An Alternative to Picnik

Many of you are likely mourning the mid-April closing of Picnik.com and searching for a web replacement.  Though Picnik still exists, it moved to Google+, where only members have access to the effects.  For people who want a Picnik replacement but aren't willing to fork out the cash for Photoshop, my sister recently informed me of a good alternative website.  It is virtually identical Picnik in the effects that it offers, though it seems to have a larger number of premium effects, so you can't do as much as a free user (be sure to click on the monkey on the premium effects for a free trial).  It may take you a little while to figure out where everything is on the website, but it should look very familiar to you overall.  Most of the effects have the same name that they had on Picnik, so you should easily be able to achieve the same look on PicMonkey that you always did on Picnik!  A link to the site is provided below.  I encourage you to check it out and celebrate the discovery of Picnik stand-in!

http://www.picmonkey.com/

The Exposure Triangle

For this post, I actually want to refer you to a different website.  I stumbled upon this article while browsing the internet, and found it to be handy in explaining and simplifying the different elements of exposure.  As someone who has not yet had a tremendous amount of time to experiment with the settings on her DSLR camera, I found it very useful.  I plan on messing around with the aperture, shutter speed, and ISO settings on my camera a great deal this spring break and summer vacation to see if I can get a hang of choosing the correct exposure settings.  Below I have provided links to the various articles that I found.  The first is just an overview of the "Exposure Triangle" and how ISO, aperture, and shutter speed are related to each other.  The next three links go into greater depth (but not too much depth) on each of those topics.

The Exposure Triangle

ISO

Aperture

Shutter Speed

I thought that these articles were a nice starting point for people trying to learn more about their DSLR (like myself) and that it would be a good idea to pass the information along.  Happy reading!  I hope you find these articles as informative as I did. :)

Light Painting

Since buying my dSLR camera a month or two ago, I have been too busy for too much experimentation.  I've had the opportunity to shoot a decent number of photos, but the manual settings is something I still have yet to master.  However, there was one camera trick I was determined to try as soon as possible: light painting.  "Light painting" is something you have probably seen on the internet at one point or another.  It gives the appearance of someone writing, drawing, or "painting" with light in a photo.  Below are a few internet examples of light painting.  The Batman one is my personal favorite...

The steps are actually simple, but execution is harder than it looks.  The only supplies needed are a camera that allows you to adjust the exposure, a flashlight/glowstick/sparkler/laser pointer/light-producing object, a dark setting, and a tripod.  The longer exposure will allow light to come in for a greater period of time, allowing you to draw shapes and have them "stick".  The tripod holds everything steady and keeps the shot from being blurry. 

To take the shot, all that is required is to:

1) Set your camera for a longer exposure.  If you're trying to do something fairly complex, you might want to set it for something on the longer side.  

2) Position your shot correctly before you shut off the lights (if indoors).  If outdoors, try not to stand under street lights or by a busy street where headlights could ruin your photo.

3) Press the shutter button and proceed to "paint" your image.  Quickly draw or write whatever you want before the shutter closes again.

4) Check the resulting image and try again if necessary.

Those steps make light painting seem remarkably easy, but as I said before, that is not necessarily the case.  On a whim, while home over Thanksgiving break, my brother, sister, and I went downstairs to my brother's pitch black room and tried out this technique for the first time.  It definitely takes a great amount of practice and a little artistry to get this to yield interesting results.  Below are some of our feeble first attempts at light painting.  I'm pretty happy with the photos we got considering this was our first try.  If we get the chance (perhaps over Christmas break) to try this out again, I'll be sure to post updates.

As you can see, we kept it pretty basic.  Easy shapes, easy letters, etc.  However, now that we've at least figured out how to get something to show up on the photo, I think we can work on putting together something a little more impressive in the future.  

Anyway, I invite you to try this out.  It's really fun to do (albeit a bit frustrating and time consuming if you mess up), and it has the potential to result in some really awesome photos.

