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Posted by richw: Sat Jan 12th, 2013 08:07 1st Post
My (slightly mad) wife, with 11 other members of our gym have entered this next weekend:

http://toughmudder.com.au/

Despite a lot of peer pressure to also join up I have held out as 'Support' crew / official team photographer.

Taking the D3s with 70-200 mm and a 1.4x Kenko convertor in the bag. Will also take the D200 with Sigma 10-20mm on and have Nikon 24-70mm in bag. Probably leaving D7000 at home. I might need to cover a fair bit of distance with the cameras, although I hope to take a mountain bike with panniers.

Any advice/thoughts?



Posted by jk: Sat Jan 12th, 2013 11:12 2nd Post
Sure it is only slightly mad.... with the weather you guys have been having they may all be completely dried/burnt out after 20km even with all the mud!!!


Advice:  Watch the mud and your cameras!!

Hope you enjoy the day. :-)



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Posted by Eric: Sat Jan 12th, 2013 13:41 3rd Post
richw wrote:
My (slightly mad) wife, with 11 other members of our gym have entered this next weekend:

http://toughmudder.com.au/

Despite a lot of peer pressure to also join up I have held out as 'Support' crew / official team photographer.

Taking the D3s with 70-200 mm and a 1.4x Kenko convertor in the bag. Will also take the D200 with Sigma 10-20mm on and have Nikon 24-70mm in bag. Probably leaving D7000 at home. I might need to cover a fair bit of distance with the cameras, although I hope to take a mountain bike with panniers.

Any advice/thoughts?

A 'rain' cover for the camera. Fit a protection filter on the lenses if you will be up close. ( muddy gritty water splashes can deface your expensive lens...believe me!)



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Posted by richw: Mon Jan 21st, 2013 07:28 4th Post
It went really well, no permanent damage to me or camera gear (but I did catch a touch of sunburn on the back of my calves - not had that for years).

Had a great time, the group from the gym all got on really well together and we had a ball, such great fun. I'm going to enter myself next time.

Some of the shots are up in my album now

A couple of shots (there are several more in the Album:

Night before relaxing at the house we all rented (lovely sunset - had to be done):






A lot of the team about to enter second set of tight/mud/water filled tunnels:



Climbing the cargo nets:



Everest Fail!



Parting shot:



Posted by jk: Mon Jan 21st, 2013 08:50 5th Post
Great shots Rich.

Were you using fill-in flash for first and last shots ?
Lighting is very good.



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Posted by richw: Mon Jan 21st, 2013 15:44 6th Post
First is on the D3s with the SB800 pointing vertically upwards but with the little white bounce card extended,

The last is on the D200, using the 10-20mm Sigma, no flash but a lot of processing, first in Lightroom and then in photoshop.



Posted by jk: Mon Jan 21st, 2013 17:09 7th Post
Very nicework on the last image :-)



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Posted by richw: Tue Jan 22nd, 2013 04:51 8th Post
Thanks JK, for comparison this is the original shot without the processing (other than my Lightrrom default for portraits which is the default sharpening with camera calibration for portraits and a very small vignette added.

Attachment: untitled-5081-2.jpg (Downloaded 50 times)



Posted by Eric: Tue Jan 22nd, 2013 09:24 9th Post
richw wrote:
Thanks JK, for comparison this is the original shot without the processing (other than my Lightrrom default for portraits which is the default sharpening with camera calibration for portraits and a very small vignette added.
Nice shot Rich. That would be a good candidate to do a perspective 3D effect border with his left elbow out of the frame.



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Posted by richw: Tue Jan 22nd, 2013 15:28 10th Post
Thanks Eric, I might give that a go. I have a sequence of shots that show Jac (my wife) missing her jump and catch on 'Everest' which is a large half pipe they have to sprint up leap and catch the ledge or the hand of someone strong enough to pull them up.

The sequence (below) shows her missing and sliding back down. Any ideas how this could be presented.



Posted by richw: Tue Jan 22nd, 2013 15:32 11th Post
I think my favourite shot was the night before as all in camera with flash and sunset. The D3s does an amazing job with this.



Posted by Eric: Tue Jan 22nd, 2013 15:53 12th Post
richw wrote:
Thanks Eric, I might give that a go. I have a sequence of shots that show Jac (my wife) missing her jump and catch on 'Everest' which is a large half pipe they have to sprint up leap and catch the ledge or the hand of someone strong enough to pull them up.

