The 420 Fotographer Collective: Advanced Cannabis Photography

[SweetSue]

My husband was a photographer. He once sat and explained bracketing to me. Reading that, I could hear him.

Well done Agemon.

 

[Agemon]

Very good explanation of bracketing. I could be wrong but I thought some of the Canon bodies had a bracketing feature on them, that when set they would take 3 captures at a time. Could just be the Strawberry Kush talking too...lol.

Yes you are correct. I'm not sure what everybody's camera's are doing these days. If people are reading the manuals and learning their cameras then we can get to the fun stuff that much quicker. Your pictures are very impressive, I dig those animal shots. You must be very patient.

 

[Skullman420]

That's true. Ideal exposure inside my tent always turns out over-exposed. Did a lot of over exposed video the other day because I was stupid and trusted the light meter and ended up with only useless overexposed footage. At least with under-exposed you can fix it

Now that I've shown you how to creatively use shutter speed I will give you a bracketing exercise so you can see for yourself how the shutter controls the amount of light, using time as the control factor. Not to be confused with aperture, this is the scientific part of the art form (again I digress, sorry).

Alright, this is a very simple exercise but shows you exactly how shutter speed and over or under exposing your pictures may be a good idea. The exercise is called bracketing. You start the exercise by putting your camera on a tripod and choosing some nice, fat, big, stinky, sticky, crystally colas to photograph. Put your camera into Manual Mode, make sure your ISO is set to 100 and your aperture to f8.0, I always use autofocus, and I don't care if it's cheating. My vision was at one time 20/15 but those days are behind me . Now go smoke a bowl, well maybe wait until after you're done with this part.

OK! Set your camera to manual and compose your picture. Get your composition all set and once you're happy with the composition look at your light meter. Did you put your camera in Manual Mode yet? Adjust your shutter speed until the light meter reads -1. That's one stop underexposed, take a picture. Next adjust the shutter speed one stop, look at your light meter, and your arrow should be just at the 0 in your light meter. This is the ideal exposure, take a picture. Now adjust your shutter speed up one more time and the light meter should read +1. This is one stop over exposed, take a picture.

Now go to your computer and check out the results. I know this is simplistic but it really does have a place and by simply shooting using bracketing you'll see how different situations even if it's just the angle into your tent or the composition is a tight close up, sometimes the ideal exposure is not so ideal.

Play with your cameras and try the 4 manual settings to see how they work and how you can use them.

I recommend bracketing only be done in Manual Mode.

 

[SweetSue]

Guys..... On that happy note by Scrogdawg I'll call it a night. Thank you for the lessons guys. I'm a point, shoot, crop, post girl myself. I love the thrill of the hunt. I most love it when the picture calls me from somewhere else altogether. I have no technique other than inspired action. Lol!

I really admire what you two create, and I'm appreciative of your willingness to share so openly. It's an interesting form of school, complete with mind-altering breaks.

 

[Skullman420]

The Magic Lantern hack enables HDR bracketing on all compatible Canon cameras

Yes you are correct. I'm not sure what everybody's camera's are doing these days. If people are reading the manuals and learning their cameras then we can get to the fun stuff that much quicker. Your pictures are very impressive, I dig those animal shots. You must be very patient.

 

[Scrogdawg]

I'm not much of an instructional guy so you won't see much more out of me than a few images and a couple of comments to go along with them. But, if one of you that presents these tutorials in such a great fashion are looking for a topic, I think a lesson on bokeh would be interesting to many of the less experienced photographers.

 

[Skullman420]

The very short answer to what is bokeh is that it basically means blur quality. It's how the lense is blurring the out of focus parts. The way the lens renders out of focus points of light is differebt from lense to lense. More expensive lenses will have a more hmmmm..... What to call it... pleasant bokeh while many cheap lenses have a very crude bokeh. This is however always not a bad thing as a bad bokeh can look quite artistic.

​

 

[Skullman420]

If you plan to use your DSLR for film, the best tip I can give you is to invest in a shoulder rig. That's the difference between amateurish looking footage and professional looking footage. Now - you don't need to invest a fortune to get a good rig. My first rig costed like 80 dollars and worked just as well as my 5000 dollar rig. Sometimes actually better as my current rig is extremely heavy. But it could not fit all the gear I use so I had to step up my game. Most people don't need all that stuff though. If you plan to use the sound you should also invest in a microphone. They come in all prize ranges. Even the cheapest roede microphone will kick your camera's microphone's butt. The cheapest ones also have that advantage that they're powered by the camera, while the more expensive condenser type microphones will need a battery.