Know Your Camera

Hello, all!  I'm going to revisit the topic of cameras for this post because I recently upgraded to a different camera myself.  I decided it was time to buy a dSLR (digital single-lens reflux) camera because I had somewhat outgrown my point-and-shoot camera.  I managed to find a good deal on eBay, and settled on a used Canon Rebel XSi with an 18-55 mm lens.  Despite the fact that it is used and an older model, it looks and works perfectly, and I'm very pleased with my purchase.

I know this post risks making me sound hypocritical.  After all, I did preach in this post about how you can still take good pictures with a regular digital camera and how the camera you have isn't as important as the skill of the photographer.  I stand by my statement, but in the same post I did also say that a nice camera can take good photography to the next level.  I'd like to think that this camera will help take me to the next level.  I feel ready to try stuff that my little camera just isn't capable of doing!

Anyway, along with a fancier camera comes a lot of confusion, which brings me to my main point: know your camera.  Whether it's a little point-and-shoot or a dSLR, you're not going to achieve your desired result if you don't know anything about the hunk of glass, metal, and plastic in your hands.  I feel extremely comfortable with the different settings/features on my little Fuji--I know that camera like the back of my hand--but my new Canon is a different story.  Granted, I've only had it for a few days, so it's expected that I'll need awhile to get used to it.  However, due to the complicated nature of this camera, I can tell that I'll have to do some serious Googling if I'm going to be able to use all of this camera's settings to its full potential.  

Here are a couple pics I've gotten out of it so far.  They aren't bad considering I'm still utterly lost when it comes to operating many features of this camera.  I was concerned that the camera I spent $450 on was going to yield pictures identical to my $100 Fuji, but I was pleasantly surprised.  There is DEFINITELY a difference.  

To summarize, whether you're working with a cheapo Walmart camera or a $1000 pro-quality dSLR camera, make sure you know your camera.  Read the manual, use Google, experiment with settings, and whatever else you need to do to get the results you want from your camera.  I know the phrase I'm about to type doesn't really make sense, but I'd love to be able to make my new camera "sing".  :)

Football Season=Photography Season

It's that time again...  The start of football season (and many other college sports) is also the start of new kind of photography "season."  Sporting events can offer a tremendous amount of material to photograph: players, coaches, fans, cheerleaders, the band, tailgaters, etc.  There's plenty of stuff around, so definitely pack your camera as an essential piece of equipment for sporting events!

I myself just attended the first Husker football game of the season.  The game gave me an opportunity (finally) to take a few pictures.  I'm not sure what it's like elsewhere, but it seems like there are awkward periods of time in Nebraska when there's nothing outside to photograph.  The occasional sunset will be pretty this time of year, but there's really nothing blooming and storm season is basically behind us.  Plus, life gets busy in the fall, so there's not always time to seek out an interesting subject.  Football game photography provides multiple easy subjects and is a welcome change from what I normally photograph.  I love nature, but you can only take pictures so many insects, flowers, and skies before you start to crave something a little different.

Below are a couple shots from the first game of the season. My seats were not extremely close, so I didn't really attempt to get much player action.  I experimented with a few settings, but my favorites from the day were my panorama shots and my regular shots (which were edited to look like tilt-shift photography):

So, as I said before, always pack that camera before you head to sporting event!  A couple things I would recommend:

1)  If you're close to the court/field, try out your "sport" setting.  Almost all regular digital cameras have some sort of sport/action setting that is meant to capture people or objects in motion.  A sporting event would obviously be a great place to test this one out.

2)  If you're in a large stadium or arena, a panorama like the one shown above might be a good idea.  Stadiums are huge and you're usually at an elevated position, so I don't think you can really go wrong with a wide shot.

3) Still pay attention to the game! Don't miss out on the action because you're taking pictures nonstop the entire time.  Snap a few at key moments, but do remember to focus on what's happening!  Don't be that annoying person who is preoccupied with their camera the entire time. :)

Have fun!  Before I go, I can't help myself....GO BIG RED! 

