First of all, to shoot a sequence shot, I highly recommend a camera that shoots faster frames per second, preferable 5-6.  I was using a Canon MK III, which shoots around 9 frames per second, but honestly, I used every other frame for this sequence, so shooting that fast really wasn’t necessary.  Personally, I didn’t want to use all the photos, when I originally stitched them, I tried with every frame, for me it was just too busy.  I prefer to have some spacing between the different parts of the maneuver.  To make matters much easier, its in your best interest to use a tripod for this.  No shifting of the camera means a much easier time stitching the final image together.

Obviously the first step is to bring the photographs into Adobe Photoshop.  Rather than pasting the different images straight in, I mask them before pasting, so I only grab the information I need, which will save you looks of time.  To do this, I use a quick mask, which you can use by pressing “Q” in photoshop.  The advantage to using the quick mask, is that you can see what you’re masking, while you paint, it shows up as a transparent red.  When doing this, I start with a bigger brush to cover the majority of the subject, then size it down to grab the finer details.  I also use a harder brush edge, so I go really close to the edges, I usually grab this roughly, then go back and touch up the edges.  When you’re masking for a sequence, make sure you grab something that will allow you to line the subject up consistently.  In my example, I used the ramp they’re jumping off, it has a hard edge, which makes it easy for me to line the different photos up in the sequence.  Once they are lined up, you can mask out the ramp.  The rest of the work will be fine tuning the mask around your subject, making sure to drop out any parts of the background that may change, move, etc.  My sample photo isn’t a great example of masking, these are merely showing you how the stitching is done.  Once you’ve gotten your first photo masked out, and aligned where you need it, you can move onto the next one, and the next one.  I realize this isn’t the most in depth tutorial, but I hope this steers you in the right direction when you attempt to create a sequence shot.  Please share your results when you’re finished!

Friday afternoon (April 9th), I was packing my car, preparing to leave town for the weekend.  I spent the weekend shooting engagement photos for my cousin, Matthew, down in Blacksburg, VA (woohoo, go hokies!).  Anyways, any of this even happened, I was throwing camera gear, clothes, the necessities into the car.  Everything was ready to go and hit the road.  What I hadn’t planned for, was to be locked outside of my house for 2 hours, a beautiful day, and plenty of cameras to play with.  With that being said, I grabbed my camera and started snapping.  Originally, I thought it was just a way to kill time until one of my brothers showed up to let me in, but I really started to enjoy it.  Sometimes when you’re shooting for a living, you forget to shoot just because its fun.  I shot photos of anything I could find, trees, clouds, my backyard, I think I got a lot of really great photos too.  I just wanted to share a few of my favorites.  Just keep in mind, you don’t have to be locked out of your house to grab a camera and just wander, snapping away aimlessly.  So what are you waiting for?  Go snap some photos, and please share!

Seeing that we’ve received snow for two straight weeks, I’ve had plenty of time to play around with my camera.  Here are a few I shot while I explored my backyard, armed with a speedlight covered with a zip-loc bag.  No more mishaps with the camera gear.

If you live on the east coast, you know we’ve been hammered with snow over the past month, mainly the past 2 weeks.  Lets just say, I’ve gotten my fair share of practice when it comes to photographing snow.  There was a period of two days when snow literally came down non-stop.  We kept the window of our living room open, just because we got a kick out of seeing a blanket of snow pouring down.  Every now and then, there would be a gust of wind that would tear through, whipping snow around in tight spirals, resembling a tornado.  I kept thinking in my head of how I could photograph this, attempting numerous times, i did get a few good photos, but the action always got lost in the background.  First I started shooting with just ambient light, trying to capture the snow and the atmosphere, the photos just didn’t give the feeling I was hoping.  Next I had turned to shooting with some flash, mainly as a fill, using the flash to supplement and freeze the action of the snowflakes falling.  I think I got a few good frames out of it, but honestly, I did these by just shooting the flash through a window because I feared getting moisture into the unit.  Finally, I manned up and threw a zip-loc bag on my flash unit.  Triggering it with a pocket wizard, I put it on a light stand and placed it outside my front door.  To make these exposures, I kept my shutter speed at 1/250th of a second (the max sync speed for my flash), keeping my aperture around f8, not sure exactly but at a descent depth of field.  I wanted some depth to make sure I captured the snow.  From there I adjusted the ISO until a eliminated the ambient light.  By doing this, the background was a solid black, allowing the flash to make the exposure for me.  Everytime the flash fired, it froze the snowflakes that were dancing around the frame.  The final product, I was really happy with, but to be honest, looked a lot like the static you see on the tv.  Here are a few of my favorites.  Hope you enjoy, and please feel free to leave and comments and criticism, its always appreciated.  Thanks.