Official Photography Thread

[RobinFinderson]

And here are some of the pinhole results:

[RobinFinderson]

[RobinFinderson]

And here are some results from shooting pinhole with a strong flash (family portraits):











All done uploading photos!

[tooblue]

OK, I may have to break down and buy a Windows license (or hijack the Kids MBP) to run the next version of Photoshop... wow:

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@3:00, @3:40, and @4:10

In other news, math is cool.

cheers.

Earth images captured by balloon:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8588156.stm

[tooblue]

Not bad for £500 (~$750)... but the Brit hobbyist has nothing on two MIT students that built a similar balloon-based space camera for $150.

Meet the $150 (almost to) Space Camera.

Bespoke is old hat. Off-the-shelf is in. Even Google runs the world’s biggest and scariest server farms on computers home-made from commodity parts. DIY is cheaper and often better, as Justin Lee and Oliver Yeh found out when they decided to send a camera into space.

The two students (from MIT, of course) put together a low-budget rig to fly a camera high enough to photograph the curvature of the Earth. Instead of rockets, boosters and expensive control systems, they filled a weather balloon with helium and hung a styrofoam beer cooler underneath to carry a cheap Canon A470 compact camera. Instant hand warmers kept things from freezing up and made sure the batteries stayed warm enough to work.

Of course, all this would be pointless if the guys couldn’t find the rig when it landed, so they dropped a prepaid GPS-equipped cellphone inside the box for tracking. Total cost, including duct tape? $148.

There are more pictures and video on the Project Icarus website as well as a guide so you can do a launch yourself out in the Utah/Wyoming/Nevada/whatever desert.

cheers.

Oh, that's right. I forgot about those guys. D'oh!

[HuskyFreeNorthwest]

I was able to snap these two yesterday while spending some time in the forest. With the goats that was just right place right time.

[falafel]

All done uploading photos!

Those are cool photos Finderson. How exactly does the pinhole alter things?

[RobinFinderson]

Those are cool photos Finderson. How exactly does the pinhole alter things?

The pinhole is very tiny compared to 'real' lenses. The size of the aperture (the hole that lets light onto the film) is what determines the depth of field (the area of the photograph that remains in focus). Tiny hole = lots of stuff in focus. One of the interesting things about pinhole photography is that everything is pretty much in focus, because the hole is so bloody tiny.

The smaller the hole, the longer it takes to make a good exposure, because very little light is entering the camera. Generally speaking, hand-held shots range from 1/80th of a second to 1/2000th of a second. These pinhole shots (except the flash images (the portraits)) were all taken with one second or longer exposures. Handshake and subject movement cause things to blur quite a bit, which is sort of nice... it is one of the things that I like about pinhole cameras, they make unexpected images.

Another great result of the pinhole camera is that it can shoot things that are very close. Most lenses can't focus on things that are close, unless they are macro lenses. The pinhole doesn't care how close or far things are.

[falafel]

The pinhole is very tiny compared to 'real' lenses. The size of the aperture (the hole that lets light onto the film) is what determines the depth of field (the area of the photograph that remains in focus). Tiny hole = lots of stuff in focus. One of the interesting things about pinhole photography is that everything is pretty much in focus, because the hole is so bloody tiny.

The smaller the hole, the longer it takes to make a good exposure, because very little light is entering the camera. Generally speaking, hand-held shots range from 1/80th of a second to 1/2000th of a second. These pinhole shots (except the flash images (the portraits)) were all taken with one second or longer exposures. Handshake and subject movement cause things to blur quite a bit, which is sort of nice... it is one of the things that I like about pinhole cameras, they make unexpected images.

Another great result of the pinhole camera is that it can shoot things that are very close. Most lenses can't focus on things that are close, unless they are macro lenses. The pinhole doesn't care how close or far things are.

Cool. The colors seem washed (or tinted, or something) too. Was that intentional? Does it come with the pin hole?

Also, I'm assuming that since the hole is so small you don't bother doing any manual focusing, right? just snap?

[Coach McGuirk]

Teenage Mutant Worship Turtles,

[Jarid in Cedar]

Teenage Mutant Worship Turtles,

I really like the look of painted turtles. Nice pic.

[RobinFinderson]

Cool. The colors seem washed (or tinted, or something) too. Was that intentional? Does it come with the pin hole?

Also, I'm assuming that since the hole is so small you don't bother doing any manual focusing, right? just snap?

I cross-processed the images, applying a warming filter to the highlights, and a cooling filter to the shadows. This is color effect that you are seeing. I did this in Adobe's Lightroom, my preferred digital darkroom.

Edit: And there is no focus with pinhole. Just snap. I put the camera into Bulb mode, which means the shutter will remain open as long as I hold it open.

[creekster]

I just discovered dogding and burning. I know... I'm such a n00b! See before and after pics (attached) of my son at an Easter Egg hunt last weekend.

I burned the background just a bit (opacity around 25%) to bring out the green and brown in the trees and the fence. With the burn tool still active, I went to work on my son's hair, jacket, and shirt (at around 75% opacity) to deepen the color and emphasize the texture. Then just a wee bit of dodging (at 50% opacity) on the face and around the the eyes.

Still a long way to go until I'm a pro. Having quite a bit of fun though.

cheers.

Back in the day I used to dodge and burn in the darkroom with tools I made myself from duct tape and thin wire. It was fun and sort of mysterious. It just doesn't seem the same doing it on a monitor.

[Tick's wife]

This little guy was literally 'posing' for me.....this is also my rose bush

[Mrs. Funk]

This little guy was literally 'posing' for me.....this is also my rose bush

WHOA! That's AWESOME!