Fading Effects on Picnik

For this post, I want to briefly revisit the topics of curves and fading effects on Picnik.  Since I discovered "Curves" on Picnik (click HERE to see how to access that section), I've been using it quite often to edit my photos.  As I have mentioned in many previous blog posts, I almost always used the fade bar to lessen the impact, except for when using dramatic sepia, daguerrotype, and the various B&W options.  Recently, I've been experimenting with fading the effects that I just mentioned.  I've found that it can yield some interesting results, and I thought I would share so others could try it and provide their input.

As an example, here's a photo of the engraving on my father's old shotgun that I took a couple weeks ago.  This is the "normal" edit, with hardly anything about the photo being tweaked.

For the final product, I applied dramatic sepia and faded it to about 50-60% strength.  I also layered on the "Gritty" effect to bring out the detail in the engraving a little more.  It faded the colors a little and made the metal look even more metallic.  Overall, I feel like it added a lot more interest to the photo.  The original was not bad, but I definitely prefer the look of the final product.

Anyway, I know this is a very short and random post, but I liked this combination of effects, so I thought I'd put it out there for others to try or provide their opinion.  Go ahead and give it a shot or let me know what you think!  Also feel free to comment on any other blog posts.  I'm always open to suggestions or opinions!

Flash or No Flash?

I'll be honest with you, flash photography is something I avoid like the plague.  I know many will disagree with me on this point, but I've always liked the appearance of natural light much better than flash photography.  Probably 99% of my photography is taken without flash, even when I take the picture indoors.  I will argue with anyone who says that you always have to flash 100% of the time when the picture is being taken indoors.  Personally, I think flash can ruin the coloring of a photo (especially macro photography) and create harsh light and color tones.  For example, the following photos would have sucked, in my opinion, if flash had been used.  As I said before, I've tried flash with macro shots before, and I have had zero success.

This picture was taken right next to a window, so I didn't have many problems with clarity.   I did color-correct this photo slightly, but I preferred the natural color tones to something washed out by a flash.  Plus, flash would have created a huge bright spot in the somewhat reflective surface of the bottle.

This photo was taken indoors in my mother's brightly lit (by windows) kitchen.  This is the unedited version of this photo.  I think, given the situation, the coloring is quite good.  I don't think I would have liked the yellow, artificial tone that would have been created if I had used flash for this photo.

Moving on, the point of this post is not to discourage you from ever using flash, but to let you know that you do not have to use flash indoors every single time.  I've talked to people before that think it's practically the law, but that's definitely not the case.  However, not using flash can limit your photography because it always requires a good lighting situation.  Besides being genuinely interested in nature, the fact that outdoor photography does not usually require flash is a part of why I am drawn to it.  The only time I typically use flash (besides experimentation) is when I am taking photos of people or animals indoors.  Unlike objects, I think people generally look better when flash is used.  It seems to brighten a person's face and take away unflattering shadows if used correctly.  Honestly, if you're taking a picture of anything indoors when it is dark outside (meaning that artificial light is being used), flash is probably going to be needed.  Trust me, I've tried to go without it, and all you get are incredibly blurry photos as a result.  Flash is also involved in the "night" setting on most cameras, but as I said in a previous post, night photography is not my forte, so I won't get into that.

Even then, I suggest taking photos of people outside whenever possible.  I think almost everything looks better in natural light.  It's just my personal preference.  Anyway, I know this has been a more opinionated blog than usual.  I just wanted to make it clear that there is no absolute law stating that indoor photography requires flash.

Take-away Points:

1) You CAN get away with not using flash if the indoor room is brightly lit or has many windows.

2) You MUST hold the camera more still than usual when taking indoor photos without flash to avoid blurriness.

3) Flash is usually more flattering when photographing people indoors (unless the room is very bright).

One final thought, flash isn't all bad, but I believe some extra training with a nicer camera (with more settings options) is required to make flash look less harsh and more natural.  Because blurriness is a problem for me at times, I do plan to experiment more with flash in the future.  However, for now, everything above pretty accurately reflects my opinions on flash photography.