Photo-Merging

Photo-merging is taking a series of photographs and "Stitching" them together to create an image that would have otherwise been impossible. There are several different types of photo-merging, but I will run through the two that i have used and talk about how I did them.

The most common form of photo-merging or "stitching" is Panoramic Photography. Mainly used in landscape, Panoramic is a technique used to get a long wide angle shot. The signature letterbox shape gives the images a very fresh appearance, a nice change.

The Panoramic process could be achieved using a Wide or Super-wide Angle lens, and then cropped into the letterbox shape. The issue with this, however, is that the image quality is lowered and the images might not be able to be printed or viewed in high quality. The Panoramic process allows an unlimited field of view, with a super high quality print.

Panoramic images are created by taking a series of photographs and putting them together on Photoshop. Panoramic images are now even easier as Photoshop now has the ability to stitch the images for you. However, for the sake of this post, I will be explaining how I do it (manually).

The first thing to note about these images is the equipment, Although you can buy specialised tripod heads designed for panoramic photography, this effect can be achieved using a normal tripod, and even hand-holding if you have a steady enough grip.

A kit lens is usually the best lens to use for this, zooming in at between 20-50mm. This is crucial as bellow 20mm is entering wide-angle views, giving barrel distortion, altered perception and ultimately will not allow your images to line up properly. So 20-50mm is preferred.

Once you have found a view you want to capture, face the camera at the furthest left point of your desired image. Assuming you are handholding the camera, keep your eye looking through the lens, and snap your furthest left  shot. Take note of an object in the third vertical of your image (the right side).

Now, moving slowly, Twist your body and compose the shot with the object in the left of the frame. Again, make note of an object in the right, and continue lining up and shooting until you reached the desired length.

An argument has been made that instead of twisting your body, it is better to keep the lens at the same spot and rotate around the lens. However either will work.

So once you have the images, load a new page on Photoshop, make it around 5000px width and 1000px height, this should give you plenty of room. Load your first image into Photoshop and put it in the centre left of the page, don’t make any adjustments to the size. Load in your next shot and change its opacity to 50%, line up the key object in both shots. Continue adding photographs at 50% opacity and lining them up until you have your panoramic laid out. Now adjust all of them to 100% opacity, and give them all a layer.

Selecting the second shot of your sequence, get up the brush tool, and make sure it's hardness as low as possible. With a fairly large brush, you should be able to take off the edges of you images, lining them up and making the images seamless.

When there is things like stones, clouds or a lumpy texture, some clone stamping or blurring might be required to blend the images, however usually, the images should merge quite nicely.

Once you are happy with the merge, flatten the image and make any major adjustments. (Levels, Colour etc.)

 

This process can also be applied to other shoots. This image (above) was shot using a tripod and a studio flashlight once the sun had set. I took several exposures (below) and stitched them together using the same technique as before, but without creating a long image. This took quite some time to complete, however  the technique gave me the change to shoot in a way I never had, as this would require several flash units.

 

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Behind the Scenes Shooting

Recently, i was offered the opportunity to shoot some behind the scenes work for the making on a music video. As it was wish the regular band, i have grown to know them all, and they all know me, which makes things run a little smoother from time to time.

I thought it might be an interesting thing to talk about, as i have personally never seen anyone talking about Behind the Scenes shooting. i will talk from my experience and share any tips, just in case you get the opportunity.

Upon invitation to the shoot, i was extremely excited to see what it was like to shoot a real music video, i was also very happy to have gotten the opportunity, due to the original photographer having to cancel. As the date crept closer i began to realize, having never shot behind the scenes before, that i had no idea what i was going to be doing....that doesn't happen much...i promise.



I did a small amount of research but nothing would give away the conditions i was shooting in. With little-to-no knowledge of what i was up against, packing light was not an option. I was told that a local venue (THE MECCA) would be open privately to us, so i knew i could have my equipment laying around without fear of theft of damage.

I made sure i arrived about 2 hours early, this gave me plenty of time to figure out what i was doing and converse with the team to get an insight into what was going to happen. After a short while helping with the lighting rigs and music equipment, the sound (and light) check commenced.

During this time, i fitted each one of my lenses and determined the settings for each lens. Automatically, i knew this shoot would be difficult. the whole venue was in pitch black darkness, and the lighting rig, although fairly substantial, was the only source of light.

