Tim Grey's Blog

Time-Lapse Tip: Tape!

Posted on December 28, 2011 by Tim Grey

As a photographer, I’m sure you’ve heard no shortage of advice on the particular equipment you should purchase and keep in your camera bag. If you listened to all that advice, your wallet would be a lot lighter and your camera bag would be a lot heavier!

Well, I’d like to share a tip about a bit of “equipment” for time-lapse photography that won’t cost you much at all, and won’t weigh you down. It’s tape! Simple, inexpensive masking tape (or painter’s tape). Check out this tip in video form via my YouTube channel here:

And for more on the concepts, equipment, techniques, and more related to creating incredible time-lapse videos, check out my latest video training title, produced by video2brain. This new title is called “Time-Lapse Photography Workshop“, and it features almost three hours of HD video aimed at teaching you everything you need to know (and then some!) about time-lapse photography.

You can check out this new video training title in the video2brain online store here:
http://bit.ly/timgrey-timelapse

Posted in Announcement, Products, Time-Lapse, Video | 2 Comments

Photographing in the Guggenheim!

Posted on December 20, 2011 by Tim Grey

I recently visited the Solomon R. Guggenheim museum to explore the “Maurizio Cattelan: All” exhibit. I knew from past visits that photography was only allowed from the ground floor, which isn’t all that helpful considering the artwork is displayed along a spiraling walkway heading up toward the very high ceiling. But this was a very different exhibit…

Guggenheim - Maurizio Cattelan: All

To begin with, with this exhibit the artwork isn’t displayed on the walls as with all other exhibits I’ve seen at the Guggenheim. Instead, the many objects (including some photographs) are hung from the ceiling, like an infant’s mobile gone wildly out of control. I hadn’t brought my “real” camera, of course, because I knew it would be pointless. But I wanted to document this very interesting exhibit in some way, so I took my iPhone out and started snapping some photos. After all, everyone else was doing it (of course, that excuse never worked with my mom when I was growing up).

I’m not sure how I would have felt if I had only seen a single piece from Maurizio Catellan. But the retrospective was incredibly interesting and fascinating and cool. I greatly enjoyed exploring it. So I wanted to share the photo and write something about it here on my blog. Preferably without getting in trouble with the Guggenheim.

So I wrote an email to the Press Office at the Guggenheim, explaining my situation. You know, I’m kind of sort of like press, right? I expected to be turned down. So you can imagine my surprise when I received a reply (promptly, I might add), letting me know that photography was actually allowed for this particular exhibit. Very cool! Except for the part where I didn’t bring my real camera along with me. Perhaps I’ll have to go back…

If you have the opportunity to check out this show, and to learn more about the artist, I certainly encourage it. I can’t promise you’ll love the art, but I am pretty confident you’ll be fascinated by the story behind the work. The show runs through January 22nd, and you can get more details on the Guggenheim website here:

http://www.guggenheim.org/new-york/exhibitions/on-view/maurizio-cattelan-all

Posted in Art, Photography | Leave a comment

Mastering Macro Photography

Posted on December 18, 2011 by Tim Grey

I’m very pleased to announce my latest video training title, “Mastering Macro Photography: Learn by Video“, is now available. Produced by my friends at video2brain, this title features 2.5 hours of video instruction in high-definition.

In the video lessons included with this title, I guide you through the equipment, concepts, and techniques to help you improve your knowledge and gain confidence in your ability to capture great closeup and macro photographs.

In addition, this title includes several macro “project” lessons, where I take you step by step through the entire process of capturing a particular macro photograph. One of my favorite projects included with this title involved photographing a spider web.

I had been driving around with the video crew the morning after some light rainfall, traveling through hills and mountains in search of interesting photographic opportunities. We found a small dirt road off the main road, with a large woodpile and some wildflowers. We pulled off, and I started exploring. Thanks to the overcast sky and the droplets left behind by the rain, there were countless photographic opportunities in this small area.

Wandering around the area, I spotted several spider webs among the wood pile, with one in particular in a relatively accessible location. Still, there were a few challenges. Obviously a spider web is relatively delicate, so I needed to be careful with my equipment and myself, to ensure I didn’t damage the web. And I needed to squeeze myself up against a wood pile on a small incline in order to get into a good position. The ground below my tripod was rather soft, which presented an additional challenge.

