Images and Notes » Mechanical

Utilities

James Howe — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 13:06:06 +0000

(Nikon D700, 28-300mm at 250mm, ISO 640, 1/500 @ f/16)

This image shows a couple of gas meters located on the side of a building next to the office where I work. I’ve always liked the way these meters look in strong light. I like the look of the yellow pipe agains the gray metal siding and I like the shadow patterns created by the sidelight. I’ve seen this image in my head for months but I never bothered to take a picture of it until just recently.

When I processed the shot, my goal was to intensify the color and contrast, since that is what motivated me to take the picture in the first place. My goal wasn’t to necessarily produce what was really there, but instead to produce what my mind saw. Raw images are by their nature a bit flat and you can see from below that the out-of-camera shot really didn’t have much color or contrast. I primarily used Topaz Simplify and some Color Efex Pro 4 to deepen the colors and bring more contrast to the image. The Topaz wiped out some of the details in the meters so I used a layer mask to bring back items such as the number dials, the name plates and the screw heads, any place where I thought that detail was more important.

Always interested in hearing what you think, please feel free to leave comments or questions below.

Gears

James Howe — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 17:04:56 +0000

(Nikon D700, 70-300mm at 145mm, ISO 800, 7 exposures @ f/5.6)

When the weather starts to get worse, I like to take the time to visit the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan. The museum houses a great collection of ‘industrial’ artifacts and they are quite reasonable about photography. One of the areas that I like to visit is the section on power generation. The museum has a great collection of generators from very old to more modern. I’m just attracted to the large scale and interesting mechanical details of these machines.

The shot above is was created from a 7 exposure HDR originally processed using Photomatix. Normally I like what the tonemapping process does to metal, but for this image it just didn’t work. After sitting on the image for several months, I took another look at it and decided to see what it would look like in black and white. I used Silver Efex Pro 2 to do the conversion and after flipping through some of the presets, I selected one of the ‘noir’ settings and then made further adjustments. I played with the contrast and grain to create a nice gritty image which I thought suited the subject. (The image below shows the normally exposed shot, not the tonemapped HDR.)

Always happy to hear your feedback.

Morning at the Harbor

James Howe — Tue, 19 Jul 2011 11:44:32 +0000

(Nikon D700, 70-300mm at 145mm, ISO 200, 1/30 sec @ f/16)

On a recent trip to Marquette, Michigan I had an opportunity to walk around the lower harbor early one morning. It was the 5th of July and the Marquette had hosted a 4th of July party down in the harbor area. It was interesting wandering around as volunteers were cleaning up and packing things up from the night before. As I wandered around I walked down one of the roads leading out to the docks. As I walked out I passed a metal building which had these interesting devices attached. They were several feet wide and looked like they would be used to spool something, but I have no idea what. I just liked the way they looked in the morning light.

When I shot the picture I was thinking about creating a black and white image. I liked the shadows created by the hard light and thought a high contrast image might look nice. I processed the image with Silver Efex Pro 2 which also imparted the ragged border. About the only other thing I did to the image was to crop it to make the curve of the geared wheel more of the subject. I also like the color version of the image and I might do something with it as well.

Feel free to leave comments or constructive feedback below.

Gears

James Howe — Tue, 21 Jun 2011 17:09:07 +0000

(Nikon D700, 105mm, ISO 200, Exposure 1/30 sec @ f/3.0)

I have this thing for anything old, mechanical or metal. When I was at Greenfield Village this past weekend for their annual Motor Muster, I had the pleasure of seeing many things which fit that description. One of the coolest places in the museum (in my opinion) is the Armington & Sims machine shop. The shop has a great collection of original machine shop tools and is actually a functioning job shop for items needed at the museum. I was using a Nikon 105mm Macro lens that I had rented from LensPro To Go and I made a pass through the shop to see if I could get some interesting images. One of my favorites from this trip is this shot of some tool which had a great collection of gears. I didn’t have my tripod with me that day, but if I did I would have taken some brackets for an HDR image. The shop is too dark to take handheld exposures.

Processing of the image involved using a square crop to focus more on the machine itself. I didn’t like the really bright area at the top of the original image and I liked the combination of the curved gears inside of the square frame. The remainder of processing was done in Silver Efex Pro2 where I tried to bring out the detail in the metal.

Eclipse Windmill – Saline, Michigan

James Howe — Mon, 11 Apr 2011 12:20:20 +0000

(Nikon D700, 70-300mm at 220mm, ISO 200, Exposure 1/125 sec @f/11)

With a turn to nicer weather yesterday, I decided to go out for a drive to look for interesting subjects to shoot. I was sort of in the mood for things old and rusty, but I didn’t really come across anything which struck my fancy. Heading home, I drove by an old train depot in Saline, Michigan which has been converted to a historical museum. I have driven past this location many times and had never paid it much attention. On this day, however, I noticed a couple of cool elements, one of which was this large wooden windmill. This is a 10ft diameter windmill which is similar to an 18ft windmill which was originally installed at the site. According to the museum’s web site, “The Eclipse was once the most popular of all wooden windmills. It was painted an unusual shade of red and green, colors described by windmill writer, T. Lindsay Baker, as “cow patty green with buzzard blood red tips.” All I know is that I liked the pattern created by the blades. Even though the color is unique, I decided to go with black & white to draw the eye to the patterns rather than the color.

Thoughts?

