Technique Archives - Page 5 of 6 - Craig Rogers Photography

Playing with Forced Perspective

13th August 201727th January 2020Craig Rogers

I had a crazy hour today and thought I’d play around with Forced Perspective shooting.

Here’s my “Giant Bucket Fill”, continue reading to see the idea and how I did it.

Giant Bucket Fill - D810, AF-S 24-70mm f/2.8E @ 70mm, f/16, ISO64, 1/60sec (2 shots, one focused on the bucket, one focused on the ladder) - {Flickr Link}

Review of “Exposure Calculator” App for Android by Quicosoft (Video)

7th August 201724th January 2018Craig Rogers

There are plenty of resources to calculate changes to the Exposure Triangle and as a photographer you really should be able to work them out in your head. However, sometimes it’s easier to cheat when out shooting so that you can concentrate more on getting those shots than working out exposure times.

As I’m about to try my hand at Moonlit Night Landscapes, a new thing for me, I wanted to be able to take test shots to check for lighting conditions. Moonlit photography can demand very long exposure times at base ISO (the lowest your camera will go without any extended ISOs) which means getting the exposure correct means less time standing out in the dark.

Using Adobe Lightroom and DxO Optics Pro 10 to Edit An Almost Deleted Photo (Video)

16th March 20169th October 2017Craig Rogers

I had a few long distance shots of the Short Eared Owl that, due to high ISO, I almost deleted. They had a fair amount of noise and because I had to crop in, the noise was too much to be able to edit it.

However, I thought I’d let DxO OpticsPro 10 have a go at reducing the noise and as always it delivered. I was so impressed how it cleaned up the noise that I thought I’d show a complete workflow of the post editing.

The video maybe useful for any one else editing, but also may be a good watch for any non-photographers to see how a photo evolves through it’s post processing stage from it’s RAW format to it’s final published copy. For more information on RAW files and post processing, please see a post I made quite a while ago – RAW, JPEG and why Lightroom isn’t Cheating.

Here is the image that the camera captured, it’s a conversion to JPEG without any post processing

TECHNIQUE: Shooting with 2 Eyes Open for More Predictable Tracking

29th November 201530th November 2015Craig Rogers

I’ve had a few people comment on my Cozumel Emerald Hummingbird photos and how well I managed to track them and get them in focus. Hummingbirds move fast, very fast and as they are also so tiny it’s really difficult to track and predict where they are going to be. You could just set up focus on one flower and wait, but that’s not what I did so I thought I’d share how I tracked them.

Of course, having a camera and lens that auto-focuses quickly and accurately is going to help, but that’s only half of it as you still have to follow the bird as it flies around at incredible speed.

In theory, there’s a simple technique that can help, in practice, it takes some getting used to; KEEP BOTH EYES OPEN!

RAW, JPEG and why Lightroom isn’t Cheating

7th November 20158th November 2015Craig Rogers

(Left to Right) Camera RAW, Camera JPEG, Lightroom Post Edit

Many non-photographers (and indeed some photographers) don’t understand photo editing and assume it’s cheating. The most widely used photo editing tool is Adobe’s Lightroom, not to be confused with Photoshop which is far more powerful and more of a manipulation tool. Do I use both? Yes I do, although Photoshop is not used that often.

{Click on any image to view a higher resolution}

So let’s start at the beginning and look at what a digital camera actually sees. It see’s light, nothing more than that, just light and different levels of light. Our eyes are the same, they see just light that we use our brain to convert into images. Our brains are far more intelligent than any camera can ever be in that we can process a very high dynamic range and effectively edit the image we see in real-time.

No matter how advanced our cameras are, they very rarely capture what we actually remember seeing with our own eyes and this is why we have the option to post edit using a tool such as Lightroom.

Temporary Reflection Pool Setup

29th September 201530th October 2018Craig Rogers

Update: Since this post I have now built a large permanent Reflection Pool. Blog post available HERE.

You may remember a post a few days back where I said that I’d bought a Greenhouse Tray. Well it was to build a temporary Reflection Pool in the garden.

I set it up tonight, excuse the photos as it was starting to get dark when I finished (6:30pm and it’s starting to get dark!!! Grrrrr!).

As you can see from the photos the tray is mounted on some DIY A-Frames and I’ve made a shallow area in which I hope the birds will visit. At the back out of sight I’ve put some Suet and Peanuts to try and tempt them. It’s setup near the bird feeders, so hopefully, it’ll be an easy temptation.

The only thing that worries me is that the tray isn’t long enough and either I can’t fit a full reflection in or you’ll see the front edge of the tray in shot.

I’ll leave it for a day or two for the birds to get used to it and then see what I get.

Here’s an idea on what a Reflection Pool gives, again, not great quality as it was really bad light.

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