I managed to get into position, to get setup, and to create a basic image of the spider web. But then I decided I needed a better background. So I took a couple of relatively large leaves, and held them up behind the spider web. This provided a more interesting (I think) backdrop than the wood pile that was actually behind the web. All things considered, I was happy with the final photo, and I had a lot of fun making the image.

SpiderWebDew

For more details, or to purchase this great new video training title, visit the video2brain online store here:
http://bit.ly/timgreymacro

You can view a video of this particular macro photography project through my YouTube channel with the embedded video below.

If you’re not able to view the embedded video above, you can view it on my YouTube channel here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Lv7WfhBIJ8

Posted in Announcement, Products, Tutorial, Video | Leave a comment

Fighting Crowds for Photos

Posted on December 16, 2011 by Tim Grey

As I was walking past Rockefeller Center today, I decided perhaps I should go check out the tree and try my luck at a little photography, despite only having my iPhone with me. Not my brightest creative moment.

RockefellerTree1

You see, “the tree” is sort of a big deal. Both literally and figuratively. It’s a big tree, and it’s a big attraction. And this time of year, there are large numbers of tourists in Manhattan who want to check the tree off their list. So the place is crowded.

To make things worse, the tree isn’t exactly accessible. I mentioned the crowds, and that’s certainly part of the challenge. There are also quite a few barricades to (in theory) help control the flow of people. And the tree itself is surrounded by barriers (and security) to prevent you from touching the tree. Unfortunately, those barriers also prevent you from getting directly below the tree, or otherwise positioning yourself into position for an interesting perspective. I found it surprisingly frustrating to get a good angle on the subject, even though I’ve visited the tree numerous times and have certainly faced these limitations before. So you sort of end up with the same “standard” photos that everyone else gets. Makes me feel like I’m just another tourist, not a “real” photographer.

RockefellerTree2

But here’s the thing. If I got myself all setup with gear a bit more advanced than an iPhone, and actually took the time to get into a good position, wait for the right time, and set everything up perfectly, I’d end up with a good photo. But just how good could it be? I’ve seen good photos of the tree, but nothing that is knock-your-socks-off amazing. I’m sure it can be done. But I’ve never done it. And I don’t quite feel the motivation for it. So I’m thinking I’ll leave it to someone else.

Then again, I’ll bet after midnight the crowds are smaller and I could get a great shot. But the tree is only lit from 5:30am to 11:30pm. So… Sunrise photography of a Christmas tree anyone?…

Posted in Photography | Leave a comment

Lytro’s Living Pictures

Posted on December 14, 2011 by Tim Grey

Today I had the opportunity to check out the not-yet-shipping “light field camera” from Lytro, which was being presented today at the WIRED Store 2011 in Times Square.

Lytro1

The technology behind the Lytro camera is pretty cool. Imagine being able to capture an image where you have relatively narrow depth of field, but you can define which subject you want to have in crisp focus? That’s the basic idea behind the Lytro camera, and in the future they also expect to enable you to define the specific range of the depth of field. That’s pretty cool. In addition, you can shift perspective via parallax. Also cool.

Lytro2 What I found most interesting about the approach being taken by Lytro in promoting this camera, however, is that they seem first and foremost focused on how the images are shared, not how their captured or edited. In theory, the “Living Pictures” (as Lytro calls them) that are created from this camera can open up a whole new way for us to interact with photographs.

As a geeky photographer, I was a little disappointed with some of the specifications. You can only get prints of good quality up to around a 5″x7″ size. You can’t replace the battery, or the memory card. You can’t adjust the shutter speed. Their software will initially only be available for the Macintosh operating system.

But I think focusing (no pun intended) on the limitations of the initial Lytro cameras is a mistake. This is very cool technology, with a lot of potential in a variety of applications. I applaud Lytro for the effort they are clearly putting into making a successful product. As the technology develops and the product lineup matures, I could very easily see large numbers of photographers scrambling to get their hands on a product like this. And the Lytro representatives suggested that an SLR version of the Lytro camera might be possible in around two to five years.

Today the Lytro camera isn’t yet shipping, and is a little expensive for a digital camera with relatively low resolution and somewhat limited utility. But if Lytro is successful in their efforts, I would anticipate much lower prices and more powerful cameras. The question is, will these cameras be embraced by consumers and photographers, or will they be seen as a gimmick? The future will tell, but I encourage you to check out the Lytro website (www.lytro.com) to see the “Living Pictures” in action. And if you decide to become an “early adopter” of one of their cameras (or get a chance to play with one at one of their events), let me know what you think.

