Timelapse video Groningen

Here's a little Timelapse I made of Groningen city. :)

A new website!!!

Hurraayy!!

My newly developed and designed website is online!
Hereby, I proudly present to you:

Http://www.ambydos.com

Have a quick look around, and I might even stop posting on this blog.. It's all not
written in stone (yet) but I will probably post most of my photos on there.
Some reviews/etc. might also be on there since it's just a lot more compact and easier.

Thank you very much for your understanding and I hope you like my new website. :)

Some more HDR photos

Hey everyone!
Today I was out taking photos in Bourtange (NL) and got quite a nice shot
of a canon. I figured it would look 'dramatic' using the HDR-technique but
as you can see in the photo(s) below, the clouds weren't really dark enough.

So here's a little piece going through the photo I made and the result of it,
after post-processing:

This is the original HDR-photo:
Taken by shooting 3 photos. One overexposed, under exposed and normal exposure.

As you can see, this one is quite grey and vague still. This is basically because of the lack of 'dramatic' and dark clouds. It wasn't the best 'HDR-weather'.

After post-processing, I did get a better result. Usually when you process an HDR-photo you give it a bit more contrast and usually a bit more sharpness and tone down te highlights for a dramatic look.

This is how it turned out in the end:

I must say it's not the best I've made, definitely not. But for what the original HDR was, it came out quite good. The problem is that the clouds just weren't dark enough for it to be 'dramatic' enough and that 'forced' me to post-process the clouds like this, sadly making them look a bit fake..
Even though that might look quite nice, still.


Comment if you like this post and what you think about the subject.



Sander Marskamp
Photographer/Designer

Followers Widget

Hey everyone!
Just wanted to give you a quick update saying I've edited and updated my
followers widget, making it more accessible to everyone.

So feel free to follow me and you'll be weekly/daily updated on photography,
tips, tricks, techniques and lots more!

A quick little update on the Olympus E-PL1

Here's another photo I made this afternoon with my new Olympus Pen E-PL1.
Proving that the image-quality definitely isn't bad at all!

Olympus Pen cameras (E-pl1)

Hey everyone I'm back with a little review, or well, not really a review but just a little piece about Olympus Pen cameras and the Olympus Pen E-PL1 in particular.

Why? you think? 


Well, I actually bought one second- or actually 'third-hand' a few days ago and I got it yesterday.
I bought one, not to replace my DLSR, the Canon 1100D. But since the Canon 1100D is quite big and chunky in my bag, I can't really always take it with me when I go out to college or work.
That's why I thought of buying a (secondhand) Pen camera. Basically because of their shape, but mostly because they have interchangeable lenses.

Meaning, you can change the lenses just like a regular DSLR but it actually isn't one.

• See it as a DSLR camera in a compact body

Of course it has its pros and cons compared to a normal DSLR camera, but in this post I'm not going to talk about that, basically because I don't think I should really give a review yet. Not after just a few days. Maybe later I might write a proper review, you can also request reviews or anything photo-related in the comment sections or just write me an e-mail: info@ambydos.com

• So, was it worth it

Might be the first question that pops.

Well, for the situation(s) that I will be using it, definitely!

But it all just depends on the photographer and what you want to achieve really. But to be honest, I think I might even be able to compare it (image-quality-wise) to my Canon 1100D. I really cannot see much of a difference.
Of course you have to get used to the settings, and that holds you back at first. And not to forget that there's no viewfinder. If you do want to use a viewfinder you'd have to buy a separate one for 200 euros, the VF-1. But the 12.3 megapixel quality and the sharpness in general really isn't bad!

Anyway, let's see some photos!

I must say, they're not the best I've made but for a first day with a new camera, I must say they're quite nice. 

• One tip I must give all of you -and myself- about using these types of cameras:

Try using Aperture/Shutterspeed/Manual-mode most. I even prefer manual really. Also have a set ISO-value since the auto ISO definitely tries a bit too hard in some situations, creating very distorted and grainy photos. 

