Second Round of Pinhole Cameras....

After coming back from holiday we went and picked up the set of cameras put up at my parent's house, these were the second test set to see what would happen over a longer exposure.These cameras were positioned at the front and back of the house at different elevations to see if that would impact on the light exposure.

I am a little disappointed with this image as this camera was at the highest elevation, but it has not produced any light trails in the sky. I don't know if this has anything to do with the direction it was facing or the cloud coverage during the time it was up.

I like the start of the light trail that this photo has captured, I wish that I had now left it up longer, but I might go and replace it and leave it up for 6 months to see if the trails will develop further. I have edited this image and used a purple hue as it picked up the light trails and the detail of the image better.

I have now got 4 cameras still up (fingers crossed they are still there!), and I plan to make some more and get them up over the next few weeks. I think that leaving them for 6 months would make a big difference and also make sure they are facing south and not shaded.

Holiday Snaps

Being away from the comfort of my own home to try out some night time shoots I realised that I need to plan them out a little better as it is boring! and cold! Anyway, I dealt with it as best I cold with the clothing and equipment that I had in order to get some star trails while we were away.

Doing this, especially at a location where it is pretty much pitch black makes trying to focus the camera to capture anything much harder so sadly some shots are a little blurry as I had no idea if I had focused on anything. This reminds me to take a high powered torch so I can create a focus point for the camera.

Photos from the first day at the little beach, the aim was to try and get the motion of the water in a long exposure. This had to be balanced with how bright it was outside so the exposure was very short indeed (one to five seconds in some cases). I love how they have come out though and can't wait to play with them in the editing software to see how I can manipulate them.

Night time shoot, and this is where the problems start as trying to focus the camera was difficult, however, the results were great. The castle looks fantastic in the photograph and the star trails looked super, just wish I could have stayed out longer but I was far too cold.

Happy Accident, I changed position to try and get the stars above the hill, however, as I started the exposure a couple were walking down the hill and their torch was picked up by the camera. I think this is great, I really like it when I end up with "accidents" in my photos. It makes me want to have a go at doing some light painting with the boys when the nights start getting darker earlier.

I have no idea how I didn't manage to get the camera focused correctly at this point. But I do like the detail in the star trails that I managed to capture, along with the washing line as well.

Long Exposure Photography...water....stars and what is next?

I was feeling pretty good after the first few attempts at taking some images using long exposure and as we were taking a trip to Anglesey I took my camera as I would have some opportunity to take some photos.

What I did discover after setting up my camera was making sure it was steady, in focus and on the right settings. As much as I really enjoy taking photos of nature, I dislike the fact that nature moves constantly and gives some parts of my photos a blurry look. here are some of the results from the weekend away.

I was really pleased with how these turned out, in fact I was stunned as this was the first time out and about taking the photos of water. I then went and tested this same method out at the zoo to see if I could get some still water movement captured.




These photos of the small waterfall turned out better than I expected, I did have to spend time manipulating plants out of the way and also securing the camera into the ground.

The fountain at the zoo also provide to have some interesting water features once captured. I just thought it was pretty much still water, apart from the waterfall as the pond looked so calm. The long exposure shows that although it looks calm and unmoving that there is constant motion.

After the experiments with water I wanted to try out the star trails that I had read about, this took much more planning as we are not blessed with the clearest of skies at the best of times, and catching a night where there are no clouds and it is not windy or raining or really cold is pretty much remote. I have been lucky this past week that there have been a few clear nights to allow me to try out capturing the star trails. After some trial and error with setting and trying to reduce the amount of light getting in, and staying awake long enough for it to go dark is another big factor I forgot to mention, I did manage to capture a few decent shots.

I will need to work out a better power supply so I can have the camera running for longer to see if I can catch a whole rotation of the stars. We are off on holiday so I have packed up the camera and fingers crossed I will be able to get some excellent shots while away.

Final note.......AS Photography results are in and I got an A!

Long Exposure Photography Experiment One

After the success of the Pinhole Cameras it was time to try out long exposure using my digital camera. Before the first attempt I can't begin to tell you about the number of websites that I visited to read up on it and to also purchase the right equipment to get the best results.

Anyway, I tested out the equipment from the location of the seconds pinhole camera that looks out over the local motorway. I should say that at 3pm this motorway is very busy and the result made it look like a ghost road! I am wondering whether I should explore this branch of photography further and going into town when it is busy and get some "ghost" town shots.

A fantastic, and great way to test out the camera and the settings that I had carefully selected. Onto the next test.....

Second test of the day was to capture the changing of the sky as the sun was setting. I adjusted the settings slightly to factor in the changing of the light and conditions, who knew that I would be using Maths and Science to take photographs! So......here is the result, and again I am really pleased as it shows the motion of how the clouds move across the sky and the colours developing over time.