Posted in Products, Technology | 1 Comment

Fun with Stripes

Posted on December 12, 2011 by Tim Grey

While I was in Austria recently recording more video training titles with video2brain, I had the opportunity to spend a little time on a brief road trip, and along the way I stopped in Venice in part to check out the Biennale art show. I wasn’t all that impressed with the art on display at Biennale, but the grounds were very cool. One particular area of the grounds that caught my eye was a small cafe. And when I say it caught my eye, what I really mean is that it was almost blinding.

BiennaleStripes

The room consisted of some very wild furniture and overall decor, but in particular there were stripes. Lots of strips. Everywhere. Black and white stripes, orange and black stripes, stripes along walls, stripes along pipes (I feel like I’m caught in a Dr. Seuss book). It was wild, and it was interesting, and it was fun from a photographic standpoint. How could I resist?!

One of the things that I found most interesting is that because so many different areas of the room had so many different stripes, I could adjust my position to shift the relative position of the different stripes. For example, in the image shown here, there was a column on the left side of the frame that was relatively close to the camera, and a wall in the background that was further away. I shot with a variety of settings, but thought it might be interesting to open up the aperture a bit (I went to f/5.6) in order to render the closer stripes in focus and the further stripes with a bit of a blur.

Mostly I thought it was interesting that this sort of scene had such potential to trick the eye, and so I tried to capture images that similarly created an element of “What is that?!” on the part of the viewer. In other words, something of an optical illusion. But not just in terms of not being able to precisely identify the subject, but also not even being entirely sure that the image was a photograph, as opposed to something created from scratch in Photoshop, for example.

I love finding subjects like this, simply because I find it interesting to explore a variety of different possibilities. I’m never quite sure what I might end up using such a photo for, but they sure can be fun to create!

Posted in Photography, Travel | 3 Comments

Help from a Monopod

Posted on December 7, 2011 by Tim Grey

TimAlaskaMonopod Monopods are often thought of as a tool only suited for sports photographers, but the reality is a monopod can be very helpful in many different situations.

One common situation where a tripod can be helpful is when photographing from a motorboat. You want a stable platform, but you don’t want to transmit the vibrations of the motor through the tripod to your camera. A tripod represents a good compromise. I had a chance to put a monopod to extensive use while co-leading a field photography workshop in Alaska, spending eight days on a yacht with a group of great students. The tripod I used was a Gitzo GM5541 carbon fiber tripod, but just about any sturdy and lightweight tripod will provide a helpful platform.

I also consider a monopod to be a great compromise when a tripod is a bit too constricting of your movement, but you’d prefer not to shoot handheld. On the boat in Alaska this was most certainly the case. When whales, eagles, mountain goats (on the shore nearby, of course) or other subjects made an appearance, it was necessary to move quickly from one part of the boat to another to get the shot. A monopod is much easier to move around with compared to a tripod, and enables greater flexibility than a tripod for moving around once you’ve found a good position to shoot from. Plus it provides an extra degree of stability compared to shooting hand-held.

You might consider adding a monopod to your equipment closet if you find yourself in situations where you’d like to have some additional stability with a platform that doesn’t require as much space as a tripod.

Posted in Equipment | 9 Comments

The Case for Manual Cleanup

Posted on December 7, 2011 by Tim Grey

I was at B&H Photo in New York last week, presenting a session on image cleanup in Photoshop. During the presentation I said something that I really don’t think the audience believed. But it was true!

I showed them an image that I captured in the Palouse region of eastern Washington state while co-leading a field photography workshop there. Of course, I had already pretended to mis-lead the audience a little. I had been joking that the reason the shadow of my head was in the frame was that I had done so on purpose, in order to provide a good sample image for a later image cleanup effort. The truth (which I quickly ‘fessed up to) is that I was a little careless while shooting with a wide-angle lens, and the shadow was there entirely by accident.

HorsesInPalouse ManualPatching

That little fib was an intentional effort at humor, with no intention of anyone believing that the shadow was there on purpose. But then I explained that sometimes the automatic image cleanup tools in Photoshop let you down a little bit, and you need to use a manual approach. Then I told the audience that I had actually never tried to clean up the shadow with the automatic approach. I just used this image to demonstrate the manual method, without a concern about whether the automatic approach might work better.

