Turn Them Christmas Ornemants to a 360 Fisheye Lens

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DIYPhotography.net Photography and Studio Lighting

Wed, 2007-12-19 00:21 — udijw

Christmas it coming. It is a wonderful opportunity to get them shiny tree ornaments out of the storage and decorate your tree.

Have you given any thought to the day after Christmas? Under the tree
there are tons of presents, everyone is opening the presents. Let me
add a DIYP present to the heap. (Click the image to see a larger view)

Reader Simon*B has a great use for the tree ornaments for the day after the sock is empty.

This is a fun and fast project, at the end of which, you'll be able to
take 360 images with your digital camera. (There is a "slight" fish eye
effect that will make Rudolf's nose like a button compared to yours but
that's part of the fun).

Materials needed:

- 1 Digital camera

- 1 Silvery shiny Xmas ball

- 1 Iron wire

- 1 Tripod shoe (not a must)

Here's how to make the ball in 3 simple steps:

1. Connect the tripod shoe to the camera. Don't fasten it all the
way through. Just make it kinda loose. Loose enough to wrap a wire
between the camera and the shoe. Another option it to wrap the wire on
the lens (watch that lens, though).

2. Place the ball on the other end of the wire using some tape. The
wire should be long enough to enable focus so make sure it is longer
then your lens's minimal focus lens. If you are using a point and
shoot, you are in luck - switch to macro mode.

3. Focus the camera on the christmasball - you are good to go!

Here are some samples by Simon, Watch his entire collection here:

Some shootin' tips:

- You don't need to look through the view finder, you can hold the camera a bit further from your head.

- There is absolutely no way to avoid being in the picture.

Painting With Light

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DIYPhotography.net Photography and Studio Lighting

Tue, 2007-09-11 15:25 — udijw

Painting
with light is a fun technique that gives great results. It is called
painting with light because this is what you are actually doing while
taking the shot - painting with light.

You don't need much to experiment with this kind of shot, just make sure you have the following items:

1. A camera capable of long exposures - film cameras will work OK,
but if you really want to get the most out of the shooting session, use
a digital camera. You will be able to see the results in "real time"
and make corrections as you go.

2. A nice tripod. Since you will be doing some long exposures you
want to make sure your camera sits still. If you don't have a tripod
you can make one in a few minutes (see this article or this one).

3. A flash light - and by flash light I do not mean flash as in a
speedlight, but the flash light or what our British will call a torch.

4. A dark location. This one is tricky. If you are going to shot at
home - a dark room will be OK. If you are going to shoot outside - make
sure that you are not doing this under a street light, or where a car
can come by and "paint its headlight" all over your shot.

Here is how it's done:

Set your camera on the tripod and take a sample shot with flash /
lights on. This will help you verify that your composition is OK.

Set the exposure to a relatively long value. Stop down the aperture
as much as you need. If you are outside do nothing. If you are inside -
this is the time to turn off the lights.

Make the click. Once the shutter is open use your flashlight to
light the stuff that you want to "paint". You can use the flashlight as
a brash, and "smear" the light, just like you would have done with
brush and paper. Or, you can use the light as a pen, and do precise
work. Areas where you go slowly will be more lit then others. Be
careful not to linger to much over the same stop - you will burn it.
(The machos amongst you will correctly identify this as the "I forgot
the iron on the shirt" phenomena).

Once the shutter closes, you are a free person again. Inspect your image and make corrections.

Here are some great ideas to use this technique with:

Product like shot - In a closed (dark) room place your
product on a table and paint it's contour. You can use several colors
to make a strong effect or to draw different (even imaginary) parts of
your object.

Image by Rodrigo da Cunha

Location shot - find a location with some ambient
light. Find an object that is less "hit" by that light. now you can use
the ambient light to capture the background, while painting the object
with light. You will get a nice effect - with some surreal foreground
and a "normal" background. Also the white balance will be different on
ambient and painted - another cool side affect.

Image by hyper7pro

Environmental Graffiti - If you are shooting a wall
(or even on thin air...), you can scribe on the wall. Make funny
graffiti; Write huge love notes; Make a political statement - there
will be no trace left other then the one on your memory card.

Image by Aitor

DIY - Create your own Bokeh

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DIYPhotography.net Photography and Studio Lighting

Wed, 2007-04-25 08:22 — udijw

Bokeh
is an adaptation from a a Japanese word meaning blur. In photography
this term is used to describe the quality of the areas in the picture
which are not in focus.

When referring to Bokeh, we can distinguish some of it characteristics:

- Is the light/dark gradient smooth or sharp?

- What shape will a small dot of light take what it is in the Bokeh area? (mirror lenses for example, create a bagel like Bokeh)

We can play with those two variants to create a special Bokeh.

You will need :

• One large aperture lens (a Canon 50mm F1.8 is used here, but Nikon 50mm 1.8 will also do)
• One sheet of black paperboard

1. Cut and shape the sheet to make a fake lens hood. The Diameter is made so that it snugly fits on the lens.

2. In the middle of the filter the wanted bokeh shape is cut out -
in out example a heart is used. I’m not sure how big a hole the shape
can be. But you can check it right away by just looking through the
viewfinder. On the 50mm lens @ F1.8 a 15mm heart gives a metering value
equal to F3.2, so it can probably be a little bigger (you can use a puncher or cut it by hand).

3. Set your camera to its lowest aperture value (completely open).

Here are two shots to demonstrate this technique - one with a bare lens and the other with the hearted hood. see more shots here and here (I leave it as an exercise to tell which is which :)

Here are the parameters for the example shown above:

• Lens - Canon 50mm F1.8
• "Lens hood" Diameter: 70mm (2.75 inch)
• Hole diameter: 15mm (0.6inch)

Here are two more great examples for this technique from RottieLover (note - there only one "real" heart in each picture):