Winter der Vorstadt.

Another day, and another long exposure, this time using my 8mm fisheye lens with a solar filter (supposed to provide about 16 to 20 stops). The total exposure here is about 1 hour and 10 minutes.
The shot was rectified manually (thanks to the vertical lines!). It seems such filters are not optimized to render colors correctly after all, but still, I tried to use that with tone-splitting. The sun is still harsh here, but oh well, I can't remove such an element (maybe I should try again but around sunset time). Note that the street down there was somewhat busy but with such a field of view and such time, nothing is recorded (specially during the day rather than night).

#urban #suburban #balcony #longexposure #LE #long_exposure #fisheye #solar #goodmorning

Sleepless Night

Now, I've finished with the stroll, and I was going to post something from the "monkey panorama" series that I've stopped abruptly to post about that stroll series of January 27th, but I thought that I can do that later. I'm going to slip this one shot done on the January 31st. As the title suggests, it was a sleepless night (as usual).
Now, nothing special about this long exposure shot and actually I was disappointed, as I thought I'd get more lines or action in the frame. However, it was a good experimental piece for me because it is the first time I "rectify" a fisheye shot manually.
Long ago, I would rectify fisheye shots using some programs. Anyway, now, I've started doing the job manually (which takes time and effort really), and seems I've finally done it!
Rectification of a fisheye image usually results in stretched images, typically shifting the aspect ratio of the image beyond the usual 3:2 ratio of APS-C sensors (for Canon at least; not sure about other brands). The aspect ratio here for this shot after rectification is somewhat close to 16:9.
The shot was taken with Rokinon 8mm fisheye lens (one of my favorites); a completely manual lens. The lens was attached to a modified camera (for full spectrum) and I've placed an infrared gel filter on its back (improvisation, since it has no rear-filter holder or anything). I don't have any big stopper ND filters in gel format, so I thought this filter would do the job to lengthen the exposure at night, and so it did, expanding the exposure time to about 1 hour and 15 minutes. The noise, of course, is problematic and I didn't even try to touch it, because removing it would make the image smudgy. Anyway, for a trial, it doesn't matter I guess. I'm just happy about the rectification itself that I can't be bothered about the noise!

#longexposure #long_exposure #LE #night #sleepless #IR #infrared #fisheye #rectification #rectify #balcony #surreal #surrealism #urban #suburban #goodmorning

Spirits Day (3).

OK, I was going to have this day off from posting since I don't have any specific project posts, but decided to post this just to finish this series of shots which I've done from the balcony.
About 3 days ago I've done a long exposure from the balcony using various IR filters. So, I thought, why not do a long exposure using UV filter this time. I wasn't expecting much really. However, unlike the previous IR filters, this time I was expecting the exposure to be REALLY long just because of the physics of UV as well as the camera's sensor - and so it was; the exposure took about 2 hours and 50 minutes, so almost 3 hours.
Of course in such a long exposure nothing is expected to leave a trace (and this is why I wish I can do it in really busy places). The road down there was actually ongoing with cars but not frequently.
The image was essentially darker and I had struggles brightening and adding contrast (and some saturation) and that resulted in some extreme noise that couldn't be removed unfortunately, but oh well, guess it's just part of the process and the image by now.

#uv #ultraviolet #longexposure #long_exposure #LE #goodmorning

Spirits Day.

One the trials I've done yesterday for a long exposure, using IR filter with my modified Canon EOS 7D, and using ND filters; and I say filters because I used more than one: 10 stops + 5 stops, so total should be 15 stops. Despite this, strangely, the exposure was just estimated at 4 minutes. Anyway, I suppose longer doesn't necessarily mean better. The IR filter here is B+W's 045 (I think), which probably has a threshold of somewhere around 680nm.
Later on, I've exchanged this filter with Neewer's 950nm filter and that actually did lengthen the exposure to about 32 minutes, but so far I didn't see any special features in the sky like in this one. The colors were pushed further with some saturation, but there was so much noise. Notice that to the naked eyes, the sky was plain white and no clouds were there but in this shot you can see some lines or bands; those are caused by the movement of the clouds.
Not the best composition for sure, but this is the view I can available from the balcony. I wish though I could get a better view for the street, specially at night. I'm still trying to process the rest and check their potentials.

#longexposure #LE #longexposure #long_exposure #infrared #IR #street #neighborhood #urban #goodmorning

[8569].

