Bannack Best Pictures

Ghost Door; 5-25-2011, 3:51pm; Bannack, MT; f/9.0; 1/250; Samsung PL60

Under The House?; 5-25-2011, 2:56pm, Bannack, MT; f/4.6; 1/30; Nikon CoolPix P500

Cowgirl; 5-25-2011, 1:37pm; Bannack Saloon; f/5.6, 1/50; Nikon CoolPix P500

Wagon Wheels; 5-25-2011, 12:48pm; Bannack, MT; f/3.4; 1/6; Nikon CoolPix P500

Abandoned Cabin; 5-25-2011, 4:24pm; Bannack, MT; f/3.5; 1/240; Samsung PL60

The trip to Bannack as alot of fun. These are some of my more favorite shots from the day. For the first shot, I was just walking by this house on my way back to upload some pictures to my computer when the wind started blowing. The door made an eery creek, so I stopped and took a picture of it. For the second picture, I was trying to find something that no one else would get a picture of that day. I walked behind the house and saw a kicked in board under the house. I looked inside and saw this cool broken basket. I used my fill flash to get as much light as I could under the house and used Camera Raw to add a little more color to it. The time we had to shoot in the Saloon was alot of fun. Playing with the light coming through the windows really interesting. That's where I got the portrait. The other two shots come from some of the smaller buildings behind the hotel. I really like the shot of the wagon wheels. I like how the light was coming through the back wall and makes for the cool shadows and highlights.

Bannack HDR

Bannack Truck; 5-25-2011, 5:13pm; Bannack, MT; f/4.2; 1/800; Nikon CoolPix P500; Tripod, Auto Bracketing

Parked Buggy; 5-25-2011, 4:50pm; Bannack, MT; f/4.1; 1/180; Samsung PL60

I think creating the HDR shots was my favorite part of the Bannack assignment. For the three shot HDR picture, I used the automatic bracketing function on my camera to take three identical shots at three different exposure levels. I used Dynamic Photo to create the HDR composite picture. I just used the basic tone mapping settings. I then took the created picture into Camera Raw to remove a blueish halo that was in the shot and to reduce tho brightness and saturation slightly.
What I think is really cool is that you can create similar shot using just one photo, not the three different exposure levels. I used Dynamic Photo again for this. I like how it made the picture look like a water color painting.

Bannack Macro Abstract

Door Hinge; 5-25-2011, 3:47pm; Bannack, MT; f/8; 1/125; Samsung PL60
Texture; 5-25-2011, 4:07pm; Bannack MT; f/3.5; 1/45; Samsung PL60

For the door hinge, I used the macro function in aperture priority mode. I got close to the hinge, about 10 inches, and focused on the center of the hinge. The texture shot is some peeling wallpaper I found in on of the houses in Bannack. I used a large aperture to pull as much depth and texture out as possible. I imported both pictures into Photoshop and layered the texture over the hinge. I applied a Divide blending mode. I like how the edges of the texture come out with this blending mode.

Bannack Reverse Shallow Depth

Foreground Focus; 5-25-2011, 1:11pm; Bannack, MT; f/3.4; 1/800; Nikon CoolPix P500

Background Focus; 5-25-2011, 1:11pm; Bannack, MT; f/3.4; 1/500; Nikon CoolPix P500

For both of the shots, I used aperture priority mode and used the largest aperture I could. For the foreground focus shot, I metered on the nails in the foreground, reframed, and took the shoot. For the background focus, I metered on the far end of the door, reframed, and took the shot. Both shot of a shallow depth of field, but have a different appearance because of the different focal lengths.

Bannack Action Shots

Ghost; 5-25-11, 12:06pm; Bannack Schoolhouse; f/3.4; 1.8sec; Nikon CoolPix P500; Tripod

Action Freeze; 5-25-2011, 1:08pm; Bannack, MT; f/4.0; 1/640; Nikon CoolPix P500

For my action blur shot, I went into the schoolhouse. We had alot of light coming in through the windows, so I used a shutter speed long enough to give Sara a chance to move, but not long enough to let in too much light. I also used a large aperture to not allow keep the opening of my lens small. For the action freeze shot, I set my camera to continuous shooting with a fast shutter speed so I could make sure to catch the my model jumping in the moment.

Bannack Portraits

Peering Through The Door; 5-25-11, 12:27pm; Bannack Schoolhouse; f/5.o; 1/80; Nikon CoolPix P500; Tripod

Bullseye; 5-25-11. 1:19pm; Bannack Main Street; f/5.7; 1/200; Nikon CoolPix P500

For my portrait shot, I had Sarah (Thanks Sarah for Modeling all afternoon for me!) step into the door of the school house. There was alot of light coming through the door. I stood back quite a ways and zoomed in to take advantage of the dark interior of the building so the picture wouldn't be blown out. For the Bullseye shot, I zoomed in from a distance to create the good background blur. The rest of the shot took care of itself. I wasn't trying to line her eye up like that, but I got lucky.

