John Mantzefield Photography: Recently Added Galleries and Collections

FX Photos #1

digitalart24@comcast.net (John Mantzefield Photography) — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 02:20:03 GMT

]]>A year or so ago I stumbled across some very unique looking photos on Flickr and learned through reading the threads connected to them that these wild looking images were created by using a free Photoshop plug-in called "Pixel Bender". It turned out that getting this particular look wasn't possible with the standard set of functions that come with PB, you had to add a filter called "Droste". When you search for the PB plug-in you will find that it is available on the Adobe site in two versions. One is for developers which requires knowledge of coding and scripting. The other version, the one that I have used here, is an end-user version that has a standard Photoshop installer and filter dialog box. I believe that I found the Droste filter through a link on one of the Flickr Droste groups.

I was only able to find a very limited amount of how-to instructions on the web about how to use the Droste filter. The only really usable part was about setting up the top two parameters: enter the approximate horizontal and vertical size of your image. Your skill level in using the other dozen or so sliders in this filter will be determined entirely by your tenacity. Almost all of the sliders have names which clearly indicate their function, although some will just require a bit of experimentation on your part to figure them out.

The type of image that you run through the Droste filter will probably be one of three types: a complete image with no transparent areas, and image with a transparent area around the perimeter, or an image with a transparent area in the interior of the image. While you can apply this filter to any kind of image it seems to work best, from a compositional standpoint, if you start with a subject that has some type of framework or opening in it. This opening could be either in the original photo and/or one that you create by using the PS Selection tools and cutting out a transparent area. Your subjects could have doors or windows, knotholes or a sewer manhole, picture frames or some type of architectural design element in a building. Another nice twist that you can add to this image wizardry is to apply some combination of filters or plug-ins to the image before running it through PB. As you can probably tell some of my final images are composites of one or more photos. Another nice trick is to apply a contrasting color band around the edge of an interior or exterior transparent area. With PB adjusted correctly it will maintain the transparent areas in your image. Once you are back in PS you can apply a background layer underneath your completed PB layer. Another technique is to run the same image through PB two or three times (giving you two or three adjusted PB Layers), and then use some of the PS Transform tools and Layer Masks to make your final image out of the PB Layers.

Flickr Meetup 12-2011

digitalart24@comcast.net (John Mantzefield Photography) — Sun, 11 Dec 2011 01:24:44 GMT

]]>Every year during the Christmas holiday season the pdx[portland] (Oregon) Flickr group has a meetup dinner and White Elephant gift exchange. This year the event was held at the restaurant in the Red Lion Jantzen Beach Hotel. After dinner the restaurant's staff helped us arrange several couches into a semicircle so that we could hold our gift exchange. Not all of the gifts were photo related, and as you can see in some of the photos there was a nice variety of other things for our flickrites to choose from. A pinhole camera, a Holga panoramic camera, photo filters, a handmade purse and other non-photo items changed hands a few times during the event. The whole thing was a lot of fun, as anyone nearby could tell due to all the cheering and laughter that was herd as the gift exchange progressed.

All the photos in this set were shot with a Nikon D700 with an MB-D10 battery pack and fitted with an 18-35mm NIKKOR f3.5-4.5 lens. A Nikon SB900 flash was attached to the camera via a Nikon SC-29 coil cable. The flash got additional battery power from a Nikon SD-9 external battery pack. The combined battery power of those in the flash and the ones in the external pack powered the flash with 12 AA Sanyo Eneloop Ni-MH batteries. The capacity of this power supply will dramatically increase the flashes cycling time and allow you to shoot about 250 photos.

To add some diffusion to the flash's light pattern a large Rogue flexible modifier (10 x 11") was mounted on the SB900. Before the modifier was attached a HONL Velcro Speed Strap was wrapped around the flash head which allowed me to attach a Full CTO color correction gel. This gel converted the flash's light output from a daylight color temperature to a light color that was very close to the tungsten lights in the hotel's dining room. Combining this wide flash modifier with the off-camera flash gave me a flexible setup whereby I could quickly move around the room and shoot from different angles.

