Photography

[elize]

I have a problem taking decent pictures of my red bears. Most of the times the "red" is just too bright. Any suggestions?:sos:

[bobbybaer]

I have a problem taking decent pictures of my red bears. Most of the times the "red" is just too bright. Any suggestions?:sos:

Did you ever try to work on your pics with logiciels like
"photo shop" or "picasa 2" ?

[elize]

What is "logiciels" ? Where do I find it in Photoshop? Thanks

[bobbybaer]

What is "logiciels" ? Where do I find it in Photoshop? Thanks

Excuse me, Elize!
I just didn't pay attention for the English words :mad2:- I meant software (what the Frenchies call "logiciel") ......(hope I meant it:ashamed:)
"Photoshop" is a software from microsoft and one has to pay for but if you put in your search-machine (maybe Google?) "picasa 2" you can download a free-software to work on your pics, which is very easy to handle!:very happy:

[elize]

I was confused about "logiciel" :confused: I even tried the help function in photoshop but no "logiciel" :puzzled: I will take the pic of the red bear and try to get the colour better with software:) Thanks

[Elizabeth]

The background is also important - a black background works well for red bears and a slow "shutterspeed" will also give you better results."happy6:

[Pietero]

You need more "light" as well. Try and put the room light on, where you take the pictures, or use a room that has natural sunlight .:)

[oldbearsandfriends]

Have you tried outside on a nice summy day but take the pic in the shade, it seems to work for me..

[elize]

This picture was taken outside in the shade and I must admit it looks better already.

[oldbearsandfriends]

Ah, he is stunning, such a lovely little face.

Nice and clear picture elize, he looks lovely perched up on that chair :applause:

[Us Bears]

Can you set up some lights for your next Bear photoshoot?

Try using two or three lights:

1) "Key" light: A strong light that comes over the photographer's right shoulder. Reach your right hand upward and outward at a 45º angle. The light should be right where your hand is. This could be one of those aluminum "dish" lights that have a clip-on base like you get from Home Depot, etc. Just clip it onto the back of a chair or something similar for support.

2) "Fill" light: A diffuse light that comes in at 45º angle OPPOSITE of the key light. This could be another clip-on light if you put a diffuser over the front. Just use a white sheet or something. Be careful the cloth doesn't get too hot!
You can also use sunny window. You might have to pull the sheer curtains closed to diffuse the light. Try it a couple different ways.

3) "Back" light: This is optional. A third light shining upward and backward, toward the backdrop. This will help your subject "pop out" from the background. This light does not have to be very strong. It could be another one of those clip-on lights.

If your camera has a white balance setting, be sure it is set for "tungsten" or else your pictures might come out the wrong color. If you are shooting film, use a "tungsten balanced film.

Make your "Key" light the strongest. Make the "Fill" light the second strongest. You just want to cancel out the shadows caused by the key light. Make the "Back" light just strong enough to "Pop" the Bear out of his background.

Go to the fabric store and buy a yard of black velvet or sueded cotton fabric. Use that as the Bear's "stage" to sit on. Get a yard of a light, sky blue fabric for a background. Sometimes they have a cloudy sky pattern that looks nice. Just find a contrasting color that is NOT TO STRONG or else it will clash with the Bear's fur. If you want the "minimalist" look get another yard of black fabric. A "dead-black" background will disappear behind the Bear.

Get a table top to set up your photo studio. You might find it helpful to put a cardboard box underneath the black base fabric for the Bear to sit up against so he doesn't fall over. Pin your backdrop fabric to the back wall. Set up your lights. You're ready to shoot! :)

Secondarily, shoot by sunlight, either in a window or outdoors. Avoid high noon. Try to shoot in the early morning or late afternoon. That period of time 1 or 2 hours before the sun sets is the best time. That's why they call it "Magic Hour!" :paw

[lovenshire]

US Bears, you must be a photographer...very good instructions.

[elize]

US Bears I am going to try take a picture of my red bear and use the light as you described.

I like using black as a background as it just make a bear look so much better.

If my key light gives off a "pinkish" color , how do I change that?

Thanks for all the tips, will soon post new pictures of my red bear :applause:

[Us Bears]

If you are using a digital camera there is a feature called "White Balance." It will compensate for shifts in color caused by different lights. There are settings for sunlight, fluorescent light, tungsten (light bulbs) and other things. Check your camera's manual for instructions.

