Time Trap Photography

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Sourced by Time Trap Photography sharing the best photography tips, news and tricks throughout the industry. Time Trap Photography is dedicated to freezing those special moments in life that can be revisited and admired for generations to come. - Shannon Bourque
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30. April 2023

Unknown 4:17:00 AM

Das Bild des Tages von: Steven Maess

Der Ausblick führt uns zurück in ein Winterwunderland.
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Saturday, April 29, 2023

browserfruits 18.2023

Unknown 10:20:00 PM

Ich habe vielleicht das fast Unmögliche geschafft: Nach Wochen gibt es endlich wieder eine Ausgabe der browserfruits ohne einen einzigen Link zum Thema KI. Auch wenn das Internet gerade voll damit ist, gibt es gefühlt nichts wirklich Neues zu berichten. Irgendwie ist das doch ganz schön, so eine kleine Ruhe im Sturm.
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29. April 2023

Unknown 4:18:00 AM

Das Bild des Tages von: Lutze Wild

Heute gibt es einen Ausblick aus dem Bahnfenster.
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Friday, April 28, 2023

19 Stunning Examples Of Black & White Minimalist Photos

Unknown 6:47:00 AM

As the saying goes, “less is more,” and black and white minimal photographs convey this concept perfectly. While this genre of photography might seem simple, it's still challenging because black and white photography is not defined in only two colours. There are many shades of grey, ranging from the blackest black to the whitest white, and they should be used in creative ways in order to get a truly stunning monochrome photograph.

Indeed black and white is an amazing medium, and if you want to learn how to emulate the masters of black and white photography, please take a look at Kent DuFault's Better Black And White Guide.

The following examples of minimal b&w photographs are excellent not only because of the interesting arrangement of various shades of grey but also because of their strong, eye-catching compositions.

We hope these inspire you to shoot (or convert) your more minimalist photos to black and white

Convert Your Images To Dramatic Black And White

Studying these striking minimalist images in black and white is a way to get inspiration and to get your creative juices flowing.

The Better Black And White Guide – will ensure you get images that are timeless.

If you are interested, this guide will teach you everything you need to know about controlling tone and contrast to get the images you want. Click here now to check it out.

[thrive_text_block color=”note” headline=””]The Better Black And White Guide – will ensure you get images that are timeless. Do check out Kent DuFault's guide as it will teach you everything you need to know about converting your images to black and white. Click here now to take a look [/thrive_text_block]

Have You Been Inspired By These Striking And Timeless Images?

Make sure you take a look at Kent DuFault's Better Black And White Guide. This is a complete step by step guide to creating stunning black and white conversions – including teaching you everything you need to know about controlling tone and contrast to get the image you want.

If you missed out on your copy last time, it is available again, and on sale right now.

Click here to take a look…

JasenkaG, converting photographs into black and white and keeping it real is not something that is easy, but with the help of the samples and tools above, its achievable. Thanks

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28. April 2023

Unknown 4:20:00 AM

Das Bild des Tages von: Violette Nell

Im Ausblick gibt es ein Portrait mit roten Details.
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Meta Recommits to the Metaverse, AI, and Highlights Instagram Reels Early Successes

Unknown 1:46:00 AM

Things haven't been easy for Facebook ever since it changed its name to Meta.

A white and blue square with the Meta logo, a blue and white Facebook logo. Photo by Dima Solomin

For starters, the competition from TikTok has been quite intense. That's a particularly vexing problem when your main cash cow is Instagram, an app that is, for all intents and purposes, quite similar to TikTok at this point.

And then there's the whole metaverse controversy: What is it? Does it have a future? Does anyone care?

Well, if you’re Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, you care about the metaverse and so does your company.

In a response to naysayers that had dismissed the company's efforts in that area so far, the wunderkind founder doubled down on his commitment to this emerging niche.

“A narrative has developed that we’re somehow moving away from focusing on the metaverse vision, so I just want to say up front that that’s not accurate…We’ve been focusing on AI and the metaverse, and we will continue to.”

