183. Motion Blur - December 11-17, 2016
Kevin-
Early this week we had a “fresh” snowfall and I did a tiny amount of experimenting with blurred snowflakes in the foreground with a sharp background of snow covered trees. But as expected none of the images were even worth sharing (snowflakes are pretty damn small!). Perhaps panning the camera to track the snowflakes while blurring the background would have been more successful. But I will let Paul play around with ideas like that when massive snow finally dumps on Lincoln, NE.
The rest of the week was really, really cold, so I defaulted to a studio shot, as standing outside while freezing to death, camera in hand isn’t really something that excites me.
I had seen some motion-blur portrait studies and wanted to produce something similar. My ideal subject would have been female (more interesting hair to light), dressed either in a black turtleneck, or bare-shouldered. Lacking a female subject I had to default to my ugly mug instead.
For lighting I set up three studio strobes. The key light was a 22” beauty dish with a grid over it, positioned directly above my face. Then there were two 1’x6’ strip lights, placed vertically, 45° behind me, on either side, and also with grids. The rest of this was playing around with exposure time and strobe power, as the sharp image came in an instant from the studio strobes, and the motion blur from the modeling lights during the one second total exposure time. For each exposure I twisted or moved my head in various ways.
Remotely triggered Nikon D4s, mounted on a Manfrotto 055CXPRO4 tripod with a Acratech GP ballhead, 85mm f/1.4 Nikkor lens, ISO 50 (Low 1), f/8 at 1 second. I intended this as a black and white image from the beginning, though I would like to experiment further with a model and do it in color. Though of course the problem with that will be the fact that white balance of the strobe lights and the white balance of the modeling lights are so dramatically different.
Early this week we had a “fresh” snowfall and I did a tiny amount of experimenting with blurred snowflakes in the foreground with a sharp background of snow covered trees. But as expected none of the images were even worth sharing (snowflakes are pretty damn small!). Perhaps panning the camera to track the snowflakes while blurring the background would have been more successful. But I will let Paul play around with ideas like that when massive snow finally dumps on Lincoln, NE.
The rest of the week was really, really cold, so I defaulted to a studio shot, as standing outside while freezing to death, camera in hand isn’t really something that excites me.
I had seen some motion-blur portrait studies and wanted to produce something similar. My ideal subject would have been female (more interesting hair to light), dressed either in a black turtleneck, or bare-shouldered. Lacking a female subject I had to default to my ugly mug instead.
For lighting I set up three studio strobes. The key light was a 22” beauty dish with a grid over it, positioned directly above my face. Then there were two 1’x6’ strip lights, placed vertically, 45° behind me, on either side, and also with grids. The rest of this was playing around with exposure time and strobe power, as the sharp image came in an instant from the studio strobes, and the motion blur from the modeling lights during the one second total exposure time. For each exposure I twisted or moved my head in various ways.
Remotely triggered Nikon D4s, mounted on a Manfrotto 055CXPRO4 tripod with a Acratech GP ballhead, 85mm f/1.4 Nikkor lens, ISO 50 (Low 1), f/8 at 1 second. I intended this as a black and white image from the beginning, though I would like to experiment further with a model and do it in color. Though of course the problem with that will be the fact that white balance of the strobe lights and the white balance of the modeling lights are so dramatically different.
Paul-
Yes, that’s a dreidel, dreidel, dreidel … And no, I didn’t make it out of clay.*
Trust me on this, gang: You can only listen to that Hanukah song so many times before “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus” sounds positively inspirational.
I’m presenting reading a book—and this will all come together, I promise—where a mathematician who also is a life-long origamiast opines that he is much more interested in the “process” of folding that he is in the “end result.” And he’s not getting all Zen about it. He’s means it: He’s fascinated by polygons and polynomials; paper tucks and tessellations. He could care less he ends up having created something remarkable.
Well, my submission this week takes exactly the opposite approach. It took me a fair amount of fooling around with camera settings until I got a workable picture—and that’s probably because (this week) I wasn’t all that interested in that “process.” I just wanted to have fun playing with Lightroom…which (this week) I’m calling the “end result.”
Going through a few too many motions: Nikon D5200. 18-55mm lens set at 55mm; ISO 4000; 0.7 sec. at f/32; shutter priority; Auto WB; Auto-area AF; -1.0 flash compensation; -1.5 EV; matrix metering. The camera was set on tripod. The light source was a ceiling light just outside of my nano-studio.
