Student Notes Class Two

CLASS 2
Quick Theory Review
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What is Gestalt Theory?
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What is a Ganzfeld?
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What is figure & ground?
•
What are proximity, similarity, continuity, closure?
Unified Whole. The principles of study that apply to the visual understanding of
the unified whole. The idea behind Gestalt Theory is that “the way an object is
perceived is determined by the total context or field in which it exists.”
Homogenous Field. Heterogenous Field.
How can we use Gestalt Theory to help us with our photographic compositions?
Grouping of objects. Proximity of objects.
Relationships of objects.
Closure and Non Closure.
Continuity. Similarity.
Figure versus Ground. (Negative versus Positive space.)
Boundaries of Seeing. Signal versus Noise.
Boundaries of Seeing. Signal versus Noise.
•
When you sat and did your 30 minute assignment, how did your brain decide
what was an important visual ‘Signal’ and what was visual ‘Noise’ to be ignored and
placed into the background?
• Can you intentionally shift them from one to the other? What happens if you try
to make the Noise the Signal, and vice versa?
• Shift the Boundary of your Seeing to a new place, a different viewpoint, a new
idea. Put yourself into a place you may not normally find yourself comfortable. In
yor imagination choose to reshoot one of your home assignment photos form a
viewpoint you would normally not be able to step into, due to
an inhibition.
HOME ASSIGNMENT 1 : Looking
WENT SOMEWHERE WITH YOUR CAMERA.
Indoor or Outdoor.
Chose a place you feel safe and comfortable...
... SAT THERE FOR 30 MINUTES
STAYED SEATED.
KEPT LOOKING CAREFULLY.
TOOK 5 PHOTOS DURING THE HALF HOUR SESSION
PANORAMIC & FISH EYE COMPOSITIONS
WHERE AM I?
Composition and layouts for non-traditional formats.
Cropping and reformatting.
Why and when?
Visual scanning of a super-wide or super-wide angle image versus a standard image
format.
Not long after the introduction of the Daguerreotype in 1839, photographers
began assembling multiple images of a view into a single wide image.
In the late 19th century, panoramic cameras using curved film holders employed
clockwork drives to scan a line image in an arc to create an image over almost
180 degrees.
Rotating Cameras
Swing Lens Cameras
Extra Wide Angle Cameras
Stationary Panoramic Cameras
Digital photography of the late twentieth century greatly simplified this assembly
process, which is now known as image stitching. Such stitched images may even be
fashioned into crude virtual reality (VR) movies, using one of many technologies
such as Apple Computer's QuickTime VR or Java.
A rotating line camera such as the Panoscan allows the capture of very high
resolution panoramic images and eliminates the need for image stitching.
http://www.panoscan.com/MK3/
Rotating Panoramic Cameras have been made since 1857 the most popular being
the Kodak Cirkut Cameras. These cameras were first introduced in 1907. The
cameras were originally made by The Century Camera Co. of Rochester, NY. This
company was bought eventually by Eastman Kodak Co. and the cameras were
manufactured by a division of the company. The Cirkut Camera was made in
several different sizes. They used roll film from 5" X 24" up to 16" by 20 feet.
Cirkut Cameras were originally made to make shots of large groups of people.
Because the camera rotated you could be much closer to the subject and still
capture the whole group.
Swing Lens Panoramic Cameras
Various models introduced since 1898. Kodak Banquet Camera.
Panon (Japan) introduced the Widelux in 1958. The camera has a swing lens (f2.8f11) with three speed settings (1/10, 1/100, 1/250). The camera produces a 140
degree image on a 25mm x 60mm negative. (Standard 35mm film cassettes are
used: a 36 exposure roll yields 22 panoramic images.)
Panon has subsequently introduced newer versions of the Widelux, and currently
sells the F8. (Imported to the US by Cambridge Camera of New York.)
Extra Wide Lens Cameras
Medium format, American-German Brooks Plaubel VeriWide camera, made in the
1950's for a really, really wide view with a Leica IIIf with a 15mm lens.
Makes bigger than average 6x9 negatives with a 47mm lens. This is equivalent to
around 18mm with 35mm cameras.
Plaubel VeriWide
Stationary Panoramic cameras are a modern invention.
These cameras use a flat film plane and make negatives anywhere from
6cm X 12cm up to 4" X 10".
They generally have an angle of view of about 100 degrees.
Many different brands of Stationary Panoramic Cameras are made. These include
Fuji 617, Art Panoram (available in several sizes), Linhof (available in 2 sizes),V-Pan
(a monorail pan camera), and K. B. Canam 4" X 10" pan camera.
All of these cameras make beautiful images in a panoramic format.
The full panorama format is made possible by the large image circles of the two
interchangeable 4/45 mm and 4/90 mm lenses, which have been specially designed
for the Hasselblad XPan by Fuji Film.