If the photo is already on your comptuer you can usually compensate for that using Photoshop, GIMP or other program. They often have a white balance feature/setting. It all depends on the program you are using. If you are using Photoshop, I recommend you use either the "Curves" dialogue or the "Levels" dialogue to correct for color. It takes a bit of work to understand how to use these features but they are very powerful and can be used to correct a lot of things in poor photos very quickly and accurately.

If you are shooting with film, get film which is balanced for the light you are shooting under. You can usually find film for "Daylight" (outdoors) or "Tungsten" (indoors) If you shoot daylight film indoors, you might see a yellowish or orange-ish tone to the pictures. If you shoot tungsten film outdoors you might see a bluish or greenish cast. You can often correct for most of this with filters over the lens but sometimes you can not. You will have to try to compensate for it during development but it is tricky and sometimes doesn't work.

Often, the easiest thing to do is to shoot your Bears next to a sunny window. Just make sure the light is not coming in from all one side or else you might end up with a Bear who is half in shadow. Try making it so the window light comes in over your right shoulder. If you have sheers on the window, try pulling them shut to diffuse the light a little.

BTW: If you want to see some of the photos I take, you can look at my gallery: http://gallery.me.com/randystankey

Almost all of these were shot on film then scanned to the comptuer. I use this gallery to post previews of pictures so I can decide which ones are the best. Then I can decide which ones to print full-size photographs from.

[elize]

Us Bears I took these pictures on the weekend. The black looks best as a background on this beige colored bear and I only used the sunlight from behind and the light of my room.

The background of the bear on the right does not look good to me. I used white felt and I photographed the bear outside much later in the afternoon.:confused3:

I normally use Photoshop but can only do basic stuff with Photoshop.

I have a digital camera and will read up on the "white balance" feature.

Great photos you have taken and I can definitely see how important the background & light is by looking at the picture of the 'egg-on-black-velour'

Thanks I appreciate all the information"happy6:

[Us Bears]

The egg photos are common subjects for photographers who want to practice lighting, exposure and development. They are typically assigned to students by photography teachers. I assigned them to myself as practice. They are good but I can make them better. The next time I'm stuck inside on a rainy day I'll shoot some more.

If you want to get better at photography, the best thing you can do is just shoot pictures. Of course, you will want to try to make every shot count but, regardless, shoot pictures! If you want to learn to cook, you can't do it by reading cook books. You have to get your butt out to the kitchen and break some eggs. Right?

Since January, I have shot over 40 rolls of film. That's an average of almost two rolls per week.

Photoshop is a very broad program. You can study it for years and still not know all the things you can do with it. Don't get frustrated if you can't make it do your bidding all the time. As with everything else, you just have to get your hands on and do it.

I like your pictures. They are nice and they show the Bear's personality well. Exposures could be tweaked a little but, if you are shooting with your camera on "automatic" settings, you are likely to get "middle of the road" pictures. The reason is that cameras set on automatic try to average everything out but there are lots of pictures that aren't average. The camera has to make educated guesses to get the exposure right and, often, it can guess wrong. Both of those photos can be fixed up a little bit with Photoshop if you want.

Which version of Photoshop do you have? I can't offer a lot of specific advice because there are several versions of the program. I can tell you how to do something in my version of Photoshop (CS 4) but your version might not have all the features of mine.

[elize]

Most of the time my camera is on automatic. I have used the tri-pod a couple of times and then I use the magnifying glass mode.

I will take more pictures with different backgrounds to see which backround is best for the brown bear.

Thanks for the compliment that you like some of my pictures.

I have photoshop version 6.

I definitely agree if you want to learn to cook you have to break some eggs.

[Us Bears]

A sky blue background is often the best color for a Bear background. Light purple or lavender is also good. Brown, beige or white are usually not good. It is hard to shoot a dark Bear against a light background or vice versa.

(That's the reason for shooting eggs on black velor. It's really hard!)

If your camera has a manual mode, especially for "white balance," you should at least look into it. Just jumping in and shooting on manual is not likely to be satisfactory. It is wise to take it one step at a time.

If you can find a book on Photoshop it would be a good thing to read. I bought a book called "Photoshop for Photographers." It helped me a lot. Just make sure that any book you buy is written for the version of the software you have or else it will be telling you a lot of things that don't apply to your computer.

