So, the weather is getting warmer and warmer here, and honestly, I don't like it, but well, this is life. Meanwhile, I'm trying to keep up with my strolling in the morning as much as possible. The weather is still nice in early mornings with the sun not quite high up in the sky but this would make up for some problems when shooting with special filters, specially UV, while not using any tripod.
On the other hand, I'm trying to do some shooting indoors with new ideas but no success so far at the time of typing this. My mind is blank, and yet my power is quite low. Yes, I do morning walks but they are simple to do compared to working with the camera indoors with all the gear that must be prepared and, depending on the idea, the props that need to be set. Anyway, I'm still trying on that front in hope that I would create something creative.
Stroll III
So for this stroll, and after 2 strolls with infrared filters, I've decided to head out with my ultraviolet-pass filter (which must be accompanied by an infrared-block filter). The stroll took place on February 18ᵗʰ and I didn't go far away from home actually, but to the open space near my house which I headed to when I shot some infrared shots in the first stroll.
My lens choice was Voigtländer 20mm (and of course with my modified Canon EOS 7D since I'm shooting UV here). Now, because of the hardships as it is with viewing the LiveView under the sun, beside shooting UV, I've decided to work with the hyperfocus principle here. However, it wasn't easy as well because the aperture I've decided to use here and which could barely aid me in shooting handheld without raising the ISO so much was about f/4.5. At this aperture, I've fixed the ISO around 500 and it was barely enough to have no shake in "some" of the shots. One would think that a 20mm lens would be forgiving a bit when it comes to hand shake, but the truth is: NOT!
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| Mercedes (UV) |
So, one of my first targets was a construction truck parked in the near-by open space. Nothing special I guess about it except for the Mercedes emblem which was close to my eyes level, so I started to shooting that, several times, in hope to get a stable clear image but most of my trials failed (even the one you see above). I tried to work with the hyperfocus principle here but apparently with such f-stop, this principle wouldn't be quite useful since the "virtual" depth is not quite large anyway as in f/8 and beyond. Also one thing that apparently was absent from my mind back then and that is the fact that focus do shift when shooting in UV or IR!
Processing UV images is perplexing as well and not as easy as IR images, specially that I don't have any good reference for fixing the white balance. Some websites suggest specific materials to aid in calibrating the white balance for UV shots, while some insist that it is an art form after all dealing with unreal colors, so I'm going with the second opinion of course; I won't be walking around with some Teflon just to calibrate my white balance now, would I?
Anyway, one common way to process UV images is to apply a channel shift (i.e. Red to Green, Green to Blue, Blue to Red), or sometimes swapping the Red and Green and canceling the Blue in case of merging a visible color image with a UV image. In Mercedes (UV) I've simply applied the channels shift (and done this all images in fact) and typically the resultant image turns green after this procedure. I find it quite interesting how the emblem at the center turned out to be in the middle of all of the green (which was black I think?). At the final stages of the processing, I've sharpened (and even extra-sharpened) the emblem leaving the whole image almost untouched by any sharpening, just to grab more attention. It looks as if it was shot with quite a shallow depth of field, like f/1.2, as the numbers on the right are quite smudge and apparently out of focus, but the truth is, it was shot at f/4.5.
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| Mechanic |
In post-processing this image, not much had been done here except for cropping which I've based on the "golden triangle" principle somehow as I was trying to make some interesting lines leading to the edge of the frame (though this is usually not advisable because it is always better to lead the viewer IN the image and not OUT of it).
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| سَـمـاءْ (sky) |
Still not over with the conveyor vehicle, I've tried this time to stand as close as possible (fighting my phobia still here!) and extended my hand, carrying the camera just under the conveyor and shooting blindly without even looking at the LiveView! Well, some good stuff turned out like Sky here. Of course, I had to crop a big portion of the image to keep the vision I had in mind (which came about AFTER the effect and not during the shoot) but I'm still annoyed for the remnants on the lower half of the image as I wished to leave the minaret top alone (yes, I could've cloned it but time was of the essence). What I really liked here is the flare rings. In processing though, for some reason, I didn't like the general green tint that comes with channel shifting, so I've used the channel swap (red and blue) only as if the image was shot in infrared. I think it adds some sense to the solar flare here unlike the green tint.
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| Tracks (UV) |
At the end of this stroll, I've focused on the wheel of one of the trucks. Honestly, shot a dozen and none of them was sharp enough. However, I've processed the best I could find among this series. The composition is "meh" as well as the image quality, but what I really liked here is the colors that turned out. I think I've corrected the white balance to some region in the tire itself.
So this is it for this stroll and still more to come, as I've done another stroll with UV filter, but with 50mm lens this time (well, I'd say in some sense, it is catastrophic more than 20mm, but we'll see!).
These strolls with UV filter actually made me think of going back to shoot UV indoors. I do have a blacklight (though it is said it is not good enough for UV photography) and I have a strong UV light for sanitizing, but this one is quite dangerous and I would need to do something to protect myself. All in all, I still need some good subject to shoot indoors! I can't really think of something right now, but if I can only force myself to do it, I think ideas would flow in later as well!
Finale
I had an idea before for posting at least one blog post in my Arabic blog per month, but here comes March and leaves without posting anything there and I'm not sure what topics should I be posting about. I could post things as I do here in my English blog, yet the reason I've established that blog was to be educative as much as possible and probably such posts like the ones here are not "so" educative.
One more idea as well for my morning strolls, if I can get up early in the morning that is, is to do a pinhole shooting at one point, but that of course would require carrying a tripod around which is something I'm not I want to do. Of course, I can raise the ISO like I used with the UV shooting here (and then after) but I'm not sure how much is that useful with f/222! Besides, the images with the pinhole are already noisy as it is with ISO100 (and I'm not sure where do these artifacts come from). I'm not sure if these artifacts are caused by the sensor, the pinhole "lens" or it is simply some flare issues because of the light direction. Anyway, it is worth checking out my options here for a handheld photo shoot under the sun and see. Black and white is a favorite theme when it comes to pinhole photography.
All the tech talk aside, the mood swings had been severe lately, aided with a lot of events at home and flashbacks that made me just sit there staring at nothingness and wonder where am I going or what am I doing? The more I think about it, the worse it gets, and the more disabled with disability I do become. The blaming game between me and I is not going to end any time soon, I believe.
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