Our new series of articles deals with interesting trends of photography and is supposed to provide some basic knowledge about the respective technique. We would like to enable you to try them out yourself – and maybe to become a professional photographer in no time
The third part of our photography special is about focus stacking.

What is Focus stacking?

This term of photography describes a way to enhance the depth of field of a photo. It is especially practical and often used for macro photography because the focus area is generally quite small. Even the best aperture setting cannot provide a picture that is shown completely sharp because if you fade out, your photo gets unfocussed. The solution is simple: Like HDR images, focus stacking works with several shots – but here you only need to manually (!) change the focus for each photo.

What do I need?

Once again you need a programme to edit the photos you have taken, and once again you can choose between a freeware and a software you need to pay for. Although the freeware Combine ZM is not that easy to use (at the beginning) as the commercial software Helicon Focus, you will get equal results. Theoretically you even have a third option because you might also use general image editing programmes like Photoshop to do focus stacking, but it is much easier, leads to greater results and saves a lot of time to use special programmes for this technique.

Which rules do I have to follow?

The most important condition for focus stacking is to choose an image that is static and to make sure your camera is placed on a steady ground or a tripod. Additionally, you can use a delayed-action shutter release or a remote-control release to be even more certain that the photo is taken without the slightest movement. Please make sure to take all photos with (more or less) the same exposure because if you use different ones, your final photo might show a nasty stripe.

How many photos do I have to take?

If you want to get a great result of an endless depth of field, the number of shots you have to take depends on the distance between the image (you want to take a photo of) and your camera as well as the aperture settings and lens you use. Roughly, you can distinguish between four groups of distance:

1. Average to long distances require one to three shots.
2. Short to average distances generally require up to five shots.
3. Close-ups are best taken with special equipment for macro photography and usually require four to ten shots.
4. “Real macro photos” require a great of number of shots that depend on the image you choose – the more detailed and focussed your final photo should be, the greater the number of shots you need to take!

Focus stacking – putting theory into practice

• Starting your series of shots
  As mentioned above, the raw material you need for focus stacking consists of several shots of a single image that are taken with different focus settings. In order to visualize this process, you can imagine the focus area to move from one corner of your image to another – one step with every photo you take. This way you will cover the whole area and get suitable raw material that you can put together with the respective editing programme for focus stacking that you chose.

• Editing your raw material
  Start the editing programme, open all photos together and let the software collect them to one picture that is “focus stacked”. Depending on the number of photos you took and the size they have, the process of combining all pictures to one result might take a few minutes. Please remember to save your final photo of an endless depth of field .

Our new series of articles deals with interesting trends of photography and is supposed to provide some basic knowledge about the respective technique. We would like to enable you to try them out yourself – and maybe to become a professional photographer in no time
The second part of our photography special is about lightpainting.

What is lightpainting?

This trend of photography that is also called lightwriting provides brilliant effects for dark images that are taken with a long exposure time. You can draw attention to a special part, object or subject of your photo by illuminating it with a torch, flash or any other source of light. Professional photographers distinguish between “outdoor lightpainting” when a whole scenery is lighted up and “lightpainting of objects” when the camera is focussed on a single or just a few illuminated objects.

What do I need?

If you want to get such great effects for your photos as well, you need a camera that allows you to set the exposure time manually and a tripod to make sure that even the slightest movement during shutter speed (which could destroy your final photo) is avoided. Additionally, you might need to use a delayed-action shutter release that keeps the shutter open for especially long exposure times. But the most important piece of equipment for lightpainting is (of course ) a torch or any other source of light. Professional photographers use several torches of various sizes or place coloured foils in front of their source of light to create even greater effects.

Painting with light – step by step

• Preparing your camera …
  … and yourself by putting on dark clothes and gloves to reduce all possible “objects” that could reflect light which your camera might catch. The settings for your camera should include fixing a low ISO sensitivity and choosing a high aperture because this combination of settings automatically creates a long shutter speed. The more complex your final lightpianting should be, the longer the shutter speed has to be!

• Getting started

  Before you start taking your photos you need to deactivate the automatic focus because it might be difficult to use it in dark areas. Even without using the automatic focus, you do not have to worry about your photos getting “unfocussed” because a high aperture value will cause a great depth of field. If you do not use a delayed-action shutter release or a remote-control release, you should work together with another person who can press the release while you “paint or write with your source of light”.

• Finding your style

  At the beginning it is quite hard to paint a picture or write a word “in the air” without having a piece of paper for orientation. Once again it is helpful to have another person next to you who can tell you “where” you already painted or wrote. Practice makes perfect – simply try various sources of light as well as words or images and find your own style of lightpainting! As an initial guidance you can use chalk to paint your picture on a wall or write your words on the ground.

• Using the right speed

  You need to adopt the speed that you use to paint or write to the power of your source of light. When you use strong lights you might easily cause parts of your picture to be outshone if you move them too slow. For good results you should move strong lights quite fast and weak ones rather slowly! Use paper or foil to weaken sources of light that are too strong.

