More Trick Photography – the Smoking Hot Potato Effect!

January 21st, 2012 Thomasso

Actually, this photography trick falls under the category of creating fake smoke, or the illusion of smoke without using something that is smoking. You can use just about any object, as the example I seen on the Internet was an apple, but becuase I did not have any apples, I substituted the prop with a potato instead.  Also, string is the main part for the effect; I did not have any string handy, so I used a rubber band as a stand-in for the smoke effect. Lastly, the flashlight, which, if you can adjust the light beam to a narrow focus, then better the effect, but it is not necessary.

Make sure everything is focused up, then set your lens focus to manual (if you are using a zoom lens with “AF” switch on it), and of course, your camera has to be mounted on a tripod. Tape your string to the end of the flashlight, or in my case, a rubber band. Next, turn out the lights in the room, and set the exposure to about 5 seconds. Press the shutter button, with the flashlight on and wiggle and aim the flashlight over top of the potato until the five second exposure is finished.

The wiggling rubber band with the flashlight makes the effect of smoke, while having a black background. Looks like real smoke! Cool eh?

This took me five minutes to set up and about ten shots before I was happy with what I got. DSLR cameras are so much fun! Mine is a Sony A33, a beginner’s camera.

No potatoes were harmed, maimed, or killed during this exercise!

Source:

“Fake Smoke” by Jbphotography June 2011.

Posted in Art, General, Photographs | 2 Comments »

Fort Langley and Filming of Super Natural

January 20th, 2012 Thomasso

For the last couple of days, during the little freezing weather stint, the sleepy little town of Fort Langley has being the epicenter for the television science fiction/horror show, “Super Natural.” They have being filming here for most of all day and night over the last two days now, mostly taking up the down town area between Mavis Avenue and 96th Avenue along Glover Road.

I just found out that this was “Super Natural” being filming here from some of my Twitter friends a couple of hours ago. Thanks @DearHeartxoxo !

At first I thought they were nuts shooting in these frigged temperatures that we have been getting for the last week. But it appears that minus ten is nothing for these guys -  they can handle just about anything.

Today has ended the freeing period that I hated so much, marking the end of five solid days straight of minus degree weather. Now it is above freezing, but rain, or drizzle, is plaguing us, and all of this melting snow is just soaking everything. There is a storm warning, but I fear that that will hit us tomorrow as wind and rain will rule the day tomorrow. But it is warmer out, and that makes me mildly happy.

The filming normally does not bother me except for the odd traffic snarl; however, last night the flood lights that were lifted on top of two huge cranes, that bothered me as the light shown into my bedroom window. They were shut off around ten thirty last night, but I still had to force myself to sleep, with the curtains drawn, but it still looked light daylight outside. Tonight is more of the same. They have the same two cranes up, and again the light is shinning onto Glover Road, one block over form me. They are very bright, so the spill-off from them makes it look like the light is shining right at my windows.

You can see the tree on the left is lit up from the crane on 96th Avenue, and the light that you can see is over at Glover and Mavis Avenue – one block away. These are massive lights, and they are bright!

Fortunately, it is Friday, and staying up late tonight is an option.

Posted in Around Town, Bitching about weather, Diatribe, Events, General, Humour, Photographs, Socail Media, Twitter | 2 Comments »

Ice Box World

January 18th, 2012 Thomasso

Since we are on the topic of ice, I thought I would continue on with my photographic journey into Ice Photography. We seem to have a lot of it lately with the onset of a super cold snap that has hit the Metro Vancouver area. This is day three of freezing below zero Celsius weather, and tonight and tomorrow it is going to be worse yet as the daytime hight in Fort Langley only got up to -3C. So, tonight, we could see -11C! We are not used to this!

OK, ice. I was only outside for a short ten minute walk to the end of my driveway and back. This was as far as I dare go with only running shoes on. Not very winterly equip foot wear for this type of frigged weather either – but I managed to snap a few shoots off before I tip-toed back in side – running. So here is what I got:

I will add more text later when my fingers have blood circulating back in them again.