Meta is also looking into the current hot topic, artificial intelligence.

In fact, the company credits artificial intelligence with a recent surge in audience retention on its popular Instagram app. Apparently, audiences spent up to 24% more time on average on the app thanks to its “TikTok-style AI Reel recommendations,” TechCrunch reports.

The success has given the company greater insights into the popularity of short-form video and, hopefully for their sake, some ideas on how to monetize it in the future. Interestingly, Meta CFO Susan Li speculated that the increased popularity of Reels may have come at the expense of stories and other content on the platform.

As for the metaverse and AI as well as the future of computing, Zuckerberg outlined a vision in which the augmented reality metaverse experience is powered by an OS driven by artificial intelligence. It’s all quite heady stuff when you really think about it but, from our corner of the world, we can’t help but wonder what kind of impact the world’s largest photo and video-sharing platforms’ integration of artificial intelligence will have on photography as a medium and art.

Do you think the metaverse has a future? What role do you see AI playing in such a future? Let us know your thoughts on Meta’s latest news in the comments below.

Check out some of our other photography news headlines at this link.

[TechCrunch]

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Thursday, April 27, 2023

27. April 2023

Unknown 4:22:00 AM

Das Bild des Tages von: Tom Scholl

Im Ausblick begegnen wir jemandem zufällig.
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4 Key Lightroom Tips For Sharper Eyes In Portraits

Unknown 1:46:00 AM

The eyes of the subject are usually the first thing we notice when we look at portraits, and they are what grabs the viewer's attention in a portrait. If the eyes of your subject don’t look expressive enough, the portrait can’t be truly memorable. You can capture tack sharp eyes in a portrait by following certain tips and taking care of the camera settings when capturing the portrait, like choosing the right lens, using back button focus, setting the focus point right on the eyes, choosing the right shutter speed (at least reciprocal of twice the focal length), and also enhance the look of a portrait and make it stand out by having a reasonably blurry background.

So, how do you get sharp eyes in photography?

When you shoot portraits, it is also important to check a sample preview by zooming in to see if the eyes are in sharp focus. Sometimes you may not have perfectly focused eyes dues to slightly missed focus, shooting using a wide aperture, other focusing errors, etc. Because of this, it’s really important to learn how to enhance the eyes during post-processing using the Adjustment Brush tool in Lightroom or any photo editing software that you use. Some programs may also come with an auto mask feature for the eyes.

When editing portraits, to enhance your subject’s eyes, you should do the following things – enhance the eye color and iris clarity, emphasize a dark line around the iris (limbal ring), lighten the white of the eye, and add some definition to the eyelashes. Besides, if there are slightly blurry eyes or soft eyes, you may want to use the clarity and textures slider alongside the sharpness tool to bring in details to the eyes.

We’ll explain these four editing strategies step by step!

1. Enhancing The Iris Color And Clarity

In case the eyes lack detail and vibrancy, that’s the first thing you should work on – enhancing eyes by bringing in a pop to the iris color and increasing clarity a bit.

Every eye will require the sliders of the Brush to be somewhat different – there is no universal remedy! Sometimes it helps to add a bit of sharpness and clarity, while in other cases adding a little saturation can work great. Be careful not to overdo saturation which is a common mistake many photographers make because it can make eyes appear really weird and plasticky.

If the catch lights (reflection of light from the light source) look too prominent, you can also decrease the highlights to make them softer.

In case you don’t know how to position the sliders properly, you can start with the Iris Enhance effect. You can find it in the Effect dropdown of the Brush. It’s quite easy to use and alter this preset effect.

iris enhance in Lightroom — Enhancing iris in Lightroom

2. Making The Limbal Ring Darker

Adding a dark ring to the outside of the iris can make the eyes much more dramatic and alluring. We naturally have this dark ring around the iris – it’s called the limbal ring. We usually correlate limbal ring thickness with health or youthfulness, and it may contribute to facial attractiveness.

