Shooting Fireworks

Shooting Fireworks

Posted on by Jim Roberts

I’ve tried shooting fireworks for some time now with some but not a lot of success. I finally found the advise I needed from a four year old David Bergman YouTube video.

December may be a weird time to talk about firework as they are usually set for the fourth of July but this has not been a usual year by any means and being in Florida means that November can be a good time for fireworks too.

Holiday Fireworks : Fujifilm X-T2 XF 18-135mm F8 ISO 200 8 seconds at 45.6mm

We have a local holiday parade which besides jamming up traffic for several hours starts with a pretty good firework display. I used David’s settings, got my focus point set just before infinity, and was able to get a number of pleasing shots. We did have an almost full moon that evening which was just behind the clouds. With an 8 second exposure I did get a small airplane on the left side of the image below.

Holiday Fireworks, Airplane, and Almost Full Moon
Flowerworks : Fujifilm X-T2 XF 18-135 F8 8 Seconds 70.2mm

Images were processed in Capture One Pro 20 and additional tweaking in Nik Software 3.0.

Trick is that the exposure of 8 seconds means you have to wait a bit before you can verify that you have the right focal length to get all of the fireworks in frame but not to far away.

So thanks to David Bergman for the best version of how to shoot fireworks. Can’t wait until we can have a real 4th of July or maybe get Disney to bring back nightly fireworks.

A Small Lens

A Small Lens

Posted on by Jim Roberts

Here is a shout out to a really small lens that Fujifilm X camera users should really think about. It’s the XF 27mm F2.8 lens.

I don’t use it enough. At 2.75 oz it is the kind of lens you can carry with you anywhere as a spare. It is also a nice wide lens at F2.8. And the 27mm is a good lens for environmental stuff. Not wide angle but not in your face.

Nice sharp lens for not a lot of money.

The Disadvantaged

The Disadvantaged

Posted on by Jim Roberts

I have never been that big a fan of Adobe’s subscription model for a number of reasons. First and foremost is the way the programs break if you stop your subscription. I’ve kept the Adobe Photographers monthly plan with Photoshop and Lightroom since they introduced it a number of years ago. I’ve paid in my $119.88 a year for the last almost 8 years which means I’ve paid just under a thousand dollars.

So they came out with their upgraded software during Adobe Max last month and I went to update the programs only to find that I no longer can update because I’m on an older (but still working) iMac that is not being updated by Apple.

So technically I need to continue to provide Adobe with $10 a month to use their software without ever being able to upgrade because of my machine. If I drop the payment I lose functionality that I’ve paid for for 8 years.

My iMac will be 9 years old at the end of the month. Bought it in November 2011on black Friday. It’s a 27″ and I’ve upgraded the memory to 32 gigs and the drive to a terabyte drive. It still runs well, boots every time, and is not slow. I’m not ready to fork out another $2000 for a newer model just so I can continue to get updates from Adobe.

In all honesty I haven’t used Lightroom for at least a year as Capture One has better processing for my Fujifilm Cameras. And I really only use Photoshop for my workflow to attach Nik 3.0 software to a smart object layer of my image. Not really sure what the best move is.

I do have a small 13 Mac Book Air (which is probably about 2 years away from the same issues) so if I want to do a sky replacement I could do it on that machine but it is small in ways other than the 13″ screen.

Not so sure how much longer I will keep the subscription in that there are other software packages that will do what I need to do without the money hole at the far end.

New and Improved?

New and Improved?

Posted on by Jim Roberts

Recently Adobe published some previews of new functionality coming to Photoshop and Lightroom. I expect these new features to be released at the end of the month at the Adobe Max Virtual Conference. Photoshop will soon have an AI enhanced sky replacement feature while Lightroom will have a new Advanced Color Grading tool.

It seems to me that while these are interesting updates the seem to be more towards add functionality to the Adobe apps that are already in other applications. Case in point take a look at the color balance tool in Capture One Pro:

Capture One Pro Color Balance

Seems fairly similar don’t you think? As of this date I believe that Luminar and ON1 both have “AI” driven sky replacement tools but since I don’t use those applications I will not comment on how similar they are to Adobes new features.

I’m getting the feeling that Adobe is now becoming a reactionary company. Instead of innovating they are just covering the features that are in other application. It would seem that Adobe with it’s resources and (a whole boatload of subscription payers) would be creating new stuff rather that duplicating what others have done with a lot less resources and a lot less money.

Over the years I’ve met quite a number of Adobe’s forward facing Evangelists and I quite like each and every one of them. Just not sure how excited they will be to now be able to say, “yes we can do that too”.

Pictures of Art

Pictures of Art

Posted on by Jim Roberts

I’m fascinated by making images of the art and craft of others. Every man made structure has a visual element to it. Something that should or could be pleasing to the eye. I don’t think of making these images as copying someone’s art. I think of it as celebrating their very real creativity. The Tree of Life at Walt Disney World’s Animal Kingdom is that kind of object. The Tree of Life is the work of many artisans based on the imagination of those that make it special.