The photos in this set were shot as Nikon RAW files and initially processed in Lightroom3. In LR I made extensive use of the area Adjustment Brush and the Graduated Filter tool. These LR Develop functions were used to adjust specific areas in the photos that were either to dark or to light, and lacked detail due to uneven lighting in the restaurant or from the flash. Final adjustments were made in Photoshop CS5.

iPad Photo Art - 1

digitalart24@comcast.net (John Mantzefield Photography) — Sat, 12 Nov 2011 00:55:05 GMT

]]>The images in this set were created using paint and drawing apps on my iPad. In the past I had created similar images on my Mac using a Wacom tablet, but that left something to be desired because of the disconnect in working with a stylus that was not being applied directly to the screen. With the iPad I can draw or paint directly on the image with a stylus. Another major element of the creative process that I really like is the portability of the iPad - with stylist in hand I can work on my art projects anywhere.

Almost all of the images were done with the app ArtRage which has two primary functions. First it's a full featured paint and drawing program with a nice variety of media tools: oil paint, watercolors, airbrush, technical pen, pencil, felt tip pen, crayon and chalk. Your chosen media can be manipulated after it's been applied using the Palette Knife tool, which has a variety of smearing, blending and blurring functions. There's also an Eraser tool which can perform a hard to soft edged removal of any media. The app also includes a couple of tools for filling large areas with color. When you begin a project you can create images as large as 1440 X 1440 and you can choose from 24 surface textures. A color picker allows you to choose the color of your background material. A fairly detailed tutorial is included in the app which makes getting up to speed quick and easy... there's also an ArtRage forum on the companies site.

The second ArtRage function which I have used in almost all of these images allows you to use a photo as a painting source. With this function turned on the painting/drawing tool that your using will sample the colors in the photo directly underneath the area that your working on. This happens in real time as you work which makes the process very quick and fluid. Another photo/paint function allows you to use a photo as a background tracing image where you draw on the next layer up in the stack. ArtRage doesn't make you an instant artist, but with a little practice you can capture the essence of a photo in the form of a unique work of art.

Meetup 10-11

digitalart24@comcast.net (John Mantzefield Photography) — Sat, 15 Oct 2011 00:55:09 GMT

]]>At the October monthly meeting of the Portland Creative Photography group, which is organized through Meetup.com, I gave a presentation on general lighting principals and how to use flash modifiers and color correction gels. After the presentation I shot a series of sample photos using the different flash modifiers and a color correction gel that corrected the flash's light output so that it matched the lighting in the restaurant where the meeting was held. Information about which flash modifiers were used in each photo is included on the photos. A summary of my presentation, a complete list of all the photo equipment that was shown during the presentation (and some other gear not mentioned that evening) and a list of lighting and flash related websites, books and DVDs can be sent to you via email.

Flickr Meetup 8-2011

digitalart24@comcast.net (John Mantzefield Photography) — Sun, 21 Aug 2011 23:20:29 GMT

]]>The photos in this set were shot at the pdx[portland] Flickr group's annual city park meetup. Every August we get together in an outdoor setting (this year at Cathedral Park) to enjoy food and conversation about our favorite topic, photography of course! Those who chose to enter our monthly photo contest (this month's topic: Fountains) posted their photos online in our Flickr groups info page about this meeting. Our stalwart group organizer, Russ, copies the photos onto his laptop and brings it to the meetup so that we can vote for the best photo. Congratulations to Victor for his winning photo of the Salmon Street Springs Fountain.

Esplanade HRD Panoramic - 1

digitalart24@comcast.net (John Mantzefield Photography) — Wed, 03 Aug 2011 23:29:25 GMT

]]>The High Dynamic Range photos in this set were shot with a Nikon D700 (a Full Frame 24X36 DSLR) fitted with a Sigma 8mm f3.5 EX-DG Circular Fisheye lens. This lens creates a round image in the center of the cameras image field. It has a 180° field of view and because it does not employ any optical correction everything at the perimeter of the round image is very distorted. The ultra-wide panoramic images in this set were shot with the Sigma fisheye lens and processed with a panoramic stitching program called PTGui Pro. PTGui analyzes two or more images (round or rectangular), finds matching control points in the images and then auto aligns the images using these points to create the final panoramic image. PTGui Pro also auto color corrects and blends your fisheye images creating seamless ultra-wide panoramics. The current version of PTGui Pro (9.04) can process bracketed exposures which it uses to make an HDR output file. These bracketed exposures were shot using the D700s auto exposure bracketing function. PTGui can't create high quality Tone Mapped HDR images, but it can efficiently process your bracketed photos into a nice panoramic and then let you output that image as a .EXR file. This file format contains all of the bracketed exposure information that was in your original images, which can then be opened by a true HDR app like Photomatix. Once the .EXR panoramic is opened in Photomatix you will have full control over all of the contrast and brightness adjustments that you will need to make a stunning HDR image. Final adjustments were made to each image in Photoshop CS5 using Adjustment Layers.

