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Monday, June 16, 2014

My Leica Comes Out Again

My poor little Leica. It has been sitting in my dry cabinet for a few months now not seeing the light of day. My daughter felt bad for it, and told me that I should take it out for a spin again….So, I did. I grabbed my two models (my daughters, Kayla and Kelly), and forced them to pose for me in the back yard. All natural light (with a reflector)…and used the Voightlander 50mm shot at f/1.4

The first shot is using the Brenizer Method. What is the Brenizer Method you ask? Well, it is basically creating a panorama. You set your camera to manual, and lock the focus and exposure values…..then take several shots above, below and to the sides of your subject. What you end up with is a wide-angle shot with the depth of field of a much longer lens. Pretty cool.

[Group-0]-KaylaGazebo-1_KaylaGazebo-9-12-images-Edit L9999004-Edit

Tags: brenizer method,Leica M9,portraits

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Thursday, June 12, 2014

The Tree Near My House

I pass this tree most every day on my way home from work. It is about 5 minutes from our house. Every time I pass it, I think, “Man, I gotta get a photo of this tree one day”. The problem is that the traffic around this tree is pretty heavy, and I had no idea what lens to use to try to capture the entire tree, and where I would stand to get the photo as you pretty much have to stand in the middle of the road risking your life as motorcycles and cars whiz around you…not to mention the stares I would get being this white foreign guy standing in the middle of the road taking a photo of a tree. Indonesians would not understand.

As it turns out, I was able to stand on the side of the road to get this shot. I used my Sony A7R and the Leica 35mm lens, and took 25 shots of vertical photos from left to right in two rows, then stitched them all together with AutoPano Giga (the program I mentioned in my last post). The final image was over 56 million pixels. It started to rain as I was taking the photos, and liked the look…however, the rain didn’t come out so well when I stitched the photos together, so I faked it a bit, and used a “rain brush” in Photoshop to bring out the rain more so that you can see it. I must credit ObscureLilium from Deviant Art for the “rain brush”…

Tags: Jakarta,pano,rain,tree

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Tuesday, June 10, 2014

AutoPano Giga

I have been playing with a new program called, Auto Pano Giga, by Kolor. I found out about the program through a good buddy of mine that shared a video tutorial about the Brenizer method. The Brenizer method is named after a wedding photographer named, Ryan Brenizer, who creates wide angle images with shallow depth of field. Usually an impossible thing to do with a 35mm camera and standard lenses. Basically, he creates a panorama with a fast lens, like the 85mm f/1.8, or something similar. He shoots with the camera wide open, and ends up with a wide angle image with that beautiful shallow depth of field. Very cool.

Autopano Giga

In his tutorial, he uses the panorama stitching program called, Auto Pano Giga. I decided to give the program a try, and ended up purchasing it. It is fantastic, and way better and faster than Photoshop. The image below is just a practice image I took today of my house. I used the Leica 35mm lens on the Sony. Set the camera to manual…f/5.6 at 1/80 sec, ISO 800…and took 23 overlapping images in two rows. The final image after stitched in Autopano Giga was over 240 megapixels….the length was more than 25,000 pixels across….simply amazing!! It took Autopano Giga only a couple of minutes to stitch together the pano. The trouble, though, is that after the image is made, the image is HUGE….this one was about 600 megabites…as you can imagine, everything done in photoshop afterwards takes some time as the image multiplies in size with each layer added….

Tags: autopano giga,panorama

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Tuesday, June 3, 2014

The Problem With Summer Vacation

I love Summer

In less than three days, I will be officially on “Summer Vacation”. It is one of the great things about being a teacher. Once the school year is over, the work is truly over. It ends. It is one of the few professions where the work really does END. No projects hanging over your head while on vacation. No phone calls, no meetings, no obligations. It is summer vacation….just like when we were kids. The teachers really take advantage too…especially living and working at an international school. The teachers that work here take off the day after school is out, and literally fly to all corners of the Earth. I am also taking off, but waiting a couple of weeks to go anywhere. We are going to Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Sicily this summer with a side trip (a guy’s trip) to Iceland.

The Problem

The problem? Is there really a problem? Well…yes. The problem with summer vacation is that it seems everyone else in the world is also on vacation. Head to Europe or the States during the summer, and you will for sure encounter thousands of others going to the same spots, staying at the same hotels and hiking the same trails. Parks are full. Parking lots are full. Highways are full. Museums….full. Tourist hot spots….full. Even the spots that were thought to be “off the beaten path” are….FULL. You have to think of really unique spots to visit…places that others don’t think about visiting. That is getting tougher and tougher to do these days. All of the secret spots that used to be tourist free are now getting noticed.

My proposal? End the School year (at my school only) in September, and make September, October and November as the “long break”….best months in terms of weather around the world, and most of the populace is back in school or hard at work….prices are cheaper, and the hot spots are way less crowded….ah, now how nice would THAT be?

Rome in Summer

This is a photo I took a couple of years ago when I was in Rome with Tika. This is the famous Trevi Fountain in Rome. Think you could find a time to get a good shot of the fountain? Think again. The place was packed with hundreds of people like 24 hours a day….I bet you could get a shot in the middle of October, though….at least I think you could.

Tags: crowds,Italy,Rome,summer,vacation

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