Looking Up

Looking Up

Posted on by Jim Roberts

At the beginning of August I was out shooting the almost full moon. It was a clear night and I did get good images using my standard exposure set up for moon shoots. If you want to get good images of the moon start with a medium aperture like F8 and shutter speed of 1/250. Try the lowest ISO you can get way with. You have to shoot in manual mode. A tripod will help but if you are using the Fujinon XF100-400mmF4.5-5.6 R LM OIS WR you can probably get a good image like the one below handheld using the OIS. The photo was shot with the Fujinon XF1.4X TC WR tele-converter for a reach of 560mm.

Fujifilm X-T2 F8 1/250 ISO 200 560mm

As it happened Jupiter and Saturn were also visible that night. The moon would pass in front of the planets later in the evening. On a lark I pointed my camera in the direction of Saturn not expecting to get much as the viewfinder was not sensitive enough to pick up the small amount of light from that planet.

I brought the images into Capture One and did my normal processing on the moon image which came to my liking. For those of you wanting to take images of the moon try doing it just before the full moon as the shadows give definition. I then turned my attention to the frame with what I hoped contained Saturn. I did see something in the frame. I ended up opening up the exposure by over two stops but there, small but visible was Saturn and her rings.

Fujifilm X-T2 F8 1/250 ISO 200 560mm

You know that Saturn has rings and you can find it any night it’s in the sky but unless you look closer you just don’t see the rings. As I pulled up the exposure and saw the rings it was like I was discovering it for the first time. Made my day.

Contemporary at Sunset

Contemporary at Sunset

Posted on by Jim Roberts
Contemporary at Sunset : Fujifilm X-T2, F3.6 1/40s ISO 3200 18.8mm

Having raved on about color balance in the previous post, i’ve come full circle with this image. After the usual Florida afternoon storm the sunset the other day had plenty of clouds to reflect of off before getting to the Contemporary Resort at Walt Disney World. To pick up the warm tones on the building I let the fluorescent lights keep their green cast. The color cast may have been enhanced by shooting through a window .

Today my mindset is on what the image looks like rather than what camera and lens was used. How the images was processes should not be an issue either. I present the image as it is. And it is an image I like more and more.

Still if you must know it was originally processed in Capture One Pro 20 then sent to Photoshop where I applied Nik 3.0 Color Efex Pro 4 Detail Extractor, Glamor Glow, and Pro Contrast. I also did some noise reduction with Nik 3.0 Define 2.

I shot the image with the Fujinon XF18-55mmF2.8-4 R LM OIS kit lens. A really good lens for a “kit” lens.

Color Balances

Color Balances

Posted on by Jim Roberts

They painted the castle in The Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World. I’m not a big fan of the paint colors. The colors they ended up with just seem to be out of balance for me. They have a saturated purple for the turrets, and saturated grey for the base, and then an almost pink but not quite color on the body of the castle. It’s mostly the pink that I find unbalanced. The purple and pink almost fit into a Triadic color scheme but doesn’t quite work as there should be a green with those two colors to make it Triadic.

Castle with Very Small Dragon Fujifilm X-T2 F9 1/280s ISO 200 18mm

When you are creating an image in studio and especially with model you have lots of leeway with you color grading. When you are documenting an place that is designed to be seen with a standard color you need to be more accurate with you color representation. You can go wrong if you push the white balance the wrong way or if you over saturate the colors. This building just seems to me to be out of balance from a color standpoint.

Spires Fujifilm X-T2 F8 1/750s ISO 200 18mm

I could make the pinkish color more pink and at a good saturation but with Capture One Color Editor but it wouldn’t be true to the actual colors and that is where I feel the actual building colors are out of balance. And you can’t go around overriding the Disney experts.

As I was doing some research into the colors I decided to look to see what the colors of Sleeping Beauty’s Castle at Disneyland are. They basically just duplicated what they had before in Anaheim, CA It seems that the colors were painted with about the same pallet they used to upgrade the castle in 2019. The difference is the pinks are much more pink. Maybe something got lost in translation.

The new color scheme to me is to dark. It diminishes the scale of the castle. Something you always need to keep mind as you process your color images. just as a image with a tilted horizon is out of balance, a color scheme can be out of balance too. For good instruction on color and color grading watch this video by Joanna Kustra

Passageways

Passageways

Posted on by Jim Roberts

Discovering features of WordPress to display galleries. This is a work in progress called Passageways which is a series of 5 images taken about the same time. I’ve been working on these images for a few days. I may even have overworked one or two of them. Using Capture One Pro 20 you can crank in adjustments to a high level and use the opacity slider to reduce the adjustments to a level that meets your needs.

I’m still not 100% happy with this image. It looks good, then it doesn’t. I was trying to get a subtle gradation and a subdued pallet. So I would add and remove layers, try different things like adding hints of more clarity to edges to define the image. In the end it seems ok. Oh the same note I saw a YouTube video with Ansel Adams yesterday. Even years after printing an image he says he see areas that he could improve. So I guess the best is to just put it out and let it be. After all as Adams said, the image is just an equivalence of what was in the sky.

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