DSRL Movies

Tags

cake, D7000, design, DSRL, DSRL Movie, film, filme, iMovie, movie, Nikon, pastry chef, peliculas, video sequence

Youtube link Chef Mariana Vincenzi:

My Vimeo link:

Cars Cake by Mariana Vincenzi from Ricardo Toledo on Vimeo.

Special thanks to Pastry Chef Mariana Vincenzi
www.marianavincenzi.com
www.facebook.com/marianavincenzi

Today my post is not about photography… But I’ll talk about another art: movies! Before you think I’m a traitor, let me explain why! This post is about movies made with a DSRL (Digital Single Lens Reflex) camera! In other words, a photography camera, the same one that made the pictures in this blog (take a look in the pictures galleries in the previous posts).

Recently the DSRL cameras were improved in technology and today they are a great option to record very good films. Possibilities in controlling depth field, exposure, ISO, low light conditions and a lot of lens available make the DSRL cameras more common and preferred by several professionals and amateur film-makers.

In this way, I got motivated to make my first DSRL movie, in true it was my first complete DSRL movie but I had made one Time-lapse some months ago (see: Time-lapse post). It was a very interesting experience, a lot of knowledge learned and I think a good final result to someone beginner like me!

My camera is a Nikon D7000, a good DSRL in DX format. For the movie I took three different lens, a macro 60mm, 18-105mm and the telescopic 55-300mm. A basic knowledge about the camera movie functionality is very important (take your camera manual and eat it!), but the great deal is your planning, light, composition and photographic techniques (again?! If you have read my previous posts it’s possible that you think I’m repeating…).

In true, my planning in this movie was very bad. I started just recording some scenes to understand the camera and how I could control the lens and record parameters. I’m convinced my planning should be better, and so I hadn’t spent much time in the post edition neither a lot of dispensable scenes. First lesson: I must draw a good storyboard in the next time!

My first big challenge was the light control. My model, the pastry chef Mariana Vincenzi, was in her usual cake production and no thought in a movie production! So, to control the camera angles and the light condition was a big issue, one time there was a bad shadow in the main plan, other time her hand was so close to object, etc… I really took a lot of bad scenes to waste them! But, once again, the light condition, light sources, type of light (hard or soft), reflectors, white balance control were very important! I was concerned to record in low ISO and I took reduced noise scenes, my scenes were in ISO 320 and 800 maximum. I used two white continuous lights, soft box light, white umbrella and a 80 cm circular silver reflector.

The second was the editing. My knowledge in movie editing is very, very, very basic and I was surprised how simple is the iMovie software! I had test it in my time-lapse experience but not in editing large scenes and no developed pictures. It’s so easy and a couple of practice hours are enough to you get your first movie.

The last challenge was to choose the right music in my case. The movie looks like a video clip, I’m talking about a cake production, but no words are told, and I wanted a dynamic music to synchronize with the hands movements and the cars. I looked for musics in the Cars movie discography and together with pastry chef we chose one. It’s very important to consider the copyrights and to referrers clear and direct about the authors if you don’t want any problems to reproduce your movie.

I expect that you enjoy the movie and that my short experience could be a motivation to you! Have you made a DSRL movie one time? Please, feel free to comment and remember: keep shooting!

For further information, I suggest:

Vimeo DSRL Video School

The DSLR Cinematography Guide

Textures

Tags

Hard light, Light source, Lines, Photo, Photography, Soft light, Texture

(Versión en español en el interior del post)

Many times we ask ourselves how is possible to express senses like textures, velocity, weight, and temperature in a picture. A most of them are possible using colors, angles, different light sources and basics concepts of the photography composition.

Today, I would like to talk about textures. Do you see the stick’s texture in the picture? A friend asked me about the quality of my camera and the studio equipment used to take this picture and how is his surprise when I explain him that the picture was taken in my kitchen, with a normal light, no tripod and with a simple camera entry-level DSLR.

It is very impressive how any simple stuffs can become in beautiful images using basics concepts. It isn’t complex to make good images, you don’t need a sophisticated studio and neither spend a lot of money in expensive cameras and lenses. It is enough a good portion of creativity and sensibility to make pictures really more interesting than other ones.

Usually you can explore the textures varying the angle of your light source incident in your object. Short angles make micro-shadows with the imperfections of the object’s surface and so it is possible see its texture, by the other hand, when the angle is close to perpendicular to surface, these micro-shadows aren’t produced and the object is seen like a plain and perfect surface.

Furthermore, you have to pay attention in the nature of your light. Soft lights, like a reflected light by umbrellas or other high reflective material (white walls, studio reflectors, etc) or by very large light sources, produce very soft shadows and reduces the micro-shadows effect of the texture. Hard light is the opposite of soft light and comes from a single light source, such as a naked bulb, and falls directly on the subject without being reflected by another surface. It generally casts dark shadows and produces high contrast pictures with deep blacks and bright highlights, expanding the micro-shadows effect . The shadows also generally have a very distinct or hard edge, so that the outline of the object closely reflects exactly its shape in the shadow.

Is it simple, isn’t it? The big question is how light source is positioned and how is the nature of your light. Remember that the photography is “painting with the light”!

Keep shooting…

Muchas veces nos preguntamos como es posible expresar los sentidos de textura, velocidad, peso, temperatura en una fotografía. La mayor parte de ellos es posible a través de los colores, ángulos, fuentes de luces y de conceptos básicos de composición fotográfica.

