As if you can't get enough of me on screen, here is a video that I recently completed on how to add sound effects to your videos.
Adding Sound Effects
As if you can't get enough of me on screen, here is a video that I recently completed on how to add sound effects to your videos.
Panoramic Images
In order to create panoramic images properly, you need to have the correct set up and a little luck. Here is my set up as I got prepared to shoot the iconic Golden Gate Bridge, in San Francisco.
As the sun was setting I had my camera's tripod anchored down with heavy sandbags. The tripod, head and panoramic head are all from Really Right Stuff. The tripod is made of carbon fiber to make it light but very sturdy. The Panorama Package is the Ultimate-Pro Omni Pivot Package. The process is to shoot an image, move the camera a designated distance and shoot again. After all the shots are complete, they are "stitched" together in Photoshop to make one complete panoramic image. If you place your camera in the vertical position, you can put more images together for the final shot. The more images you use to create the final shot, the larger it will be. However, with the more images you create of one scene, the more chance of something going wrong. One blurry image, or one poorly exposed image, or one image with a digital flaw in a set could ruin the entire scene and you would have to start over. In this case, starting over would mean missing that perfect window of light.
With this set up, I can get the center of the camera lens exactly over the center point of the tripod - that way, when I turn the camera to make several images - they are all perfectly aligned.
Here is the view as I waited for sundown. The lucky part was this particular evening yielded very little wind. If you are shooting a low light evening photograph like this, no wind is of particular interest to the photographer. Consider that if there is anywhere near the normal wind, (as there always seems to be at the Marin Headlands) the camera could move during one of the exposures thereby producing a blurry image. Each of the final shots were captured at about 5 second exposures for each one, so camera shake is a huge consideration. The other problem with wind, is that it could make your subject move. At any given time, the Golden Gate Bridge is moving due to temperature changes and it is built to withstand heavy winds. The maximum recorded movement of the bridge was about 7 feet of the span bowing up and down during a storm in 1982. However, not worry the Golden Gate Bridge is built to flex up to 27 feet.
Little known facts aside, even just a small amount of wind could make the bridge sway over a five second exposure. This evening the wind was almost non-existent.
All of the shots were created with the mirror locked up as another level of protection against camera shake.
The final shot was created with 28 separate images that were stitched together in Photoshop. The resulting image is 65 inches wide in it's raw form - so enlarging it to mammoth proportions will be an easy step. The image is incredibly sharp. Upon close inspection the viewer can see detail in the bridge as well as the city in the background.
Portraits Shouldn't Wait
Occasionally I am asked to photograph a special session. Something a customer need in a hurry for one reason or another. In this case, the portrait session was of a golden lab named Tucker. My dog, Tucker the Beagle, and he share the same name and I know, first hand, how special the bond can be between a dog and their owner.
Tucker was diagnosed with a very aggressive cancer and the owners asked me to do a portrait session as soon as possible, while he still felt good enough to go out. We were able to get out to do the session just two days after I received their call. The afternoon was spent running in the hills in the cool fall weather, capturing intimate moments with the family and many singular portraits of Tucker the Lab. We had a great time.
Sadly, Tucker passed away four days after our photo session. The lesson is, don't wait if you think you would like a portrait session. Whether you use me or any other photographer, don't put it off.
New Portrait Web Site
I now have a brand new HD portrait web site - www.imagelightportraits.com Check it out when you have time. All the images are scalable to full screen. So no matter how large your monitor is - you can make the images as big as you want. It takes a little more time at upload, but I think it's worth it.
There are new samples of family portraits on the site. The holiday season is sometimes the only chance during the year to get a family portrait where everyone is in attendance. Something to think about.
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Maybe its getting to be that time to update your LinkedIn photograph if you are looking to move up in your career. Check out the Business Portraits.
Take a look at the Environmental Portraits where we photograph people in their environment. Everyone has a story, tell it with a portrait.
My other web sites: www.imagelight.com and www.imagelightweddings.com