Photo Cafe' Beach Lounge
~ Chat Transcript ~
5th February, 2022
H.11:00 AM SLT[ The following Episode #11 will be on:
Sat, the 19th of Feb H.11.00 AM SLT! ]
[11:10:33] Duraya Resident: Sooooooo ……
[11:10:44] Duraya Resident: Hello and welcome to Photography café # 10!
[11:11:00] Duraya Resident: As so many of us had other obligations last Saturday we thought it would be a good idea to set a new date.
[11:11:18] Duraya Resident: Today!
[11:11:38] Duraya Resident: Thank you all for completing the survey!
[11:11:57] Duraya Resident: It holds interesting information!
[11:12:20] Duraya Resident: The individual responses give additional proposals.
[11:13:06] Duraya Resident: To share that with you Kapaan will now present the results.
[11:13:22] Kapaan Resident: Thank you my Lady
[11:13] Kapaan: I will take you through the questions again and show you the highest answers
[11:13] Kapaan: At the end I will share the link so you can see the full results
[11:14] Kapaan: The first question: What is your main interest in the Photography Cafe?
[11:14] Kapaan: I love exchanging ideas with other photographers – 81.82%
[11:14] Kapaan: I am excited when I can learn new techniques – 81.82%
[11:15] Kapaan: These responses really reflected community and personal growth
[11:15] Kapaan: The second question: Future topics and suggestions
[11:15] Kapaan: Improving Technical abilities – 90.91%
[11:15] Kapaan: Which really talks to opportunities to learn more
[11:15] Kapaan: and the final question
[11:16] Kapaan: Developing Artistic Aspects
[11:16] Kapaan: How do you define your personal style?- 63.64%
[11:16] Kapaan: The link for the full report is:
https://www.surveymonkey.com/results/SM-TJ3HD6SJ9/
[11:17] Kapaan: Please review this at your own leisure and thank you again for completing the survey
[11:17] Duraya: Thank you Kapaan!
[11:17] Duraya: It shows that improving technical abilities pips the interests in exchanging experiences and information, these being just as important as the identification with one’s personal style of art.
[11:17] Duraya: We will use the results of the survey as a guide for finding the agenda for the oncoming cafés.
[11:18] Duraya: We are aware that some of you are higher skilled in certain fields than we are. We encourage you not to withhold.
[11:18] Duraya: What we can’t present or answer will be presented or answered by either someone from inside this group or we will find someone to give a lecture on a certain topic.
[11:19] Duraya: Everything new we acquire or develop we suggest to be translated into pictures – getting to know each other through art!
[11:19] Duraya: As usual Kapaan will be responsible for the technical inputs
[11:19] Duraya: I will try to cover the field of development of self-expression and the understanding of personal style
[11:20] Duraya: Today Kapann prepared something for us on doing better portraits.
[11:21] Kapaan: This will be a technical topic so let me know if you have a question. We will be covering what a portrait is and how to draw attention to your subjects with the tools you have in Firestorm.
[11:21] Kapaan: What is portrait photography? Simply put, portrait photography is a photograph of a person or group of people. That isn’t to argue that any photograph of a person should be classified as a portrait. A true portrait also captures the subject’s individuality.
[11:22] Kapaan: One of the important things for a portrait to work is we need to draw attention to the subject itself. To draw attention to a subject in a picture you can make it big, set the tonal contrast, create colour contrast, use saturation, make an interesting composition, make an anomaly by breaking a pattern or use Depth of field
[11:22] Kapaan: So, for today I will speak a bit about Depth of Field or sometimes referred to as Focus or even Bokeh.
[11:23] Kapaan: An important artistic component of photography is the amount of sharpness in a shot. The difference between a shallow depth of field and a deep depth of field in your image can be significant (and can often make or break the composition). The gap between the closest and farthest objects in a photograph that appears sharp is known as depth of field. Your camera can now only clearly focus on one point
[11:23] Kapaan: Bokeh is a pleasing blur in the background, yet your subject stays sharp. It’s a good way to draw attention to your subject, whether you’re photographing a model or a bird in the wild. Another way to make sure your subject is sharper than other objects in your photo is to eliminate other objects. Pay attention to your background.
[11:24] Kapaan: So lets jump into the settings 🙂
[11:24] Kapaan: To find the settings in Firestorm go to CNTRL+P and then find Graphics and look for the tab called Depth Of Field.
[11:26] Kapaan: Now cam to a subject, maybe the face of someone near to you
[11:27] Kapaan: If you take RL pictures a lot of these settings will be familiar to you. But let us just explore the Camera F Number Option for today. Slide the slider around and see what it does.
[11:27] Kapaan: You should see something like this. Where you have no Dof or a very high setting.
[11:27] Prins (skylog): mine is disabled
[11:27] Kapaan: Just click the enable?
[11:28] Prins (skylog): it is also disabled, it is grey
[11:28] Kapaan: Ok you need to enable Advanced Lightning Model
[11:28] Prins (skylog): thanks – found it
[11:29] Kapaan: So once you enable it you should immediately see the background soften and go out of focus
[11:30] Kapaan: Now use the slider and go up and down
[11:30] Kapaan: You will notice that the lower number you choose the more things are out of focus
[11:31] Kapaan: and the higher you make the number the more the image is sharp through out
[11:31] Kapaan: This is a way to specifically blur the space around your subject and ensure that your subject stands out.
[11:31] Kapaan: In the 3rd picture you will see my subject was the eye as that is the part in focus
[11:32] Kapaan: So you can really focus on something specific
[11:32] Kapaan: Let’s have more fun. Just like most RL camera’s SL also supports a Zoom function. Like a RL zoom, you need to cam away and make some space between you and the subject.