Weekly Edits - Camera Raw

Spring Blossom; 5-8-2011, 4:32pm; Rexburg Temple Grounds; f/4.7; 1/640; Nikon CoolPix P500

Camera Raw Editing - I opened the image in Bridge. I then used that to open the image in Camera Raw. I upped the brightness and decreased the clarity of the whole image. I then used an adjustment brush to boost the saturation and vibrance of the flowers in the foreground as a well as to bring back the clarity of the same flowers. I clicked Save Image and then saved it in a separate folder where I keep my edited photos.

Music Writing; 4-25-11, 11:42pm; Rexburg, ID; f/4.8; 1/60; Nikon CoolPix P500; Fill Flash

Camera Raw Editing - I opened the image in Bridge. I then used that to open the image in Camera Raw. I decreased the vibrance all the way to make the image black and white and upped the brightness about by about half. I then used an adjustment brush to highlight the ukelele. I boosted the saturation of the ukelele all the way up and added a bit of a lite orange color to it as well to make it pop a bit more. I clicked Save Image and then saved it in a separate folder where I keep my edited photos.

Panoramic

Taylor Quad Pano; 6/21/11. 4:30pm; Nikon Coolpix P500; 7 original shots

Pano Originals; 5-15-11, 3:42pm; Rexburg, ID; f/3.4; 1/650; Nikon CoolPix P500

For this panoramic shot, I thought it would be cool to get a view point of the whole field outside of my apartment complex. I stood to at the edge of the field and took the four original images, pivoting the camera slightly each time to create the right amount of overlap. I used Photoshops automated panoramic feature to put the four images together. I then used content aware fill to fill out the edges. The content aware fill did a good job, but replicated some of the tree in the top left corner, so I used the clone stamp tool to fill in the clouds. I upped the exposure on the shot and boosted the saturation to pull more color out of the grass and sky.

Non-Destructive Editing

For this picture, I added a black and White adjustment layer to the original image. I then used to black paint brush to remove the mask from over the coins. I also bumped up the saturation a few points to get a little more of the copper color out of the coins.

Spare Change; 4-28-11, 2:41pm; Rexburg, ID; f/5.6; 1/50; Nikon CoolPix P500; Tripod

For this picture, I converted the image into a smart object. I applied a Gaucian Blur to the whole image and then dropped the opacity of the blur to about 70%. I then painted black of the blur to expose the full front flower. I adjusted the opacity again to create a mid level blur on the black flower and the green stem

Red Flower; 5-8-11, 4:37pm; Rexburg Temple Grounds; f/5.6; 1/50; Nikon CoolPix P500

Flora & Fauna

Colorful Bouquet; 5-8-2011, 4:34pm; Rexburg Temple Grounds; f/5.5; 1/500; Nikon Coolpix P500

Rain Drops; 5-8-2011, 4:43pm; Rexburg Temple Grounds; f/5.0; 1/100; Nikon Coolpix P500

Swimming Fowl; 4-28-11, 2:41pm; Porter Park, Rexburg, ID; f/5.7; 1/1500; Nikon Coolpix P500

This weeks assignment was to take Flora and Fauna shots. For both of my shoots, I was working with poor lighting outside. Both days were really over cast, so I had to do some post shot editing to bring some more light into the shots. For both of the flower shots I used Camera Raw to bump up the saturation and brightness. I then used adjustment brushes to darken the background so the focus on the flowers. For the bird shot, I used Camera Raw again. I brought adjusted the levels to add some blue to the water, and then brightened the bird itself.

Blending Modes and Type Effects

Baseball; 4-28-11, 1:44p.m.; Porter Park, Rexburg, ID; f/5.6; 1/1250
Leafs; 4-28-11, 1:53p.m.; Porter Park, Rexburg, ID; f/5.6; 1/1000

Blended Image

Type Effect

Summer Lovin; 4-28-11, 1:40p.m.; Porter Park, Rexburg, Idaho; f/8.0; 1/100

I love baseball. Since baseball recently started, I took the chance to go out and take some fun shots with my new glove. I took shots from a few different angles and tried some different settings on my camera to see what I could capture. For my blended image, I used a simple overlay technique. I placed the leaves on a layer on top of the glove and used the overlay function. I then removed the mask by painting in blck around the ball to keep that part of the image clear.

For Summer lovin, I used a simple title overlay technique to add the type. I created two separate type boxes, one for each word. I dropped the opacity on both words. I added a layer mask the type boxes. I then used a spray can type brush and removed just a little bit of the layer to create a slightly distressed effect on the wording

Play Ball!