Specific advice I can give is to look into the "Levels" dialog. It is relatively easy to understand and to learn how to use but it can be very powerful if you use it correctly.

Just keep shooting! :)

[elize]

I was ready this morning to take some pics and then realized now that it is winter in South Africa the son does not shine into my office :huh:

Never in my life though of using light purple or lavender as a background for my bears. Can not wait to shoot some bears tomorrow.

I started reading the camera manual last night and must admit it is very interesting and lots of info to digest.

I'll definitely look into the "levels" dialog.

Which color is best to shoot red bears on?

[Us Bears]

Take a look at this link:
http://homepage.mac.com/randystankey/bears/bears.html

This is our Bear den. (Yes! It's the whole house! ;) )
We have a lot of Bears. :3bears: :3bears: :3bears: :3bears: :3bears: :3bears:

Take note of the last two shots of the Bear's room. The walls are painted light sky blue. The walls in the rest of the house are white with just a touch of lavender. If you don't look carefully you can't tell it's even tinted.

For a red Bear, try a light blue or maybe a very light sea-green. Don't use primary green because it will clash. Go toward a yellow green but keep it light. See if a light brown works too.

Just experiment. When you're using a digicam, it's easy because you don't have to worry about wasting film. You just delete the shots you don't like. :Winking:

[lovenshire]

I loved the pictures! My husband would have a fit if I put bears on the stairs...they are hard enough to vacuum as it is! Do you have any idea how many bears you have?

[Us Bears]

Well... We asked the Bears to count off but they all raised their paws in the air and shouted "ONE!" all at the same time!

Years ago, before we got married, we tried to take a Bear census. We got up to about 700 then lost count. That was more than ten years ago. More like fifteen.

Every year, Melanie gets new Bears for Christmas. Anywhere from six to ten Bears join the den at Christmas. Then there are other holidays like Easter, Halloween, Valentine's Day. We have our wedding anniversary and her birthday. On top of that, we also adopt orphans.

Melanie's father sends us a lot of orphaned Bears he finds at the thrift store. Most of the Bears on the stairs are from her father.

Just a loose estimate of all the Bears we have adopted over the years brings us to 1,000 Bears or more!

This does NOT include the Teddy Bear Christmas tree ornaments that populate our tree. We have so many of those we are going to need to get a second tree or else it will start looking like a Bear ghetto!

I keep meaning to make a complete Bear census but it never really works out. :juggle:

[elize]

I love those bears and see what you mean by the light blue walls as a background.

I took some pictures this morning with the early sun. I used purple as a background and must admit I love the purple.

I used the sunlight but made sure it was behind me and more to my right shoulder and had the light on in the room as well. I only had the curtain open behind me, the other curtains were closed.

Tomorrow I'll try blue as a background.

This is fun"happy6:

[Us Bears]

Purple is definitely his color. :)

He has a blue bow so the background might want to be a bit lighter so the bow stands out more. But that is a stylistic decision. Ask the Bear what he thinks.

Maybe there could be a bit more highlight. A light coming in from the side.
Again, this is a stylistic decision. Do you want a "natural" look or a "studio" look?

My personal taste is to go for a more natural look if you want people to adopt the Bears. That makes them look more accessible.

Opinions are like belly buttons: Everybody's got one! ;)

[elize]

Today I tried with a blue background but I think the blue background should be a lighter blue. Definitely should be lighter...

Tomorrow I am going to try a lighter blue as a background.

I prefer a natural looking bear.

Us bears thanks for all your help and tips.

I know opinions are like belly buttons but I do not mind people having opinions "happy6: If I can learn from someone's opinion I am happy. :cloud9:

[Us Bears]

I think you're definitely on the right track! :)

Lighter colors in the background are good.

Taken as a set, the first and the third are the best. As singles, the first one is best.

Beyond that, there's not much more I can say. You're really getting the hang of this thing. From this point, it's all about experimenting to see what you (and the Bear) like best. Try a few things. See how they turn out. Keep the good ones. Dump the crummy ones.
(And, yes! EVERYBODY takes the occasional crummy picture! It's a fact of life. ;) )

Say "Hi!" to the Bear for us! :D

[lovenshire]

I loved the purple...