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Just got a Canon 100mm IS L macro. Now what?

ScottyP
Authority

It is winter so bugs are in short supply. I have a good tripod. I have only played a bit with it but it has fantastic bokeh for my girls' birthday cake in front of our Christmas tree.  :). 

 

Any my suggestions on how to dive in?

 

Scott

Canon 5d mk 4, Canon 6D, EF 70-200mm L f/2.8 IS mk2; EF 16-35 f/2.8 L mk. III; Sigma 35mm f/1.4 "Art" EF 100mm f/2.8L Macro; EF 85mm f/1.8; EF 1.4x extender mk. 3; EF 24-105 f/4 L; EF-S 17-55mm f/2.8 IS; 3x Phottix Mitros+ speedlites

Why do so many people say "FER-tographer"? Do they take "fertographs"?
33 REPLIES 33

Thanks, Tim.  I do math.  I speak diffy-que, well I used to be fluent in it, once upon a time.

 

Thanks, Ernie.  I looked up that package, and it seems to have an add-in for LR6.  So far, everything I've needed to do I've always been able to do with PS Elements, Paint dot Net, or my CAD software.  The CAD software uses layers in a far more sophisticated manner than what Photoshop CC will ever approach.

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"The right mouse button is your friend."

You will love Hdrsoft Photomatix Pro 5.0, HDR software.  It is considered the best by the pros.

It is seemless with LR like you indicated, also in PS.

But I am so curious about, " uses layers in a far more sophisticated manner than what Photoshop CC will ever .."

 

 

 

"...  or my CAD software ..."  I used Cimex and AutoCAD while at Hallmark but I can't even imagine editing photos in AutoCAD !

What level would you put yourself in with your proficiency using PS?  I am just an average user but I have witnessed some of the real PS guru's and it is nothing short of amazing to unbelievable.  Hallmark has some of the best in the business there is.  Maybe in the world!

EB
EOS 1DX and 1D Mk IV and less lenses then before!


@ebiggs1 wrote:

You will love Hdrsoft Photomatix Pro 5.0, HDR software.  It is considered the best by the pros.

It is seemless with LR like you indicated, also in PS.

But I am so curious about, " uses layers in a far more sophisticated manner than what Photoshop CC will ever .."

 

 

 

"...  or my CAD software ..."  I used Cimex and AutoCAD while at Hallmark but I can't even imagine editing photos in AutoCAD !

What level would you put yourself in with your proficiency using PS?  I am just an average user but I have witnessed some of the real PS guru's and it is nothing short of amazing to unbelievable.  Hallmark has some of the best in the business there is.  Maybe in the world!


 

I have used AutoCAD strictly for its' layer capabilities.  I have tried the Photoshop CC, and really liked it.  I'm no fan of the Creative Cloud recurring revenue cycle.  One of my laptops has Elements 10 on it, and has so far served al of my needs.  Like you, my image edditing needs are pretty basic.  The only feature in Photoshop CC that I don't think I can do in Elements is creating a cinemagraph.  Don't know if this will work, but here goes ...

 

Plotter_Video_Loop.gif

 

I have used Paint Dot Net for years to make minor edits on images.  It is perfectly capable of creating an image that can servee as a layer mask.  AutoCAD also allows you to define a geometric shape to trim an image.  It can also output images at whatever resolution I desire.  What it cannot do is actual image processing; i.e. building panorama and HDR images. 

In fact, I'm getting more profecient with Elements 10.  I rarely find myself using Paint Dot Net to edit images, anymore.  I use Elements to remove unwanted items from shots, too.  Like I said, I have not found a pressing need to upgrade to the newest Elements, and have not find Photoshop CC to worth the investment for me, an enthusiastic hobbyist. ... ... which does not mean that I have completely ruled it out.  After all, I did purchase LR6.  Unfortunately, you cannot purchase just Phtotoshop by itself, without also purchasing LR6.  That is the biggest stopping point for me and PS CC.

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"The right mouse button is your friend."

I have a MUCH better cinemagraph of a full sheet gracefully flowing out and coming to a rest, but it is too large to post here.  It is similar to the shot in the Canon tutorial on shooting a cinemagraph.  I'm looking for the link to the article .... ....

 

http://learn.usa.canon.com/resources/articles/2015/how_to_create_cinemgraphs.shtml

 

 

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"The right mouse button is your friend."

AutoCad Layers:  In Photoshop, you have  that little area on the lower right to control your layers.  It works fine for up to a point.  I was editing a shot with about a dozen images, and their associated masks, and was going nuts scrolling through that little window. 

 

I found it much easier create copies of the edited images, and insert them into AutoCAD on separate layers, stacking each one on top of the others.  Transparent portions of images work exactly the same way in AutoCAD as they do in Phbotoshop.  The biggest advantage of PS is that edits to images do not have to be permanent, even after saving an edited image.

