Hit and Miss 2020 Project Thread - Skitterbug aka Sandy

[Manfred M]

Your post (quoted above) about how easy it is to edit the image using GIMP, stirs my curiosity about the program.

This functionality is pretty standard in any pixel based editor, like Photoshop or Affinity Photo.

That being said, I'm not sure that Ted's edit works for me. It reminds me of the view looking through one of those "peep holes" in doors. You have an disembodied view that shows nothing other than the refracted image from the sphere. The context shown in your original is missing.

[ST1]

I attended as a guest a local camera club evening earlier this week. One of the members gave a presentation on his experiences of using a glass sphere like this. In his presentation he started with his initial images generally these consisted of him holding the sphere at arms length whilst try to make an image with a handheld DSLR. By his own admission he very soon realised that that technique wasn’t good. Strangely his first OK sort of image was with the sphere positioned on a fallen tree. His sphere included a glass stand/cube on which the sphere sat. He then went on to mount the cube and sphere on to a tripod and making images firstly one without the sphere in shot to obtain a focussed background. He then made an image using the sphere with the background in focus through it. The two images were then combined by selecting the sphere only from the second image rotating it to match the orientation of the background, that round selection could them be positioned onto the background either centrally or randomly. Both parts of the combined image being in focus.
One issue he quickly identified was the spurious artefacts that would be present in the sphere be it reflections of his camera/lens or whatever the sphere was place on.
His better images were those he made in a studio type of environment. These tended to be abstract where he placed the sphere on it stand/tripod/tabletop, with it in front of a nine reflective black background in a darkened room. He had a 0.3 metre of free space behind and between the sphere that enabled him to wave small coloured LED lights in the free space behind the sphere.
I found these images to be more effective than his earlier landscape type.
Having said all of that the most telling aspect of the talk was that the presenter had donated the sphere, stand and LED lights to the camera club for its members to use!
I hadn’t seen the type of LED lights he was demonstrating my curiosity made me ask where he purchased them. Here’s a link to them, I’m sure other suppliers may be out there:-
https://www.amazon.com/TORCHSTAR-Hal...1372193&sr=8-6

PS. I have one of these Lensball spheres, I think it has been with me for about eighteen months, without ever being used. Be aware of the potential for the sphere to create burns/fire in bright sunlight!


Sent from somewhere in Gods County using Tapatalk

[xpatUSA]

Hi Ted - Thank you for your clarifying reply in post #38 about [diffraction].

Your post (quoted above) about how easy it is to edit the image using GIMP, stirs my curiosity about the program. I will take another look at it and see if I can also use it as easily as you say it is to use!

Hello again, Sandy. Just so's we're clear, I did not mean that the GIMP itself is easy to use! The user interface is complex and quite non-intuitive, so I'm not sure personally that you would like it for general use ... I don't.

That particular edit on your image was reasonably easy for a novice GIMP-dude such as myself, but it wasn't immediately obvious to me how to do it.

[skitterbug]

This functionality is pretty standard in any pixel based editor, like Photoshop or Affinity Photo.

That being said, I'm not sure that Ted's edit works for me. It reminds me of the view looking through one of those "peep holes" in doors. You have an disembodied view that shows nothing other than the refracted image from the sphere. The context shown in your original is missing.

I think that Ted was demonstrating that the globe could be singled out and placed wherever I wanted it rather than trying to make an image (correct me if I'm wrong Ted). GIMP is an application that does have a learning curve and I haven't ever mastered it. It will require plenty of time and I often don't want to spend it trying to figure it out. In this case however, if I can sort out the selection, it might prove useful.

I still like my initial attempted image but I want to tone down the grain and increase the sharpness of the photo so I have work to do to achieve what I'd like to have for results.

Thanks for your comments and for checking out my work!

[skitterbug]