The sequence (below) shows her missing and sliding back down. Any ideas how this could be presented.


Are the last 3 crops of the same framing as the first 3?

One option would be to overlay them (layers) keep the top and bottom full opacity but drop the opacity of the intermediate ones to give a ghost trail down the slope. Of course you need to erase any interference lines and details where the layer register isn't identical.

Something like this....
https://www.dropbox.com/s/13wzhpowofvdg1v/_DSC3645.jpg


Alternatively, from a display perspective, you could just print 3 letterbox pictures (losing grip, sliding, end) and hang them as a landscape vertical triptych.

A landscape version similar to this painting...
https://www.dropbox.com/s/fdllfixubh4wsfl/_DSC0535.jpg


Will have another think...maybe someone else has a idea?



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Posted by Eric: Wed Jan 23rd, 2013 05:39 13th Post
On the main picture of your wife losing her grip, there is a sign advertising HOLDEN. My humorous thinking would be inclined to edit it. With a big X across the E and an O over the top!:-)



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Posted by richw: Wed Jan 23rd, 2013 08:47 14th Post
Unfortunately I was moving around and zooming in and out so I don't have a shot of the whole view the close ups were zoomed in optically rather than cropped, however I have made rough attempt to build a composite (very rough) to use the effect Eric suggested. Might have another go tomorrow and put the last image (her at the bottom) on top of the one above it. I added a bit of motion blur but wish I hadn't now as it makes the interim image look cut out and pasted in which they weren't, they were just blended around with a mask.

P.S. There is a lot of content aware fill going on in this image!

Attachment: untitled-6589-Edit-3-Edit.jpg (Downloaded 31 times)



Posted by jk: Wed Jan 23rd, 2013 09:33 15th Post
Nice one Rich.

I bet Jackie just loves it! :lol:

You need one of the next run up where she was hopefully successful as well. ;-)

 



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Posted by Eric: Wed Jan 23rd, 2013 11:11 16th Post
richw wrote:
Unfortunately I was moving around and zooming in and out so I don't have a shot of the whole view the close ups were zoomed in optically rather than cropped, however I have made rough attempt to build a composite (very rough) to use the effect Eric suggested. Might have another go tomorrow and put the last image (her at the bottom) on top of the one above it. I added a bit of motion blur but wish I hadn't now as it makes the interim image look cut out and pasted in which they weren't, they were just blended around with a mask.

P.S. There is a lot of content aware fill going on in this image!

I would use good,old fashioned erasing around each of the transparent body layers. Just leave the first layer as the background. Not sure you need the two images at the start they're very close to one another. You will be surprised how much you can back off the opacity and still get the effect. You could put some motion blur on the transparent layers as they are going to be blurry anyway. Also can you rotate the image anticlockwise a tad to exaggerate the slope? Don't know how it would look. But it's stating to be a fun image. Well done.
Ps can you graft her legs from the penultimate image on to the last image...but get them poking out of the frame? OK off for my meds now.

:rofl:



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Posted by richw: Wed Jan 23rd, 2013 19:03 17th Post
Eric wrote:
richw wrote:
Unfortunately I was moving around and zooming in and out so I don't have a shot of the whole view the close ups were zoomed in optically rather than cropped, however I have made rough attempt to build a composite (very rough) to use the effect Eric suggested. Might have another go tomorrow and put the last image (her at the bottom) on top of the one above it. I added a bit of motion blur but wish I hadn't now as it makes the interim image look cut out and pasted in which they weren't, they were just blended around with a mask.

P.S. There is a lot of content aware fill going on in this image!

I would use good,old fashioned erasing around each of the transparent body layers. Just leave the first layer as the background. Not sure you need the two images at the start they're very close to one another. You will be surprised how much you can back off the opacity and still get the effect. You could put some motion blur on the transparent layers as they are going to be blurry anyway. Also can you rotate the image anticlockwise a tad to exaggerate the slope? Don't know how it would look. But it's stating to be a fun image. Well done.
Ps can you graft her legs from the penultimate image on to the last image...but get them poking out of the frame? OK off for my meds now.

:rofl:

Unfortunately there is not enough of a background overlap to erase and turn the opacity down otherwise there start to be patches of the half pipe that start to become see through. Maybe I should try to build the half pipe without Jac on it first and then add her to that image. If only I had shot the damn thing as a whole whilst no one was running up - it would be much easier but I didn't have this image in my head then!

