tips Archives

July 9, 2011

beauty, color, f164, Fine Art, journal, Nature, technique, water

The Siren of Lake Chelan – Working Underwater.

Siren of Lake Chelan-r2f — The Siren of Lake Chelan. Commissioned Portrait, Summer 2010 by Gavin Seim.

Water. Once we sink below the surface of its shimmering waves, we enter a foreign world of untold beauty. A silent land of bending light, murky depths, and unknown dangers…

Whew, did that sound enough like a nature show for you? Good, now let’s move on. Seriously, though, I working with water and I loved making portraits under it. I did it for the first–though probably not the last–time during a portrait commission for Jenaia. I learned a lot about working in the water, and we brought her home some beautiful images, but this is my favorite piece.

It took some trail and error, but my visualization was a calm ethereal portrait, and I think I managed it. I love the color hues and the way the light streams from the surface. We’re in a lake, not a pool, and it’s around 1500 feet deep, making the light fade into infinity. Just don’t drop anything that doesn’t float, or it’s gone for good. I lost a fin during the project, and once it was out of sight, there was no way I was going after it. It’s truly dark down there.

While my fin has joined the aforementioned murky depths, I’m very satisfied with this work. It taught me a lot and it helped make Jenaia’s portrait collection a real success.

For photographers. How it was made…

July 6, 2011

color, f164, journal, musings, Nature, science, technique

The River Fork… A Look at Sensor Noise and Heat.

Seim-River-Forks — River Forks, Snoqualmie National Forest, Summer 2011. Non released example image, 8 minute exposure at ISO 100.

This is for you photographers. It’s an 8 minute exposure I did just after sunset on the river. I processed it with the Velvius preset from Power Workflow3. It’s not a stunning image and that’s not why I posted it. I felt it was a good image to use to talk a bit about pixel science.

To me, what merits discussion is the noise. I’ve done images much longer than 8 minutes. The longer the exposure, the more potential for noise to be generated as the sensor heats up. But, as myself and some others have found, the warmer the environment, the worse it seems to get. It was probably in the low 70’s here in the mountains, and the warmer temperature seemed to make a great deal of difference compared to images I’ve done in cooler environments.

Look at the image and the crop section I posted below. The noise produces a banding-like effect on the frame that really reduces quality. The large color artifacts are easy enough to fix, but there’s an almost patterned, under-the-surface noise that really is a challenge. And this was with in camera long exposure reduction turned ON.

I talked about this type of noise in depth in the making of 140 Minutes of Night ( 2+ hour long exposure) and looked at techniques to deal with it, but it’s not easy to correct. When you get into bad heat noise, the plethora of noise plugins and tools we have won’t just take it away. Well, they will, but only at the cost of losing a lot of detail everywhere else. And that’s just not acceptable.

May 9, 2011

Editorial/Journalism, Gavin Seim, PPS Photography Tips, ProPhotoShow, Review, Software

My Top Travel Apps & Resources for Road Trips.

by Gavin Seim: My family and I have been on the road for about three weeks now as I teach workshops and hunt pictorials. Last fall we spent a month and a half. We love to travel and aside from all my gear, I have a plethora of resources that we rely on to make our travels safer, cheaper and a more enjoyable.

I’ve decided to stat a list of my favorites. Besides the essential Google Maps, I find these to be great tools and use most of them even when I’m not out for a long trip. You’re welcome to add your favs in the comments. I’ll also come back and update this or re-post in in the future as I find new stuff.

If you want to follow my photography travels and see where I’ve been, you can do so on my journal, or get frequent updates on my Facebook page. Lets get started…

Our Shamrock 21ss camped near Bryce Canyon Utah. Spring 2011.

All Stays Camp & RV. For Apple and Android.

This $6 app is worth every penny and more. It’s paid for itself countless times in saving money camping, time traveling, and preventing headaches. It’s a must have for campers.

It lists pretty much anything a camper or RV’er might want. From truck stops to campgrounds, to wall mar parking lots. It’s not perfect and something it misses things but it’s data base is huge and no matter where you are it will usually give you options.

This is my favorite, but All Stays has various other apps that you may find useful. iExit for example shows what’s coming up and the next exit. Check out their website for their offerings.

GeoTag Photos Pro. For Apple and Android.

This is a cheap way to get location info into your photos. Make sure you camera and phone time is the same. Turn on this app and start recording. When you get home upload the data and login to there website to A. Use their web app to merge dates into your RAW or JPEG files. or B. Download a GPX file and use it with a LR plugin like JF Geoencoding Support.

March 5, 2011

f164, Fine Art, Nature, silver, technique

Entrance to Death Valley.

This is one of those photographs that I overlooked for awhile. It’s not earth shattering and it may never be seen as one of my best, but the more I look at it the more it tells a story. The harsh afternoon sun, the heat waves fading into the distance. The approaching car, escaping from the clutches of the tortured hills.

The long line of the road leads my eye in and then it curves away. I know the place beyond is dry and barren. At least I think I know. But at the same time, my sense of adventure wants to go there anyways. It senses there’s beauty (and perhaps water) just over those mountains.

For Photographers. How it was made…

March 1, 2011

Dennis Zerwas, Gavin Seim, HDR Photography, Nature, Photography Podcast, Pro Photo Show Podcast, ProPhotoShow, RoundTable

Pro Photo Podcast #75, Lots of photo tips. And other stuff.

Click To Listen>> Photography Podcast. PPS #75
Review in iTunes – Vote on Podcast Alley – Direct Podcast Feed

Today’s Panel... Gavin Seim – Denns Zerwas – Eric Guggenheim – Mark Teskey.

On this roundtable we discuss a lot of tips and mistakes to avoid from various genres of photography. We also get into some news, industry and business talk and more.

Podcast #75 forum discussion:

Notable Time Indexes: