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Archive of ‘Technology’ category

Ballroom Dance, Event, Photography, Technology | 0 comment

Changing Backgrounds in Photos – Tech Thursday

Wide angle lens pointed upwards - ©TimeLine Media

Chantilly, Virginia

If you were doing an internet search for this topic, you may expect to have an extended Photoshop tutorial. This is definitely not a selection/replacement background tutorial as I am really not the most creative with software. The post comes from looking over backgrounds in ballroom dance photos. This idea works best from the last Arthur Murray Spring Freestyles event that was held at the Westfields Marriott hotel in Chantiily, VA.

The main ballroom has some interesting lights hanging from the ceiling. They are pyramid shape, and hung with the small pointed side facing downwards towards the floor. Moreover, they have very large plain sides creating their shape which makes them an interesting background element in the photos. They do not have the small, rounded out of focus circles that you get from chandelier or smaller light sources. Here, the entire shape can take on a different look depending on the focal length of the lens used. This first image is taken at a very wide angle of 17mm:

Wide angle lens pointed straight ahead- ©TimeLine Media
Wide angle lens pointed straight ahead- ©TimeLine Media

Working the Angles

This makes the lights clearly in focus along with the dancers on the floor. You can clearly see all the detail, mounting, and edges of the lights. From this angle which was taken from a standing height with the lens pointed towards the dancers. It is possible to drastically change the background in the photo by changing only the angle of the camera. In this next photo, the focal length is still 17mm, but I changed my position by going to my knees, and pointing the lens up towards the ceiling. With this wide angle lens, the lamps on the ceiling become much more elongated looking much larger than in the previous photo!

Wide angle lens pointed upwards - ©TimeLine Media
Wide angle lens pointed upwards – ©TimeLine Media

This can be to your advantage when shooting events. You can to give viewers different looks from the event by changing backgrounds. Once you already have one angle, change where you are shooting and more around the scene to see what different looks you can get when the action is not changing much. It keeps your eyes looking through the frame and avoiding fatigue. It will also make for different looks to see when post processing later.

Spring Freestyles Photos Released - ©TimeLine Media
Spring Freestyles Photos Released – ©TimeLine Media

TimeLine Media – www.timelinedc.com
703-864-8208

Event, Photography, Technology, Travel | 0 comment

Software Perspective Correction

Final software corrected image

Post Processing

Thanks to feedback from my photographer friend, Jae, I decided to try editing the photo from yesterday’s post in software. In that case, I compared two images from a Nikon PC (perspective correction) or tilt-shift lens. Overall you can use this special lens to straighten angles of buildings that you photograph. Concurrently, the images will not have that “falling away” look. This is usually what you get when the camera is pointed up towards the top. With this in mind, here is a repost of the two images – the one on the left uncorrected, and the one on the right straightened.

Tilt Shift comparison - ©TimeLine Media
Tilt Shift comparison – ©TimeLine Media

Today, I attempted to do the same correction on the left photos, but in Photoshop CC to see how close you can get in post. In Photoshop, I selected the Perspective Warp tool by selecting it under the Edit menu. This is the dialog box that pops up:

Adobe Photoshop

Adobe Photoshop Perspective Warp - 1
Adobe Photoshop Perspective Warp – 1

It tells you to draw a box around the areas that you would like to straighten. I go for the top half of the house as this is where I saw the biggest change in the photo.

Adobe Photoshop Perspective Warp - 2
Adobe Photoshop Perspective Warp – 2

Next, I moved the corner dots to the edges of that section of the house that I wanted to line up:

Adobe Photoshop Perspective Warp - 3
Adobe Photoshop Perspective Warp – 3

Turning on the Grid lines, it makes it easier to adjust the dots to be straight to each other, and the rest of the photo adjusts along with them:

Adobe Photoshop Perspective Warp - 4
Adobe Photoshop Perspective Warp – 4

Clicking the check mark gives you this image:

Adobe Photoshop Perspective Warp - 5
Adobe Photoshop Perspective Warp – 5

This is very close to the corrected image! Unfortunately, you can see how much of the photo needs to be cropped out, which means that I will lose some of the structure in order to fill in the black background.

Adobe Photoshop Perspective Warp - 6
Adobe Photoshop Perspective Warp – 6

This is the real power of the tilt shift lens. In this case, the background is just made of lawn and driveway. You may need to have that area for indoor photos, or other larger projects. This also shows that this is a very specialized lens that will really show its magic in specific circumstances. It was fun trying this tool in Photoshop, and am happy that I could use this in a pinch! I would just need to set the camera back a little farther if I want to get more in the frame.

Final software corrected image
Final software corrected image

TimeLine Media – www.timelinedc.com
703-864-8208

Event, Photography, Technology | 1 Comment

Tilt Shift Lenses – Part 1– Tech Thursday

Shift corrected house photo - ©TimeLine Media

Straight Lines

Very good photographers visualize the world differently. There are stories of people that claim to see the world at certain focal lengths. Commonly 35mm or 50mm on a full frame camera. I don’t know if I am that in tune with my gear, but I am getting much better at pre-visualizing an image before I set the camera.

Architects, similarly, view structures in much the same way. My father was an architect, and I watching him draw buildings out of a blank sheet of paper reveals how he views structures from different perspectives. Another characteristic of most blue prints is that there is no distortion of the angles in the drawings. It is important to keep them straight to make it clear to engineers and builders which angles should be straight in case there are others that they are intentionally changing for design. A tilt shift lens will allow you to straighten all the angles in an image, and remove the distortion that comes from the angle of the camera to the building.

Uncorrected house photo - ©TimeLine Media
Uncorrected house photo – ©TimeLine Media

Above is an example of a non-corrected image from a 24mm lens. Because the camera and lens is pointed up towards the building, it makes the top of the house look like it is falling away. The straight sides of the structure seem to be converging at the top of the frame. This is an angle that would not be drawn by an architect. It would be confusing, and not representative of how they would want the structure to be built. Here is a corrected version of the same scene:

Shift Correction

Shift corrected house photo - ©TimeLine Media
Shift corrected house photo – ©TimeLine Media

The camera position was not changed between these two images as it was mounted on a tripod. Only the shift function of the tilt shift lens was changed, and the camera angle pointed straight towards the building. This is the magic of the tilt shift lens. You remove the distortion by straightening the angle of the camera to the house, then shift the lens so you can still capture the entire front façade of the building in one frame. I will show how the lens looks and how it makes these changes in a future post.

Tilt Shift comparison - ©TimeLine Media
Tilt Shift comparison – ©TimeLine Media

TimeLine Media – www.timelinedc.com
703-864-8208

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