Glenwood Park July 4th 2011

digitalart24@comcast.net (John Mantzefield Photography) — Tue, 26 Jul 2011 01:42:26 GMT

]]>Every Fourth of July there's a pretty good fireworks show at Glenwood Park in southeast Portland. Fireworks are purchased by those who live near the park where they shoot them off in a show that lasts for about an hour and a half. The photos in this set were shot with a Nikon D700 fitted with a NIKKOR Full Frame Fisheye 16mm f/2.8D lens and supported by a Manfrotto carbon fiber tripod. I chose the 16mm lens so that I could shoot ultra wide angle panoramic landscape shots of the park where the fireworks were a part of the scene. Most of the photos are composites of three or four shots, or with others as many as a half-dozen shots. These photos were combined in Photoshop CS5 using Layer Masks and Adjustment Layers to enhance the colors and contrast of the fireworks. The tripod mounted camera was set up at a height of about three feet to get a low camera angle and then it was tilted up to get a wide view of the sky.

Oktoberfest/Oaks Park 2009

digitalart24@comcast.net (John Mantzefield Photography) — Thu, 31 Mar 2011 01:45:01 GMT

]]>Even though the photos in this set were shot in the fall of 2009 they show an event which has something in common with other Portland events like the Rose Festival, they don't change a lot from year to year. The type of coverage that I shot at the Oktoberfest, and around Oaks Park, is the type of shooting that a feature photographer would shoot for a multipage magazine layout or an internet promotional slideshow. These are great events to photograph because they offer a broad panorama of colorful backdrops and costumed characters.

People that are performing in these types of festivals and fairs expect that photographers will be on the scene and so taking their picture isn't usually a problem. Likewise, the spectators at these events also expect to see photographers there and don't seem to mind if you're moving in and around the events with your camera gear. You can see evidence of this in many shots where I'm shooting with extreme wide angle lenses, which means that I'm only a few feet away from the people in the pictures. Inexperienced photographers are often hesitant to get to close to people in situations like this, but I have found that people will put up with you if you diplomatically charge in, shoot quickly and then retreat. It's just a matter of common courtesy to the spectators at these events... after all they paid to get in and don't want to be distracted too much from enjoying the event.

Flickr Meetup 2-11

digitalart24@comcast.net (John Mantzefield Photography) — Thu, 03 Mar 2011 01:53:08 GMT

]]>This meetup of Portland Flickr photographers was held at a really great location for available light shooting. We met at the McMenamin's Tavern and Pool on NW 23rd Ave. (Portland, OR) for our February gathering and photo contest. I had been to this tavern on several occasions prior to this meetup, but this was the first time that I went there with camera gear that was ideally suited for available light shooting. The tavern's lighting is a mix of tungsten lights and brightly colored neon which lit the pool players and the room with enough illumination to make shooting at ISO 6400 fairly easy. The only additional equipment that would have made this a better shoot would have been to add an off-camera fill flash, but this wasn't possible on this occasion.

All the photos in this set were shot with a Nikon D700 which is a full frame 12Mp DSLR. This particular Nikon model has a solid reputation for being able to shoot at high ISO speeds and still maintain very low noise content in the RAW images. All of these handheld photos were shot at ISO 6400 and processed in Adobe Lightroom v3. In this version of LR Adobe has dramatically increased the noise reduction capabilities of their RAW image processor. The amount of image noise created by the D700 is very moderate when compared to other DSLR's shooting at a high ISO, and what was there was easily handled by LR3.

Two of the photos in this set are panoramic composites that were shot handheld with the D700 and a NIKKOR 18-35mm lens set to 18mm. In each of the two composites (photos 8 and 16) two shots were put together using PTGui Pro, which is a panoramic stitching app. It's name comes from the first letters in each word in the phrase "Panorama Tools for Graphical User Interface".

Flickr Meetup 12-10

digitalart24@comcast.net (John Mantzefield Photography) — Wed, 29 Dec 2010 22:40:46 GMT

]]>The photos in this set were shot at the December 2010 meetup of the PDX [portland] Flickr group's photo geek gathering at Old Town Pizza. As this was our Christmas gathering we didn't have a photo contest this month, instead we continued an annual tradition of holding a White Elephant gift exchange. About twenty gifts were offered for the group to pick from, and there were several that passed from one photog to another... like a Holga Pin Hole film camera. It's not very apparent in the photos, but the light level in this restaurant was very low and so this was a good shoot to test the potentials of my Nikon D700, namely it's high ISO and low noise capabilities. In the photo captions I have indicated that the ISO I was shooting at was 6,400.

