help shooting sequence

[John Jared]

Take a look at the attached shot. I usually shoot in Av mode or in sports mode on my 20d. I am not very good with photography and I want to know how to get a more even color across the shots i.e. the sky or water. I try and fix the sky sometimes in photoshop like the second one. TIA.

[Mike Isler]

John Jared, that's pretty simple. Shoot with the camera in manual mode. When you have it in Av or Sports mode, it is still in an automatic mode... and the exposure can shift slightly in the middle of a sequence. If it shifts 1/3 or 2/3 of a stop, that will cause a dramatic difference in tonalities in the sky and water. In manual, it will all be even.

Mike

[John Jared]

Mike, thanks. At some point I need to learn a little. I'll probably start by looking at shots that were taken in Av mode that I like in different settings, copy them, and go from there. Thanks.

[pants]

John,

Something else that will help loads is zooming back a little. When you track a rider, it's second narure to followthen when they hit the wake, resulting in a rainbow shape sequence and you having to clone in loads of sky/landscapes/water! Once you've got the whole sequence stitched together, just crop it all down to a nice rectangle or some other funky effect!

If you do end up filling in, the water is the easiest bit to close (shortcut 'S' in photoshop) The land in a bit harder! Try cloning first, and where there are some pretty drastic changes or obvious repeats, go over it again with the Healing Brush (shortcut 'J')

Just another quick tip; you can get away with shrinking the images down a little before you stitch them all together as the finished picture will be pretty huge!

Good luck

[dmb]

John Jared what camera are you using for those sequences? Looks like maybe a 1D MKII?

And yeah to get the sky/water/ground/rider all in the same tonal range you have to use manual focus, it's not that hard, you can start off in auto, and focus then switch it over, and if you think about it you should only need to do this once as the rider always stay the same distance from the boat, so should always be in focus

[John Jared]

dmb, I have the 20d. The I don't usually have a problem with focus.

I have to start shooting in manual mode even though I'll screw some up. That way it will force me to learn.

[billspin]

Ok all, I recently got the 20d and am stitching together photos fairly well, but I do have one problem that I have not overcome easily and this is in like John Jaraed second sequence above in the third and fourth photo in the shot from the left the riders head and board are covering each other. I have not found a way to make mine look like John's. I am using Photoshop Elements 3 and must admint it is very overwhelming to learn. Other than that I am fairly satisfied with my results so far. Thanks for any help.

[John Jared]

what you have to do is make sure you keep all the layers. The best method I've found is to take the layer on top and set it's transparency to something around 60% and zoom in very close. Then I use the eraser to remove the top layer accept for what's needed i.e. rider, board, etc. Hopefully that made some sense. Another tip that's worked well for me is to make sure the first layer is the first shot, second is second, etc.

I didn't do the greatest job on that one...if you zoom in real close you'll notice the underside edge of the board is jagged and not real clean.

[pants]

Pretty much taking your time is the best way! The Sequence I've linked below if from a 1D Mk2 on full speed. It takes about 45 mins to stitch these together and the trick is to match each shot up first, create a mask and then erase the bits you don't want with the brush tool. if you go to far, reverse the forground and put it back! The closer in you get, the smaller the brush size.

Whilst it's nice to be perfect, it doesn't always need to be as it's the pic that counts, not how good you are on a computer!

http://photos.wakeboard.com/showphoto.php?photo=1270&size=big&password=&sort=1&cat=500

Oh, and if anyone could explain how to up-load this image here, I'd appreciate it! Never could figure that damn thing out

[billspin]

Thanks for the help I will work with this and see how it comes out. As far as posting your picture is it possibly too large of a file size to allow it to be posted? Just a posibility.

[justsomeguy]

Doesn't Canon offfer an exposure lock button on their cameras?

That's what's needed.

[pants]

Yeah, it does, but it can be a pain in the butt to take off in a rush! Manual is the best way- set the shutter speed to 1000/second (enough to capture the action) and then adjust the aperture to suit. You'll find that the shots are evenly exposed across the sequence and you can make any slight adjustments later.

[pants]

Just testing if this works!

[Wakebrad]

pants, whoa. There are waaay to many frames in that shot. I'd take out at least half of them.

Nice work though.

[pants]

I know it looks mesy but I put them all in there for a couple of reason 1. to show that it is possible to stitch loads of frames quite easily and second to show the spins. I've done another version with only half the shots for an instructional.

But I do quite line the centipede look!

Anyway, got to pack now, heading over to Orlando for a month on Monday! Ahh, the joys of warm water!