 

Changing the order in which images stack up is easier in CAD than in PS.  AutoCAD allows you to create sheet sets, which I have adapted to create image sets.  I don't have to stack dozen images on top of one another, I can do it in stages, and have AutoCAD build the final stack on the fly when I publish the image set.

 

[EDIT]

In one sense, I guess you say that I use AutoCAD to make a digital print [an image file] of all of the edits.  I've been creating a very complex image.  Think of how two mirrors reflecting in one another create an image sequence that goes to infinity.  I've been doing something similar to that. 

 

It involves several dozen shots that are all masked and layered into one final image.  I've taken a picture of a person sitting at a conference room table.  But, the person is sitting multiple positions around the table; once at the head of the table, two on the left and two on the right.  You're looking at the conference room table lenghtwise, and the 6th person appears as the back of their head towars the bottom of the shot.

 

On the wall, behind the subject at the head of the table is a LARGE conference room screen from a video projector that is projecting the same scene of the people sitting around the confernce table, except they are in slightly different poses.  In fact, each person at the table is sitting in front of a laptop with an image of all of the people sitting around the table, minus the laptops, but each person in the laptop image has a different set of poses and their laptops.

 

The idea is that the people at the table are haggling over how to create "the shot" that appears on the large video screen.  Each person sitting at the table has their own idea of poses, clothing, etc, which you can see on their laptop screens.

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"The right mouse button is your friend."

So do you actually have PS?  Or did you just try it?  It sounds like you need a course in PS from the local community college.

I have found that foks that make your claims don't really know how to use PS or even how to set it up.

I agree that PSE is fine for most people but it is not PS.  Way much less is LR than either.

 

Last time I saw, AutoCAD was even more expensive than PS.  It has been 15 years since I used AutoCAD but at the time I was very good at it.  I doubt I could even open a file now!  Remember there is a reason, no pro I know of or even ever heard of uses AtuoCAD for editing pictures.

EB
EOS 1DX and 1D Mk IV and less lenses then before!

@Ernie

 

I actually tried the 30-day trial for Photoshop Creative Cloud.  I had been using LR6 for a couple of months after I discovered that it can compensate for lenses and cameras better than DPP could.  Photoshop Elements 10 was on a laptop that I purchased several years ago to scan old photos and save them in a digital archive. 

 

I've been writing software for decades for various types of systems, mostly dedicated industrial control systems.  I use Autocad to design those systems, which I have been doing since Release 2 in the late 1980s.  AutoCAD is quite a powerful graphics engine and design tool.  I've even created some images of 3D objects from time to time.

 

HopeLogo_3D_Grey.jpg

A48Va5ECcAAh0gF.jpg

 

AutoCAD has been used in Hollywood quite extensively.  There are sophisticated add-ons that are used to create sophisticated CGI, especially cityscapes.  Two good examples that come to mind are the Godzilla movie and the Star Wars trilogy from a decade ago.  There are packages to do everything from direwolves to water to dragons to flames.

 

The above image is actually a frame from a short,digitally animated video that I crreated of political campaign logos chasing about through space.  The logo depicted above encountered a Death Star version of its' opponent.  AutoCAD is used as a digital printer, frame by frame.  Movment is created by programmiing movement into a virtual camera that is looking at 3D models.  If you have ever seen a documentary on how they used to make models of spaceships and film them with motion control cameras, then you get the idea.  They just do it inside of a computer now, instead of buying all of that hardware.

 

So, why have I been using AutoCAD?  It is what I had on hand when I first resumed photography over a year ago.  Following some major surgery, my doctor ordered me to get out and do some walking.  Initially, power walks were well beyond what I could do, but I could walk, point and shoot, and repeat for up to half an hour.  This past summer I've gone on longer excursion, but still no power walks..

 

I mention this because photography has been a fair weather sport for me so far.  I mentioned that I resumed it.  I used to travel a lot during the course of my work, and carried an SLR around with me a lot, a Minolta.  I gave it up when they came out with the disposable cameras, which were adequate for what I was doing.  So, I dug out my old SLR and discovered that photography had gone digital.  GREAT.  I bought a Rebel T5, and began walking in the parks, slong the beaches, etc.. 

 

Don't get me wrong,  I am really intrigued by PS CC, but I come from the old school of buying software, and renting a program is out of character for me.  So far, I haven't found cause to upgrade to it.  You're probably right about me needing to learn more about what all PS can do.  Don't worry.  I have not ruled it out.  Perhaps someday I'll break down kicking and screaming, and go ahead and pay the rent for it.  I already have LR6, and cannot see myself paying to rent another copy  of it.  Bad Adobe.

