Strobogenic III…

Keeping myself busy here by typing some blog posts. I got some ideas for my Arabic blog which I didn't post into for quite a while. Suddenly, I'm filled with ideas and busy typing stuff for this blog and that blog, as well as doing some photos (or, trying to). All that with a heck of sleeping pattern. Anyway, the good thing is that I do have some stories to tell here, about experiments and shots that I've worked with a month or two ago before even the quarantine and home stay issues! These shots or experiments are actually a continuation for my experiments with the stroboscopic flash a while ago, when I did several selfies using this mode, as well as some "impressionistic" work with some roses, which I've posted about a while ago.

Fluffy

As I've just mentioned, this is a continuation for my work with the stroboscopic flash, and this time I've picked a very traditional item (for me) to work with: Feathers.
I kind of have a long history with feathers. I do like working with them in various situations: Macro, abstract, Still Life; And now, Motion.
This session was done on two parts actually. The first part was somewhat a failure because the speedlites were pointing directly to the set, where I kept a glass jar filled with water. Despite placing a paper to diffuse the light, but the distance between the speedlite and the paper was almost null and to have some good diffusion a space is needed between the material and the light source, so I had to shoot it again using a different method. In the second attempt, I did place some white boards to bounce the light from the speedlites and then onto the jar, but still the reflections were kind of harsh. Thus, the majority of the work here needed a heavy load of Photoshop work to enhance the reflections to some degree, beside the other adjustments of course.

The first setting before using white boards.
Just by luck, 4 feathers dropped down forming two Xs!
Hope this is not a bad omen!

In my previous attempts with stroboscopic shooting, I didn't get the chance to have a black background. This time, though, I do. And now I can say with utmost degree of assurance, that a black background for such shots is a MUST! This black background plays a grand role in enhancing the saturation of the colors and helps to show the movement much clearer. There might be some details in the black background but that's OK; These can fixed in Photoshop most of the time.

Red Chaos

Before I head to the bulk of my work here, I just need to talk a bit about Red Chaos because this image belongs to the first attempt, and not along the rest of my work in the second attempt. However, the image itself was not created until later in time, when I finished (mostly) working with all the shots that I've shot in the second attempt. After working with the second attempt, I did get this idea to examine the possibilities further with the images that I've taken in the first attempt; Because I didn't see any chance when I examined the images the first time, besides the hideous reflections on the glass. Red Chaos, however, is composed of various images overlapped together; A technique that I've been using a lot lately on various occasions and in old and new images. This technique is also one of the major tricks that I've used with the second attempt collection here (and these triggered me to think back at the failed attempt in the very beginning).

Raining Feathers

By the second attempt, I've decided to add more feathers of various colors instead of working with red feathers only as I've planned first (as apparent in Red Chaos). I have to say, Raining Feathers is one of my favorites despite the off-center alignment here as dropping the feathers was a random action and controlling the point of falling down cannot be set precisely. I realized, doing these experiments, that throwing off feathers is not an easy task at all! Also, the drier the hands, the better. The water at this level turned reddish because of the dye on one of the feathers that I've left from the previous attempt, but that was fine with me; The colorful, the merrier.

The Falling Red

Back with the red feathers, I did many drops and shots, all stroboscopic, and honestly, I didn't find much of the results amusing. In The Falling Red, I do like the movement of the feathers here, with movements like a dancer on stage, but the problem is that the tip of the trail at the bottom was not perfectly on the top of the jar, but behind it. I thought of fixing it but I decided not to lose much time on it and work on other shots. Probably Rest In Peace is the one with some acceptable result here, and it is worth noting that I've fixed the basic feather already on the jar (i.e. it didn't just land like that on its own).

Rest In Peace

At this level, I've shot a lot (and needless to say how much power I've used for the speedlites!), and I've realized that despite the movement, as recorded by the stroboscopic flashes, the shots were somewhat idle in some sense. Something was telling me that they needed some action; Some movement of some sort. I could have slowed down the shutter speed maybe to add some motion blur, but I've preferred something stable. So, it occurred to me to add some movement manually, without changing the shutter speed and see what happens. Sometimes, stroboscopic flashes do have an effect like the high-speed flashes in terms of freezing the motion. The final result was "creating" two images.