[11:32] Kapaan: make sure you can see your subject entirely
[11:33] Kapaan: imagine standing a real distance from your subject
[11:33] Kapaan: Now let’s zoom 🙂 The shortcuts for zoom is:
Ctrl+0 Shortcuts > Zoom In
Ctrl+9 Shortcuts > Zoom Default
Ctrl+8 Shortcuts > Zoom Out
[11:33] Kapaan: Please focus on your subject and then press the Zoom In shortcut about 6 times
[11:34] Kapaan: You should be back to a view where your subject is close to you.
[11:34] Kapaan: When you try to cam while being zoomed it will feel funny and you may lose where you are. DON’T PANIC juts press CTRL+9 and start again
[11:34] Kapaan: Let’s look at this picture. I am zoomed in using the Zoom in function (6 times). I want you to notice that the background has significantly changed from the previous picture. Even though the subject is on the same spot.
[11:35] Kika Yongho: c
[11:35] Kapaan: Yes Miss Kika?
[11:35] Kika Yongho: It was a q really.. I heard many times to press ctrl+0 also to undeform the photo
[11:35] Kika Yongho: Is that correct? Done
[11:36] Kapaan: That is correct
[11:36] Kapaan: You need to get a feel for what works for you
[11:36] Kapaan: Remember SL zoom is like a lens in RL. It does have the same characteristics and can have some interesting side effects. 🙂
[11:37] Kapaan: How close can we get to a subject in SL?
[11:37] Kapaan: On the second picture you can see I am closer to the subject’s face
[11:37] Kapaan: Normally without zoom this is probably the closest you will get
[11:38] Kapaan: BUT with the zoom you can really capture unseen details
[11:38] Kapaan: As you can see from the pic with the eye
[11:38] Franny Blame The Cat (francesca.pfeffer): true, I’m capturing unseen details for example of myself made shape
[11:39] Kapaan: Using DoF and Zoom really does add a dimension to your compositions 🙂
[11:39] Kapaan: and you can frame your subject to tell the story you want to tell
[11:39] Kapaan: Any questions?
[11:40] Duraya: when I get very close it gets blurry
[11:40] Duraya: what did I do wrong?
[11:40] Kapaan: You need to look at your DoF setting and make it higher
[11:40] Kapaan: or depending on what you want to do disable it
[11:41] Duraya: ah – the F
[11:41] Duraya: got it
[11:41] Kapaan: There is also a limit as to how close firestorm will allow you to go
[11:41] Duraya: I hate limits
[11:42] Duraya: okay – thank you Kapaan 🙂
[11:42] Kapaan: If anyone is stuck with the settings please let me know 🙂
[11:43] Duraya: what is your experience with portraits
[11:43] Duraya: do you like taking them?
[11:44] Kika Yongho: c
[11:44] Duraya: yes Kika
[11:45] Kika Yongho: I do like to take portraits. I am not a professional of course but I started helping with profile photos and then took some portraits for the Flickr .. It is good to learn techniques to improve something that I like doing 🙂
[11:45] Kika Yongho: done
[11:45] Jaminda Moon (jaminda): c
[11:45] Duraya: thanks Kika
[11:45] Duraya: Jaminda please
[11:46] Jaminda Moon (jaminda): I have always found portraits difficult but having learned some new techniques it is something I would like to practice on more ….the depth of field technique done to today was very helpful I had always found it fiddly…thank you
[11:46] Jaminda Moon (jaminda): done
[11:46] Duraya: thanks Jaminda
[11:47] Duraya: Kapaan explained to me before and fiddling is a good way to express how I found it 🙂
[11:47] Duraya: are there more tricks you can share about taking portraits?
[11:47] DaneAlbion: c
[11:48] Duraya: yes Dane
[11:48] Prins (skylog): c
[11:49] DaneAlbion: i think its really important to remember what we previously learned about lighting, different lighting can really change the look and mood of a portrait
[11:49] DaneAlbion: done
[11:50] Duraya: true – as Kapaan said – use everything you can think of to draw attention to your subject 🙂
[11:50] Duraya: and Prins is next
[11:50] Prins (skylog): I don’t do a lot of portraits of humans, but I do by flowers and nature. In a way it is also portraits, and the background is useful to be able to control more. Thanks this is useful. Done
[11:50] Duraya: thank you Prins
[11:51] Duraya: Guess what we will have for next photo challenge, hard one isn’t it?
[11:53] Duraya: I hope you will find it interesting to use DOF AND anything you already know of course
[11:54] Duraya: So please if you can make it possible send us your portraits till 17th of Feb!
[11:54] Franny Blame The Cat (francesca.pfeffer): q
[11:54] onceagain (manoji.yachvili): really interesting, thanks Kapaan
[11:54] Duraya: this will not be the only portrait challenge
[11:55] Duraya: as we explore self-expression this will be an important theme!
[11:56] Duraya: I hope you will have fun shooting (yourself)
[11:57] Kika Yongho: q
[11:57] Duraya: Franny
[11:58] Franny Blame The Cat (francesca.pfeffer): ok very simple, should we send the portrait personally to you?
[11:58] Duraya: yes please – to me or Kapaan
[11:58] Franny Blame The Cat (francesca.pfeffer): ok, thank you
[11:59] Duraya: Kika
[11:59] Kika Yongho: My question is simple too: will it be a portrait or a self portrait?
[11:59] Duraya: you choose
[11:59] Kika Yongho: Okay 🙂
[11:59] Kika Yongho: thank you! 😀
[12:00] Duraya: Kika reminded me of the permissions – best is full perm – no transfer is fine as well!
[12:00] Duraya: Next Cafe will be on the 19th! Hope to see you all!
[12:01] Duraya: Thank you for joining us!