Well, almost wasn't posting anything for today but decided to put this thing up since I did it anyway and maybe talk a bit about it. This is the long exposure shot (32 mins exposure) that I've done last Friday. It is unedited (almost?), and probably you can see, nothing special about it and it doesn't look like as a long exposure even.
The main goal I had in mind was to have the swings move and become blurry (in fact, there is a little blur when the original is viewed at 100%). For this shoot, I've already placed 2 filters (the star filter and a "starry night" filter for light enhancement). The plan though was to use a variable ND filter on top of these with 5 stops (max for this filter); have I done that, the exposure probably could have been for 2 minutes only or a bit more. However, a problem occurred here when I've discovered that I can't attach a hood to this filter (so strange), and the hood is essential here because there is a strong light coming from the left. Luckily I've brought my other ND filter that night, but it was ND1000, or 10 stops, and that kicked the exposure up to 32 minutes.
For my ill luck, not a single breeze was there, so I've set my alarm to shake the swings every 10 minutes. Yet, despite all that effort, I've failed at it (and this is the 2nd time!). Guess I'll abandon this idea altogether.

#fail #longexposure #LE #long_exposure #playground #goodmorning

Early Bloomer.

This is the shot I was talking about, which I was supposed to include in last Friday's post but I thought I've deleted it.
The shot was a long exposure (~2h 15mins) rehearsal or trial for the main shot (Late Bloomer). Upon inspection, I didn't really like it much because of the level of the noise mainly, but also the movement of the hands didn't quite depict the passage of time as I've envisioned it (the overall look was on a portion of the clock face only). There was also some color cast, not sure why though.
So here you go, just to not let the shot be wasted, I'm posting it today!

#longexposure #LE #long_exposure #time #clock #stilllife #still_life #surreal #surrealism #goodmorning

New photo on Flickr! https://buff.ly/YNT9E5J #naturallight #largeformat #large_format #windowlight #longexposure #long_exposure #pinhole #nude #selfportrait #vericolor2 #colorpinhole #color_pinhole #4x5 #analog #kodak #analogfilm #film #filmphotography #abandoned

سُـكـونْ (stillness);

OK, I was reluctant to publish this because, well, nothing special about it really. But here we go - I didn't want to leave it to waste.
This shot is a long exposure taken in the yard back in February. Nothing special about it really, just that it was shot with my modified camera and without any infrared filter on lens, but an ND filter to make the long exposure. I was hoping there would be some breeze to shake the plants, but once I've set everything and was ready to shoot, everything got calm and still - hence the title.
You might some tiny vibrations or shakes in the branch on close inspection, but it's not clear right away, as if the image didn't take 10 minutes to be shot!

#longexposure #long_exposure #LE #plants #yard #goodmorning

1284 Seconds

So, I've posted the 4 hours and 10 minutes version of this shot yesterday. This one here is almost the same (I envisioned this look actually with my first failed trial) but this one here was shot in about 21 minutes. The plan was to shoot 6 shots on the span of 2 hours, with each being for 21 minutes, but I didn't program the remote correctly unfortunately and ended up with one shot only; this one. Anyway, the main idea is to gather as much as possible of light trails and merge them into one image. The noise level is not as drastic (still there though) and cleaning it was somewhat easier than the previous one. The previous one went through many process (and still ended up grainy), while this one was cleaned in one go.
I don't like the general composition though and the trash bins just outside makes me cringe really. I need to find another (safe) location!

#longexposure #LE #long_exposure #car #trails #light #road #street #corner #goodmorning

隱

Another long exposure, and this one was like an adventure for me, for various reasons:
- One: It was taken with my favorite fisheye lens (Rokinon 8mm) which is completely manual; so all calculations and control must be done manually here (plus a lot of test shots).
- Two: The fact that it is a fisheye lens, I had to improvise a way to fit any filter "in" it. No way to put any filter on the front; so, the filters would be applied to the back (by insertion into some grooves or using tiny pieces of duct tape).
- Three: I've used a solar filter here, which is typically used to observe the sun and solar eclipses, and typically it has high opacity.
- Four: Because of the filter, the exposure at basic ISO level would naturally be "long". Literally... "long". The exposure for this shot here was 5 hours and 20 minutes approximately.

So, the scene here appears empty, but in reality there were people going in and out and there was pretty much movement around the place, but nothing was recorded (of course). The colors also had to be fixed as the filter shifted the colors considerably. The noise level is HORRENDOUS to say the least! I really didn't even bother cleaning much of the noise here; cleaning it would leave me with a smudged image. Despite all of that, though, it is weird that back then, there was not much breeze or wind to shake the branches (something I was hoping for actually to add action to the scene). I've noticed that every time I try to do a long exposure, not much breeze or wind play out - bad luck? Maybe. Or maybe this is what they call "karma"?

#LE #longexposure #long_exposure #yard #green #solar #fisheye #rokinon #8mm #hidden #unseen #goodmorning