January 13, 2012

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Gavin Seim, HDR Photography, Lighting, ProPhotoShow

Stunning HDR Time Lapses – Using Robotics.

A photo of Tanguy's motion control rig. More below.

by Gavin Seim: As an HDR nerd and teacher I’m not easy to impress. But this did it. Tanguy Louvigny. did this really stunning sequence of HDR time lapses and really nailed it on various levels. First, as an dynamic range guy, I really admire how the process he used in Photomatix is balanced and didn’t go for that way over the top tonemap process.

Next he managed the motion using his own rig made with Tetrix robotics, and controlled it with Mindstorms Brick (actually a Lego product), then programmed it in Robot C. Impressive indeed. You can see more photos of his rig here.

His result for all this was a really stunning body of time lapse work. I hope to look closer at the system that he used for his rig. It seems there’s some possibilities there. You can also read a bit more on picturecorrect as they did a little interview asking Tanguy some detail questions.

All in all it’s quite impressive. Watch the video below and check out his site. And since we’re on the HDR topic, I’ll throw in a shameless plug  and add that if you want to learn more about capturing and processing HDR, check out my HDR Magic video training series... Gav

Here’s a forest series he did using the same setup.

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January 12, 2012

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Gavin Seim, lightroom, news, ProPhotoShow, video

Advanced Video Editing in LR4 – Using Develop Module Adjustments

by Gavin Seim: With the new LR4 beta now out, I’ve of course been poking around inside. One great feature for us that capture video, is the ability to play and do light edits via Quick Develop and build video clips into our LR workflow.

But there’s something more that you may have noticed. Initially just basic settings are shown available for video, as we can see on the left. Exposure, contrast and the like. Others get greyed out. Also when you attempt to go into the Develop module for more advanced edits, it simply says “Video is not supported in Develop.”

And yet, it seems we can use some Develop settings via presets. I decided to just run a few from Seim Effects presets and see what happened. I was pleasantly surprised when I saw the dialog below and that while not all, many of the develop settings are actually available using presets. Settings I was able to apply and export on my clip.

Needless to say I was pretty excited. I didn’t see this shown at the Adobe press conference a few weeks back and as far as I know Adobe has announced no official develop module support for video. But it stands to reason it may be coming.

The Technique for right now is to make Develop presets on a still frame and then apply those settings to video. We can tweak color channels, curves and the like and really gain a great deal of control over video clips in very short order. It’s not perfect: There’s still some settings missing that would be valuable, but we’re off to a good start.

I’m rather excited at the workflow potential. And that I’ll be able to offer presets that can be used for video editing. We’ll see what happens. I plan to experiment further and post some free video presets soon on my blog.. G

LR tells me that not all settings from the preset are being used and lists what's available before applying the effect. Still a pretty effective lineup of tools.
Copy Settings showed all available tools currently available on video. Not all, but all these, plus B&W adjustments (not shown in this dialogue) are some of the most important ones. With these we can do some serious effects.
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January 9, 2012

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Gavin Seim, lightroom, Nikon

Lightroom4 Beta now Available for Download.

LR4 Beta is officially available and you can download it free on Adobe labs. I attended a press conference a few weeks ago to see it in action, and while the changes didn’t strike me as mind boggling, there are some nice new. Here’s the highlights…

  • New Highlight and shadow recovery.
  • An actual book design module. This could be great for albums. And yes you can save projects.
  • Location-based organization and location info. Though I’ve been using the JF Geoencode plugin anyways 😉
  • Extended video support. Organizing, viewing and basic adjustments and edits to video clips. Pretty cool.
  • Soft proofing to preview how an image will look when printed with color-managed printers.
  • Localized White Balance brush, as well as a few other brush tools, but not full feature brushes.

Still no full localized control with brushes, sadly no word on network implementation, or improved support for really high res scans / stitched images. Honestly there’s a lot of wish list features I’ve heard mentioned by people that not on the list, but we can’t have it all and there’s some interesting stuff. It’s also still a beta yet. We’ll see what happens in the final… Gavin

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January 6, 2012

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beauty, color, f164, Fine Art, journal, National Park, Nature, signature, technique

Evening Passage – Mount Rainier National Park

Evening Passage. Upper Tipsoo Lake, Mount Rainier National Park, Fall 2011, by Gavin Seim.

We made a trip this fall into the forests above Yakima, below the rear entrance of Mount Rainier national park. It’s a breathtaking view up here if the weather favors you. And while it was pretty grey on this evening around sunset, the sky had it’s moments and beauty. There was indeed a gentle subtlety singing in those peaks, hidden away within the folds of light and shadow,

The result is Evening passage, a silent reflection in the upper lake, made calmer my the gentle passing of clouds and ripples in this long sunset exposure.

Release Details: Prints Currently available. Contact the Studio for availability and ordering.

For Photographers. How it was made…

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January 4, 2012

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beauty, f164, Fine Art, journal, Nature, technique, travel, water, workshop

The Swirling City – Twin Cities MN.

Swirling City, 2011 by Gavin Seim. From the bridge, Twin Cities MN. Time Exposure.

This was about a year ago now, during our Fall 2010 road trip and my visit to the Twin Cities to teach an HDR workshop. I was walking with my group downtown, crossing over a bridge, the name of which escapes me. It’s big city here. industry and concrete. But flowing water always mesmerizes me. I took my time setting up, feeling that if I hurried I would get little more than a snapshot. In the end my effort paid off in this long exposure just between St. Paul and Minneapolis. The structures of the city meeting with the awesome power of the water and doing a dance right in front of my lens.

Release Details: Prints Coming Soon… Contact Gavin for details.

For photographers. How it was made…

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