Took some pictures last night

"Jake - Has Bad Luck So You Don't Have To" (murdersofa)
01/21/2018 at 11:27 • Filed to: None

I’m honestly not that pleased with them. I dunno what it is. There’s just a distinct “fuzziness” or “fakeness” to them that I could not figure out compared to the razor-sharp images my peers were taking (then again their equipment made my computer look like a pinhole camera).

This one is okay except for the dark rear wheel and I utterly hate how cool these LED flashlights are for light painting

Train passing by

Looking west down Douglas Avenue in Wichita. Taken across two railroad tracks on a bridge, this was as high as I could get my camera. 7-step HDR photo. It honestly looks like a shit cellphone HDR photo and it bugs me but I couldn’t manage anything better.

Light painting these was a bastard and it never turned out well. The white one would just glow and overexpose unless you were super careful and any oblique angle would just absorb light on the silver one.

Single 30-second exposure looking east down Douglas Avenue in Old Town Wichita KS, an ex-industrial area that was revived as a bar crawl party area. I live just down the street from here.

This looks like a magazine photo from the early 2000s. I can’t even really figure out why I don’t like this one.

This looks like a need for speed screenshot. The car looks so fake. I don’t get it.

DISCUSSION (15)

JGrabowMSt > Jake - Has Bad Luck So You Don't Have To
01/21/2018 at 11:42

I know I had an autofocus issue that was killing me for a long time. Could be focus mode, glare down the lens, the lens not seated “just right” on the body.

It’s a killer, I know.

Textured Soy Protein > Jake - Has Bad Luck So You Don't Have To
01/21/2018 at 11:48

Looking at them 100%, it seems like the fuzziness may be a simple case of not nailing focus.

S65 > Jake - Has Bad Luck So You Don't Have To
01/21/2018 at 12:10

Well at least I like them, but I’m pretty unfamiliar with photography and i can pretty much barely take decent pictures with a mirrorless.

Jonathan Harper > Jake - Has Bad Luck So You Don't Have To
01/21/2018 at 12:26

Lightpainting shots are always going to look a bit “fake”. But I agree with others here I think your focus wasn’t quite focused on the car. How were you focusing? For night shots like these I like to shine a light on the car, use a focus magnifier to really nail it, and then lock off the focus so it doesn’t change while I’m doing various exposures.

I’ve been messing around with lightpainting for a couple years now, let me offer a few tips. The top shot of the car profile is probably the best lit lightpaint you have here. The lighting is more even than the rest, but still quite uneven. If you hold the light at a contant height while you move around the car you will get nice straight streaks on the side of the car. It takes a few tries usually but I usually aim to get the light streak right on the belt-line of the car.

Also looks like you were just moving around the front side of the car in the lightpaint shots. Set a longer exposure (10-15 sec) and move all the way around the car. This will give you a nice highlight on the roof of the car. Also learn to layer your exposures. That will allow you to do an unlit exposure for the background, and eliminate light spill.

Hope this helps, feel free to reply with any questions!

Jake - Has Bad Luck So You Don't Have To > Textured Soy Protein
01/21/2018 at 14:02

For whatever reason my camera has focus issues and it’s super frustrating because I can’t tell on it’s garbage little preview screen. I had about 30 shots from that session I had to toss because they were super out of focus

Jake - Has Bad Luck So You Don't Have To > Jonathan Harper
01/21/2018 at 14:12

Sadly my D3100 has no focus mode I’m aware of and the autofocus has been a bit dicky for the last year or so. Had to toss out 40-some pictures due to being grotesquely out of focus. Most of those lightpaints are composites of three shots. Lighting the front, lighting from above, and lighting the top from behind using a $30 Walmart flashlight spastically waved around to cover the whole car.

30sec exposures at f30 iso100

I used an unlit exposure for the background of the last picture but I was undecided on if I liked it better than just using one of my actual light paint exposures as a base.

Jake - Has Bad Luck So You Don't Have To > JGrabowMSt
01/21/2018 at 14:13

My d3100 has autofocus issues and my eyesight isn’t good enough to discern slight focus issues through the viewfinder. It sucks. I had to toss 40 pictures because they were unusable.

Jonathan Harper > Jake - Has Bad Luck So You Don't Have To
01/21/2018 at 17:32

In lieu of other focus modes...I’m sure you can force manual focus on it, go that route to nail your focus. Good to hear on the composites! How are you blending? Next step is to learn the pen tool in order to extremely precisely separate the car from the background, and thus control the car image independent of the bg.

I think a big problem here is the “spastically waving” part. Turn the light so the long end is parallel with the ground and move as smoothly as possible in a straight line laterally keeping the light at a constant height. Move from further beside the car to further past the car than you think you need to go to get nice even highlights across the whole car. Check out my FB photo page and feel free to ask any questions about anything you see there.

Textured Soy Protein > Jake - Has Bad Luck So You Don't Have To
01/21/2018 at 17:45

Best to use manual focus for a composed static shot anyway. Assuming whatever camera you’re using has some kind of live view, zoom in on some specific detail on the object you want to be in focus, like a wheel on the car, headlight, etc. Something where you’ll be able to clearly make out the details. Assuming you’re already shooting at f/8 or narrower aperture you’ll have plenty of DOF for your subject to be in focus and it’s fine if your background isn’t tack sharp.

JGrabowMSt > Jake - Has Bad Luck So You Don't Have To
01/21/2018 at 18:41

It seems like youre using a tripod mostly, so Ill just say that JBH has great tips. Same thing I do, and I dont think its a technique that enough people really put to use.

Jake - Has Bad Luck So You Don't Have To > Textured Soy Protein
01/21/2018 at 18:51

My camera doesn’t allow zooming on the live view in any usable fashion for focusing. It’s super frustrating.

Jake - Has Bad Luck So You Don't Have To > Jonathan Harper
01/21/2018 at 19:02

I have used manual focus but I have never trusted my eyes as much as the camera where focus is concerned. For blending I just use a fuzzy brush tool and masks in Photoshop. I tried using the lasso tool to precisely separate it but it ended up looking super poor for whatever reason.

Hmm, alright, I’ll give it another shot and watch some tutorials and see if I can get more consistent results with steady use of the flashlight. Might try to fashion some sort of color filter for the light as well because I reeeealy don’t like how cold the light is.

Jonathan Harper > Jake - Has Bad Luck So You Don't Have To
01/21/2018 at 20:15

Just add a color balance layer very easy to adjust warm/cold on any part. Also prioritize learning the pen tool, it will allow you to select things to 1 pixel of precision, and make ellipses and all that it’s very very helpful.

Textured Soy Protein > Jake - Has Bad Luck So You Don't Have To
01/21/2018 at 20:18

What camera?

Jake - Has Bad Luck So You Don't Have To > Textured Soy Protein
01/21/2018 at 20:57

D3100. It has a “zoom” function on the live view but all it does is inflate the already-awful resolution. Can’t make out any more detail with it than you could normally.