These photos were shot with a Nikon D700 (a Full Frame 24X36 DSLR)fitted with two different lenses, either a Nikkor 16mm f/2.8D Full Frame Fisheye or a Sigma 8mm f3.5 EX-DG Circular Fisheye. The Sigma 8mm lens creates a round image in the center of the cameras image field. It has a 180° field of view and because it does not employ any optical correction everything at the perimeter of the round image is very distorted. The ultra-wide panoramic images in this set were shot with the Sigma fisheye lens where two shots were processed with a panoramic stitching program called PTGui Pro. PTGui analyzes two or more images (round or rectangular), finds matching control points in the images and then auto aligns the images using these points to create the final panoramic image. PTGui Pro also auto color corrects and blends your fisheye images creating seamless ultra-wide panoramics. The extreme wide angle shots were taken with the Nikkor 16mm fisheye lens, which produces significant barrel distortion. This type of distortion causes vertical lines (like doorways or columns) to appear dramatically curved in the original photos. This type of distortion can be corrected with a Photoshop plug-in called Fisheye-Hemi and/or by using the PS Edit>Transform>Warp tool.

Used Floats 2010

digitalart24@comcast.net (John Mantzefield Photography) — Sat, 13 Nov 2010 01:53:31 GMT

]]>After the Portland Rose Festival Grand Floral Parade floats have traveled along the parade route they make their final stop along Naito Parkway by the waterfront Fun Center. I had seen this event listed on the Rose Festival calendar in previous years but couldn't come up with a good way to photograph it. This year I had a couple of new lenses that worked out quite well for this type of street event.

These photos were shot with a Nikon D700 (a Full Frame 24X36 DSLR) fitted with either a Sigma 8mm f3.5 EX-DG Circular Fisheye lens or a Lensbaby Composer special effects lens. The Sigma 8mm lens creates a round image in the center of the cameras image field. It has a 180° field of view and because it does not employ any optical correction everything at the perimeter of the round image is very distorted. The Lensbaby special effects lens system can be put on several different camera types and can be fitted with a variety of different Lensbaby optics. This unique lens system allows the lens to tilt and pivot, thus shifting the focal plane of the image. This gives your pictures that unique Lensbaby affect were a part of the image is slightly out of focus and has a stretched or distorted appearance. Tilting and shifting lenses are not new, as this is a common feature in field or view cameras. I have two of the Lensbaby Optics that fit into the Composer lens housing, the Double Glass (sharp fine detailed images) and the Plastic Optics which yields a slightly diffused image. The Plastic Optics creates an image that looks a lot like the photos taken with an inexpensive plastic camera like the Holga or Diana film cameras.

FishEye Lens Photos #3

digitalart24@comcast.net (John Mantzefield Photography) — Tue, 19 Oct 2010 01:45:04 GMT

]]>while the photos in this set were shot during the 2010 Rose Festival, it was used only as a backdrop or location that allowed me to create the ultra-wide photo effects images in this set. These photos are just a part of an ongoing effort to see what kind of images I can make using various camera/lens setups and then manipulating those pictures in software to make interesting images.

These photos were shot with a Nikon D700 (a Full Frame 24X36 DSLR) fitted with a Sigma 8mm f3.5 EX-DG Circular Fisheye lens. This lens creates a round image in the center of the cameras image field. It has a 180° field of view and because it does not employ any optical correction everything at the perimeter of the round image is very distorted. The ultra-wide panoramic images in this set were shot with the Sigma fisheye lens and processed with a panoramic stitching program called PTGui Pro. PTGui analyzes two or more images (round or rectangular), finds matching control points in the images and then auto aligns the images using these points to create the final panoramic image. PTGui Pro also auto color corrects and blends your fisheye images creating seamless ultra-wide panoramics. Some of the photos contain multiple image components that show the same people a few times in those pictures. These photos were made using the Nikon D700's preset continuous shooting modes. The camera was set to shoot three, four or five pictures in rapid succession at a preset firing rate of one or two frames per second. The Nikon MC-30 Remote Trigger cable release was used to shoot these types of pictures from the top of a Manfrotto 695 carbon Fiber monopod topped with a Giottos MH-1001-652 Ballhead which has a Quick Release plate.