Eruption

Red Escape

The motion was easily recorded by dipping the tip of the feathers into the water in the jar and hitting them hard to make a splash, which was created successfully but without any presence for these feathers in the image in fact! So, it was time to be inventive as usual and compose images together. Adding to that, only one image for the splashing water was to my liking, while the rest didn't seem interesting much, so in the two images here, Eruption and Red Escape, the splashing water is essentially the same image put with these two, but got edited in different ways depending on the position of the feathers in the two images. In all of these images, and specifically in the second attempt of shooting these stroboscopic images with feathers after using a white board to bounce the light off, I had to edit the image and work on these white areas on the glass jar caused by the light reflections from the white board. I've tried to fix those in reality (i.e. by changing the shooting conditions) but that was almost impossible with the setting I'm using because diffusing light do require some space, and even though I'm bouncing the light off white boards, the boards themselves are not distant from the speedlites to give the chance to the light to spread. Actually all this work with the second attempt images made me realize that I could maybe do something about the images in the first attempt, and this is how Red Chaos (above) was created.

Methodology:
In my final work with the camera and speedlites, I've noticed the tendency within myself to take it easy and to just try and compose things by editing in Photoshop and such, like the previous shots for example; Eruption and Red Escape, as well as more that will come in future posts, hopefully.
This really made me think: Was I too hard on myself trying to do everything in-camera and with little processing? Or was I on the right track and I'm going astray right now? I don't really know the exact answer and probably there is no right or wrong here, but what I think of myself is that I was highly affected by the nature of my photographic life in the past few years, specifically when I was a member in a photography group, when there was much focus on doing "authentic" work with little editing because, naturally, these are the regulations usually for photography contests. However, when I see other people online do their photographic work, specially when it comes to commercial and product photography, those artists don't see any shame in editing their work to represent what they are working on. Many photographers out there do edit their work in composites to create some surreal images and deliver that WOW effect to the viewers. It is editing, but an estimated and carefully planned one, and not just a random one. Not everything can be fixed in Photoshop.

Now, to be specific about the stroboscopic photography, I've started to make sense of it all indeed. On many websites that I've encountered online, it might be stated that such type of photography is subject to trial and error. This is true to some extent but not completely as there is a window of calculated guess at work here, starting from the formula providede in the speedlite's manual:

Frequency = Number of flashes ÷ Shutter Speed;

(f = N/t)

From this formula, I can start, indeed, planning for the shot just as I plan for a regular shot based on the aperture I want to pick for the scene. The starting point here though would be either the number of flashes I need, or the shutter speed (or time). Mostly it would be the latter depending on the situation, and probably it is the most flexible factor here.
As for the number of flashes, I usually fluctuate between 5 and 10, and this is the simply the number of replications you want to see of your subject in the image. Condensing an image with so many replications of any object as it moves is not a good idea on most occasions actually and find a number between 5 and 10 is quite suitable for most situations.
Now, depending on these 2 factors, the shutter speed and the number of flashes (replications) required, the frequency is yielded using the formula above; But lo and behold! Sometimes the frequency exceeds the limit (199Hz for Canon's speedlites) or even simply that the batteries or speedlites power is not enough to support the operation, and here raises up the important of having a dark room or place to work; Because with this, you have the flexibility to increase your shutter speed as you like, and since the shutter speed is in reciprocal relation to the frequency, that means the more shutter speed you add (slow down, increase time of exposure), the lower the frequency would be - this said in case of fixing the number of flashes or replications.
And believe it or not, the frequency of the stroboscope is better be down and not high! This is because, the higher the frequency you use, the closer the beats of the flashes would be and the closer the replications of the moving object would be. If you care about showing details in your work for that moving object, then it would be wise to add some distance between replicas of the moving object in the scene or photo. By definition, the frequency is the number of beats per second (that's why we divide N by t), so the higher the frequency, the beats per second are going to be more, meaning more replicas in such a short period of time which essentially reduces the distance between these replicas in the image. To summarize all of that:

Number of flashes (N): Number of replications

Shutter Speed (t): The total time of the exposure

Frequency (f): The distance between replicas

Of course, all of this talk does not include the power of the speedlite(s). The more speedlites, the better, of course. Sometimes, one might find oneself forced to change the whole stroboscopic settings to meet the power requirements, specially if the speedlite(s) is/are running on batteries alone without any external assistance.
So, these are my thoughts about how to build up the initial settings and idea for working with the stroboscopic flash. Adding to that the very first remark I've mentioned above, that one must also think and include composing a number of images altogether if required and if it is not critical (e.g. for photo contests which usually require authentic work rather than composite photos). I hope the information here is useful for dear reader.

Finale

Well, at the end, I think I will be preparing these images here to be uploaded to the stocks since I didn't upload any images for a long time. There is a number of images too related to chess, which I might post about here later. I worked with chess for a long time and I think I will put it all aside for the time being and start something else.
In times like these I'm really not sure how I feel. I do feel relaxed at one point for staying home, but in the same feel upset because I cannot move around as I like as well (specifically for shopping and getting snacks and some necessities). But beside all these mundane everyday matters, I'm trying to focus on the bigger picture and what about to be coming next. Great uncertainty lie here and I can't figure out any heads or tails out of it. This even had me re-think, again and again, about my career possibilities beyond my current job. Is there anything I can do during this time to have some cash on the side? Moonlighting? Preparing myself to leave my stable job? This said, I have to say that things are fine so far with my work since I've already had my salary for March without going to work, but would that continue? I don't know, like I don't know many other things about the situation here. I'm supposed to go back to work by April 26^th, but even that date, might be pushed forward further if things didn't calm down.
Many things, and ideas, are chasing through my mind and I really need to work with my camera further to help me calm my brain down. Also, I do have some plans to play some games. I'm enjoying this home-stay thing because this is what I do already before all this had started, but some annoyances are inevitable. Oh how I wish to have a walk in some lavish garden right now, and rest in a shady gazebo…

Alexander 4, V5.

Another day, after experimenting again with my censer and the flash. Well, I learned it the hard way, that putting my flash on "manual external metering" does not allow for auto-bracketing of the exposure in the camera itself. I think what we need here is, a coherent light source, like a spot light. In fact, we might need two. One on left and the other on right and both pointing at the censer in a dark room.
You might ask, why I'm taking all that pain just take a picture in the darkness while I have a beautiful green big room with many lights in its ceiling. Well, mainly, there are 2 reasons:
1. I want to work more with my flash and get used to it.
2. I want to emphasize the contrast between the flames inside the censer and the surrounding atmosphere. Taking the picture in a bright room will make the candle flame not so unique and not "flamboyant" if I should say. There must be some contrast... and if possible, a strong one.

However, the experiments didn't go all with no results at all. Despite the darkness of the images taken (even with a flash), I combined some of the images (3 of them) by Photomatix which allowed me to change a bit in the EV values of the images, and hence, in the HDR historgram I got a wide range of EVs (but it's fake since I entered the values myself!). After all, the tone-mapping was not so bad I guess. I saved the file as an EXR and worked on tone-mapping in Photoshop and Photomatix.

Photoshop manual tone-mapping

Photomatix tone-mapping

I do prefer the second one though for the high contrast, but this façade is only in a small thumbnail. In the real sized image, the situation is completely different with the noise level (mainly because of the long exposures times).

Moreover, I combined another 3 images, but this time they are not different in exposure value, but in ISO value. Two of them were taken in ISO100 (but they were different in EV) and one of them was in ISO200. The result was somehow OK when the HDR histogram is examined, but yet, the noise was so hard to clear off (after the tone-mapping of course).

ISO100 and ISO200 combined with manual tone-mapping

In a conclusion, I think that we can try other ways to make out a HDR image. Yes, the best method is, I would say, either by auto-bracketing or by using different shutter speeds, but I guess the main idea is to get different light levels of the same object and make the computer do its own algorithms and logical comparisons to build up a unique "data sheet" with values corresponding to the light level of the object.

Today, I think I'm going to experiment again, and this time I'm going to use my flash again with my filters, and change them gradually.