The problem was that the lighting rig was behind the musicians for a theatrical look. The lighting also fluctuated a lot, flashing, fading and constantly moving (lasers). I was forbidden to use my flash because of disruptions to the video. It became apparent right from the sound check, that i needed a lens that could open up to a wide aperture, to allow me to shoot with a low enough ISO to avoid poor quality, but a high enough shutter speed to freeze the active musicians.

After a short test of each lens, there was a clear winner, My 50mm prime F/2.8. shooting at around 75mm (due to a cropped sensor) this lens gave me reach and a wide aperture of f2.8, which i set on the lenses aperture ring. This allowed me to have my ISO 800-1000, reasonably low for the conditions.

My shutter speed was at 1/400th of a second, just enough to freeze the motion. These settings left me rather under-exposed, but exposed well enough to view the images. As previously mentioned, i often under-expose my image to be safe, especially when i am shooting in difficult conditions. It might be worth noting that i shot in black and white, because of the exposure settings, and colourful lights, the white balance/colour balance was muddy and inaccurate; shooting in black and white changed the light from dirty tones to strong highlights.

I was also restricted composure wise because i had to make sure i wasn't in the video.

The first 5 videos were shot with the video camera on a tripod, straight on, this was for filling footage of the entire band. During the making of these videos, i was restricted to behind the camera man and his tripod. During these videos i got shots of the entire band, just like the video.

Next, the videographer took the camera in hand, and shot 3 videos with each band member, although the shots didn't show the rest of the band, there were in the background at some points. Because of this, the rest of the band had to continue performing.

This meant, i got free reign of the other band-members, with the often pulling interesting moves and playing up to my camera instead. I also got personal performance time with each individual band member because the cameraman was focusing on one person.

The results of this was surprisingly well-received, and i personally was very happy with the outcome. Beginners luck? Maybe, but that's what keeps me going.

Advice to anyone else receiving the chance to shoot behind the scenes, Don't panic, and look at the scene differently to normal, find/look at things in an unorthodox manner, Forget about trying to get 'that shot' and just photograph naturally. Document the scene, and occasionally try to get shots that make it seem like your shoot....is that theft or wit? Sponging off of other peoples hard work is what us photographers do, Lets face it, if we see something interesting we photograph is yes? Well the interesting thing is often someone else's time and effort.


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High Key Situations

So I've spoken about various techniques to help a low light photo-shoot, but I haven't written anything about shooting in very bright situations. It's one of the things most people forget when it comes to photo-shoot  extremes, but can actually be extremely difficult.

When I say bright situations, I don't mean a nice summers day, I'm talking high key, white on white or just too many highlights and not enough shadows. The problem generally arrives when you have a very light coloured background, like a white wall, and light penetrating everything evenly, leaving little to no shadow areas. Because there are no shadows, the usual techniques (ISO, Shutter Speed and Aperture) become redundant as a technique. Obviously, being a photographer, these 3 things should be in your mind anyway.

So as we all know, small aperture (F/11 or smaller) and a fast shutter speed with an ISO of around 100. Now that will have you shooting, but images may appear flat or just blown out. So what can you do to give some depth and contrast in your images?

If you are in a studio with a model/client, ask them to bring a variety of clothes, select the darker shades of clothing to make the subject pop. Understandably, this is not always possible, so what do we do?

A rather confusing technique to counteract abundant light is to add more light...the trusty ol' hot-shoe flash is the man for the job. To do this, is actually pretty simple. Play around with your settings and try to get the outcome rather dark, not a black frame, but fairly underexposed. Use the flash to create highlights, this might mean turning it, or bouncing the light so it isn't head on.

Composition is also very important in situations like this, try to find little objects or positions that give depth to the image, something either in front of or behind the subject.

It might be worth noting that the background can be burnt out later, so shoot with this in mind; don't miss a shot because you are worried about the light. High key images can often be a nightmare to edit, if the highlights are blown then recovering data from the image (burning) can sometimes be tricky, and leave the edited area insanely noisy and noticeable.

A good rule of thumb is it is always better to be under-exposed than over-exposed. Often, i find myself struggling to find that perfect exposure point, shooting in raw means i can always keep the shoot under-exposed and edit them later; quite frequently it turns out the reason i couldn't find the exposure i had in mind was because the contrast in the light was not strong enough, or something of that nature. So never get frustrated while shooting if you can't seem to nail down what you want, just make sure the exposure isn't blowing out any highlights, and keep shooting, take advantage of  post-production technology.
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