November 2011 - Intentional camera movement during the exposure

[Marko]

Hi members,

The level 2 assignment this month is Intentional camera movement during the exposure.

Here are a few links to help you get started if you've never payed with this before - Flickr: ICM - Intentional Camera Movement - 12.000+ great submissions! (http://www.flickr.com/groups/intenionalcameramovement/)

IMO, Michael Orton (http://michaelortonphotography.com) is one of the Masters of this technique. I recorded an intentional camera movement (http://www.photography.ca/blog/2011/10/12/moving-your-camera-during-exposure/) podcast with him last month. Feel free to take a listen.

OK then, who will post first?

[scorpio_e]

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6049/6302737262_060144002e_b.jpg

What a great follow up to an inspirational podcast!!! I went out a few days ago and this was the best one out of the batch. I still have a lot to learn

[Marko]

Good first start Scorp! - This technique is difficult to master and Michael has been playing with it for a long, long time.

I was lucky enough to meet him last month and he showed me over 100 recent RAW images that are still unpublished. Frame after frame was FAB! I was COMPLETELY blown away and I've been in photography a long time...it's SERIOUSLY hard to blow me way, it almost never happens actually.

I too have been playing a bit with this technique and i think I have a few decent ones that i will post this month.
I think I'm one of Michael's biggest fans on planet earth; I just love his creative approach, his humility and willingness to share. He is certainly one of my top 5 favorite modern photographers. His contribution to photography in general is under-rated and under appreciated. More people deserve to know about his work. He SHOULD be world famous and I hope one day he will be. whoa - that went off topic a bit. woops. okay then who will post next?

[scorpio_e]

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6091/6305293821_ef84024c16_b.jpg

Attempt #2

[Marko]

I like this one as well Scorp!

[scorpio_e]

Thanks Marko..I was REALLY inspired by the last podcast. TONS of appreciation to you and Michael Orton for taking time and sharing the technique on the last podcast.

I'll be shooting using this technique again today *LOL*.. I just love the simplicity..No tripod and the randomness of each image. It brings me back to the film days when there was the element of surprise.

[theantiquetiger]

This is my first attempt. I set the speed at 1/15, autofocus, pointed at the trees in my backyard and pressed and rotated at the same time. I really like the small axis of the twist almost in focus.

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6212/6305889889_9378a377de_b.jpg

[Iguanasan]

Very cool results so far... I can't wait to give this a try.

[Marko]

Yup good play AT.

[theantiquetiger]

Scorp, your second shot is pretty awesome!!! It has a water color or pastel chalk painting feel.

[scorpio_e]

Scorp, your second shot is pretty awesome!!! It has a water color or pastel chalk painting feel.

Thanks for the compliment:)

[theantiquetiger]

I did one more today. It was tripod mounted, F6.3, 1600 ISO, 0.4 sec speed. I just turned the camera. I was trying to make a composite by using this shot and a still frame of the same candle, but it did not look good.

I like how this one came out and how the wood on the table is just in focus.

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6235/6307701951_064b819b87_b.jpg

[Matt K.]

Not so much movement of the camera, but rather the zoom lens ...

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6152/6179696643_044e990875_b.jpg

[Matt K.]

found another one .. this time it is camera movement ...

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6173/6179696909_186a0a96c0_b.jpg

[scorpio_e]

^ Well done Matt. I really like this one.

[Iguanasan]

More cool stuff... I tried this yesterday with crappy results... another try this weekend I guess.

[Doug L]

Just after sunup today, I had a lot of fun experimenting with this technique - definitely going to do more another time. I wanted to use the orange palette of the autumn leaves at my favourite hangout - Mud Lake. The best setting more me was Manual. Aperture Priority often produced more brightness than I wanted. On manual, the lens stays at F4.5. Therefore, in order to get longer exposures (approx. 1/4 sec. to 1 sec.) I stacked a couple of neutral density filters on my 50mm lens.The first images I tried were using minimal camera movement but vigorous shaking - they turned out the way I expected - I could still recognize the scenery. Gradually, I experimented with longer, slower camera movements. My favourite (pivot & swoop) shot of the leaf-covered ground at my feet produced a much more dramatic effect than I had envisioned. One note if you try this assignment: I got a few funny looks from passersby on the trail - it must have looked as if I was dancing with my camera. :laughing:

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[Doug L]

Here are two other images from that morning that I liked.

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[Marko]

More fun play everyone!!

[Bambi]

these are awesome. Doug I love your experimentation. this is my poor effort to start but it's a learning curve to be sure
http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6216/6315002024_c85aac0842_z.jpg

[aubintbay]

I see a lot of nice posts in this assignment. Great stuff!!
Heres my first shot at this. Did not turn out at all like I thought it would. This is gonna take some work I can see. Fun work though!