In order to enhance the limbal ring, you can choose and adjust the Burn effect in the Effect dropdown of the Adjustment Brush. You should use a very small brush so that you can darken the limbal ring in a precise way. This will also add some contrast to the portrait in general.

darkening limbal right in Lightroom — Darkening limbal ring in Lightroom

3. Fixing The Whites Of The Eyes

This isn't a necessary edit, but it can be quite important if the whites of the eyes aren't looking good. You certainly don’t want your subject to look tired in photos. A slight edit to brighten eyes can do the trick.

You should grab a small brush and choose the Dodge effect in the Effect dropdown of the Adjustment Brush – bear in mind that you might need to increase or decrease the exposure! You should definitely stay away from lightening the whites of the eyes too much.

In case the whites of the eyes of your subject appear yellowish, you can change their color temperature (make it bluish) and/or decrease the saturation if necessary.

editing the whites of the eyes in Lightroom — Fixing the whites of the eyes in Lightroom

4. Adding Definition To The Eyelashes

The final step in enhancing your subject’s eyes is making the lashes and lash line more prominent, darker, and richer. If you’re editing fashion portraits, you can use the smallest brush size and darken individual lashes – this is quite important for close-up images.

You can start by choosing and adjusting the Burn effect in the Effect dropdown of the Adjustment Brush. After you’re done with darkening, you can also increase the Clarity a little bit – not more than +30. The eyelashes of your model will look much more vibrant after this edit.

adding definition to the lashes in Lightroom — Adding definition to the lashes in Lightroom

Once everything is done, you should compare your ’’before and after’’ images and add some additional tweaks if necessary. If your model has some visible blood vessels in the eyes, you can remove them with the Healing Brush tool in Lightroom or Photoshop!

before and after editing eye photos — Before and after

Just be careful not to cross the boundary between editing the eyes to make them look better and editing them so much that they start to look bad or unreal.

If you want to learn more about capturing and editing eyes in portraits, feel free to check out the following links!

Further Resources:

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Wednesday, April 26, 2023

Getting To Grips With ISO Invariance

Unknown 5:47:00 AM

What if I offered you something for nothing? Your response will invariably be, what’s the catch? Iso invariance does offer you something for nothing, but there are, of course, catches.

But what is ISO invariance, why does it matter, and do we really need to use it? Also, what are ISO invariant cameras? Read on to learn more about ISO invariance and how it can benefit you.

These are questions that I hope to answer in a relatively simple way today. Simple because the technical aspects of ISO invariance are more than my brain can cope with. However, behind those technical complexities lie an interesting and useful function, one that might be more useful than you originally thought. So, how to use iso invariance, and is it available on your digital camera at all?

But before we look at ISO invariance, we should really take a quick look at ISO itself.

What Is ISO? And What Is Iso Invariant Sensor?

Like many of the technical aspects of photography, ISO has its roots way back in the days of film. It was a term used to denote the speed of a film, it’s sensitivity to light. As we progressed to the digital age, we swapped celluloid for sensors. Sensors had one base ISO, its default sensitivity. With film, we could easily swap out a slow film for a fast one if required. With a digital sensor, that was clearly impossible. However, what engineers could do with sensors is boost the signal that comes from the sensor. In this way, we get extended iso values.

Needless to say, extended ISO range is something that helps digital photography a lot!

Low light shots of Porto Portugal to demonstrate high ISO value — At full screen, it's difficult to see any difference in ISO. By Jason Row Photography

Noise Performance And Iso Invariance

That boosting of the signal was given the ISO scale so that we photographers had an easy way to reference the way the sensitivity changes. In other words, 100 to 200 ISO value was a one-stop increase in sensitivity, a doubling of the amount of light the camera would capture.

However, boosting the signal came at a cost, more electrical interference. This interference manifested itself as noise in our images. This was very similar looking to the increased grain we experienced with higher ISO films, only it was produced in a very different way.

Zoomed in shot to show high ISO noise. This can be fixed in post processing but not completely. — When you zoom in, the differences become very apparent. By Jason Row Photography

ISO Invariance Explained: What Is An Iso Invariant Camera

Some modern cameras have the ability to obtain a similar image quality either by using a high ISO in the camera or by shooting at a low ISO and bumping the exposure in post-production. This is the basics of ISO invariance, the camera is effectively ISO agnostic. Not all cameras, even the very latest have this feature but many do. A quick Google search should reveal if your camera does have this capability. Many digital cameras nowadays are iso invariant cameras.

Camera Settings: ISO, Aperture And Shutter Speed

So how does this work in the real world? Well, let’s say you need a high ISO to freeze some action in a low-light scenario. Normally you would bump the ISO up so that it matches your required shutter speed. For example, you would shoot a shutter speed of 1/2000th of a second at f/2.8 with an ISO of 6400.

With an ISO invariant camera, you could take that ISO back down to the base level of 200 but maintain the same shutter speed and aperture. The resultant image would, of course, be very, very dark, but the magic happens in post-production. High iso values don't have to create noisy images if you have an iso invariant camera.

Two shots demonstrating ISO invariance — Comparison of 5 stops under with native ISO files. By Jason Row Photography

Post Processing Software

In something like Lightroom, we would move the exposure slider to the right to boost the exposure level of the image. Properly exposed images are a must! In this particular scenario, we would add five stops of exposure to the shot. The resultant image should look very similar in quality to the one shot at an ISO value of 6400. They won’t always be identical, but noise and contrast levels will be broadly similar. Current post processing allows for such digital amplification.

Close zoom demonstrating ISO invariance in cameras — Looking up close, there is very little difference in noise levels. By Jason Row Photography

Why Would You Use Iso Invariance?

Ok, so this all sounds like a neat trick, but why would I want to use ISO invariance? After all, if the image noise is broadly similar, why bother? There are two reasons why you might use ISO invariance.

The first is that by shooting at the base ISO, you will have a greater dynamic range than when using a much higher ISO. This is partially maintained when you move the exposure slider to the right. This can be particularly useful in low-light scenes where you might have an abundance of artificial lights in the scene. These may be more prone to blow out in a higher ISO shot, and as we know, blown highlights are pretty much unrecoverable.

It's essential to understand the exposure triangle whenever you deal with changing aperture and shutter speed along with ISO value.

Another Way To Use ISO Invariance Explained

The other reason is more interesting. By using masks in post-production, we can effectively have an image that has multiple different ISO levels. For example, say I shot a very dark and stormy landscape with an incredibly dramatic sky at base ISO. The resulting image is way too dark because I wanted a high shutter speed to freeze motion in the trees and grass.

In post-production, if I bring up the exposure slider, I will lighten the whole image. This may be fine, but I might well lose that stormy-looking sky.

However, I can bring the exposure up just enough to maintain that stormy-looking sky. The result is that the foreground will be very dark. However, by using Lightroom masking, I can select the foreground and boost the exposure more bringing a better balance to the image. There is an added bonus in that we will have less noise in the sky; noise in the skies can be very prominent because it effectively has a lower ISO than the foreground.

Masked sky in an ISO invariant image — Using ISO invariance to hold a sky using masking. By Jason Row Photography

What Are The Drawbacks Of Using ISO Invariance?

So what of those catches we mentioned? Well, first of all, and as said, not all cameras have this capability, especially older cameras. Secondly, many cameras that do have ISO invariance do not do it as well as some other cameras. They are more restricted to what ISO levels you can use. The Fuji X-T4 and X-H2s that I use seem particularly well suited to using ISO invariance with good results up to an ISO 6400 equivalence. However, with most cameras, go beyond that, and you will not see such good results.

ISO invariance is an interesting tool. It’s probably not something that you will need to use on a day-to-day basis; however, when the time arises and you need to, for example maintain a stormy sky or protect some highlights, it’s a very useful function to have. The final images can be exactly what you are looking for thanks to this feature, which is great in low light conditions, night photography, landscape photography and so on.

To learn more about the ISO invariance feature, feel free to ask us questions in the comment section below.

26. April 2023

Unknown 4:18:00 AM

Das Bild des Tages von: JC Scot Images

Im Ausblick wächst ein einsamer Baum.
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DJI Debuts the New Mavic 3 Pro Drone

Unknown 12:46:00 AM

It feels like it’s been a long time since we’ve told you about a new drone.

white DJI Mavic Mini — White DJI Mavic Mini. Photo by Janosch Diggelmann

And, even then, usually, we're telling you about how new products can’t be found in the market, due to shortages of chips or some other important component.

Either way, it is refreshing to talk about new tech that’s on its way. It makes everything feel somewhat normal again.

Of course, with all of the controversy surrounding DJI, who knows what the future holds but, for now, it looks like we’re going to get a new drone in the Mavic line.

Sporting a three-camera array, the new DJI Mavic 3 Pro drone looks set to be the new standard for photographers in this space.

As mentioned above, the three cameras include a wide angle and two telephoto cameras. The main camera is a Hasselblad 4/3 20-megapixel camera with a 24 mm equivalent lens. The second is a 70 mm equivalent 48-megapixel camera with an F/2.8 aperture. As for the telephoto camera, it is a 166 mm equivalent 12-megapixel camera with an F/3.4 aperture, PopPhoto reports.

In terms of performance, it will have 43 minutes of flight time, Apple ProRes support, video transmission up to 15 km, 5.1 K video up to 50 frames per second, or 4K video up to 120 frames per second. The upgraded Pro Cine model offers one terabyte of storage.

Pre-orders for the drone are available now with a starting price of $USD 2199. That’s a little on the pricey side as more than a few people have pointed out but the performance and capabilities should more than make it worth it.

To find out for yourself, you can watch a video showing off the drone on YouTube at this link.

Any thoughts that you might have on DJI’s new drone are welcome in the comment section below.

Be sure to check out some of our other photography news at this link.

[PopPhoto]

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Tuesday, April 25, 2023

Will Copyright Claims Companies Be The Saviour Of The Stock Industry?

Unknown 5:45:00 AM

Copyright is a thorny issue among photographers. Some of us are happy to let people use our images for free or for credit, and that’s fine. It’s your prerogative to do so. Others who work professionally need to charge or license our work.

I have never really bought into the concept that people giving away images for free are damaging the photographic industry. What is damaging to the photographic industry is that subsection of people believe that because an image is on the Internet, it’s free for them to use. This is not a small subsection either. There are many reasons why people steal images, not always to do with money. There is, however, a fightback in the form of copyright enforcement agencies. Today we are going to look at whether they can save the stock photography industry.

Sunsets behind the The Seema Malaka Temple in Colombo — My most sold and most stolen image. By Jason Row Photography

Who Steals Images?

Let’s start with the people who steal images. First of all, you may be surprised that it’s not just naive or financially strapped bloggers. I have recently won copyright cases against one of the largest media companies in Spain and also against a huge English-language newspaper in Taiwan. I currently still have a case against the Turkish division of one of America’s best-known news outlets. They have been ignoring my copyright enforcement agency for three years.

The fact is, there is no stereotypical image stealer. It can be the aforementioned blogger. However, more often is small to medium-sized businesses. Occasionally it's multi-national corporations. Very often, particularly in the case of small to medium companies, it’s actually their web design companies that are at fault. Whilst the majority of web designers are conscientious and fully aware of copyright laws, some, particularly ones that might be working to tight budgets, can deliberately overlook illegal image usage. They might sometimes get away with this because it’s actually the owner of the offending website that will be sued for copyright abuse, not the web designer. The website owner would then have to sue the web designer to compensate them for the fines.