If you need some inspiration for the images of your lightpaintings, have a look at those 25 spectacular lightpainting images!

The broad range of Pixum photo products has lately been enhanced by a decorative and useful home accessory: our Pixum Magnetic Photo Stickers.

What is it?

This product is an enhanced version of our popular Photo Stickers. Like those Photo Stickers, our Magnetic Photo Stickers also show your favourite photos (up to 8 different pictures) and are printed as single stickers with round corners on a sheet of approximately 7″x5″. You can use them to decorate various surfaces or to brighten up and personalise a gift.

Notwithstanding those several similarities, there is one important difference between our “oldie” Photo Stickers and our new product Magnetic Photo Stickers: Your favourite photos are printed on laminated magnetic foil which enables you to attach them to a pin board, your fridge or any other magnetic surface and thus use them as unique and helpful organisation aids for every occasion. For example, you can create a Magnetic Photo Sticker of every family member or flat mate and thus assign tasks, dates or events!

What does it cost?

The Magnetic Photo Stickers are available as a set of 4 or as a set of 8 that both cost £5.99.

Our new series of articles deals with interesting trends of photography and is supposed to provide some basic knowledge about the respective technique. We would like to enable you to try them out yourself – and maybe to become a professional photographer in no time
The first part of our photography special is about HDR Images.

What is HDRI?

In order to give you a first overview and explain the most important terms, we collected some abbreviations that are related to HDR photography:

1. DRI (Dynamic Range Increase) = method to create a HDR image
2. HDR (High Dynamic Range) = signification of the contrast ratio
3. HDRI (High Dynamic Range Image) = photo resulting from this editing

HDR photography makes your photos look like paintings and creates an especially breathtaking effect of differing contrasts (high contrast ratio) and brilliant colours for pictures that feature both, dark and light elements.

What do I need?

If you want to create HDR images, you need a camera that allows you to set the aperture manually and a steady tripod to place it on. Additionally, you might use a delayed-action shutter release or a remote-control release.

Creating HDR images step by step

• Choosing an image
  In general, you can turn every photo that does not show any movement into HDR images but you will get the best results if you take images like machines (or parts of machines) or cars, buildings or statues (that are composed of many fine details) as well as churches or cathedrals and beautiful landscapes (contrasting to heaven).

• Preparing your camera
  After placing your camera on a steady tripod you still have to make some settings: Choose a middle aperture priority and a high aperture to get a great depth of field. Additionally, you need to select spot metering to be able to correctly measure the exposure time and last but not least make sure to fix the ISO sensibility to avoid automatic camera settings while you take your shots.

• Getting started
  The next step is to find out how many levels of exposure the contrast range of your image covers: Measure the shutter speed of the darkest part and the lightest part of your image (by slightly pressing the release) and note down those values. Now that you know the contrast range, you can determine how many single shots you need to take to get good material that you can edit properly. In general, HDR software providers recommend one shot per two levels of exposure which means if your image covers a contrast range of eight levels of exposure, you need to take five photos of various shutter speeds.

• Final settings
  Before you can start taking photos, you need to make some last preparing steps:
  1. Set the aperture priority of your camera to “manual”.
  2. Make sure your camera adopts the settings for aperture and ISO sensitivity you chose before.
  3. Turn off the automatic focus and last but not least, you might also determine a value for white balance.

• Taking your photos
  The most important thing about taking photos for your final HDR images is to be quick and provide a steady camera because even minimal changes of your image can cause nasty effects for your final result. The best strategy to make sure your camera stands still while you take all necessary shots is to use a remote-control release or as an alternative a delayed-action shutter release. You need to change the shutter speed with every new shot – but keep all other settings the same.

• Combining all shots to an HDRI
  If you took all necessary shots, you only need to put them together to an HDRI by using a respective software. You can recently choose from many different providers – but you need to pay for most of their software. EasyHDR BASIC is one of the available freeware for HDR images that is easy to use and enables you to get great results (of the same quality as software that you have to pay for). The software will turn your shots of a low contrast range to one image of enhanced contrast range. But there is still some work to do .

• Preparing HDR images for output devices
  After creating HDR images you still need to “tone map” them. With this step you compress their contrast range again to enable the monitor of your computer or TV to show your HDR images correctly. Most HDR software include tips on which settings of your image (saturation, lightness etc.) you need to change to get a perfect result in the end that looks like a painting.

If you like this new photography trend and would like to see more amazing examples that might inspire you for your own HDR images, have a look at this great collection.

If you love to take photos but sometimes miss the perfect picture by a detail, an image editing programme can help you to erase little imperfections! Our series of articles about such programmes is to present technical support that is easy to use and turns your photos into pieces of art and yourself into a professional photographer. Part number eight deals with Adobe Photoshop Express Editor. Did you already take some great photos to share in our photo competition? If you cannot decide which image editing programme to use and are not sure if you should download one, Adobe Photoshop Express Editor is the perfect solution for all sceptics and beginners because you can edit your pictures easily and quickly without having to download any programme. Try yourself and do amazing stuff with this online editor – we look forward to receive some of your results in our photo competition