Posted in Bitching about weather, Diatribe, General, Photographs | No Comments »

An Icicle in Mid Drip

January 15th, 2012 Thomasso

It was such a picturesque day in wintery Fort Langley that I could not resist shooting an icicle melting away in the sun, as water dripped downwards from it like a leaky faucet in a down town crack-house. They were pretty, and neat, to watch becuase we do not get icicles that often here in the Metro Vancouver area, so it was a “stand and stare” moment for me.

Capturing the dripping action with a digital camera had its moment too. Close the aperture, shorten the shutter, up the ISO for that high speed catch. My only limitation was time becuase I was already freezing from my little walk around town. Dress for winter if you want to take outside photographs in winter. Lesson learned!

ADDED: I was going to go outside again after I warmed up to shoot some more, but ended up not going out becuase of other things popping up that needed to be dealt with–then it got too dark. So I just went through my photos again, and found another image that I think has some good qualities.

I guess now I have to master too the art of high speed photography. The ISO and shutter speed have to really be quick to catch these drips! Shooting with the camera set to Automatic, The drips would never be caught. I think two things were happening. First, my timing was lousy. Being so close into the subject, and waiting for the drip to happen, then pressing the shutter button, timing was everything – I had to be quick. Second, my shutter speed was just way too low for this type of capture. I needed a super fast shutter speed to catch the drip in mid flight after it left the icicle.

I know I tried a bunch of times, but everything I was doing was just too slow.

The image above I cropped to give it better positioning, but was shot at a wider angle as compared to the image at the top of this post.

Posted in Around Town, Bitching about work, Diatribe, General, Humour, Photographs | 3 Comments »

It Was Bound to Happen: It Snowed!

January 14th, 2012 Thomasso

It was bound to have happened sooner or later. The snow finally came last night with a muffled but consistent rate that when I looked outside this morning, there was about 5cm of it sitting on the ground. The snow was the wet, packey type, saturated with rain as the temperature was well above freezing. In the back of my mind I thought, “cool,’ becuase I own a 4 wheel drive vehicle that can easily take on snow on the road without getting stuck. This was always a problem in the past for me when owning small vehicles. So, I am happy with the change of scenery, and will embrace the snow knowing full well that by Monday it will all melt away – I hope?

I waited for the day to get brighter before I went outside. I wanted to desperately take photos before the rain washed all of the snow from the branches and bushes. By the time the light was good enough, the rain was just starting to change the snow, and it was melting away fast.

There was the snowplough too. “Why,” I thought, “did the park hire a snowplough today when no one had to go to work, and it was raining?” I had to get out first before the snowplough wrecked the natural scenery.

The snow was nothing in terms of the amount, but it pleasantly changed the world enough to make it look like a different world than the one we were use to. I used a lot of wide angle, close up, shots to express the little amount of snow we had on top of objects like branches and RV awnings.

Looking close up, the image looks like we had a huge dump of snow, but I was shooting, the above image, from behind a fence that was taller than me, and the tree was just behind it and was only a meter taller than the fence. Looks like a lot of snow, eh?

My wide angle shots looked cool too. Using my 55mm zoom lens, as the trees were just starting to loose all of the snow collected on the branches, I caught it just before most of the snow fell off. Yes, I should have set the white balance becuase the sky looked way too blue/gray, when really it was not. Hey, I am learning – this is a learning curve.

I will post these shots, and all the rest I took today in my photo gallery soon. For now, enjoy the snow if you live in the Vancouver, Fraser Valley area!

Added: one last one becuase the Sun came out, and it stopped raining.

I call this one, the above image, “Snow on my Pathfinder.” Yay, sunshine!

Posted in Bitching about weather, General, Photographs | 4 Comments »

Doing Some Night Photography in Fort Langley: Part 2

January 10th, 2012 Thomasso

It was a spur of the moment when I decided to grab the camera and stand out in the middle of the street while people were walking by staring at me as I was shooting my camera at night scenes. Also, there was a very awesome looking (almost) full Moon out too, and people were asking me If I was shooting that too. “No,” I replied, ” I do not have the right lens for that.” But people were out too shooting with their point-and-shoot pocket cameras at the Moon – too funny.