[MartinW]

You guys are good... really diggin' these. :thumbup:

[JustinRyan215]

...http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6052/6323693079_96a99dbb17_z.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/justinryansr/6323693079/)
motion pond (http://www.flickr.com/photos/justinryansr/6323693079/) by Justin Ryan sr (http://www.flickr.com/people/justinryansr/), on Flicker

[Bambi]

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6214/6323856163_8e95670a9f_z.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/bambe1964/6323856163/)
doggy window (http://www.flickr.com/photos/bambe1964/6323856163/) by bambe1964 (http://www.flickr.com/people/bambe1964/), on Flickr

[Doug L]

Over 1700 exposures taken so far for this assignment, and still having fun. Not many keepers each session but the ratio is improving.

Autumn Pillars
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Left image is a streak of dawn glow surrounded by grey clouds. I rotated the shot to get appearance of smoke rising.
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Autumn leaves with tree shadows. To get maximum sharpness of lines over the whole field, I kept the camera parallel with ground during the exposure.
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[casil403]

My take on this month's subject:
K-Country Aspen

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6106/6336374460_70ff4c2cfb_b.jpg

[Marko]

Lovely variety here!!!

[Iguanasan]

Here's my first try.... I find this hard to get a nice shot.

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[Kawarthabob]

Here's my take on it....my guitar broke in the making of this as it slid off the stand after I polished it...

[scorpio_e]

Over 1700 exposures taken so far for this assignment, and still having fun. Not many keepers each session but the ratio is improving.

Autumn Pillars
14038

Left image is a streak of dawn glow surrounded by grey clouds. I rotated the shot to get appearance of smoke rising.
14036

Autumn leaves with tree shadows. To get maximum sharpness of lines over the whole field, I kept the camera parallel with ground during the exposure.
14037

I really like the tree on the right.Well done:)

[scorpio_e]

Love it Casil. I thought no way I was going to even try a zoom blur but it really works for you.. Great image:)

[Doug L]

... my guitar broke in the making of this ...

Sorry to hear about your guitar, but the silver lining is that you ended up with a really nice image - the motion gives the shot impact (no pun intended).

[Kawarthabob]

Sorry to hear about your guitar, but the silver lining is that you ended up with a really nice image - the motion gives the shot impact (no pun intended).

Thanks for the compliment! I thought the finished product was quite unique and am happy with it.

[Doug L]

Two more shots...
During this exposure, I tracked the camera along the curving line of the bent-over tree trunk. This resulted in keeping the tree fairly sharp while blurring the background. I rotated the image 90 degrees to give it an even more 'Dreamworld' appearance. Not a great photo but an interesting experiment.
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The colours of this large decaying flower were smeared out with a small horizontal movement. The 'painted' streaks were well separated from the background because the plant was covered with a light frost and it was sunlit - this gave it more luminence. Specular reflections from the frost became sharp white lines and I think, add to the texture of the 'paint'.
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[Bambi]

these are all so fantastic! Here's my wee attempt again
http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6230/6352119984_894dbb6344_z.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/bambe1964/6352119984/)
ripples (http://www.flickr.com/photos/bambe1964/6352119984/) by bambe1964 (http://www.flickr.com/people/bambe1964/), on Flickr

[Lizardqing]

These are all pretty cool, I need to play around with this myself.

[Doug L]

On Wednesday, we had our first big dump of snow. By Thursday it was melting fast, but I was able to get a few images for this photo assignment. The solid overcast sky blends into the trees, giving the impression there is much more snow than there actually was.

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[Andrew]

Look both ways.

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[Marko]

Nice new additions - Cool mood in your snow shots DougL - especially shot 2

[Doug L]

One last image for this assignment - finished the shot just before midnight last night. It is a combination of two main camera movements. The streaks from the seemingly rising stars -Sirius in trees / lower left, constellation Orion, and the Hyades & Pleiades (Seven Sisters) clusters are caused by the stationary camera being mounted on the spinning planet Earth. After a 30 minute exposure, I covered the lens for 5 minutes and then started the motor on my homemade equatorial mount which moves the camera at the same rate as the earth-spin but in the opposite direction. Uncovering the lens, I exposed for another 15 minutes. This produced star dots at the end of their tracks. The three belt stars in Orion are near the celestial equator as viewed from the Earth. Above these, the startrails curve upwards toward the north celestial pole and below, the trails curve downwards toward the southern one.

Canon XT, Soligor 17mm F3.5 lens (at F8), ISO 100.
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[phonehom]

Here is a few from this past week...

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Bark at Long Lake

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Herbert River landscape

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Lining back up Herbert River

(Camera blur, and Tilted horizons, are my specialty, to the dismay of the people I call my 'friends' ;-)
-dTy

[mbrager]

I know this assignment is over, but when I went out to shoot Christmas lights I accidentally touched the remote shutter release a couple of times, and then had to wait several seconds for the time exposures to finish. These both looked pretty cool to me. Happy accidents. The assignment is now complete.

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7150/6488532409_fb244dff36_b.jpg

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7014/6488535521_319f8cc352_b.jpg

[Marko]

I guess there is no rule on posting after the fact. LOL.
Just wanted to say that i love the variety here and all the attempts members have made!
This is a fun technique to play with. Difficult as hell to master, but fun to play with.