The artistic visual effects images in this set were created with the PhotoShop plug-in Flexify from Flamingpear.com. This plug-in has a large number of menu selectable input and output image manipulation options that can be combined to yield different image shapes. The images that you see here are only a few percent of the total number that you can choose from when combining the various menu settings. While this plug-in has a system of saving presets, the preview image is small which to me makes it unworkable. To create a set of reference images I applied various settings to one circular fisheye image. Next I entered text notes outlining the settings in a blank field beside the image and then saved them both as one JPEG file. The graphics image boarders you see in some of the images were made with either Photoshop Adjustment Layers or the PS plug-in Eye candy. The background images in these composites were composed specifically to have other images layered on top of them.

Adult Soapbox Derby 2009

digitalart24@comcast.net (John Mantzefield Photography) — Sat, 21 Aug 2010 23:58:56 GMT

]]>This photo set contains coverage of the August 2009 Adult Soapbox Derby, which is held at Mt. Tabor Park in Portland Oregon. During this annual summer event the drivers of home-made coaster cars careen down the roadways in the park towards the finish line. While there are some rules about the safety features that the cars must have, there are no rules as to what the drivers and their crews can wear. As you'll see in the photos the drivers and crews sported flamboyant costumes while piloting their creative and innovative coaster vehicles. Great fun on a hot summer day...

Flickr Meetup 8-10

digitalart24@comcast.net (John Mantzefield Photography) — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 01:24:27 GMT

]]>The Flickr group pdx [portland] has had an annual August meetup at Laurelhurst Park in Portland Oregon for a few years. Last year this meetup was well attended, but this year there were only a few people that came to the park meetup. Because the weather was perfect for scenic photography I arrived early and shot the landscape photos that accompany the group pictures. These photos were shot with a Nikon D700 fitted with two different lenses, either a Nikkor 16mm f/2.8D Full Frame Fisheye or a Sigma 8mm f3.5 EX-DG Circular Fisheye. All of the horizontal landscape shots were taken with the 16mm fisheye lens, which produces significant barrel distortion. This type of distortion causes vertical lines (like tree trunks) to appear dramatically curved in the original photos. As you look through the photos you will notice that the trees in the wide landscape shots are straight and natural looking. A Photoshop plug-in called Fisheye-Hemi was used to correct almost all of this distortion, and the Edit>Transform>Warp tool was used to make some final tweaks. The original group of six photos that were used to make the pictures who's names end with B-01 and D-01 were shot hand-held using the D700's Bracketed Exposure function and processed in PhotomatixPro to create these two HDR images.

FishEye Lens Photos #2

digitalart24@comcast.net (John Mantzefield Photography) — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 23:20:26 GMT

]]>The photos in this set were shot with a Nikon D700 (a Full Frame 24X36 DSLR) fitted with a Sigma 8mm f3.5 EX-DG Circular Fisheye lens. This lens creates a round image in the center of the cameras image field. It has a 180° field of view and because it does not employ any optical correction everything in the perimeter of the image is very distorted. Some of the photos in this set were shot with other wide angle lens and manipulated with stand alone visual effects and panoramic stitching applications. Also some Photoshop Plug-ins were used as noted in the captions included with each photo.

USING THE SIGMA 8MM LENS:
It's rather challenging to shoot with a lens that makes round images. Thus far it appears that there are four main approaches that can be used to yield pleasing compositions with this type of lens. The first is to find round or curved objects or structures to frame in the viewfinder's round image, the second is to find subjects that look good when their lines are distorted by this type of lens. The third option is to shoot a matching set of photos that can be composited into a ultra-wide panoramic images. Some of the panoramic images in this set were made with a panoramic stitching program called PTGui Pro. PTGui analyzes two or more images (round or rectangular), finds matching control points in the images and then auto aligns the images using these points to create the final panoramic image. The fourth shooting option is to use these round images to create artistic visual effects with Flexify from Flamingpear.com. A WORD OF CAUTION: SuperBlade Pro from Flamingpear DOES NOT work in PS-CS4 as of May 2010… they say it's compatible, but I have it and it crashes CS4. This has been confirmed by others on Mac forums.

Meetup June 2010

digitalart24@comcast.net (John Mantzefield Photography) — Sat, 19 Jun 2010 23:03:56 GMT

]]>The photos in this set were taken at the June 2010 monthly meeting of the Portland/Vancouver Photographers group from Meetup.com. After a presentation on processing HDR images the group members share photo tips and techniques.