I may have gone comparatively all-in in Lightroom just to make some serious gains in experience (read: I was in a button, slider, menu option, and check-box mood). Of course, the end result may not reflect any real evidence that I knew what I was doing. That said, I worked more with the Lightroom’s Histogram, Noise Reduction, and Point Curve features than I have in the past. And put more effort into manipulating the lumination and saturation of some specific colors to see if it would get me closer to certain results I was looking for. And, get this: I used Lightroom’s Graduated Filter option for the first time! So…we’ll just call this week my “play date” with post-processing.
* If none of you know what the heck I’m referring to here, please let me know. I’ll explain.
Yes, that’s a dreidel, dreidel, dreidel … And no, I didn’t make it out of clay.*
Trust me on this, gang: You can only listen to that Hanukah song so many times before “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus” sounds positively inspirational.
I’m presenting reading a book—and this will all come together, I promise—where a mathematician who also is a life-long origamiast opines that he is much more interested in the “process” of folding that he is in the “end result.” And he’s not getting all Zen about it. He’s means it: He’s fascinated by polygons and polynomials; paper tucks and tessellations. He could care less he ends up having created something remarkable.
Well, my submission this week takes exactly the opposite approach. It took me a fair amount of fooling around with camera settings until I got a workable picture—and that’s probably because (this week) I wasn’t all that interested in that “process.” I just wanted to have fun playing with Lightroom…which (this week) I’m calling the “end result.”
Going through a few too many motions: Nikon D5200. 18-55mm lens set at 55mm; ISO 4000; 0.7 sec. at f/32; shutter priority; Auto WB; Auto-area AF; -1.0 flash compensation; -1.5 EV; matrix metering. The camera was set on tripod. The light source was a ceiling light just outside of my nano-studio.
I may have gone comparatively all-in in Lightroom just to make some serious gains in experience (read: I was in a button, slider, menu option, and check-box mood). Of course, the end result may not reflect any real evidence that I knew what I was doing. That said, I worked more with the Lightroom’s Histogram, Noise Reduction, and Point Curve features than I have in the past. And put more effort into manipulating the lumination and saturation of some specific colors to see if it would get me closer to certain results I was looking for. And, get this: I used Lightroom’s Graduated Filter option for the first time! So…we’ll just call this week my “play date” with post-processing.
* If none of you know what the heck I’m referring to here, please let me know. I’ll explain.
Jerry-
I was contemplating our theme while sitting on the couch and staring at the Christmas Tree when I noticed a particular ornament. So I put the camera on a tripod and using a long shutter speed zoomed away.
A6300 with 55-200, ISO 200, f16 for 15 seconds.
PS: I will be spending the morning taking still photos and video at a Bat Mitzvah at Shir Tikvah in Minneapolis. Hopefully the snow and cold will not hinder my journey.
I was contemplating our theme while sitting on the couch and staring at the Christmas Tree when I noticed a particular ornament. So I put the camera on a tripod and using a long shutter speed zoomed away.
A6300 with 55-200, ISO 200, f16 for 15 seconds.
PS: I will be spending the morning taking still photos and video at a Bat Mitzvah at Shir Tikvah in Minneapolis. Hopefully the snow and cold will not hinder my journey.
Byron-
My original thought was to utilize a Christmas Tree. Then I saw a hint of what Jerry's picture would be. Too similar. So then a took a different approach. It turned out to be similar to Kevin's submission. I guess when I'm surrounded by great minds, it occasionally rubs off on me.
I took a simplistic approach. I mounted a flash to the hot shoe of my camera. That is a rarity. I set the lens to it's widest setting. I set a really long shutter speed and a very small aperture. The flash setting was TTL and rear curtain. I just took a selfie while rotating in my Living Room.
ISO 100, 1 sec, f22, on camera flash TTL- rear curtain.
My original thought was to utilize a Christmas Tree. Then I saw a hint of what Jerry's picture would be. Too similar. So then a took a different approach. It turned out to be similar to Kevin's submission. I guess when I'm surrounded by great minds, it occasionally rubs off on me.
I took a simplistic approach. I mounted a flash to the hot shoe of my camera. That is a rarity. I set the lens to it's widest setting. I set a really long shutter speed and a very small aperture. The flash setting was TTL and rear curtain. I just took a selfie while rotating in my Living Room.
ISO 100, 1 sec, f22, on camera flash TTL- rear curtain.