Aerial drone image of Langeron Beach and Shevchenka Park in Odessa Ukraine — Legally licensed by The Guardian in the UK but widely stolen from that article. By Jason Row Photography

Why Are Images Stolen?

Probably the primary reason is cost. The main demographic for that scenario is the low-budget blogger who does not have the money to invest in stock images. Another reason is what we talked about above, web design companies that are trying to produce work for clients, either on the cheap or to come in well below budget.

However, there is a subsection of this demographic who simply make a genuine mistake. In this scenario, the web designer has used a stock image as a placeholder, then simply forgotten to license it. These images will still have the copyright watermark of the respective agency. However, their own inefficiency or lack of quality control is not an acceptable excuse.

For larger companies, the most common type of copyright theft comes through guest bloggers. The bloggers submit articles to the social media editor, who then fails to check the provenance of the images used.

There is one last demographic that steals images, and that is the people who think images should not be copyrighted. Ironically these people are often artists themselves, usually in a different field to photographers. They are happy to make money from their own work but equally happy to prevent a fellow artist from making money by stealing their work. When contacted, they often use the phrase, “We artists should stick together”. They have a belief that there is some form of universal copyright between artists.

Parliament and Big Ben at Sunset and dusk in central — A major Tawainese media company illegally used this image. It took three years to get compensation. By Jason Row Photography

The Fight Back

Recent years have seen the rise of the copyright enforcement agency. These companies employ Google’s reverse image search technology to scour the internet for images. You can upload substantial batches of images to them, and they will show you all the hits. You then have to decide if that image is being used illegally or not.

I have used a company called Copytrack for several years with some success, getting four-figure sums in compensation most years. They do not go after the low-budget or naive blogger, only people or companies that are profiting from their websites, i.e., commercial sites. I don’t have a problem with this; commercial sites should know better. A single blogger can be contacted individually and asked to remove the image. If he or she refuses, then you can use the DMCA system.

There is a problem with copyright enforcement agencies when it comes to stock photography, however. The problem is that stock agencies do not provide any details of who purchases an image license. Ostentatiously this is to protect their own business. However, it does allow copyright abusers to steal with a certain amount of impunity.

I have a workflow that helps me eliminate most, if not all, images that have been licensed. Anything after that is fair game, and I will submit them to the copyright enforcement agency. The agency will accept or reject the claim based on its own criteria. These include things such as whether the site is commercial, where a third party could have uploaded the image, and, probably most important, the geographical location of the offender.

I would estimate only about 5% of my claims come back to me in the form of compensation. That’s not a huge percentage, but in monetary terms, it’s more than useful. Where Copytrack and other agencies struggle is in countries where there are little to no copyright protections. For me, the biggest offenders are China, Russia, Turkey, Iran, and Egypt.

Mid level drone shot of St Michaels Mount Cornwall with the full moon behind — A web designer claimed he forgot to license this image. He never paid. By Jason Row Photography

Will Copyright Companies Save Stock Photography?

I think the actual answer is no. There is such a massive gulf between different country’s laws on copyright that it’s pretty easy for people in certain locations to steal without recourse. What it may do is reduce the number of copyright thefts in more legally advanced countries and, in turn, improve the education of people that use images.

Copyright theft has only a small influence on the health of the stock industry. There are many other factors at play, not least the competition between the agencies themselves, forcing prices down. That’s a good thing for the image buyer but a bad thing for the stock contributor.

The stock agencies could help both photographers and copyright enforcers more by providing more details about image use. It does not have to be in-depth details, but even providing company type and location would make it easier for photographers to determine if an image has been licensed or not.

Whilst copyright enforcement agencies may not save the stock industry, they are helping photographers get paid or compensated for their work and, in turn, raising awareness of the issue of copyright infringement. That can only be a good thing.

25. April 2023

Unknown 5:19:00 AM

Das Bild des Tages von: Christof Timmermann

Im Ausblick finden wir ganz viel Freude auf einen besonderen Tag.
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Monday, April 24, 2023