One young women even told me that this Moon was the Harvest Moon? I thought that was during the month of October, but I just agreed and looked enthusiastic.

ADDED – Jan 12 2012: If you want to see all the shots for this set, click here, GALLERY 18. 20 photos taken.

So I walked through town, armed with my camera on a tripod, taking long exposures of anything that reflected, or emitted light. It was great! Here are some of the twenty shots I took:

Above, is the famous Fort Langley Community Hall. I just missed the x-mass tree as it was taken down the day before: it had lights on it!

Above, looking South on Glover Road, at 96th Avenue. Yes, that is a Sushi Shop there on the right, “Iron chef,” or something, but that is what the sign says?

Above, North on Glover Road, at Mary Avenue. Many Movies have been shot here.

Above, looking North on Glover Road towards the old “Frontier” Hardware Store.

Later on in the week I will post the whole load of photos in my Gallery. For now I need some sleep, as I have a long day tomorrow.

Posted in Around Town, Diatribe, General, Photographs | No Comments »

Doing Some Night Photography in Fort Langley

January 9th, 2012 Thomasso

Being that we are well into weeks of overcast winter weather for lousy optimum daytime photography, and it stopped raining, and it is really warm out (for this time of year), I thought why not do some night shooting with the camera? See Gallery Shots here.

I was inspired when I was searching on the net photos of Fort Langley, BC, and came across a night time shot of the Glover Road bridge, that used to take people to the Albion Ferry a few years back, so, I had to take some photos of it too! If I can shoot stars up in the sky with my camera, then I can shoot down to Earth images, with no problems at all, at night too. I focused on (pardon the pun) wide aperture, and long exposures or shutter speeds, between 5 to 10 seconds long, while keeping the ISO low, around 400 for sharpness and less noise. It was an awesome night for shooting.

Playing around with just the exposure time (shutter speed), the clouds looked really awesome! I thought the water was a great setting too becuase the original photo that I looked at also used the river for the main part of the scene. I am standing about where the original photo I saw was as far as location and where the camera is pointed.

Water, lights and clouds make a really good combination for night time shoots like this.

I have twenty shoots posted in my Gallery that you can view here: Fort Langley Jan 9 2012. All of these are night shots that I took. Let me know what you think by posting your comment in the comment link below. I would love to read them.

Posted in Around Town, General, Photographs | 2 Comments »

Breaking News: Changed My Twitter Pic!

January 7th, 2012 Thomasso

Breaking: I just changed my Twitter image, the image that is used as your avatar when you use your Twitter account. After almost six weeks having the new camera, it dawned on me to shoot a better looking image for my Twitter Identity with it instead of the web-came one I had before. So keeping with the theme and tradition, I used the same pencil that I have always used.

I have kept the same general image because I find it is hard to follow when Tweeps (Twitter users) keep changing their images around, especially when they use obscure alphanumeric names as their handles which are almost impossible to keep track of. I am now at just over 800 followers, and I am following the same number on my Twitter Account. Keeping track of that many people with weird names, I need all the help I can get, so changing your photo throws the whole memory game out the window for me.

After having the new camera for almost six weeks, I finally just got around to taking a good quality image for my Twitter Account today. Below is the stock image that I cropped and edited my final image from.

Regrettably, using Twitter, you are limited to an image size of only 700k bits, so any edge on image quality is a boon once you start reducing your image size down to this small 76 x 76 px size area.

Posted in Art, Diatribe, Events, General, Humour, Photographs, Socail Media, Twitter | No Comments »

It was One Year Ago – The Loss of the IGA Store

January 5th, 2012 Thomasso

It was in the early morning hours of January 4th, 2011 when the IGA store burnt down in Fort Langley. Looking back on that day, I still get a little upset as the loss of that that store has made life a little more inconvenient for myself, and for most other residence who I have spoken to in this small community.