Rose Festival 2009

digitalart24@comcast.net (John Mantzefield Photography) — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 00:32:44 GMT

]]>when I decided to photograph parts of the 2009 Rose Festival I approached this photo project from a couple of specific viewpoints. I decided that I wouldn't shoot coverage of the events, but rather do a type of photo exposé where I would focus on the people in or at the events. I have included some shots that were taken in or around the events (usually wide angle panoramic photos) to lend context to the people photos. As you look through the photos of the Grand Floral Parade you will see an example of this. There are no pictures of the floats, only photos of the people watching them go by. This group of photos starts out with shots of what happened in the street before the parade began, then shots of the people who are in the parade and those who are watching it. The remaining photos center around activities in or near the waterfront carnival area where I shot candid portraits of the carnies and some of the punters. The last group of photos show what happened on the water at the Dragon Boat races.

Technical Note: The ultra wide-angle waterfront shots that were taken at Tom McCall Park (photos #40,42 & 43) are each detailed composites of many photos layered together to make up a single image. These photos were shot with widely varying shutter speeds which ranged from 1/8 to 1/500. The slow shutter speeds were made possible by putting a Neutral Density filter on the lens. (ND 0.9 = 3 stops and ND 1.2 = 4 stops) Several of the shots of the Fun Center rides were also created by compositing several images. This was accomplished by using Photoshop Layer Masks to hide or reveal specific areas in each layered image.

Meetup.com Challenges

digitalart24@comcast.net (John Mantzefield Photography) — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 02:56:16 GMT

]]>The photos in this gallery are my entries in the monthly challenges, the photo contests organized by the Portland/Vancouver Photographers section of Meetup.com. The group's organizers choose subjects for each months photo contest, than the members vote online for their favorite photos. This internet fee-based service helps people with a broad range of interests to meet online and organize in person social gatherings.

Two New Homes 2009

digitalart24@comcast.net (John Mantzefield Photography) — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 23:48:44 GMT

]]>When I saw that a construction project was starting across the street from my home I decided that this was a good opportunity for a summer photo project. As the two homes began to take shape and I accumulated more and more photos I decided that I would have the photos printed in print-on-demand books and give copies to the new neighbors who bought the homes. I shot these photos in a photojournalistic style using a Nikon D700 DSLR. Over the four months that it took to build both homes I shot about 350 RAW format pictures, which were processed in Adobe Lightroom v2.6 and finished in Adobe Photoshop CS4... here are the best photos from that 2009 photo shoot.

The 1950's ranch style home (see black & white photo New_Homes-001) that used to be on that lot had a family living in it until a few years ago when they couldn't pay the mortgages balloon payment. During the last part of June 2009 the old home was demolished in a couple of days by the excavation contractor who also prepared the two lots for their concrete foundations. By July 5th the concrete foundations were finished and then by the 13th new water and sewer lines were installed for the south home (north home used the existing utilities). The framing carpenters, plumbers and HVAC contractors finished their work on the north home so that the prefabricated roof trusses could be nailed into place on July 20th. The pouring and finishing of the sidewalks and driveways were completed on August 5th. By August 25th the cabinets and floor coverings had been installed which completed the interiors of both homes. By September 6, 2009 both homes had their yards fully landscaped. Over a period of four months about fifty skilled craftsman labored through the summer heat to build these homes.

The last five photos in this group of pictures are of the two photo books that I created at Mpix.com and a composite of photos that were used in the production of the final book. Photo #139 shows the cover and first page of the construction photo book, and photo #140 shows a couple of typical pages with it's accompanying text. Photos #141 & 142 show a sample book that I had printed so that I could see exactly what an Mpix printed books would look like. This became a valuable resource when it came to determining how to layout my photo book. Mpix provides a free downloadable page layout program that you use to create your photo book. After the layout is completed you submit the book, but first you have to view a PDF preview of your book to sign off on the project. Even though all of my photos were shot in the same camera and processed in the same software they didn't all preview the same. About twenty percent of them had to be adjusted in PS-CS4 and replaced in the book's layout. Photo #143 is a composite of the books PDF proof output, the JPG's used in layout and a scan of a final printed page. In #143's composite images #1 & #2 you can see how the book proofs changed as a new photo was placed in the layout. Images #3 and #4 show how an increase in contrast and saturation made the final printed picture look OK as you can see in #5 which is a scan of the printed page.

