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James Cook
{K:38068} 5/1/2007
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Yes, of course.
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Nick Karagiaouroglou
{K:127263} 5/1/2007
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I like the more "theoretical" appraoch, James. Indeed experimenting but not only based on trial and error, but rather considering what I know about photography and physics and trying to "predict" what the shot will look like. This can't be done perfectly of course.
Nick
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James Cook
{K:38068} 4/30/2007
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It does take a lot of trial and error. I take an aweful lot of shots, but I am also constantly experimenting.
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Nick Karagiaouroglou
{K:127263} 4/30/2007
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James, this sounds like a very progressiv haptic sense. I tried that but unfortunately... :-D
Best wishes,
Nick
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Nick Karagiaouroglou
{K:127263} 4/30/2007
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Thanks a lot, Roger!
You mean something like the attached image?
Best wishes,
Nick
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B&W version |
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Nick Karagiaouroglou
{K:127263} 4/30/2007
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Thanks a lot for the info, Roger!
But using the timer, well, how do you know that the leaves will be at the desired position (due to wind, etc) when the timer fires?
Best wishes,
Nick
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James Cook
{K:38068} 4/28/2007
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Roger - I usually use either my pinky or my ring finger (depending upon the shape of the camera) to hit the shutter button. It's a bit tricky until you get into the groove of it.
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James Cook
{K:38068} 4/28/2007
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Roger - I usually use either my pinky or my ring finger (depending upon the shape of the camera) to hit the shutter button. It's a bit tricky until you get into the groove of it.
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Roger Skinner
{K:81846} 4/28/2007
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kekeke nice pic.. James sent me here too BTW
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Roger Skinner
{K:81846} 4/28/2007
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With the shots I did this arvo I set the camera to expose using the Self Timer.. that way I knew it the camera would be in movment at the time.. I did however rotate it back and forth...
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Nick Karagiaouroglou
{K:127263} 4/26/2007
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Hey, thanks a bunch for the descriptive info, James! Get the shutter to fire in the *middle* of the cycle - that sounds important to me, since I never realized that!
Wow, now I have some ideas of multiexposure-luxagraphic work!
Thank you so much!
Nick
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James Cook
{K:38068} 4/26/2007
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Shots like in Vertigo are done, as you surmised, by hand. I just hold the camera in one hand with my fingers all around it (like you might if you were showing a badge), hold my arm out strait (aiming toward the subject), and rotate from the shoulder. This method keeps the center point pretty fixed (though from shot to shot it may shift about). No servos, so expect deviations.
One other thing to keep in mind is that the shutter time on that shot was 1/60 of a second. Today's post was 1/160 of a second. Not much chance to wobble the lines. The hard part ends up being getting the shutter to fire in the middle of the cycle and not at either end (my shoulder only spins so far).
I shoot a lot of pictures to try things out. When I hit upon some combination or gesture that gets at something particular I might repeat that several times in an effort to get things just the way I want them.
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Nick Karagiaouroglou
{K:127263} 4/26/2007
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Exactly James! You covered all possibilities of paralax and of course its "recording" on a photo.
Any kind of combined motion can be analyzed into its linearly independent elementary components (you know, just the superposition principle), and so I just tried to get some of the components on a scetch, though of course the end result of some complicated motion of the camera is way not so easy as the pure results of the "primitives", if you like.
I did of course tried the many possible simple experiments (finger in front if the camera and such) and thus I am trying to also understand what is happening in terms of mathematics. Not so much for "analyzing" any photo afterwards but just as a help for me to be able to somehow "predict" what kind of motion I have to do when I want some specific result.
I am looking forward to seeing you next steps in luxagraphic work, but the photo "Vertigo in the Impressionist Woods" is already very interesting. How did you managed such a great rotation angle so smoothly by hand? It was again by hand, wasn't it? Well, I wished I could control my camera in that degree, to be able to create "stable" luxagraphic work, but I really have to improve on that discipline, to match your skills. My tries are always such a mess of interrupted lines :-(
Just continue with your impressive work and keep up posting. Continue, continue, I say! Still at your computer? Now get that camera and do some work again! ;-)
Best wishes, keep it up,
Nick
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James Cook
{K:38068} 4/25/2007
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One of my degrees is in the History and Philosophy of Science so I'm pretty familiar with parallax. As I see it, in terms of camera motion, there are four possible kinds of camera motion which could contribute to a luxagraphic image:
1. Parallax--motion along a single plane parallel to the plane of focus (that plane which defines the center of the DoF).
2. Rotation--spinning the camera on axis perpendicular to the photographic plate.
3. Zoom--using a zoom lens or simple moving the camera toward or away from the subject in line with the above mentioned perpendicular.
4. Pan--basically rotating the snout of the camera as though mounted to a tripod (for instance)
Typically a combination of these motions is employed for luxagraphic work. Since my camera has a fixed lens with strictly motorized zooming (x3 I think), when I employ Zoom it's done by moving the camera itself.