According to the “The Fort” Winter 2011/12 issue, the fire was caused by a “botched burglary.”

Construction of the new store on the same property started around November 2011, but the store itself will be built on the parking lot at the corner of Mavis and Church Street instead of Glover Road and Mavis. We are waiting with anticipation.

The image above (taken with a point-and-shoot Kodak M1063 camera) is the newly laid foundation of the IGA over top of the former parking lot (Mavis and Church Street).

I know for myself, seeing progress on the site is welcomed news, and I just hope that I am still living here when the store finally opens.

If you want to view some of the photos that I took of the IGA Fire back on January 4th, 2011, please click here for my photo gallery.

Posted in Around Town, Criminal Law, Events, General, Photographs | Comments Off

Perfecting Being Out of Focus: Bokeh

January 2nd, 2012 Thomasso

Outside in the elements, this time of year here in Fort Langley (near Vancouver, B.C.) it has being, well, for lack of a better word, crappy out. We seem to go through week long periods of constant overcast days, where even the wildlife just seem to want to stay away becuase it is so grey and damp out. So, if you have a the shutter bug in you, shooting indoors is all that there is left to do to satisfy the itch.

Using my plant as a model, which is about the only interesting thing that is near and already set up to shoot, I focused on not focusing. My goal was to find that nice blend of soft out of focus background, with the super sharp object in focus in the foreground and put them together. Not long ago I was trying to achieve the all focused field of view, and only shooting with the aperture as small as possible, but since then, I now see the beauty of Bokeh.

What is bokeh you ask?

In the words of Ken Rockwell on the topic of bokeh, at www.kenrockwell.com, he says that, “Bokeh describes the rendition of out-of-focus points of light.”

So what lured me towards the art of bokeh was wanting to place the object that I was photographing as the central feature of the image, and completely obscuring everything else out of view, yet still having it there as a point of reference. My early attempts were not that impressive, and as I started doing more shots using this methods, a number of issues started jumping out at me.

I am shooting with a Sony a33 using its kit lens the 3.5-5.6/18-55 SAM, so right off the bat I have huge limitations for doing indoor shots when I should be using a more appropriate lens like a 30mm 2.5 macro,  but I am on a budget, so the macro lens will have to wait.

The above image was the first shot in my shoot, using just the auto focus and flash mode of the camera. After moving the camera around the table and aiming it at the plant from different angles, I found out that the focusing was not the only issue I had to deal with.

The type of light that I was using in the room was problematic. I have a compact florescent light (CFL) over top of the plant and two incandescent light sources in the room, but further back. Switching the incandescent light source off and using the flash and CFL added more blue than what I wanted. And I tried several white balance settings before I started to get the true whites and colour tones I wanted.

On the left was the White Balance set to florescent, and on the right, using the camera’s Auto White Balance setting to do the work.

Lighting was a huge issue. Using both hot and cold light and mixing them together was not good either. Without the flash, I had very little light that I could control, and that was not good enough for the job. Cranking up the ISO for the lack of light was not working for me either as I got lots of unwanted noise in the image. This is where my inexperience showed; frustration was setting in.

The above image I felt I was getting closer. The light coming in from the back ground seemed to be about as soft as I could get it. Also, I was using the manual focus at this point. Manually adjusting the lens worked far better than the auto focus from the camera. The camera assumed that I wanted the object in the centre of the image in focus, and the nine focus points from the censor kept pushing the lens to only focus in the other areas of the viewfinder, not the object I wanted. I switched it off the Auto Focus to get the results I was looking for.

Above: this was one of those shots that was interesting becuase the camera was set to automatic, except for the focusing, and it turned out exceptionally good and interesting. I am not going to say that it is great, but it captured the depth of field very well. I personally think the image is way too complicated, so I decided to post it here as well and see if you have any comments about it.

Posted in General, Photographs | 5 Comments »