New Blog/Moving

So I just moved to a new server where I have set up a custom blog through wordpress. You can find it by visiting ryanphilipp.com, or if you want to avoid all the linkings, i have it available through http://www.ryanvalle.me to get to it directly. At this time, I don't have much photo tips on it as it is on the new side, but in the future (when I take new photos), any tips or tricks I may have used ona specific photo will be posted there.

Of course, the other option is to just follow me on twitter @ryanvalle so you can get alerts about these things :)

Needing to take a Break Andif

Hello,
For those that are reading this, you probably have noticed a large delay in postings. If you really enjoyed this the content I continuously posted for the past week, I apologize for the disappointment.

I do have my reasonings behind the lack of posts and it simply is because I've been busy. I am a college student, working, and trying to maintain my personal life. It's a tricky juggle to do. My main focus as of late is my education and with so many papers to do, I'm having difficulty in keeping up with these posts, but I will try my best to do so.

If you need your fill of my work, I suggest going to visit my flickr where I upload a various amounts of my work on that site and by simply viewing the additional details, you can get a view (detailed view) as to what settings I used to get each shot. A link to view that can be found here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ryan-philipp/

If you just want to continuously see some of my photographs, lacking the detailed explanation as to how each shot was accomplished, you can also view in my personal website at http://www.ryanphilipp.com/
Visiting the "updates" page will lead you to a large amount of Trip Updates where I post a lot of photos from various trips I make around California (mostly SoCal). I think this may be an enjoyable resource if you just want to see my creativity and see photos as inspirational material rather than educational material.

And if you really like that work on my personal site, there's always twitter. I post those updates as soon as they're online on my twitter @ryanvalle (http://www.twitter.com/ryanvalle/) so visitors can get an instant update as to the latest of my work.

For now, I will not post an update as I do want to do a photo shoot around disneyland using RAW on my camera as it is a powerful tool many dSLRs, if not all, have. Its great for shots that weren't taken at the right settings and adjusting it and I just want to go over that with readers, so keep any eye out.

In the mean time, hang tight as all I need for now is a vacation from this stuff so I can focus school. If anything comes up, I will post it here, so just keep your eyes open. This blog is not closing down.

Have a good night and look forward to my next postings in the coming weeks.

-Ryan

Photo of the Day: The Ax and the Stump

This was one of the very first pictures I took with my Canon 40D. It was taken near the Princess Fantasy Faire at Disneyland as I was waiting to take some photos with the princesses :). The princess photos I will not share with you (yet), so this one will do just fine.

The main challenge with this photo is that it was a rainy day at Disneyland that day, so to get a creative angle was kind of limited since we had wet floors and falling water to deal with. Luckily, the angle from the queue was not bad. The benefit of the rainy weather was that the clouds acted as a nice diffuser for the sunlight, getting rid of any harsh shadows I would've encountered in regular daylight.

Exposure Mode: Manual exposure

Exposure Program: Manual

Exposure Time: 1 / 200

FNumber: 4.5

Focal Length: 105

ISO Speed Ratings: 400

White Balance: Manual white balance

Once imported into the computer, I did some color tweaks from Apple Aperture. I toned up the saturation to give it a more richer look. I also bumped up the contrast since I find the details from the grass, bushes, and stump really help this picture pop. Lastly, I added a vignette to it to darken the edges and it helps make the stump pop out more with the peach colored surface. 

Good Lesson of the Day: When to Use Flash

I found this article on facebook which somebody linked from Gizomodo and I think it's a really good article and sums up why I don't believe in flash photography.


For any aspiring photographers out there, take a look at it as it is really worth a read.

Giz Explains When Not to Use Your Cameras Flash

Enjoy.

Photo of the Day: Pixie Hollow

I don't know how many readers I have for this blog, but for those that read it on a daily basis, then you would've noticed that I didn't update for the past 2 days since I've been busy with school work. If you were expecting anything, I apologize for not delivering. Anyways, today's photo of the day is one of the Pixie Hollow signage at Disneyland. The main challenge with this photo was the lack of lighting, and being a non-believer in flash photography, it made it an even bigger challenge.


Exposure Time: 1 / 4
FNumber: 4.5
Focal Length: 48
ISO Speed Ratings: 1600
White Balance: Auto white balance

I used my canon 28-105mm lens at 48mm and f/4.5.  Since it was dark, these settings were a challenge to work with so I had to use a high ISO of 1600. However, I couldn't get the sensitivity high enough to get a fast shutter. With only a shutter of 1/4 of a second available to me, I had to find a way to stabilize the shot. For this photograph, to do that, I used the railings below the signage to get a stable and unique angle.