Meetup 12-09

digitalart24@comcast.net (John Mantzefield Photography) — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 01:26:23 GMT

]]>These photos where shot at the annual photo contest organized by the Portland/Vancouver Photographer's group at Meetup.com. This year's gathering was held at Kell's Irish Pub in their upstairs banquet room. In the wide-angle shot of the photo contest area you can see that there were plenty of entries in the five categories: Open, Landscapes/Cityscapes, People/Portraits, Abstract and Animals. After a lot of photo geek talk and drinking we enjoyed some mighty tasty hot mad cold hors d'oeuvres, then it was time for the voting to begin in the photo contest.

This shoot was my first opportunity to use a custom diffuser that I built to modify the light pattern of my Nikon SB-900 speedlight. The shape of the diffuser produces a light pattern similar to a small softbox. The flash was aimed at the subjects using an off-camera hot shoe to flash cord (Nikon Remote Cord SC-29) which allowed the slightly softened light source to appear as though it was a wall or ceiling mounted floodlight. A color temperature modifying gel was used on the speedlight (Rosco Full CTO) to correct it's daylight color temperature to match the tungsten lights in the banquet room. All of the flash shots were adjusted in Lightroom2 using its Brush and Gradient tools.

Flickr Meetup 12-09

digitalart24@comcast.net (John Mantzefield Photography) — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 01:01:25 GMT

]]>The photos in this set were shot at the December meetup of the PDX [portland] Flickr group's photo geek gathering at Old Town Pizza. As this was our Christmas gathering we didn't have a photo contest this month, instead we continued an annual tradition of holding a White Elephant gift exchange. Twenty two gifts were offered fore the group to pick from, and there were several that passed from geek to geek... like a Pin Hole camera kit. It's not very apparent in the photos, but the light level in the restaurant was very low and so this was a good shoot to really test a well known feature of my Nikon D700, it's high ISO and low noise capabilities. In the photo captions I have indicated that the ISO I was shooting at was 6,400.

Flickr Meetup 10-09

digitalart24@comcast.net (John Mantzefield Photography) — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 23:41:24 GMT

]]>These photos were shot at the October meetup of the PDX [portland] Flickr group's photo geek gathering at the Morrison Hotel bar. The bar is named after a popular song by the rock group The Doors. The Morrison offers a large selection of local and imported beers, and they have a nice dinner menu. As this was sort of a Halloween themed meetup photogs brought photo contest pictures that followed the theme of "spooky". Also one of the Flickrites brought a Halloween dessert that she made in a cat litter box (see photos 17 & 18). All of the shots in the bar have a reddish color to them because the bar has red floodlights on the ceiling (see photo 11 & 12). In photos number 9 and 10 you can see the red lighting in the bar's interior. This was a good shoot to really test a well known feature of the Nikon D700, it's high ISO and low noise capabilities. In each photo caption I have indicated what ISO I was shooting at (from 3200 to 10,000).

Nikon Forum Photos

digitalart24@comcast.net (John Mantzefield Photography) — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 02:44:43 GMT

]]>The photos in this gallery were created to post on various online forums like Nikoncafe.com

Ultra-Wide Views #1

digitalart24@comcast.net (John Mantzefield Photography) — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 21:11:35 GMT

]]>The first group of photos in this set of ultra-wide scenes, which have filenames that begin with "Bus_FEPano", are a continuation of a series of projects where I'm combining two ultra wide angle shots to make a panoramic. The photos in this first series were shot with a Nikon D700 fitted with a AF Fisheye-NIKKOR 16mm f/2.8D lens (has an angle of view of 180°). These ultra-wide shots were manually assembled in Photoshop CS4 into a single panoramic composite. Photoshop's File>Automate>Photomerge function would not combine two of these ultra-wide images into a panoramic. Autodesk's panoramic compositor, Stitcher Unlimited 2009 ($350), should combine two of these fisheye shots into a panoramic... I don't have this app and have only read about it on their site.

The shooting method was to aim the camera to the left getting a full view of one half of the bus and streetcar's interior in that direction, and then panning the camera approximately 160° to the right capturing a second wide angle view in the other direction. Because I was shooting handheld on a moving vehicle I had to overlap the two shots more than I would if I were shooting from a tripod. If you look carefully at this first group of photo composites you'll notice that the angle of coverage is over 180°. The camera's shooting modes were set to Manual for exposure and focus, and the color balance was set to daylight. The lens focus point was set to infinity with its F-stop set to about 5.6 or 8.

