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filter advice: removing people from landscapes.
- Thread starter jwt
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I have done what you want to do.
In mid-day I photo'd the Lincoln Memorial in DC and used long exposure to delete the people.
ND filters is the way to go.
Get a set with several values, and stack if necessary.
Vignetting a problem? Really easy to prevent that.
Get filters much larger than the lens and use a "step-up" adapter from the lens to the filters.
This of course will work mainly if the people are all moving at a decent pace. Sloooow walkers, or those milling around may still show up.
Oh and as stated above......
Remote Shutter Release+Tripod+Bulb Setting=BEST RESULTS
Sometimes you will have to improvise and think outside the box!!!
Oh yeah - when I did this I did it on film - using a Canon F1 - not sure how well it will work with a DSLR - but it might!
In mid-day I photo'd the Lincoln Memorial in DC and used long exposure to delete the people.
ND filters is the way to go.
Get a set with several values, and stack if necessary.
Vignetting a problem? Really easy to prevent that.
Get filters much larger than the lens and use a "step-up" adapter from the lens to the filters.
This of course will work mainly if the people are all moving at a decent pace. Sloooow walkers, or those milling around may still show up.
Oh and as stated above......
Remote Shutter Release+Tripod+Bulb Setting=BEST RESULTS
Sometimes you will have to improvise and think outside the box!!!
Oh yeah - when I did this I did it on film - using a Canon F1 - not sure how well it will work with a DSLR - but it might!
Yup, don't have a remote yet. Maybe someday. Thus far, I've only needed a remote for times when I didn't want any camera motion during nighttime exposures (on the order of 1/8 to a few seconds). In those cases I just used the 10 second timer function. I tend to buy equipment as I need it.
This may not be entirely helpful, but there is another way to remove people from your landscapes (Hopefully this will work in photoshop).
For part of a short film I needed to remove all of the people from an outdoor scene. The amount of people and the complexity of the lighting made it impossible to use masks, so this is how I did it instead:
After setting up the shot, I recorded it for about 15 minutes. After capturing to Final Cut Pro, I separated the 15minute shot into three 5 minute segments, sped each one up by 300%, then overlayed them using the "difference" blend mode. This pretty much removed the people from the scene, leaving only a few tell-tale blurs which were negligible.
I'm not sure if you might be able to do something like this with stills, though.. What I'm getting at is that maybe if you took 3 or more 30second+ exposures and blended them together, you might have better results then with just one exposure.
For part of a short film I needed to remove all of the people from an outdoor scene. The amount of people and the complexity of the lighting made it impossible to use masks, so this is how I did it instead:
After setting up the shot, I recorded it for about 15 minutes. After capturing to Final Cut Pro, I separated the 15minute shot into three 5 minute segments, sped each one up by 300%, then overlayed them using the "difference" blend mode. This pretty much removed the people from the scene, leaving only a few tell-tale blurs which were negligible.
I'm not sure if you might be able to do something like this with stills, though.. What I'm getting at is that maybe if you took 3 or more 30second+ exposures and blended them together, you might have better results then with just one exposure.