawing too much attention to myself, but as I've realized the tripod makes everyone more comfortable, not less. It's a clear, confident statement of exactly what you're doing and that tends to clam people down.
Great work, and a seriously interesting project, which reminds me a little of Todd Hido's work, but with more than enough to differentiate it.
If I was going to be critical (you did ask) I would be interested to see versions with the perspective corrected, which may or may not work better - I'm genuinely not sure; and for me the first and last shot really standout because they strike the right balance between subject isolation in the dark and having 'just' enough foreground detail to place them somewhere. That balance in those two gives them a real liminal feel that makes me want to know more.
Thanks for the feedback, I genuinely appreciate it! The distortion was an intentional look I was going for, it's part of the reason I bought a 16mm lens. I wanted the buildings to wrap around and warp to make them a bit more alien. But to satisfy your curiosity (and now frankly mine), I'm not 100% sure how to. I checked and I have in camera corrections turned on and in Capture One, I am using the "manufacturer profile" in the Lens Correction tab. Maybe I'm missing something, because I've never actually done and manual lens correction, I've always let the camera and/or software sort it out. I've downloaded the profile from Viltrox and emailed Capture One about adding it manually to Capture One. But I was under the impression that this kind of distortion was inherent to wide angle lenses, I am very close to some of the buildings. But when I hear back I'll reach out with either the corrected images or the information that they are indeed already corrected.
But now that you mention it I am going to agree, I think I was a bit zealous in cropping out the foreground to show the void above the building, but maybe in order to truly get across the unreality, I must first ground them somewhere. I think that is an excellent observation. I will see about re-cropping those edits and see if there is any foreground to ground them with. In the future I will definitely keep that in mind.
I'm not a Capture One user, but I believe they call it Keystone Correction (it's called perspective correction in Lr and ACR)...
https://www.captureone.com/blog/how-to-correct-perspective-with-the-keystone-tool
...can't wait to see the re-edits as well.
Stereo:
Nerodia in Stereo by Mark Kasick, on Flickr
Quad
Nerodia in Quad by Mark Kasick, on Flickr
Frawg
bull frawg by Mark Kasick, on Flickr
Quote from Cory Maben on July 18, 2023, 7:01 pmOh! So that's what keystone correction is for, I thought it was a lens distortion issue. Now I know, thanks for that! I also took the time (to the extent that there was resolution remaining) to ease the crop in the foreground. I feel like you were correct, a bit more foreground helped in every case where it had been cropped very close. The perspective correction I felt benefited 1653 the most. I felt like it hurt 1640 and 1648 and I can't decide which version of 1644 is better. But I'm curious to hear which you think it hurt/helped. Here are the results:
DSC01653-KEY by Cory Maben, on Flickr
DSC01648-KEY by Cory Maben, on Flickr
DSC01644-KEY by Cory Maben, on Flickr
DSC01640 -KEY by Cory Maben, on Flickr
The main problem I have with it is that it eats up so much resolution to fix that it really limits my cropping options and/or makes my files drastically smaller. I like the distortion in some shots but I feel others were helped by correcting it. Is there a way to go about controlling it in camera? Is it just a matter of moving back further from my subject? If I got like a 17mm or 18mm lens would that make it less extreme at the same distance? (Not that I necessarily would, I'm just trying to figure out how perspective distortion works.)
Unfortunately, it is going to reduce the total area you have to work with, and I'm not aware of any camera that would allow you to do it 'in-camera' and even if it did, you would still have the same issue.
You can reduce the effect by getting your lens as parallel to the buildings as possible, but that's going to reduce your options for composition. Two possible solutions are:
- Shoot multiple images and stitch them together before correcting the perspective.
- Invest in a Tilt Shift lens (this is potentially an expensive route.
BTW - I love the new edit of 1640.
Quote from Cory Maben on July 20, 2023, 3:55 amSo since I now have a tripod, I was able to use the Sony pixel shift feature, which moves the sensor in 1px increments so each pixel gets exposure to all 3 colors. It is nearly impossible to use even when shooting buildings given movement cannot be corrected for and I'm very surprised how hard that is to find. There is always bushes or branches or a flag or cars which messes up the shot. Interestingly this is the same premise of the Foveon sensors (that each pixel absorbs all color information) and so it gives you a rough idea of the detail a 42.4 megapixel x3 Foveon would theoretically have and it's a mind blowing amount of detail. I'm not sure how much of it will survive the conversion to JPG and then uploaded to flikr but anyway, here is the one successful shot I was able to get and I think it's very deserving of it. I like the image a lot:
DSC01905-DSC01908 by Cory Maben, on Flickr
My Olympus E-M1 MkII has a similar feature and the end results are stunning, but the same as you limited to tripod work. What amazes me is the E-M1 MkIII and later models, allows you to use the feature handheld and will even account for a degree of movement in the image!!
My home town has just put on an art trail of 72 ballon dog statues, it's going to be like photographic Pokemon Go! He's my first one (found five so far).
On an unrelated note, @corymaben I've found a camera brand that does in-camera keystone compensation, it's Olympus/OM Systems.
https://thedigitalstory.com/2014/11/how-to-use-keystone-compensation-omd-em1.html