Sunday Special: Space Mountain Ghost galaxy Usuall

Sunday Special! Yay!

Today's, or more like this weekend's picture is one that I recently took using my Sigma 10mm f/2.8 fisheye lens. The challenge of this photo was two things. First, since it was dark, I needed to use a high ISO, long exposure, and/or wide aperture opening to get a shot bright enough for the end result. Second, I surely needed to use a long exposure, so I needed a tripod to stabilize the shot for long exposure. So how did I solve these two issues?

Well, first the easy part: the settings.

Exposure Program: Aperture priority
Exposure Time: 2.5
FNumber: 4
Focal Length: 10
ISO Speed Ratings: 400

So it looks like I used a aperture of f/4.0. The reason for this is technical reasons. The Sigma lens doesn't come out very sharp at full opening of f/2.8. Since I could not use a wide opening, that means I had to expose longer. I got lazy, so I used aperture priority and that gave me an automatic exposure of 2.5 seconds. Of course, this could've been shortened if I used a higher ISO, but instead I settled with ISO 400 in order to get less noise in the image.

So these were the settings I used. So how did I get the shot steady enough to get a blur free image? A tripod you guess? Well, I had no tripod at hand and in fact, do not carry a tripod around the parks since they are bulky and a pain to carry amongst the crowds. So what did I use? Well, the surroundings around me. in this case, I was in line for Space Mountain so the things that came up every few feet were those poles they use for the queue lines. Since they have flat tops, they made perfect tripods for the shot. Now, when using them, don't just set the camera on top and forget it. You need to secure it to prevent shake, and even more importantly, to prevent it from falling off. So how do I do this without causing any unwanted shake? My method is to place the camera on top of the pole, assuming it's a flat surface and positioning it so its centered on the pole. Next, I place my hand directly on top, acting as a weight, and applying pressure to prevent it from bouncing around or moving around the pole. Lastly, I use a 2 second timer on my camera to delay and prevent any last shakes that my other hand my create when triggering the shutter. With a combination of those steps, I am able to create a fairly clean, tripod-free image.

Now, why don't you try that out? Remember, creativity is something that is seen in your final image, but it is also a tool you must use in order to create your final image.

-Ryan

Photo of the Day: A Splash Is On The Way

Happy Friday everyone! I hope you're having a good one :)
Anyways, today's photo is one that I took on Splash Mountain, or to be more exact, the final plunge on the ride. This was a very simple photo to take, but kind of risky. I did not use my Canon SLR for this since it was too much money to risk losing since this is definitely a water ride which you are likely to get soaked on.

So how did I take this photo? Well, I used a point and shoot - a Canon SD 750 to be exact. From what I recall, I did not use any special settings for the camera. I just turned it on and turned off the flash. I knew I did not need flash, and with little time to take the photo, I did not want to risk wasting any while the camera decides to use flash or not. As usual, here are the settings the camera used to take the photo:

Exposure Bias Value: 0
Exposure Mode: Auto exposure
Exposure Time: 1 / 499
Flash: Flash did not fire, auto mode
FNumber: 2.8
Focal Length: 5.8
ISO Speed Ratings: 400
White Balance: Auto white balance

Lastly, I tweaked this image in Aperture by adding some more saturation and contrast to the image. I also added a vignette to dramatize it more.

At the end of it all, I walked away with this photo and my cameras unharmed. If you do plan on taking this photo on your own, be sure to hide your camera underneath your clothing (layers of it I must add) to protect it from water. I took a risk here that many aren't willing to try. Being that I have two cameras, and one of them fairly inexpensive, I didn't worry about losing anything.

Anyways, I hope you liked that. I will be back on Monday to share more photos with everyone :)

Have a good weekend :)

Photo of the Day: Tea Anybody?

Okay, so this picture is interesting. Here is the camera settings before I go on to explain how I took the photo:

Exposure Program: Aperture priority
Exposure Time: 1 / 4
FNumber: 3.5
Focal Length: 28
ISO Speed Ratings: 1600

So that's it. A quarter of a second for exposure at 28mm @ f/3.5 and ISO 1600. Simple enough right? Well, not really. For this photo, it's not just the camera setting that made the shot. It required more work to get the motion blur in the areas around but have an image focused (or close to being focused) to get this image to look the way it is. So what's the secret? Well, I'm not telling. I want this photo to remain unique to myself :)





Just kidding. The secret is to use a 2 second delay to avoid any last minute shake from your hand when taking the photo. During that two seconds, be sure that you are focused and the camera is following the subject. From there, keep following the subject in the same exact area as best as you can. In this photo, I followed the teacup that is in focus by panning the camera to the left at a similar speed that they are moving. This resulted in a motion blur to all the other subjects around the tea cup I focused on and kept that single tea cup in focus. Confusing? Possibly? Somewhat?