In the end I think it's a great camera, you just have to get used to the settings and where everything is. But even the manual tells you how to do everything in a very user-friendly way.

• So if you're looking for a cheap way to always have a proper camera around with you, look at one of the Pen cameras. I personally prefer the Olympus cameras but that's everyone else's own opinion. Interchangeable lenses are good, but can turn out to be very expensive. Accessories are also on the expensive-side. 
• I know I've missed some aspects of the camera but again, this is not a review. But I might still be doing that in the future.

Tell me what you think in the comment section below (no need to log in/register!!)

and have a lovely day.

Sander Marskamp

Photographer, Designer

Cylinders

Here's a quick little update on the weekend:

I've been using my camera quite a lot this weekend, and since a new 'mediacenter' opened
this weekend with some outside-art, I thought I'd go and check it out.

And I must say it's quite something. It're these cylinders that -at first- glow a blue light. However,
when you walk past them or touch them, they make these noises and change color.
Interactive art, really.
I thought it was quite interesting and was kind of hoping I'd be able to get some nice bulb shutterspeed
photos off it but the streetlights in the back were too bright for that.

Luckily when a couple came past, I was able to get this nice little photo. Post-processed it just a tad bit
to get the colors more saturated, and of course the exposure-vignette around it.

It really is a shame about the watermark but oh well.. If anyone's interested, he/she can always contact me. 

Zoutkamp

Hey everyone!
I'm sorry I haven't been updating this blog as much lately.. School's kind of been in the way
so that's why I took a little photography-trip to Zoutkamp, just to keep up the blog a bit.

It's been quite a journey, but in the end I arrived and took quite some astonishing HDR-photos.
I think I've explained this before but in short: HDR-photography is basically, shooting 3 of the same photos in three different exposures. Eventually putting them all on top of each other in post-processing (HDRtist software) and this, resulting in a great set of photos.

So here are two of the photos I took in Zoutkamp (A little fishing village in Groningen) using the HDR technique:

Architecture

Here's a quick photo I made at the shopping center in town.
There's nothing to it, really, just a random shot.

Edited in Aperture:


Black & White, red orange filter. (To get the red bricks in a nice black&white color)

Metadata:


Canon EOS 1100D
Tamron AF 70-300mm
ISO 200
130mm
f/5 (to get the best quality)
1/400 Shutter speed

Aperture editing

Hey everyone!
A few months ago I heard of the existence of Aperture (software) for my Mac.
However, I never really looked any of it up until yesterday. I saw the program
on a 'The 1000 best Mac programs' page and thought to myself Oh well, I can always check it out. 


- So i did

and I must say... wow!
Usually I don't edit my photos but when I do I usually just use Photoshop or some iPhoto adjustments. When I checked out some tutorials on the Apple website I was really blown away by its simplicity and effect.

This is how I would explain Aperture: It basically has the same effects and functions as Photoshop, but it looks a lot simpler and to be honest, I think it really quite is. 

• Now however, I must say that Aperture is made for photo editing, if you really want to design buttons, page layouts, and other designer stuff, this isn't the thing you're looking for.  
• For photo editing, it's best compared with Photoshop, but easier to use (in my opinion)
• Aperture really is about editing photos only. I don't think you can even add text to photos, but you can always just use alternative software for that.

Now, I'm really more of an Indesign/Illustrator kind of guy when it comes to designing, and never really gotten used to Photoshop.. So that might also add up to my judgement.

"The thing I really like about Apple products is that you can always jump in to it so easily. You can find lots of basic, but also quite a few advanced tutorials that can help you along the way."

The two photos I've used were edited using Aperture to create a very dramatic effect.

Follow-up to macro-photography

Here's another macro-photo of my girlfriend and a photo taken of my guitars.

I think the next one could be a nice header for the B.C. Rich website, haha.

Another photo.

And here's yet another Macro photo.