I don’t think they believed me at all. But it was actually true! The image worked well for demonstrating a manual approach to image cleanup, and I had never bothered to test to see how the automatic tools fared. I tried to convince the audience that I really had never tried, and that I was about to try the Spot Healing Brush with the Content-Aware feature for the very first time on this particular image to see how it would do.

Lucky for me, the Spot Healing Brush tool actually did a pretty bad job with this particular image cleanup task. And that only served to validate the value of the manual approach to image cleanup I was going to demonstrate moments later.

That manual approach happens to involve creating a selection that is a little larger than the area you need to fix, moving that selection to an area of the image that represents a good source of pixels to replace the blemish, duplicating the pixels in that area (presumably from the Background image layer), and then using a layer mask to blend the correction in. Simple, and effective.

If you’d like to learn even more about image cleanup to make all of your photos look their best, check out my video training title “Photoshop Image Cleanup Workshop” available from the video2brain online store here:
https://partner.video2brain.com/timgrey/courses.htm#/?c=798&t=1

Posted in Events, Tutorial | Leave a comment

Just Because…

Posted on December 6, 2011 by Tim Grey

Sometimes photography is a “just because” endeavor. I wish this sort of “because” was always as impressive as George Mallory’s, “because it’s there” form of “because”, but the bottom line is that sometimes we take photographs just because something strikes us as being cool.

And so it was when I was returning home from dinner after teaching all day at my “Photoshop Power Workshop” in New York City. It had been forecast to rain all day, but that didn’t quite pan out. However, the weather conditions did lead to some low clouds and mist after sunset, and while walking home I noticed the well-illuminated Empire State Building looked very mysterious and interesting as clouds blew by.

ESBNightClouds

So, after returning home I gathered my gear and headed up to the roof. The intent was to spend just a few minutes capturing a quick image of the Empire State Building. You know how that goes. I took time trying to find the best location. Then I had to tinker with the exposure settings. Then I fine-tuned the composition. Then I captured several frames, all with relatively long exposures. Then I realized I was getting pretty wet, even though it was only misting. After every few photos I had to wipe off the front of the lens. And between short sessions I had to put the lens cap back on the lens.

In short, it was fun. Lots of fun! More fun than it probably should have been capturing relatively pedestrian shots of a building that has been captured millions of times. But it didn’t matter. I was enjoying the process, and that was good enough.

Posted in Philosophical, Photography | Leave a comment

Non-Destructive Cropping

Posted on December 4, 2011 by Tim Grey

When I published an edition of my Ask Tim Grey email newsletter on the day before Thanksgiving, I figured many readers (at least in the US) were going to pass it by, being busy traveling or otherwise preparing for the Thanksgiving holiday. So I was a little surprised at how much positive feedback I received via email. Most of those responding expressed some variation on the theme of not being aware it was possible to apply a non-destructive crop in Photoshop.

NonDestructiveCrop

Photographers are becoming increasingly aware of the non-destructive workflow in Lightroom, and that certainly extends to cropping. And I hear from many photographers (and I agree with their sentiment) who feel that cropping in Lightroom is for the most part far superior to cropping in Photoshop. But most of them, it seems, aren’t aware that you can apply a (relatively speaking) non-destructive crop in Photoshop.

The basic process of non-destructive cropping in Photoshop involves first converting the Background image layer to a normal layer. This is done by double-clicking on the thumbnail for the Background image layer on the Layers panel and then clicking OK in the New Layer dialog that appears (typing a new name for the layer before clicking OK if that’s your preference).

You then choose the Crop tool and click-and-drag across the image to draw the initial crop box. At this point you can select the Hide option for Cropping on the Options bar. The default setting is Delete, which as the name implies will completely remove the pixels that fall outside the crop box as soon as you apply the crop. By choosing the Hide option what’s actually happening is that the document frame is being resized so you can only see the area of the image included within the crop, with pixels outside that area still remaining but not visible.

If at any time you change your mind you can simply choose Image > Reveal All to expand the document frame to show all of the pixels that fall outside of that frame, effectively un-cropping the image.

I use this trick all the time when I want to crop an image in Photoshop, and I’m not completely certain that I won’t change my mind later about the specific cropping I’m applying.

Posted in Photoshop, Tutorial | 2 Comments