Scary stuff - DPChallenge Forums

10/07/2005 01:46:29 PM · #1

OK, as if my ugly mug wasn't scary enough....

I was invited by a friend of mine to do some light painting at his house next week. He shoots a 300D. I am trying to figure out if it is even worth it to bring my camera. I haven't been too happy about the noise in bright shots.

Well, as I had just picked up a couple of backgrounds (still nothing to stand them up on inside), I decided to throw the cam on the old tripod and see what happened with some longer exposures.

I used a couple of "no-battery" flashlights that I have kicking around and my little external flash unit, manually triggered.

One of the first shots I got was so scary, I almost stopped shooting right there. But instead, I felt I would tone the horror aspect (which was totally inadvertent) and shoot some silly shots with sad and happy faces. After shooting for about 30 minutes, I decided to call it a night.

I was pretty amazed. This is the first time I have ever done this. I thought it might be fun to try some double exposure stuff (while my sister was trying to sleep on the floor) as well.

I chose 4 images from that session and played around for an hour, trying to learn about the curves function and here they are:

You can probably tell which image was the last one I edited. Because all of the pictures were taken by manually operating flashlights and waving them around and handholding a flash unit above my face, the lighting was pretty uneven and well... horrid.

I played around a lot with heavily lowering contrast, and gently bumping brightness here and there and using curves in multiple passes. It was really touch and go, and I seriously doubt I could say I really learned something. This was also my first time using curves without the auto.

I'm not sure if these pics would benefit from a little NeatImage. What do you think?

10/07/2005 02:54:22 PM · #2

Oops, seems my pics were TOO scary...

Bump.

Nikon AF-S DX Zoom-Nikkor 55-200mm f/4.0-5.6G ED

10/08/2005 11:06:46 AM · #3

Uhm last try for a comment.

PS. I do trade comments. If you comment on mine, I will comment on yours. I particularly choose pics that have no other comments. I don't know if you care what I have to say about your pictures, but I personally like all comments :)

AzCKelly

Nikon D70s

10/08/2005 11:13:53 AM · #4

Left a comment.

smilebig4me1x

Canon EOS-400D Rebel XTi

Canon EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6

10/08/2005 11:17:34 AM · #5

the first photo immedately made me think of the Blair Witch Project! the look of horror is great.

I think the second one is the best out of the bunch. i think a slight use of NI would help it(prolly only about 25%/30%) you definately got your blacks good and dark without the slight color cast(grey/blue/red) that is found alot with black. great job on these and keep up with learning new techniques.

Riponlady

Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ35

Tamron AF 28-300mm f/3.5-6.3 XR Di LD Aspherical IF for Canon

10/08/2005 11:21:01 AM · #6

left comment on Odd 2

Canon EF 24-105mm f/4.0L IS

10/08/2005 11:30:53 AM · #7

Thanks smilebig4me. The technique to remove colour casts from the dark areas is generally associated with curves. In fact, it can remove the colour cast from your entire picture.

I was learning about the curves tool with these pictures.

The way I understand curves to work is that it sets a particular pixel as a black point. it takes the Colour and luminance values from that pixel and applies it to every other pixel as a subtraction. Therefore, what the camera saw as black, which turned out to be black with a tiny bit of green, when set as black point, will remove that same amount of Tiny green from every single pixel in the picture. Bye Bye colour cast. All of your black areas will be totally black as well.

Thanks!

PS. the ScaryPigBaby pic was actually me making silly faces that I usually use to make kids laugh. It was totally not intended to have that horror look. Kinda funny I think. Scared me silly looking at it at 2:00am! Kids actually do laugh when I make those faces btw.

mandyturner

Canon EOS-5D Mark II

10/08/2005 12:02:31 PM · #8

going to leave comments now...