Made with the Canon 1100D and a Tamron 70-300 f/4.0 lens

(Don't forget to click on the photo to be able to see the details)


Oh, by the by: Don't forget you can always be a member of this blog or just send me a mail with questions anyway. If you're interested in anything related to Photography and you have any question whatsoever feel free to leave a comment in the section below.

You don't need to sign up or anything to leave a comment so really, feel free to. :)
(This, of course goes for anything on my blog)

Have a nice day everyone!

Macro Photography

I'm sorry for my absence lately, but I've just been very busy with college and playing guitar.
Lately I've been grabbing my camera a lot more again, though.

Today I want to talk about Macro Photography. 
I've always liked Macro Photography, I always used to just zoom in with my little camera and see if the photos turn out sharp enough. It just had some kind of mystery to it.

The thing with Macro Photography is that you can basically use any sub-/object and it'll still look nice with the appropriate settings. You'll also definitely need a tripod for the lesser lit places.
What you need to do is look for the Aperture Priority mode and set it to whatever aperture you want it to be on, try to get the sharpest mode for your lens. For mine this is f/5.6 or something like that.

The best thing to do is just get out Manual mode so that you can change everything and really get whatever you want.

Place the camera with tripod in front of the sub-/object, zoom in as much as you can and manual focus to the closest point. Now move your camera towards the sub-/object until it's properly in focus. Get it completely in focus and before you take the shot, make sure you've got it set to 2 seconds waiting time. This way you pressing the button won't affect the photo taken.

Practice with it a bit and you'll get something like this:

Prison, Veenhuizen

Last weekend I went to a prison in Veenhuizen. It's this museum about prisons and how they used to handle inmates back in the 1800/1900s. It was really quite interesting and it resulted in (sadly only) a few nice photos I could take.

The problem there was that all the interesting things were behind mirrored glass, which made it really difficult for me to take good shots since I didn't have my polarization filter with me. Shame but oh well, here they are. :)

 

Here's some romance for you.

I decided (since it's nearly valentine's day) to take a nice photo for my girlfriend.

I'll show the photo first, then I'll tell you how I did it. :)

All you need for this is a torch/flashlight or a bike light or really any light source, and a tripod.

First off, I took a long shutterspeed photo ("30, and when I was done I just turned my camera off and back on) with an ISO of 100 and an aperture of around 7.1. This was the 'I love U', which trust me, is quite difficult to write with a bike light swinging in the air. After that I took another long shutterspeed photo and turned the angle of the camera down a bit so the next part 'eliza' would show up in the upper part of the photo.

When (after 10 attempts) I had the two photos I edited both the photos in Photoshop (CS5.5), and basically copied and pasted the eliza from one photo to the the photo saying 'I love U'. Now I had the text "Eliza I love U".

I wrote the text just as I would normally, I flipped both photos horizontally to mirror them.


I still thought it missed something... hearts!

So I went back out again and did some quick hearts which I also copied in the photo. Put a second heart in there, rotated it and I was done.
Really, it's not that difficult. The difficult part is to get the writing done properly.


I'd like to see what you guys come up with! If you like, you could post a photo or a link to your photo in the comment section below.

Birdwatching

Hey everyone, I'm back with another photo I made today. A while ago, I decided to take some photos of birds just around the house, and what came as a surprise, I really enjoyed it.
Today I came back from my girlfriends' and I saw a beautiful bird nibbling on the peanut bags we have hanging around the house, so I decided to quickly take my camera, change lenses for my Tamron 70-300mm AF f/5.6 and try and shoot some photos of it.

Sadly, the bird was gone when I came back downstairs, but after I nearly gave up, it came back.
Usually I'm the type of photographer that wants everything sharp and perfect, but the first photo I took of the bird was really quite nice, since the bird was all smudged and the rest of the photo perfectly sharp.

Maybe a little editing would make this photo mysterious, even. I might try that.

Also, last sunday I forgot to upload another photo of some chinese symbols.

Drents Museum

Today I went to the 'Drents Museum' in The Netherlands.
At the moment they have this gallery about the Golden Age in China that looked really interesting, so I decided to go with the family and my girlfriend, of course.

