A Behind The Scenes Look: LIVE broadcast of my Piedmont Park sunset shoot

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It’s always fun to get out and shoot on my free time. Now with the Periscope App it’s easier than ever to invite people to watch live. This past weekend I did a live broadcast from my sunset shoot at Piedmont Park in Atlanta Georgia. I had over 100 people watching my short broadcast. With Periscope the broadcasts can be uploaded for replay for a 24 hour period. After that they are pretty much history. Sure Periscope allows you to save the video to your camera roll, but that video doesn’t include any of the comments or interactions (hearts) you received during your broadcast. Not to mention the fact that it’s in vertical orientation which really tends to tick people off on YouTube. I figured out a way to keep the video, comments, hearts and reshare it in a landscape view:

1. Within 24 hours of your broadcast you can plug your iPhone into your Mac running Yosemite (Mac OS X 10.10.x) and launch the QuickTime Player. From there you can choose your iPhone as the camera and audio source (see the details how to do this here). Now just press the record button in QuickTime and playback your Periscope broadcast from the Periscope App. This will effectively screen record your iPhone so that you’ll have a movie of all your Periscope interactions.

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2. This still doesn’t solve the portrait vs. landscape issue. As of this writing the developers of Periscope are working on “landscape mode” but it’s not here yet. Therefore embrace it, don’t fight it. With Adobe Premiere Pro CC I was able to import my Periscope screen recording and then add other elements to fill up the space. Elements like still photos that I captured during the shoot and other videos such as drone footage.

Here are my results:

While it will be absolutely phenomenal when Periscope offers landscape mode, you can make due in the meantime.

Follow me on Periscope/Twitter @TerryLWhite

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iPhone’s One Button HDR: Another wakeup call to camera manufacturers

Yep, I'm back on my "point and shoot cameras are dying" rant again. You might remember this post where I talked about camera phones being the "new point and shoot cameras" and I gave my reasons as to why I felt this way then. As I stated in the earlier post, when it's important I shoot it with my DSLR. However, when it's just about capturing the moment and for fun I'm going to pull out my smartphone and take the shot. Before you argue with me, let me state the obvious: yes point and shoot cameras offer better optics and higher megapixels. They also offer a wider range of features for controlling the shot as well as the higher end models even offering RAW capabilities. Yep, I get it! They are technically better "cameras". No question. However, whenever there's an exciting moment unfolding at a public event I see 10 times more camera phones go up in the air than I do dedicated point and shoot cameras. The reasons for this are numerous. The most common ones are: people don't want to carry multiple devices and probably the biggest reason is that the camera phone shot is "good enough" for the average person. Beyond those reasons I think a bigger reason is that the camera phone and especially the smartphone offer instant sharing of those pics AND in device image editing!

 

iOS 4.1 Brings One Button HDR (high dynamic range) shooting to the iPhone 4

When I saw this feature come out in the latest update to the iPhone's operating system (iOS 4.1), I had an immediate "Duh" moment! Apple once again took something that is so obvious and added a "one button" interface to it. Professional Photographers have been shooting HDR images for years now. It has actually become a "creative" effect in photography. However, pros have to do this in a multiple step fashion that involves setting their camera up a certain way (bracketed exposures) and combining the multiple shots in post using software like Photoshop CS5 (Merge to HDR Pro). in its simplest form HDR is ability to combine multiple exposures into one high dynamic range image that achieves the best exposure for highlights, shadows and midtones. This is where the amateur photographer often fails. The shots that come from these low end cameras and camera phones often over expose one area or under expose another. Since there aren't very many if any manual controls on these devices you're usually stuck with what the device thinks you should have. So Apple took HDR and brought it to the masses in a seamless way. Just turn it on before you take the shot! With an iPhone 4 running iOS 4.1 you have the option to turn on HDR. Once it's on you aim at your subject and press the onscreen shutter button. The iPhone 4 then captures 3 images in rapid succession instantly with no lag, one under exposed, one over exposed and one in the middle and combines them together AUTOMATICALLY as an HDR shot. There is no user interaction required. Of course pros will want control. They'll want to tweak things an get the image just right and I applaud you for that. However, this feature isn't aimed at pros! This is aimed at everyone else so that right out the camera they can get better exposures.

 

For example…

The iOS 4.1 update gives you the option of keeping both shots. So here's the original shot BEFORE HDR.

 

Here's the HDR version (again, all automatic and with no adjustments on my part)

Is it perfect? No! I'd still like to see a little more light in the shadows of the barn. Is it better than what we were getting from these low end cameras? ABSOLUTELY!

 

Get HDR on the iPhone 3GS too

If your iPhone model doesn't support the iOS 4.1 HDR feature, you can still have HDR because there's an App for that. Before iPhone 4 and iOS 4.1 supported this feature natively, I was using the Pro  HDR App to do the same thing. Of course it takes more steps, but it get's the job done. You can get Pro HDR for the iPhone 3GS and iPhone 4 for $1.99 here from the Pro

 

Camera Manufacturers: Step Your Game Up!

There is absolutely NO REASON that this kind of feature shouldn't be on every point and shoot camera sold today. Yes, I applaud Canon for adding an HDR mode to the NEW G12 – way to go!

The lack of it (one button HDR), built-in wifi, built-in GPS/geotagging, etc. on the vast majority of P&S cameras continues to further my argument that point and shoot cameras are dead! Hell I'd like to see some of these features make it on to DSLRs too. Now I know I'm dreaming….

Introducing the Photoshop CS5 “Knowledge Panel”

Photoshop CS5 Quietly Delivers the Knowledge Panel

That's right! If you have Photoshop CS5, you have a NEW Panel under Window->Extensions Called "Knowledge". This new panel pulls in industry experts to give you help and step-by-step instructions on completing various tasks in Photoshop. Best of all it's FREE and if you've been connected to the internet and have Photoshop CS5 open it's already there! Here are a few screen shots:

    

 

Speaking of Creating an HDR Image

Here's my Lightroom 3 to Photoshop CS5 HDR Pro workflow

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rab25UTe6HY

Thanks goes out to Scott Kelby and the Photoshop Guys for some GREAT HDR Pro settings.

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