Away from HDR and its fuss, I was doing some experiment the day before with my flash in "stroboscopic mode." That is, the continuous pulses of lights. These are useful to catch up a moving object.One experiment I still remember from high school time, when we used a stroboscopic source against the fan up in the ceiling to determine its frequency (that is, how many times does it turn around in one second), and as you may know already, frequencies are measured in Hertz (Hz). When the target object looks like if it was still in its place, then you can say that you got the right frequency value. Why? Think of it: a light source gives a pulse in the same amount of time in which the fan does one complete circle, hence, whenever there is light available, the fan is always in the same position ready for a new cycle and so on. Thus, with time, you will see as if the fan is still and not moving.

Anyway, taking a photograph of a still object is not so funny, is it? What's the problem with that? I can turn off the fan and snap a picture of it and post it and say "hey, this IS rotating fan, but got paralyzed by my flash." Well, no. Our lives must have a problem; and yes, I'm a pessimist.

The thing about snapping such an image is to produce some pattern; a beautiful one. Hence, we have to use the stroboscopic source, either in a frequency lesser than the one of the fan, or more. Lesser frequencies are not fun, I tell you. All what your camera would get is a plain white disk. Thus, we must use higher frequencies. Notice that we are using these high frequencies in connection with a long exposure (relative long exposure, I don't mean here the 30 seconds and above). Well, maximum of 5 seconds I'd say it's enough. One more thing to note is that it is better to have a dark space as well. Otherwise, what's the use of the stroboscopic flash?

Anyway, here you go with some results, which unfortunately, I've forgot the frequencies for each!

However, the "faster" the fan looks, the higher the frequency is. Why? Well, to think about it, if you use a high frequency (more than that of the fan), you will be able to catch the fan in moments before completing a full circle. Thus, the higher the frequency, the closer the fan's wings will appear because they just moved a little before the last pulse of light, and building up those several shots, you will have a faster looking fan. On the other hand, if you happen to use a high frequency for the light, but "just" high above the fan's, then the wings of the fan will move a bit further until the occurence of the next pulse, and so on. Building up the snaps together, you will have a slow-looking rotating fan.

The electricity in Kuwait runs at 240V-50Hz, thus it is natural to guess that the fan frequency is at 50Hz, and I tried it and it worked and the fan was like stable in its place. I changed the frequencies many times when I snapped the previous images, but I would say the best results (to me) were those taken at 70Hz to 80Hz (or 90Hz).

I think I will continue my trials with the censer as usual for today, and this time, I will try to fix the flash to some amount (maybe full power), and then I will fix the the shutter speed and the aperture, and after all, change only the filters. I think by that you should have different exposures already, but the problem is with the flash being close and will give a reflection off from the body of the censer as usual. I do need a remote trigger!

I wrote another poem today, and I called it "Zvinkle and Danim" (or Daneem). Don't ask me about the meaning of the title because I don't know, but if you are interested in the meaning of the whole thing, then you might have to read it yourself and judge what I'm talking about. In fact, I think it was more like a nonsense in the first place but anyway my thoughts played the trick here while my fingers obeyed the orders. Again, it is for you to judge what is going on here...

__________
97. the men gathered around Alexander
98. and he ordered the pikemen to advance
99. and then raise the pikes like thorns
100. while the archers pointed to te sky and shot
101. and the swordsmen prepared for intruders
102. and the circles of fighters twirled
103. and Alexander in the middle slaughtering
104. his sword was the Charnagút of the three points
105. amid the mutants he was clearing them with no shield
106. while the beasts ate the bodies of soldiers
107. and few villagers remained in their place
108. and the shouts of agony started in the camp
109. and the loyals before left Alexander in his trouble
110. while Alexander was thickened with injuries
111. and thus with the anger in his heart
112. for all the trickery he faced in his camp
113. Alexander made a scream of wrath
114. when men faces turned yellow and red
115. and the beasts of Zimúrá ran away
116. just then the camp started marching behind them
117. picking them and slaughering them like insects
118. and Alexander was swimming in his blood
119. coping to stand up amid his victorious men
120. and looking at the massacre and the red trees