I took some really nice photos, but it was really quite difficult. You weren't allowed to use a flash nor a tripod, and since the areas weren't that well lit, it was really quite difficult to get sharp photos.

Of the 153 photos, these are the 6 that really looked good:
(One, made by my girlfriend)

 This one's made by my girlfriend.

Long Distance-photography

Since it was quite nice weather today, I figured I went out to shoot some photos.
I took out my 50mm lens and my 70-300mm telelens. I also took my tripod with me so that I could shoot some long distance photos without the blur of not being able to steady the camera.

Today, I found out that taking photos of birds really is quite a nice thing to do and can be quite challenging. I had my tripod with me and I tried to shoot some photos with the camera on it, but you really have to be quick to focus and zoom.
You also have to be quite patient since the bird will never sit still in the position you want it to be.. But when it does, shoot!

Here's a photo of a bird I just made with the telelens:

The quality isn't that good on this size but oh well.


I've also been using the 50mm lens to basically get some macro photos and this is what I got from that:

Be sure to check out my blog again today, I will be posting something about the stars and how to photograph them. Also how to see them moving around the earth. It's really quite extraordinary!

HDR photography part 2

Like I promised, here's what I did to get the following photo:

I took three separate photos, one overexposed (EV +2), underexposed (EV -2) and a standard exposure (EV 0). I processed these photos in the free program (for Mac, since I'm a Mac user) called: HDRtist.

Be sure to use a remote control to shoot the actual photos 'cause otherwise they will be blurry. HDRtist however, has an option called 'align photos' to, like it says, align them properly. (this will take a while)

HDR photography

At the moment I am looking into a photography technique called 'HDR photography'. HDR stands for: High Dynamic Range and is used to create these amazing photos where the exposure is perfect.

For instance, when you take a photo from under a bridge, really, you want to have a good exposure on the bridge itself and of the landscape/clouds. However, when you take a normal shot of this you can either get the clouds overexposed and the bridge perfectly lit, or the other way around.
This is where HDR comes in:


If you want a perfect exposure on every object on the photo you will have to take 3 separate photos. One with underexposure so the clouds will come out nice, one with overexposure to get the bridge well lit, and one with standard exposure so that you can get all the detail out of the scene.
Eventually what you'll do is put all these three photos together in a program like 'Photomatix' and then you'll get the perfect image.

I'm really quite stupid for posting this right this second because I don't have any of these photos right now but I will go out and shoot some this afternoon. So check out my blog in a few hours and I will show you the process of shooting HDR photos.

So, see this as an introduction. :)

Studying

I'm sorry guys, but I'm really busy with studying and school stuff at the moment so I can't really post anything ( really interesting ).
I can however show you guys another photo I made in the forest last weekend.

You can see multiple logs stacked up and well, I put the focus on the first log and got an angle so that you can see the other logs in the background, faded.
Hope you like it. :)

Forest

Today I've been walking around the forest with my family and my girlfriend. Goal: to go to a place where all the trees are blown over by the wind and are all mossy.
Eventually to of course, shoot some photos of it and this was one of the photos I got:

The colors in this photo really do stand out. For this shot I was using my Canon EOS 1100D camera with the Canon 50mm f/1.8 lens. The aperture really creates a kind of mysterious depth of field.

I used an exposure of 1/60 and and ISO of 200. The aperture was set to f/2.8 to get the sharpest images for this lens (I feel).

Photography Competitions

Today I entered 2 photography competitions with 3 of my photos. Once every few weeks I check this Dutch site that has lots of the latest photography competitions online in a list.

• For one of them the subject was depth of field and I sent in the following two photos:

For this competition, I could win an Olympus Pen MINI camera. One of those compact cameras you can replace/change lenses like a regular DSLR. 

• The second competition was about composition and for that, I sent the following photo:

With this one I could win a photography book about different techniques. This could come in real handy for me, and I could learn a lot from these books.

Tell me what you think about the photos and if you think I have any chance of winning, haha.