I agree the second image is very close, I was trying to show the "Missed catch" but I think you are right it detracts from the overall image.

The idea on the legs is brilliant, will definitely give that a go on attempt two!



Posted by richw: Wed Jan 23rd, 2013 19:08 18th Post
jk wrote:
Nice one Rich.

I bet Jackie just loves it! :lol:

You need one of the next run up where she was hopefully successful as well. ;-)

 

"Loves" probably would be the wrong word but she is very tolerant of me!

She made the second go no problem!



Posted by jk: Thu Jan 24th, 2013 04:26 19th Post
richw wrote:
jk wrote:
Nice one Rich.

I bet Jackie just loves it! :lol:

You need one of the next run up where she was hopefully successful as well. ;-)

 

"Loves" probably would be the wrong word but she is very tolerant of me!

She made the second go no problem!

I think you need the compare/contrast -if at first you dont suceede then try again! :-)



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Posted by Eric: Thu Jan 24th, 2013 15:20 20th Post
richw wrote:
Eric wrote:
richw wrote:
Unfortunately I was moving around and zooming in and out so I don't have a shot of the whole view the close ups were zoomed in optically rather than cropped, however I have made rough attempt to build a composite (very rough) to use the effect Eric suggested. Might have another go tomorrow and put the last image (her at the bottom) on top of the one above it. I added a bit of motion blur but wish I hadn't now as it makes the interim image look cut out and pasted in which they weren't, they were just blended around with a mask.

P.S. There is a lot of content aware fill going on in this image!

I would use good,old fashioned erasing around each of the transparent body layers. Just leave the first layer as the background. Not sure you need the two images at the start they're very close to one another. You will be surprised how much you can back off the opacity and still get the effect. You could put some motion blur on the transparent layers as they are going to be blurry anyway. Also can you rotate the image anticlockwise a tad to exaggerate the slope? Don't know how it would look. But it's stating to be a fun image. Well done.
Ps can you graft her legs from the penultimate image on to the last image...but get them poking out of the frame? OK off for my meds now.

:rofl:

Unfortunately there is not enough of a background overlap to erase and turn the opacity down otherwise there start to be patches of the half pipe that start to become see through. Maybe I should try to build the half pipe without Jac on it first and then add her to that image. If only I had shot the damn thing as a whole whilst no one was running up - it would be much easier but I didn't have this image in my head then!

I agree the second image is very close, I was trying to show the "Missed catch" but I think you are right it detracts from the overall image.

The idea on the legs is brilliant, will definitely give that a go on attempt two!

I know what you mean about "I wish I had shot some empty shots"

I have just been asked by a garden furniture company to superimpose sets taken in the studio, into garden settings. I had done loads of shots in garden settings last year but never thought to take some 'blanks' for later use.

Now struggling to get background images that the customer likes ...that also fit the shooting angle and lighting of the studio shots. GRRR!


Just another thought on the " legs out of the frame " idea. You could have a wooden frame round the image which is broken where the legs come out.
:rofl:



____________________
Eric


Posted by richw: Fri Jan 25th, 2013 07:38 21st Post
Attempt no 2.

My photoshop skills are rusty, not enough practice in the last couple of years, I'm really struggling to remember how to do things I used to know. More practice required!

Attachment: Jac Meets Everest.jpg (Downloaded 18 times)



Posted by Eric: Fri Jan 25th, 2013 11:16 22nd Post
richw wrote:
Attempt no 2.

My photoshop skills are rusty, not enough practice in the last couple of years, I'm really struggling to remember how to do things I used to know. More practice required!

Brilliant!! :applause::applause::applause:



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Posted by jk: Fri Jan 25th, 2013 11:58 23rd Post
Excellent.

Have you made the Action for it yet ?
:applause::applause::applause:



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Posted by Squarerigger: Fri Jan 25th, 2013 12:00 24th Post
Great work Rich. It has been very educational for me to follow your efforts to come up with a final product. I think I now have a fair understanding of layers and how to use them.

Sure am glad Eric's fees are so reasonable when it comes to artistic advice. :bowing:



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Gary


Posted by richw: Fri Jan 25th, 2013 16:45 25th Post
Thanks guys. I used panoramic stitching to build the background and then did it a second time with the shots of Jac to get them positioned properly. Worked well, chose the layer order to place her at the top at the top of the second with the last position at the bottom next, then turned the opacity down on the middle two as Eric suggested. I then blended in using layer masks.


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