I attended as a guest a local camera club evening earlier this week. One of the members gave a presentation on his experiences of using a glass sphere like this. In his presentation he started with his initial images generally these consisted of him holding the sphere at arms length whilst try to make an image with a handheld DSLR. By his own admission he very soon realised that that technique wasn’t good. Strangely his first OK sort of image was with the sphere positioned on a fallen tree. His sphere included a glass stand/cube on which the sphere sat. He then went on to mount the cube and sphere on to a tripod and making images firstly one without the sphere in shot to obtain a focussed background. He then made an image using the sphere with the background in focus through it. The two images were then combined by selecting the sphere only from the second image rotating it to match the orientation of the background, that round selection could them be positioned onto the background either centrally or randomly. Both parts of the combined image being in focus.
One issue he quickly identified was the spurious artefacts that would be present in the sphere be it reflections of his camera/lens or whatever the sphere was place on.
His better images were those he made in a studio type of environment. These tended to be abstract where he placed the sphere on it stand/tripod/tabletop, with it in front of a nine reflective black background in a darkened room. He had a 0.3 metre of free space behind and between the sphere that enabled him to wave small coloured LED lights in the free space behind the sphere.
I found these images to be more effective than his earlier landscape type.
Having said all of that the most telling aspect of the talk was that the presenter had donated the sphere, stand and LED lights to the camera club for its members to use!
I hadn’t seen the type of LED lights he was demonstrating my curiosity made me ask where he purchased them. Here’s a link to them, I’m sure other suppliers may be out there:-
https://www.amazon.com/TORCHSTAR-Hal...1372193&sr=8-6

PS. I have one of these Lensball spheres, I think it has been with me for about eighteen months, without ever being used. Be aware of the potential for the sphere to create burns/fire in bright sunlight!


Sent from somewhere in Gods County using Tapatalk

HI Peter - I confess I did try and hold the sphere myself and that was a total mess. Too much shaking. Then I tried the tripod for the sphere but didn't like that the tripod ended up in the image. I much prefer having the sphere sitting on something natural and then trying to get the main subject within it and the background to complement it. I'll probably try having someone else hold it (as John suggested for portraits perhaps) and see how that turns out.

Lucky you to have a presentation about it. I finally found a camera club but it is about 40 minutes away and they hold their sessions during the evening. Not surprised by the time of day since it is probably largely made up of working folks rather an old retired person like me who detests driving at night now. I would like to thank you for sharing what you learned from them.

The lights are interesting - the grandkids probably would enjoy them as much as I would!

Thanks Peter! Keep enjoying God's Country!

[xpatUSA]

I think that Ted was demonstrating that the globe could be singled out and placed wherever I wanted it rather than trying to make an image (correct me if I'm wrong Ted). GIMP is an application that does have a learning curve and I haven't ever mastered it. It will require plenty of time and I often don't want to spend it trying to figure it out. In this case however, if I can sort out the selection, it might prove useful.

Mini-tutorial just for you, Sandy:

Open the image up in the GIMP and then click on the ellipse selection tool:



Click in the image and drag so that a selection appears with four 'handles' (little squares) for shaping and sizing the selection:



Click inside the selection and drag it over to cover your crystal ball then use the handles to make it fit good:



Go edit>copy to put what's inside the selection into the clipboard. Then move the selection AS-IS to somewhere else and go edit>paste into selection:



Voila!



That last didn't go real smooth - some extra selection lines appeared and I had to juggle around inside the selection circle to get the stupid ball to appear fully, but that's the GIMP for ya ... full of surprises.

[Manfred M]

I think that Ted was demonstrating that the globe could be singled out and placed wherever I wanted it rather than trying to make an image (correct me if I'm wrong Ted). GIMP is an application that does have a learning curve and I haven't ever mastered it. It will require plenty of time and I often don't want to spend it trying to figure it out. In this case however, if I can sort out the selection, it might prove useful.

I still like my initial attempted image but I want to tone down the grain and increase the sharpness of the photo so I have work to do to achieve what I'd like to have for results.

Thanks for your comments and for checking out my work!

Sandy - all I was trying to say is that the functionality that Ted was referring to is pretty common across other similar applications. If you are comfortable with these (Photoshop or Affinity Photo, for example), there is no need to learn Gimp.

On the other hand, if you don't know or use these products, Gimp is the cheap (free) way to get it, given Ted's caveats regarding the learning curve with that particular piece of software.

P.S. - Gimp was the first pixel based editor I used (a very long time ago).

[joebranko]

Re post 14. Yes chocolate in Europe does taste different (better) than in the US. I am Canadian so am unbiased.🤔

[skitterbug]

Sandy - all I was trying to say is that the functionality that Ted was referring to is pretty common across other similar applications. If you are comfortable with these (Photoshop or Affinity Photo, for example), there is no need to learn Gimp.

On the other hand, if you don't know or use these products, Gimp is the cheap (free) way to get it, given Ted's caveats regarding the learning curve with that particular piece of software.

P.S. - Gimp was the first pixel based editor I used (a very long time ago).

Hi Manfred - Understood! It is much easier to carry on conversations in real life rather than through our typed words but yes, I comprehend what you are saying!

Cheers!

[skitterbug]

Hi Ted!