In all digital panoramic photography the images you are assembling must overlap each other to some degree so that you can combine parts of each photo to create the final panoramic image. In this panoramic project I've sort of thrown out the rule book, which usually dictates that anywhere from 3 or 4, or up to a dozen images need to be combined to make the final panoramic composite. Here I'm combining two ultra-wide Fisheye lens shots into a single composite. Because the center area of the two images (where the two shots overlap) each have such dramatically distorted and curved lines this made combining them difficult. These composites were made with PS Layer Masks and using the Edit>Transform>Warp and Rotate tools to shape and distort adjoining areas of the image to make all of the visual components line up. After all of the image components were adjusted the PS plug-in "Topaz Adjust" was applied. Some other examples of this type of ultra-wide panoramics can be seen in my Flickr photo set titled "PDX at Night #2".

Glenwood Field 2009

digitalart24@comcast.net (John Mantzefield Photography) — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 00:32:35 GMT

]]>These photos are of a Babe Ruth baseball game at Glenwood Field in Glenwood Park, southeast Portland, Oregon

Meetup September 2009

digitalart24@comcast.net (John Mantzefield Photography) — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 02:30:47 GMT

]]>The Portland/Vancouver Photographers meetup group from Meetup.com had their monthly gathering at Izzy's Pizza in NE PDX in September 2009

Meetup Annual Photo Contest 10-07

digitalart24@comcast.net (John Mantzefield Photography) — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 22:11:41 GMT

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Izzy's Pizza Meetup 3-09

digitalart24@comcast.net (John Mantzefield Photography) — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 22:01:37 GMT

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Izzy's Pizza Vancouver Meetup 11-07

digitalart24@comcast.net (John Mantzefield Photography) — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 21:39:10 GMT

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PDX at Night #2

digitalart24@comcast.net (John Mantzefield Photography) — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 23:52:35 GMT

]]>The first group of shots in this set of night scenes, which have filenames that begin with "Night_82nd", began as a series of test shots. The photos in this first series were shot with a Nikon D700, a AF Fisheye-NIKKOR 16mm f/2.8D lens (has an Angle of View of 180°). The camera was mounted on a Manfrotto 441 (out of production, other models have replaced it) carbon fiber tripod with an Acratech 1117 Leveling Base and a Manfrotto 460MG 3D Magnesium Head which has a Quick Release camera mount. Before this night shoot I shot some two-photo tests around my neighborhood to make sure that this was going to work. These ultra-wide test shots were then manually assembled in Photoshop CS4 into a single panoramic composite. Photoshop's File>Automate>Photomerge function would not combine two of these ultra-wide images into a panoramic. Autodesk's panoramic compositor, Stitcher Unlimited 2009 ($350), should combine two of these fisheye shots into a panoramic... I don't have this app and have only read about it on their site.

The shooting concept was to aim the camera to the left getting a full view of the street in that direction, and then panning the camera approximately 90° to the right capturing a second wide-angle view in that other direction. If you look carefully at this first group of photo composites you'll notice that the angle of coverage is over 180°, probably something in the neighborhood of 220°. Some of these composites are made up of multiple exposures in both the right and left directions. I also varied the exposure in some shots to capture detail in brightly lit storefronts and signs. The camera's shooting modes were set to Manual for exposure and focus, and the color balance was set to daylight. The lens focus point was set to infinity with its F-stop set to about 5.6 or 8.

In all digital panoramic photography the images you are assembling must overlap each other to some degree so that you can combine parts of each photo to create the final panoramic image. In this panoramic project I've sort of thrown out the rule book, which usually dictates that anywhere from 3 or 4, or up to a dozen images need to be combined to make the final panoramic composite. Shooting night shot panoramic's requires a different technique if you want to capture individual sets of light streaking head/taillights. If you shot a series of 4 or 6 time exposures and combined them into a panoramic composite you would most likely get a series of uneven choppy light streaks.

If you look carefully at this first series of Night_82nd shots you'll notice that many of the light streaks begin or end near the center of the panoramic composite. This happened because this is the overlapping area between the two shots, and the light streaking curtailment could only be overcome by employing the following Photoshop layer technique. In the shots where you see light streaks progressing from one side of the center line to the other side, this is the result of copying light streaks from one side and using this image fragment to extend the light streaks into the other half of the image. This was accomplished with PS Layer Masks, choosing a Layer Mode that would yield dark areas as transparent, and using the Edit>Transform>Warp tool to make the light streaking parts fit the composition.