What you are saying about parallax is absolutely true and can be easily tested. Hold your finger in front of your face and close one eye and then the other. Your finger will move relative to the background much more than the background will appear to move.
Panning takes advantage of the geometries I was talking about. Again this is easy to test. Hold your hand in front of your face and rotate your head to look past it. A very large section of the world is blotted out by a hand which appears to move very little.
Since I use a combination of motions (and pretty liberally at that) this simplification of matters doesn't do justice to what I've been doing.
I will be posting a Rotation shot pretty soon (for the Concentricity project). But here is an old one for your entertainment:
http://www.usefilm.com/Image.asp?ID=1129716
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Nick Karagiaouroglou
{K:127263} 4/25/2007
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Hi James!
The term parallax is defined as the apparent change of space coordinates of some point in space due to the motion of the observer. No matter of the special kind of motion of the observer. For example we have parallax of stars due to rotation of the earth, and so on.
As a mathematicican I do take advantage of the geometry and attach some scetches to illustrate the different kinds of parallactic motion.
A pure rotation of the camera, a rotation carried out with the aparture as center of rotation, results in exactly the same parallax of *all* objects on film, no matter how far they are.
The kind of motion that you do eith the camera however is not a pure rotation but rather a combination of a rotation and a translation is space, since after the motion the aperture is on some other point in space.
All the above only for claricication of the names and terms of your methid, which after all is extremely interesting, be it rotation or translation. As we know, what is a name? A rose would smell as sweet under any other name - so even under the name "ship" ;-)
Anyway, as you can see a combination or rotation and translation - i.e. a rotation around a point that does not coincide with the aparture - can even lead to smaller parallax of the far lying points.
As a side note, if the center of rotation lies nearer to the film or CCD plane then the far lying points do "move" more.
The more that was going on on your image is simply the combined rotation and translation, since it is almost impossible to do a pure rotation of the camera around the point of aperture by hand.
Best wishes and thanks a lot.
Nick
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Parallax |
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James Cook
{K:38068} 4/19/2007
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Parallactic motion assumes that the observation point changes along a flat plane so that the angle of observation changes at the observation end larger.
I am going something different. I alter my angle of observation. Imagine putting out your arm and making a circular motion. The tips of your fingers travel much farther and does your elbow which in turn travels much farther than your shoulder. Now imagine light as eminating from the observer (as the Greeks did). This is the geometry I am taking advantage of.
In the shot I link above, there is indubitably some of your relative motion contributing to the matter, but the unusual coloration of her hair tells me clearly that more was going on (her hair is actually stark blonde).
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Nick Karagiaouroglou
{K:127263} 4/19/2007
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Another explanation for the look of your shot, James, would be that you were standing and turning the camera with approximately the same speed with the passing woman. Then, of course she remains without motion blur since the relative speed camera/woman is about 0.
Best wishes,
Nick
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Nick Karagiaouroglou
{K:127263} 4/19/2007
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Hmmm, James, parallactic motion gets *smaller* with distance in case of pure translation, so it must be something that has to do with the special conditions of combination of translation and rotation of the camera, or additional motion of the subject itself.
Look for example at the wall on the bottom of the image, which is much nearer than the house at the top of the image. The parallactic motion of the wall is much stronger.
The tree looks as if it didn't "moved" that much simple because it lacks the staight contours that our eye detects immediately when they are subject to such displacements.
I really wonder how you achieved your shot! It should not be that way in case you only turn/move the camera, so it is a bit strange to me. Were you perhaps moving at approximately the same speed with the woman during the shot? That would explain its look perfectly.
Best wishes,
Nick
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James Cook
{K:38068} 4/18/2007
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Cool.
I think the problem in this shot comes from simple geometry. The tree is closer than the building and so as you move your camera the building shifts further than the tree.
Here is a shot where I used that difference in shift to my advantage (the subject is close and mostly stationary while the background is far away and luxagraphic):
http://www.usefilm.com/Image.asp?ID=1130249
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Nick Karagiaouroglou
{K:127263} 4/18/2007
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Hi James, and thank you for the comment and the URL to your image. It has been four exposures with small displacements/rotations of the camera from one exposure to the next - plus of course a quite rich amount of underexposure in order to avoid the fourfold overexposure of the final image due to 4 x light on the same film frame.
I find your image very interesting as it does have that impressionistic look and feel but in a rather different way. It takes advantage of controlled small displacement blurryness during a single take, while this one takes advantage of many sharp "echos" of the same things created by many different takes.
Your image reminds me of two that I posted some time ago. A somewhat similar impression:
http://www.usefilm.com/Image.asp?ID=1190728
http://www.usefilm.com/Image.asp?ID=1190726
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James Cook
{K:38068} 4/18/2007
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How many exposures did you combine for this image?
I have a couple of shots up that are probably similar to what you are after. Mine are of course single exposure luxagraphic shots. Here is one of them:
http://www.usefilm.com/Image.asp?ID=1137692
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