Well, try this for an experiment. Sit on a spinning chair and set your camera to have a long exposure at say, 1 to 5 seconds. Anywhere in between should work. Set up your 2 second delay. Now hold the camera in front of you and start spinning. When you have a decent amount of spinning speed (be sure you don't bump your knees on anything), take a picture. When your picture is taken, you should see a result where you are in focus, but see line streaks in the background. This is because there was movement behind you while you stayed in front of the camera.

This same concept goes for how the tea cup picture was taken. Of course, it will be a more difficult task to accomplish, but it can be done. Give it a shot next time you are at disneyland or spot a moving object.

Enjoy!

Oh wait, feel free to enjoy this high resolution package of the pictures I posted today: Photography Package

It will be available for the next 30 days, so take it while you can. Now, you can ENJOY! :)

It's a Portrait: Sleeping Beauty Partners :)

This photo was also taken that one day I was able to go in for magic mornings. Often, this area of the park is too busy for a picture, so I think its just one of those things that needs to be taken if you have early morning access or during magic mornings.

Anyways, enough talk, here are the settings:

Exposure Program: Aperture priority
Exposure Time: 1 / 499
Flash: Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode
FNumber: 4.5
Focal Length: 105
ISO Speed Ratings: 400

I hope that's self explanatory. Enjoy :)

A Cliché in the Day Time

Magic Mornings is something magical indeed. For photographers, hobbyists of professional, it means Disneyland becomes a magical playground for photography opportunities.

So what is magic mornings? Well, if you stay at a Disneyland Resort hotel, it means you get entrance to the park 1 hour earlier than everyone else on certain days. This translates to getting fairly empty park photos in the day time, something which is only usually accomplished at the wee-hours at night after the park closes. Of course, its not 100% empty, but empty enough for you not to worry about doing sudden stops and/or tripping somebody when trying to get that weird angle photo. In my case, it translates to getting Disneyland's hub fairly empty enough to get this picture without anybody else.

It's a similar angle to the photo posted a few minutes earlier, but being that it's day time, I had to use different settings. So here's what I used:

Exposure Program: Aperture priority
Exposure Time: 1 / 499
Flash: Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode
FNumber: 3.5
Focal Length: 28
ISO Speed Ratings: 400

So what's interesting to note in these settings. Well, first of all, I got to use only ISO 400. I could've gone lower, to say ISO 100 or 200, but being that my camera is fairly grain free at 400, I wanted to be prepped to take in different lighting conditions. You can also see that I had my lens at 28mm, so it's safe to assume that I used my 28-105mm lens. I use this lens a lot so don't get bored if I mention it a lot. Exposure time, or shutter speed is at 1/499, which sounds awkward. I probably had it set at 1/500 and it recorded something incorrectly, or perhaps, if you noticed, I did shoot it in Aperture Priority, it didn't use the regular settings it would give me. So I set my aperture at f/3.5 and the camera automatically set it to 1/499. Aperture priority pretty much lets me set my Aperture to whatever I want, and it also lets me choose as to how I want my light meter to read. It then takes those two values and changes my shutter speed to get that final image based on the settings I chose. It's a wonderful setting if you're on the move and need to get that photo you want as fast as possible.

Well, that was a nice detailed explanation. Take it for what it's worth because I really don't know how helpful it is. Leave a comment if you want ot learn more about what I did. Thanks :)

Photo of the Day: A Cliché - Partner's Statue Soonceaga

For some reason, I see this photo done a lot so here's my take on how I took mine.

With my 28mm to 105mm lens at hand, I took it using the following settings:

Exposure Program: Manual
Exposure Time: 1 / 5
Flash: Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode
FNumber: 4
Focal Length: 28
ISO Speed Ratings: 1600
White Balance: Auto white balance

So once again, I've bolded the important stuff: exposure, aperture (FNumber), and ISO speed to give you an idea of how I took this picture.

By Friendly Priority: CALIFORNIA

So here's a photo to cover for today. What is it you ask? Well, it's the Disney's California Adventure front entrance sign. I personally thing it's an okay photo, but I guess that the statement "you're your own toughest critic" comes into play for this one as others do like this photo for it's angle.

It was shot with a 50mm lens, which is definitely not the widest lens in my arsenal. For this reason, I could not get far enough to get the sign from front. I probably would need to tear down the monorail and Disneyland main entrance to be able to get a wide enough angle to capture the entire sign (just to give you a perspective as to how limited I am with the lens). My solution to get the sign in one image? Capture it at an angle and the result is what you see above.