Hoy me gustaría de hablar sobre las texturas. Lograste ver la textura de los palillos en la fotografía? Un amigo me dijo que era por la calidad de mi camera y del studio que tenia, y su sorpresa fue cuando le dice que la fotografía fue tomada en mi cocina, con una luz normal, sin trípode y con una sencilla camera de iniciados en fotografías.

Es muy interesante como objetos sencillos pueden nos dar bonitas imágenes  usando conceptos básicos. No es nada complejo producir buenas imágenes, tu no necesitas estudios muy elaborados y tampoco de cameras y lentes muy caras. Es suficiente una buena cantidad de creatividad y sensibilidad para tomar buenas fotografías y hacerlas mas interesantes que otras.

Normalmente las texturas son exploradas variando el angulo de la fuente de luz incidente en el objeto de la foto. Angulos pequeños producen micro sombras con la imperfección de la superficie del objeto y así es posible ver su textura. Intente hacerlo por ejemplo con una rebanada de pan! Por otro lado, si el ángulo es muy cerca de la perpendicular de la superficie, estas micro sombras no son producidas y el objeto es visto como una superficie lisa.

Ademas de eso, hay que tener mucha atención con la naturaleza de la luz. Luces suaves, como las luces reflejadas por paraguas u otros materiales (paredes blancas, reflectores de estudio, etc) o por grandes fuentes de luces, producen sombras muy suaves y reducen el efecto de las micro sombras en la superficie del objeto. Las luces duras por otro lado son opuestas a las luces suaves, son producidas por una simples fuente de luz e iluminan directamente el objeto sin ninguna reflexión por otra superficie. Normalmente generan sombras muy obscuras y con alto contraste aumentando el efecto de las micro sombras en la superficie del objeto.

Parece muy sencillo, no es verdad? La gran pregunta es como la fuente de luz esta puesta y como es la naturaleza de la luz. Recuerde que fotografía es como “pintar con la luz”!

Photography anywhere!

Tags

Bicycle, Lightroom, Lines, Mexico, Photography

(Versión en español en el interior del post)

It is very interesting to see that a good photography is in anywhere at any time. It depends on ourselves, our perception of the world and our motivation!

This picture called “Lines and Bikes” is one of my first photos when I finished to read a book of Photography Composition. I remember that I had a hard work week and I needed to get out and take some pictures!

In that case, I found it in the Lincoln Park in Mexico City. The park was crowded and in a few “minutes of silence” I saw the walkway free, the bikes supported on the pole and the yellow mailbox that I love it in the picture.

A mayor rule in the Photo Composition is the use of the lines to make the dimensions sense and the “3D effect”. The diagonal lines help us to have the depth perception and it is possible to see with the position of the walkway. Furthermore the crossways and the light on the walkway reinforces this effect.

The focus and the light measurement were direct on the bikes, with the aperture priority. I love to use the aperture priority because I’ve the control about the diaphragm aperture and the bucket effect, in defocusing the image.

The picture was developed in the Lightroom software, using the color balance to finish the composition.

So, some bicycles abandoned at the park in the Sunday afternoon could become in a beautiful picture with color balanced, depth sense and light controlled using some basic rules of the photo composition.

What do you waiting for? Take your camera! There are a lot of images waiting to be registered in the streets, parks and even inside of your home. Keep shooting…

Es interesante percibir que en todas las partes, en todos los lugares siempre estará una buena fotografía a ser registrada. Eso depende solamente de nosotros, de nuestra percepción del mundo y sobretodo de nuestra motivación!

Esta fotografía, que la llamo de “Lines and Bikes” es parte de mis primeras fotos después de leer un libro sobre Composición Fotográfica y de tener una semana muy pesada de trabajo (si tengo un trabajo que nada que ver con el arte fotográfica). Yo necesitaba salir y buscar un buen motivo para una foto!

En este caso la encontré sentado en un parque, en la Ciudad de Mexico, colonia Polanco (para quien la conoce, es el Parque Lincoln) al final de tarde de un domingo. El parque estaba lleno y en un segundo de calmaría percibí el pasillo libre, las bicicletas en el poste y la caja de correo amarilla que me encanta en la foto.

Una de las principales reglas de Composición Fotográfica es justo el uso de lineas para dar el sentido de dimensión en la foto. El uso de lineas diagonales ayuda mucho en la percepción de profundidad que se puede percibir con el sentido del pasillo. Los caminos cruzados apoyan en esta percepción, junto con las sombras al largo del pasillo.

El foco y la medición de luz fueron directo en las bicicletas, el motivo principal de la foto, con prioridad para la apertura. Para mi es la que mas me gusta para tomar las fotos, controlando la apertura del diafragma y el efecto de “desfoque” de la imagen.

La foto al final fue revelada en el software Lightroom para dar el equilibrio de los colores y finalizar la composición.

Así lo que al final son algunas bicicletas perdidas por sus dueños en un parque en la tarde de domingo, se pueden transformar en una imagen equilibrada, con el sentido de dimensiones y luminosidad aplicando algunos conceptos básicos e importantes de composición fotográfica.

Luego, vamos adelante! Hay un montón de imágenes listas para ser registradas en la calle, en los parques y mismo dentro de sus casas. Agarre tu maquina y practique!