 

[EDIT]  AutoCAD allows me to easily work with dozens, or even hundreds, of layers at a time.  I can also use it combine CGI with actual live photos.  It it likely that will upgrade to PS CC whenever they release LR7.

 

BTW, "the shot" that I envisioned just above uses AutoCAD to digitally create the reflections [in the laptops] out to infinity, just like what you would see in a pair of mirrors.  The "reflections", which are captured in the digitally generated large screen in the background, are being created dynamically, or RECURSIVELY,  on the fly as AutoCAD "publishes" the final image.  Publish is a newer command from when you last used it.  It's a digital way way of creating a plot to file.  The images that are being used on the various layers are being constructed at runtime.   I use Microsoft's Visual Studio to do the programming which costs several times more than AutoCAD.

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"The right mouse button is your friend."

Well those are nice and colorful but can you show me in steps how you edit a photograph im AutoCAD?

 

 As far as layers go, I don't know what the upper limit is in PS.  I have used 25 or so.  Normally a dozen is about it.  I am not a PS guru but I know my way around.  I have watched some guys that were absolutely fantastic with PS and they can get the picture quite complicated.  Too, much for my feeble brain.

 

We used AutioAD for blueprints and to create tool paths for laser cutters.

 

I, too, was given the "go for a long walk", or perhaps it may have been, "take a hike!" advice from my doctor. I usually take one or two 1 series cameras and a big tele.  So, I hope that makes the "walks" more beneficial.  I do hope the walks are doing you some good and you have a great holiday season.

EB
EOS 1DX and 1D Mk IV and less lenses then before!

I don't use AutoCAD to do everything.  I've already said that I don't edit images in AutoCAD.  I use it to assemble final images for a collection of sub-images.  It is useful for recursion, which means taking the output and feeding it back into the input.  When you see images of two mirrors reflecting in one another to infinity is one example of a recursive image.

 

Remember the projection screen in conference room example?  Things start off with several images of the same person appearing in different seats around the table, which is simple enough to do.  You would need a layer for each person, a masking layer for each person, and a background image layer.

 

But, I want that same scene to appear on the projection screen.  When the above shot is assembled, the screen is big blank.  Now I need to introduce some "feedback" into the image, almost like what you would see in two reflected mirrors. 

 

For the first iteration of the recursion, I would need to reconstruct the image of people sitting aorund the conference room table, but this time I would add the initial image [the previous image] to the projection screen.  Now I have an image of people sitting around the room with their image on the projection screen, except the image on the screen is blank.  The output is sent to a viewport, where an output image file is published.

 

For the second iteration fo the recurion, I would repeat the steps from the first recursion, by including the previously generated image file as what is seen on the projection screen.  The new output image will have the people sitting around the table once again, but now the screen shows an image of the room full of people with an image on the projection screen.  Except, the image on the screen is the original shot of the room, taken when the screen is blank.

 

I would need at least a thrid iteration before the size of a blank projection screen, as seen on the projection screen, would be too small for the eye to see.  Of course, all of this can be done by hand, one iteration at a time.  But, by automating the process in my CAD software, not only can I tune the image precisely, I can make as many iterations as I care to execute simply by doing a copy and paste.

 

Without automation, the alternative woulld be to take the original shots of people sitting around the table.  Assemble a final image, and project it onto the screen.  Take another set of pictures of people seated at each postion around the table, but with the projection screen now lit up.  Now the entire process will have to repeat itself a few times until the original blank projection screen is too small to see.

 

Whew,...  ...

 

Now imagine the same process occurring on each of the laptop screens sitting on the table in front of each individual, but each laptop has an obvous difference from the other laptop screens. Let's say the first laptop shows every one wearing a red shirt, the next shows everyone with a blue shirt, and so forth.

 

All of this can be done by hand, but it would take time to build the images that are visible on each screen.  It would be a production designer's nightmare to align every shot to precisely the same positions everytime you needed to re-shoot the scene of every one sitting around the table. 

 

If I automate the process, by recursively generating the intermediate images, I would only need to shoot one set of photos, and then do the rest entirely in post.  Yes, you could do it by hand entirely in post, but there would be number of repetitive steps that would need to be initiated by the person doing the post.  Computers are really good at that sort of stuff.

 

Imagine running a batch process on a set of images, but each successive image to be processed in the batch has a critical dependency on the previous image that was just processed.  That's recursion.  It's a fancy way of saying loop.  If you haven't used ACAD for a good fifteen years, then there are a lot of features and commands that would be foreign to you.  In particular, how sheet sets are published.  In the past, you would write a script in a batch file.  Now the proces is entirely automated, and is list driven.

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"The right mouse button is your friend."

You've lost me.  I think I will go for a walk.

EB
EOS 1DX and 1D Mk IV and less lenses then before!
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