I guess this can serve as an example of being creative with what you have to work with.

Anyways, here's the dirty details of what was set in taking this photo:


Date Time Digitized: 2009:02:22 23:22:52
Date Time Original: 2009:02:22 23:22:52
Exif Version: 2.2.1
Exposure Bias Value: 0
Exposure Mode: Manual exposure
Exposure Program: Manual
Exposure Time: 1 / 60
Flash: Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode
FNumber: 2.5
Focal Length: 50
ISO Speed Ratings: 1600
Metering Mode: Pattern
Scene Capture Type: Standard
White Balance: Auto white balance

I have bolded what's importnat, to me at least, if I were in the reader's point of view. Anyways, enjoy it for what it is and I hope it helps. I've got a few more I want to share. :)

Technique of the Day: High Dynamic Range Photography

I like this image for two reasons: Main Street, USA is empty and secondly, I used High Dynamic Range (or HDR for short) techniques to make this image. So what is HDR? Well, typically, a camera doesn't see the same dynamics the human eyes see. Often, when you take a picture (with no flash), areas that appear dark in person will come out too dark (or sometimes just purely black) in a photo or anything that is bright in person, wil appear blown out in a photograph. This ends up resulting in a photograph where subjects have a huge contrast between light and dark objects, to not be able to be photographed. This is where HDR photography techniques come in.

Pretty much, to solve this issue I am having, I take multiple photographs of the same subject from the same angle, however, I change the exposure each time I take a photo to accommodate for the dark, midtone, and bright areas. Once on the computer, I combine the three using specialized software (for me, I use Photomatrix Pro) to get the three images combined into one. Now, in some cases, the change may not be too drastic, like the image I posted above, but in others, you can get a noticeable difference.

For the image above, I shot it using my 50mm lens at full f/1.8 opening. I then took three different exposures. The light meter's normal reading was at 1/30th and I did two more automatic shots using my camera's feature which adjusted for -2 and +2 exposure time, giving me some rough shots which exposed for dark areas and bright areas of the scene. In an ideal world where I can retake this image, I would've adjusted my highlight-priority shot or added a forth shot which exposed for the bright signs of the buildings. In the image above, they are heavily blown out, but had I exposed for them, they could've looked more natural.

At the end of it all, you can get a very surreal looking image or even an image which looks more natural and accurate to what you saw in person. It all depends on the settings you used.

Here's another HDR image I took. This time, it's the Mark Twain riverboat. I used the same techniques as I did for the castle above. Because of HDR, I was able to attain greater detail from inside the boat and also the trees are able to be seen without the main ship being blown out.

Now you may be wondering what those lights are up front. That's a glare I was getting from my lens filter. Just a slight warning, if you use a UV filter (or any kind of filter) to protect your lens, be prepared to get unwanted reflections on your final image.

Photo of the Day: A Knight in Not So Shining Armor

Disneyland store windows are filled with great decorations and what not which lots of people don't notice and that is the main reason why I like this photo. This was taken in a shop within Fantasyland. I can't recall exactly what the store's called, but it's a medieval shop right behind the castle.

With my 50mm lens at hand, I shot this at night at full aperture opening of f/1.8. With an ISO of 400, I was able to get the shot with very low grain, but surprisingly, I was still able to shoot at 1/50 for the shutter. It was nice that Disneyland lights it up properly and perhaps explains the final look of this image. Remember, a camera only captures the light it sees, so if something is lit well, it is more likely to come out looking good. This picture serves as that example.

Random Photo: Corridor of Goons

I personally like this photo because of the "mysteriousness" it carries in the image. The text "Corridor of Goons" and the bokeh the image has along with the color tone gives it this mood that I like and feel is fitting for the subject seen in the photo.

Like the other photos in this blog, this was taken at Disneyland. To be more exact, this is inside the Sleeping Beauty Castle Walkthrough. With my 50mm f/1.8 lens at hand, I shot this image at full opening of f/1.8 using a shutter of 1/13. That is quite slow, but teamed up with an ISO of 1600 and a nearby wall, I was able to stabilize myself fairly well to be able to take this image.

The use of walls, floors, poles, and anything around me is something I am big on. I find tripods to be helpful, but because they're so bulky, and the fact that I am a hobbyist and not getting any income from these photos, I don't feel the need or want to carry a tripod with me to get steady shots. Instead, I get creative and I suggest that you do too, and find things that can be used as a tripod. Within Disneyland, I know that there is plenty to use. However, if you are taking a telephoto image at a slow shutter, say the 1/13th I used in this photo, or even something around 1/30th or 1/40th, would result in blur, so in that case, you may way to use a tripod. There are some exceptions to my rule of being anti-tripod and telephoto lenses are one of those exceptions.