The Hasselblad XPan 35mm Camera (1998)
Fuji GX617 Panoramic Medium Format
What are the CHARACTERISTICS of
a Panoramic image composition?
Recommended BOOK: PANORAMIC PHOTOGRAPHY by Lee Frost
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panoramic_photography
Panoramic photography is a format of photography that captures images with
elongated fields of view.
The term has also refers to a photograph that is cropped to a relatively
wide aspect ratio. While there is no formal definition for the point at which
"wide-angle" leaves off and "panoramic" begins, an image that presents a field of
view comparable to, or greater than, that of the human eye - about 160° by 75° can be termed panoramic. The resulting images often, but not necessarily, take
the form of a wide strip.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panoramic_photography
Photo-finishers and manufacturers of Advanced Photo System (APS) cameras use
the word "panoramic" to refer to any print format with a wide aspect ratio, not
necessarily photos that encompass a large field of view. In fact, a typical APS
camera in its panoramic mode, where its zoom lens is at its shortest focal length
of around 24 mm, has a field of view of only 65°, which many
photographers[who?] would only classify as wide angle, not panoramic. Cameras
with an aspect ratio of 2:1 or greater (where the width is 2 times its height) can
generally be classified as being "panoramic."
http://www.ptgui.com/
PTGUI Panoramic stitching software
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panoramic_photography
http://www.ptgui.com/gallery/skypod_toronto_canada_panorama.html
Stitching your Panoramic together manually
using Photoshop
Load each of the frames into Photoshop.
Create a new file to hold the stitched panel.
File>New.
Set the background to White
Set the File Size to the resolution that you want your final print to be.
Set the horizontal and vertical size of the file to slightly larger than the
combined size off all of the individual frames that you'll be stitching taking into
Using the Move Tool drag each of the images to the new file in order from left
to right.
The resolution will be automatically changed to match that of the new file.
Each file will become a Layer. Their layers will be automatically named Layer 1,
Layer 2, etc. ccount that there'll be a lot of overlap. Click on leftmost layer.
Using the Opacity slider on the Layers palette change the opacity to about 50%.
Then using the Move Tool drag the image so that something prominent in the
middle of the frame is superimposed. In this example I've used the green sign at
the top of the tallest building. Magnify the frame so that it's at Actual Pixels and
using the Arrow Keys nudge Layer #2 so that this object exactly overlaps.
You'll notice that no matter how careful you were when shooting, even if you
leveled the camera, parts of the overlapping frames won't align. (This is the job
that the best stitching programs do automatically — resizing and stretching the
images so that they do). Don't worry about it though because we'll be dealing with
this in a moment.
Select View / Show Rulers and drag a couple of rulers so that they line up with
where Layer #1 and Layer #2 overlap at both sides of the frame. This will be useful
in a few minutes. Change the opacity of Layer #2 back to 100% With Layer #2
selected, click on the Add a Mask icon at the bottom of the Layers Palette. Press
the D key to set the default foreground and background colors. Next select a
paintbrush. It's best to use a brush that has an intermediate edge, so create a New
Brush with a Hardness of about 65.You'll be changing the size as needed later
using the left and right square bracket keys.
The plan now is to use the medium-soft edged brush that you've created to erase
the layer underneath and to select where the transition between the layers is to
take place. In this example a good place is in the sky along the edge of the tallest
tower.
With Layer #2 selected, click on the Add a Mask icon at the bottom of the Layers
Palette. Press the D key to set the default foreground and background colors.
Next select a paintbrush. It's best to use a brush that has an intermediate edge, so
create a New Brush with a Hardness of about 65.You'll be changing the size as
needed later using the left and right square bracket keys.
The plan now is to use the medium-soft edged brush that you've created to erase
the layer underneath and to select where the transition between the layers is to
take place. In this example a good place is in the sky along the edge of the tallest
tower.
If you now magnify the spot where the two layers meet you'll see that there is no
visible join because you've moved the spot where they join to an irregular place
where you can blend the transition invisibly. Be aware that if you go past a frame
edge and start to show white, you can simply press X to switch from erasing the
background layer to erasing the foreground layer.
One thing that can get you into trouble is if you pop out of Layer Mask mode. If so
you'll end up painting with Black or with White instead of erasing. Just click on the
icon to the left of the layer's title and you'll be back in Mask mode.
Now return to Step #3 above and drag the next panel onto the stitched file and
repeat the steps.
I know that this all seems confusing, and this process is likely impossible to learn
simply by reading, but if you work with files of your own and follow the steps
above I promise that it will be both comprehensible and fairly quick.
Once all the layers are satisfactory aligned you should saved the file, naming it
appropriately so that you'll be reminded that it still has all its layers, and that it's
unsharpened and uncorrected
Now proceed to crop, color correct and sharpen the file.