Steampunk-ish

James Howe — Tue, 05 Apr 2011 16:44:41 +0000

(Nikon D700, 70-300mm at 125mm, ISO 800, Exposure 2 sec @f/16)

I didn’t really know how to title this post because I’m not exactly sure what this thing is. All I know about it is that it is some sort of machine used in the maintenance of railway cars and/or engines. I took this picture at Greenfield Village last fall (to see the machine in context, check out this blog post I made a few months ago.) The Village has an old railroad roundhouse which is both an exhibit and a place for worker to work on the rolling stock owned by the museum. I was originally planning on created an HDR image out of this subject, and I took 9 exposures while I was there to do it, but when I actually processed the images in Photomatix, I didn’t care for what came out. Instead I did something much simpler. I used Topaz Adjust to bring out some more detail in the metal. I think it did a really nice job in this regard.

Love to hear your thoughts, feedback or questions. Leave them below!

9542 – Take Two

James Howe — Sat, 05 Mar 2011 17:09:14 +0000

(Olympus E-500, 40-150mm at 150mm (2x crop factor), ISO 100, Exposure 1/750 sec @ f/8)

I was working through my Lightroom catalog this morning trying to find some shots that I had edited recently. I wanted to export them so I could print them. As I was working through the catalog, I came across an image of two trains that I had taken in the summer of 2007. I had produced a final image that I liked at the time, but when I saw it today I thought I might tweak it a little to come up with something different.

The original finished image (shown below) was the result of quite a bit of Photoshop work. I added some motion, cloned out some wires and produced a sepia toned image. I have a full description of all the processing that went in to that image on my Image Notebook blog. Anyway, the one thing which always sort of bothered me was the bland sky, it just seemed like something else was needed but I didn’t know what. Since I’ve been experimenting with textures of late, I decided to see what would happen if I added just a bit of texture.

To get to the modified image you see above, I first reworked the black and white conversion. In my original work, I had used the black and white adjustment layer to do the work, today I used Silver Efex Pro 2. As I always do when using Silver Efex Pro, I look through the presets to see if there is something that looks like it would be a good starting point. There were actually quite a few that I liked, but I decided on one of their Film Noir presets. I liked the way it darkened the image and gave it more of an industrial feeling. I added a bit of structure and removed the border that the preset uses and saved the change. On my top layer, I added a ‘Basalt’ texture which added a gray crackled texture. I like what it did with the sky, but I didn’t want it on the train itself so I masked it out. All of the other processing I had done with the original image I left alone.

Here is the way the image looked directly out of the camera.

There still isn’t a lot going on in the sky, but I think the addition of the texture added a bit more interest. I also think I prefer the darker, heavier look of this version. Like to know what you think.

Functional Art – Edison Illuminating Company #3

James Howe — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 11:40:38 +0000

(Nikon D700, 70-300mm at 195mm, ISO 800, HDR – 7 exposures @ f/5.6)

If you look through a portfolio of my images you might notice that I enjoy taking pictures of old, mechanical things. I just really like the design elements that were often used in older technolgy. It seemed as if the machine was as much art as it was functional. I think this picture from the Edison Illuminating Company building at Greenfield Village is a good example. The picture is a crank wheel attached to an electric generator. I believe this particular generator came from Edison’s power plant located on Pearl Street in New York City. The wheel serves a simple purpose, to turn something, and it could have been made with simple spokes, but this one used spokes which create a star pattern which caught my eye as I was looking for elements to shoot inside the station.

The image was created from 7 exposures using the tone mapping capabilities of Photomatix. After getting the basic look, I was able to bring out additional detail by using Topaz Adjust. The combination of the two really brings out the details in the metal. Compare the HDR to one of the single exposures below. While I probably could have used Adjust on just this one image and gotten good results, I think starting with the HDR image created a better image.

Comments or thoughts?

Crank Handle

James Howe — Tue, 05 Oct 2010 11:40:33 +0000

(Nikon D700, 28-300mm at 200mm, ISO 200, HDR 7 Exposures @ f/5.6)

This is another in a series of HDR images that I shot at Greenfield Village in Dearborn, Michigan. Once again the location was the Armington & Sims machine shop. I love the look of the old, oiled, metal of the vintage machinery. I think this type of material really works well with HDR. My goal was to really focus in on one element of the machine, in this case a crank handle, possibly used to operate a vise-like component, but I’m not sure. In comparison with one of the ‘as-shot’ images, I think this shot really brings out the details.

Processing once again started with 7 exposures taken in to Photomatix 4 (beta). Additional contrast was added using Topaz Adjust in Photoshop.

Comments?

Armington & Sims Machine Shop

James Howe — Fri, 01 Oct 2010 11:47:40 +0000

(Nikon D700, 28-300mm at 45mm, ISO 200, 6 exposure HDR @ f/11)

The Armington & Sims machine shop in Greenfield Village was built in 1929. It was named after a maker of steam engines in Providence, Rhode Island. The building houses a working machine shop which would have been used as a ‘job’ shop to build and repair various parts for industry. The shop was originally powered by steam, with the steam engine sending its power to the machinery via a system of belts and pulleys. If you look near the top of the image, you can see a series of pulley wheels and their belts which power the machines to the right. Today the shop it powered by electricity. While primarily an exhibit of what a machine shop would have been like in the day, the shop is still used to produce parts for items needed in the village and museum.

The image was created primarily in Photomatix from a combination of 6 exposures (would have been 7, but I miscounted when I took the shot). As you can see below, the image was originally a vertical shot, but I thought a more focused crop looked better. After processing was completed in Photomatix, I used the Topaz Adjust tool to add some additional microcontrast.

Comments?