It's something I haven't had to worry about yet as I don't own a long telephoto (longest I have is a 105mm) so I can't give many tips on that. You are free to try my methodology of environmental tripods, but I won't guarantee them to work. If you find a nice and easy way to stabilize a telephoto without a tripod, post it in the comment box so you can share it with others reading this :) Thanks.

That is all :)

Ice Cream: Something I've Been Craving

So here's another photo. Perhaps I should re-consider the site name since I definitely am not posting a photo a day. Instead, its more like several photos a day.

Anyways, this photo was taken in Disney's California Adventure by the Paradise Pier area. From what I recall, this was shot using my Canon 50mm lens at f/3.5, 1/100th shutter at 640 ISO.

I originally shot this as a RAW image with the intention of putting it through some psuedo-HDR post treatment, but while putting it through the necessary processes, it wasn't turning out as I wanted. Instead, heavy grains were appearing due to the high ISO I used and the fact that I only took one exposure. Here's a tip: if doing HDR work, try working with a minimum of 3 different exposures.

At the end of it all, I just did a conversion to jpeg, theoretically changing nothing from what came out of the camera. So once again, this is a "what you see is what I shot" kind of photo.

TwoForTuesdays: Mr. Lighting McQueen

It's tuesday, so I feel like doing two pictures for today.

This photo was taken on February 22, 2009 using a very inexpensive, but great lens - the Canon 50mm f/1.8. If you have a canon eos slr camera using EF mounts, then I highly suggest you get one of these if you haven't done so already. It's a fast lens which shoots quality pictures for a mere $99, possibly cheaper if you go bargain shopping.

This photo, though taken with an f/1.8 lens, was shot at f/3.5 at 1/80 for the shutter. Surprisingly, I used ISO 800 for this which I now thing is quite high. It might've been possibly that I did a poor job in changing over my settings when going from an indoor setting, which typically is darker at Disney, to an outdoor setting.

I am happy with what I took on that day, happy enough to not need to apply any correction on it from the computer, making it a "what you see is what I took" picture.

Photo of the Day: A Shrunken Head?

Disney pays a lot of attention to detail when it comes to their work and design at their theme parks, which leaves to be quite interested and amused at this shrunken head. In my opinion, it's the creepiest thing thee since it's so lifelike but surreal (as in something I would never see in reality). Now where would Disney place a thing like this? Well, I found this little treasure in a store in Adventureland, which if you now think about it, is quite fitting for a shrunken head...well, kind of.

This picture was taken using full manual settings, using my usual 28-105mm lens. It was taken at 105mm at f/4.5, 800 ISO, exposure at 1/80. It was night time, so I had to push it this far since there was very minimal light to take the photograph.

There was no editing done to this picture, with the exception of an addition of a watermark and resizing to fit this website, so what you see is what I took.

A Step Back into History: It's A Small World

Being that this blog is new, I need to populate it with more of my work, so these "A Step back into History" selections may see more than one posting per day.

Once again, this photo was taken with the 28-105mm f/3.5-4.5 lens. It was set at 105mm at f/13 using a shutter speed of 1/200 at 400 ISO. The colors were flat looking once it was on my computer, so using Apple's Aperture software, which I use to manage all my photographs, I adjusted its saturation up a bit and added some contrast. I then added a vignette to give it a different tone which also added emphasis to the gold touches on the facade.

A Step Back into History: Sleeping Beauty Castle

This is one of the first photos I snapped at Disneyland with my camera. It was shot using a my 28-105mm f/3.5-4.5 II USM lens made by Canon set at full 105mm at f/10. It was a bright sunny day so I was able to do that. ISO was set to 200. Once on the computer, and after a few months of taking the photograph, I went back to enhance it a bit by adding some saturation, contrast, and a vignette filter from aperture to come out to this final image you see on screen.

A Photo A Day: Disney Edition

Hello,

Welcome to "A Photo A Day: Disney Edition."

I will be posting one photo per day of a picture I took at Disneyland and share some of the techniques or settings I used to take the photo. I hope you enjoy this.

Just some slight info before you go on reading everything:

I use a Canon 40D camera with the following lenses:

Canon 28-105mm f/3.5-4.5 II USM

Canon 50mm f/1.8 II

Sigma 10mm f/2.8 Fisheye

I use minimally use photoshop to enhance my photos. Once in a while, I may enhance then color-wise in Aperture.

That is it for now. I hope you enjoy. :)

-Ryan