Next test it to try and capture water.....

Pinhole Cameras - Experiment Two

After the success of the first camera I decided to take a trip up to the second pinhole camera I had set up and see if it had worked. The first image is the original scan from the photographic paper straight from the camera. I was really excited to see that the image contained the light trail in the sky, which was what I had been hoping for after seeing some examples on other websites.

This is the image after the invert had been applied to the original, and it shows the light trail in the sky even more, and it has highlighted some of the details of the road which was really pleasing.

The next idea I had was to play with the photo editing software to see if I could alter the colours further using the hue and saturation settings, I also played with the brightness and contrast to see what other results I could get out of the image. I am pretty happy with the result, I was surprised with the colours in the sky that appeared, however, I did have to be careful when adding the editing so not to remove the details of the original image.

I am really excited about the results that I have been getting from the pinhole cameras, and these are only after 2 months of being up at the locations. I will be leaving the others out for longer. Fingers crossed they will still be there when I go to collect them! 

The original cameras are now reloaded with new paper and ready to go, along with 3 more that my son and I made earlier today. Just got to find some interesting locations!

Pinhole Cameras Experiment One.....

It has been approximately 8 weeks since I put the first Pinhole Camera up at home as a test run to see if I had got the design right and whether the paper would work with the truly awesome weather we have in the North-West.

After taking down the camera, I realised that I needed to move fairly quickly to ensure that the scan was done swiftly so not to expose the image to much light in the transfer from the camera to the scanner. However, I discovered that getting the paper out of the can in one quick movement was not as easy as I thought it was going to be, and after a few frantic seconds I managed to place it soon the scanner, fingers crossed that I had not damaged the image. Upon placing the paper onto the scanner we realised (husband roped in at this point) that it did not want to scan without a preview first, big no, no when doing this kind of scanning. 

A quick changing of settings into "Professional" mode and we were off, with the scan taking the best part of 5 minutes as we put it on the highest settings to capture a decent image, and yes - the image is massive, 25% and it fills more than the whole of my screen.

Here is the original scan:

We were both impressed with the detail that had been captured by the camera in the short space of time.

Here is the final image, it has been inverted so it gives the illusion that it has been processed, however, this is a much easier method than using all the chemical to actually develop the photograph paper. I am really looking forward to collecting the other cameras that we have put up, and I need to make some more. 

I am really happy with how this experiment has turned out, big smiley face, the adventure with Pinhole Cameras continues.......

Pinhole Cameras

A bit of a change from the usual Raspberry Pi related items, but something that I have become interested in over the last few months. At work the staff were given the opportunity to do the AS Photography course, as I keen photographer (pre-children) I decided it was a great opportunity to get my camera out again.

I have had lots of fun over the year collecting photos of different things and editing them to suit my needs for the AS course. My eldest son (who is 4) and I have had some lovely trips out to different places to take images to use, so much so, he has his own sketch book to keep his photos in.

I have now completed the assessments and work has been moderated so along with keeping my fingers crossed for my students, I am also hoping for a good grade myself. This has given me a bit of time to think about what I might like to do as the next unit to complete the A2 year of the course.

After much Internet searching and thinking about what I would like to try, I have decided to go back to basics and make my own cameras. In my search I cam across this website http://www.pinholephotography.org/

This has some really interesting stuff on it, and I had no idea how easy it would be to make a pinhole camera and set it up. After collecting the required items (the right photo paper being the most difficult to find) and asking my flyball team mates to keep hold of their empties for me to collect I was ready to make the cameras.

So with the video instructions written down and a good idea about how to create the basic camera I began.

Part way through and the lid is made, and all seems to be going well, I am winning the battle against the gaffa tape that wants to stick me to everything else in the house. And the battle with the children who keep running off with different items every time they visit the table to see what is going on. Loading the paper was interesting as I didn't want to expose it to much light, but as it is spending at least 6 month being exposed to the outside world a few seconds to get it in place in the can was not going to cause too much damage.

And here is the finished camera, all ready to roll. I am setting one up at home as my test one with others going up as I make them over the next few weeks. The idea is to catch a long exposure over 6 months with the paper recording the light movement to give some interesting results. It is a fantastic experiment as I have no idea what the images are going to turn out like as the camera is exposed 24/7 for 6 months tracking daylight and night time.

Here are the cameras set up in the test locations, fingers crossed that the one on the bridge does not get removed (I have put a note on it to explain what it is doing). The final challenge of setting up the cameras was to get them attached, I bought some super long cable ties, which were still not long enough unless I doubled them up and used a bit of string to keep it steady!

The idea for the project is to study long exposure photography using my own digital camera and comparing the results from the pinhole camera, using the same locations where possible. Fingers crossed....