Samgold Photos

Showing posts with label monochrome. Show all posts

May 14, 2015

I have been spending all my editing time with the fashion photography I shot with my brother and sister in Ruidoso, NM. I feel I need to step away from this project and let it "cool down" for a couple of days and then re-examine the collection with a fresh pair of eyes. Couldn't help but want to share a few today though and came up with this mini series of square black and white photos from each of the four looks I photographed. Hope you enjoy! Sam

If you live in, or are traveling to Florida and would like to schedule a photo-shoot, I am currently offering portrait services in and around Central Fl. Check out more of my work at www.samgoldphotography.com

April 19, 2015

I have never been a fan of adding grain to my imagery. I think my obsession with having optimal image quality steered me away from the idea. Recently however, my sister sent me an old photo of our family and seeing it inspired me to experiment with grain in Lightroom. The less than good image quality stemmed from the photo being taken with a disposable film camera at night using the flash which illuminated the people in the photo but not the dark space around us which ended up grainy.

I did not want to sound like an oaf on this subject and while researching the properties of film grain I found this article (a tough but fun read) which states:

The term “film grain” is often incorrectly used to describe the “fundamental” particles in a chemical-based photographic image. Fundamental image particles are the smallest particles that form an image: (a) silver particles or (b) color dye clouds ...

Film grain is a repeating noise pattern that is an order of magnitude larger than the fundamental image particles. Film resolution is directly related to the size and distribution of silver particles in an emulsion. The noise pattern tends to obscure detail rather than define detail. The pattern is superimposed over the image, not the source of the image.

A common mistake [made by the author many, many times], is to think that film grain is the image-forming element. Many Kodak and Fuji publications, including much of the popular photographic literature (magazines), commonly make the mistake of referring to fundamental film particles as film grain. This further propagates the imprecise usage of the term.

Although this information may seem archaic, the scientist in me found it to be very interesting because it helped me understand how I should better approach adding digital grain to an image.

I think the most important thing is that adding grain should be the very last thing you apply to a fully processed image. It helps to think of your edited RAW (or JPEG) file as the "fundamental image particles" (in the digital world it is actually the pixels making up the image) and the grain as a noise artefact being superimposed on top of it. The end result is that you obtain a digital image that has more of a film like rendering to it.

In Lightroom you are able to add grain in the "Effects" module and the adjustment sliders consist of "Amount", "Size", and "Rougness". When adding grain into the mix, I usually toggle between the "1:1" and "FIT" to look at the changes on a magnified and overall level. This ensures image quality does not deteriorate to the point where you lose fine detail. Size and roughness play a major role in this and amount impacts the overall effects of both. As with all my processing, I just adjust the sliders around until the end result is something I am looking for. In the week of playing around with this process I like Amount:50, Size:20, Roughness:20 for moderate grain and Amount:50, Size:20 Roughness:50 for a more distinct look. Some other things to note are that:

Grain is more noticeable in the darker areas of a photo, especially the mid-tones (or "clipped"/"faded" blacks).
Grain is also more evident in out of focus areas.
Increasing the grain deteriorates image quality especially in subjects with fine detail such as hair or eyelashes.
It helps to look at film images to help understand what looks natural.
When noise reduction is not set to 0, the effect of adding grain is diminished.
If the image was shot at a high ISO, you probably do not need to add additional grain.

Image Samples

Again, I have only been experimenting with this for a short period of time so the information I presented here should be taken with a grain of salt. Some may think it is silly to strive for a good digital camera with a nice sharp lens only to ruin the output with the addition of grain, but I have definitely had fun playing around with it. I am sure film photographers out there would say "just shoot film". For digital photographers who haven't used the medium however, working grain into your aesthetic can a step in the right direction. Anyone else out there add grain in their post processing workflow?? I'd love to hear your thoughts/tips in the comments section =) Sam

September 28, 2014

I am offshore again! Also, my camera did not sell so I am still exploring photography. This time I have been shipped to a vessel named the Western Neptune. It's pretty awesome and everyone on board have been great. Below are some photos from the first couple of days exploring the vessel. I did end up selling most of my lenses and all the photos in this post were taken with the 12-50mm kit lens. I find this lens is actually highly capable and I am glad that I am being forced to use it =) Enjoy!

June 15, 2014

For the past two months, I have been home spending my time travelling and hanging out with my partner. I have tried to practice photography on a daily basis but haven't found the time to process my efforts. Alas, I was called to work and am now on the M/V Bjorkhaug. I love the ocean and the scenery it has to offer and am looking forward to the next couple of weeks offshore. Below are a few photos I have taken over the past couple of days. Lately I have been obsessed with low contrast black and white, and love the haunting feel this processing has given these images. One of my Flickr contacts suggested I write a tutorial on black and white processing which I hope will be the subject of my next entry. Until then, I hope you enjoy this set. The photos in this post were taken with Olympus' 17mm f/1.8. Infact, I think my other lenses are getting a bit jealous as the 17mm has been glued to my EM5 =)

May 14, 2014

17mm

Earlier this week my partner and I visited a small zoo in the heart of Miami named Jungle Island. We both love wildlife and our day-date also presented the opportunity to test out my newly acquired Olympus MZD 17mm f/1.8. I also took the MZD 45mm f/1.8, MZD 40-150mm zoom and Samyang's 7.5mm fisheye lens. I ended up not using the fisheye, but all this and a few accessories easily fit into the small messenger bag I brought with me. The photos below are labeled according to the lens I used for comparison and some of my favorite came from the 17mm.

17mm

This lens provides the relatively wide field of view that I enjoy when using the 15mm body cap lens. However, it is razor sharp even when shot wide open and produces some beautiful bokeh. It is also small, auto-focus is blazing fast when coupled to the EM5, and the cherry on top is being able to easily switch to manual mode using the lens itself. Manual focus became important when photographing birds through their cages as the lens usually auto-focused on the enclosure. After auto-focusing I would enter magnification mode on the EM5 and manually focus on what I wanted to... usually the birds' eye =)

17mm

When there was no cage to obstruct the subject, I was surprised at the EM5 and 17mm's ability to lock focus on my subject's eyes, even when it was moving. The 17mm has been around for a while and there are plenty of articles out there detailing its pros and cons (see here, here, here, and here). I think the 17mm, 45mm and zoom were a perfect trio for the zoo and I highly recommend Olympus' fast wide angle prime! With that, I will leave you with some of the images from Jungle Island =)

Sam D.