Golly, thanks for the tutorial. Gives me something new to try and I do enjoy a challenge! I want to go through this one and then I want to see if I can also replicate this same function in Affinity Photo which is the photo editor that I use most of the time.

Thanks again!

[skitterbug]

Re post 14. Yes chocolate in Europe does taste different (better) than in the US. I am Canadian so am unbiased.樂

Hi Joe - I will have to depend on your taste buds to distinguish which of the chocolates tastes best. To me, the best tasting chocolate is the one I have handy and ready to munch!

Thanks for the comments!

[ST1]

Sandy I thought this may be of interest, I’ve been looking for something like this as the one I purchased didn’t have a stand. This one isn’t the only solution I have found others that are akin to the one used in the presentation I mentioned in my previous response.

https://lensball.com/products/lensball-stand

These are the alternative type of stand I’ve seen demonstrated.

https://www.amazon.com/SATINIOR-Squa...404964&sr=8-16

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[Antonio Correia]

Re post 14. Yes chocolate in Europe does taste different (better) than in the US. I am Canadian so am unbiased.🤔

[skitterbug]

Sandy I thought this may be of interest, I’ve been looking for something like this as the one I purchased didn’t have a stand. This one isn’t the only solution I have found others that are akin to the one used in the presentation I mentioned in my previous response.

https://lensball.com/products/lensball-stand

These are the alternative type of stand I’ve seen demonstrated.

https://www.amazon.com/SATINIOR-Squa...404964&sr=8-16

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Hi Peter - I am curious - in the presentation, was the stand noticeable and included in the image? It would seem unnatural to be able to see a tripod or even the supportive device? But then it would almost have to be in the image since editing it out would be difficult? The square crystal one would be pretty but it still seems to take away from the idea of the crystal ball and its uniqueness.

I'm just thinking about it this morning........ trying to sort it out. <grin> I appreciate this information and the choices it offers!
Now where is my chocolate......

Enjoy the day and thank you!

[Antonio Correia]

...Now where is my chocolate...

My son is so addicted to chocolate that I sometimes send him a parcel with a few tablets.
A luxury !

[xpatUSA]

That being said, I'm not sure that Ted's edit works for me. It reminds me of the view looking through one of those "peep holes" in doors. You have an disembodied view that shows nothing other than the refracted image from the sphere. The context shown in your original is missing.

Looks like someone on DPR agrees:



LOL

[ST1]

Hi Peter - I am curious - in the presentation, was the stand noticeable and included in the image? It would seem unnatural to be able to see a tripod or even the supportive device? But then it would almost have to be in the image since editing it out would be difficult? The square crystal one would be pretty but it still seems to take away from the idea of the crystal ball and its uniqueness.

I'm just thinking about it this morning........ trying to sort it out. <grin> I appreciate this information and the choices it offers!
Now where is my chocolate......

Enjoy the day and thank you!

Hi Sandy
The stand and tripod were removed in post processing.

WRT chocolate my favourite brand is from New Zealand called Whittaker’s. Their Almond and Black Doris Plumb. It’s a long way to travel for a bar of chocolate though


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[xpatUSA]

WRT chocolate my favourite brand is from New Zealand called Whittaker’s. Their Almond and Black Doris Plumb. It’s a long way to travel for a bar of chocolate though

Couple years back I bought a package of Crunchie Bars on Amazon ... not cheap but highly nostalgic!

[skitterbug]

Hi Sandy
The stand and tripod were removed in post processing.

WRT chocolate my favourite brand is from New Zealand called Whittaker’s. Their Almond and Black Doris Plumb. It’s a long way to travel for a bar of chocolate though


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Hi Peter - it might be trick to remove the stand and tripod and still keep the globe round! I attempted some photos today but I haven't found a pleasing way to produce one that I really like - yet. I'm was attempting them inside our home on a gloomy day so the lighting wasn't great either.

And now you've mentioned chocolate and yummy stuff at that probably although I've never had it! I've got to go find at least a Hersey's Chocolate Candy Kiss to quell my longing! <laughing> It isn't top of the line chocolate candy but for now, it will have to do!

[xpatUSA]

Hi Peter - it might be trick to remove the stand and tripod and still keep the globe round! I attempted some photos today but I haven't found a pleasing way to produce one that I really like - yet. I'm was attempting them inside our home on a gloomy day so the lighting wasn't great either.

Another GIMP mention, sorry. In the GIMP you don't need an actual glass ball at all!

Here's a simulated glass egg:





Interested?