The way to power your camera on a rig - I use dummy batteries for all the equipment and then I connect it all to the big battery that is also the rig's counter-weight. There are dummy batteries for all known camera's as far as I know

 

[Tony Urban]

If there is any interest in how to shoot film with DSLR or as we call it VDSLR, I could probably give you a bunch of info. When you film the shutter speed is locked - at least if you don't want unnatural motion blur or flickering and shit like that. The rule is the aperture needs to be the double of the frame rate. So for 24 images per second (film) you would want your shutter to be locked at 48. That leaves you with only ISO and aperture to play with. But damn - you can shoot amazing film with your DSLR. Several pro movie makers have embraced this format for shooting their films. The film gets just as beautiful as the photo's your camera can do so it's easy to understand why the movie industry embraced these tools. They're also quite cheaper than investing in pro video gear

If you plan to use your DSLR for film, the best tip I can give you is to invest in a shoulder rig. That's the difference between amateurish looking footage and professional looking footage. Now - you don't need to invest a fortune to get a good rig. My first rig costed like 80 dollars and worked just as well as my 5000 dollar rig. Sometimes actually better as my current rig is extremely heavy. But it could not fit all the gear I use so I had to step up my game. Most people don't need all that stuff though. If you plan to use the sound you should also invest in a microphone. They come in all prize ranges. Even the cheapest roede microphone will kick your camera's microphone's butt. The cheapest ones also have that advantage that they're powered by the camera, while the more expensive condenser type microphones will need a battery.

The way to power your camera on a rig - I use dummy batteries for all the equipment and then I connect it all to the big battery that is also the rig's counter-weight. There are dummy batteries for all known camera's as far as I know

Awesome stuff man, now that I have a D80 and my old t1i as a backup, I could see doing some video work. All of this great info will be good to look back on and reference. Really throwing out some great information man, jam packing this baby with quality goods!

Good description of bokeh too. Its one of my favourote things.

 

[Tony Urban]

Well you keep raising the bar. All of you. These photos posted lately are just incredible. I know there has been a lot of talk about lenses and white balances recently. The point and shoot (PS) crowd are not missing much. The PS cameras these days have pretty slick features that we will be discussing in detail as well. But in the end its not about the camera type, aperture, and ISO. Its about the image. Its about the fun. The creativity.


I will share with you a few. I deleted most of my collection. Not a fan of my own art sometimes lol.

 

[Skullman420]

Beautiful

 

[Skullman420]

The rebel is great for film. Just make sure to hack it the features you get on the camera is features you would have to pay a lot of money for. It's basically everything a filmmaker needs to shoot.

For Canon there are some colour profiles that's extremely useful, because you will want to shoot as flat as possible to have more options in post production.

Technicolor's Cinestyle and Marvel's Cine for Canon HDSLR.

Both of them are free and so is Magic Lantern

 

[Blew Hiller]

Okay, not the greatest shots but I was getting lazy in the last few weeks (trudging through the cold and snow) and was using my cellphone which is convenient, but oh so unsatisfying....(so thanks to this thread's contributors for motivating my lazy winter ass!)

First is a crappy cellphone shot 2 days ago and the next are from my canon this morning. I was looking back on my first grow last spring and how much nicer it was to see their progress with decent images. (Plants are Northern Lights x Big Bud Auto, Week 6)

 

[Skullman420]

Magic Lantern menu on a Canon. It's important to say that nothing will be altered on your camera permanently. It loads on boot from your memory card. You can also interchange between the original Canon menu and the Magic Lantern menu at any time during use of the camera.

 

[Agemon]

Flash ~ ISO 160 ~ f5.0 ~ 1/250

 

[ilikemsticky]

i tried some different settings on this sssdh bud just playing around the first four are a little different settings the last one was taken on the auto macro setting!

 

[ilikemsticky]

Flash ~ ISO 160 ~ f5.0 ~ 1/250

nice!

 

[Tony Urban]

Photo Challenge!

Ok folks, we have been speeding along and throwing out a tremendous amount of information, I think its time we do a little fun easter egg photo hunt, and put some of this information to use.

Here is the assignment.
- Use Aperture Priority mode or Macro mode on point and shoots
- Take a photo of Smoke. This could be off the end of a joint, in a bong, during an exhale, its up to you. Vapor is also good.
- Its up to you if you want a shallow depth of field, or a deeper depth of field, experiment and have fun with it.
- Lets give this until next Saturday. We might make this a weekly thing or bi-weekly. A fun way to exercise the camera skills.
- This is not for prizes. There will be no criticizing of images. This is just for the individual fun, creativity, and experimentation.
- I recommend smoking a fat joint, or bowl, of a sativa leaning strain lol. Get those juices flowing.
- must be a new photo, not one you have already

Have fun! Looking forward to seeing the creativity.

 

[nivek]

just happened to be in my gallery, for fun

 

[Agemon]

Lets get shmokey!