Taylor - Double Exposure

[Austin Greene]

Today I gave in-camera double exposure a first try, borrowing a coworker as a subject for a quick snap between classes. Rather than going the route of completing losing all subject details in shadow for the first exposure, I opted to leave some details somewhat less under-exposed, such as her sweater, part of her hair, things that I thought would keep the image human, familiar.

Hope you like it! By all means, give me some CC, I'd appreciate it as this is a new area


1.


Taylor by TogaLive, on Flickr

 

[D-B-J]

Cool. I like it.

 

[D-B-J]

Is it really as simple as choosing the double exposure in the camera? Seems "complex" looking for such a seemingly simple process.

 

[Derrel]

I'd like to hear more about how you did this so well...this is pretty cool!

 

[BrickHouse]

Badass!!

 

[Heitz]

2nd. I'd like to hear the mechanics of this shot!

 

[Austin Greene]

Is it really as simple as choosing the double exposure in the camera? Seems "complex" looking for such a seemingly simple process.

I was surprised at how simple it was. I started by taking her portrait, using the bright sky as a background (you need something close to a complete silhouette). Essentially everything that is underexposed in the first frame will pick up the details from the second frame. Since we don't want other distracting elements around them, we our the subject in front of the bright, featureless sky. In the case of this photo, where some hair, sweater, and facial detail is still visible, I had her turn her face so some ambient light fell on the front of it, so the silhouette wasn't completely black. These somewhat brighter areas will pick up most all the detail from the second frame, but retain some from the first frame.

Next, on the 6D or 5dmkIII, you just go into "Multiple Exposure" mode, set it to additive, pick out the portrait image you already took to be your "Base Image" and then go find a suitable background texture which matches the first frame's composition. Shooting in live view makes it really fun, as it actually shows you the overlay of the two images (so you can like everything up), albeit deciding on an exposure for the second image can be a bit tricky. The nice thing about using the 6D or 5DmkIII is that function about picking your base image. I could take the first image weeks ago, and utilize it as many times as I want, whenever I find an interesting background. It's important to note that for other cameras, you'll need to blend the two images in photoshop. Or you could just go back to the old days and use film.

All in all, it's really easy with the right camera body, and produces surprisingly dramatic results if you pick the right second frame and have a solid first frame to build off of.

 

[D-B-J]

I'll definitely be trying this soon. Thanks!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[cynicaster]

Pretty cool. I think you could achieve a similar effect in post quite easily by either using the tones of the "portrait" image to make a mask of the texture layer, or you could just use the luminance blending mode.

 

[Austin Greene]

Pretty cool. I think you could achieve a similar effect in post quite easily by either using the tones of the "portrait" image to make a mask of the texture layer, or you could just use the luminance blending mode.

Yep, there are quite a few ways of doing it in post, more related to the layer blending mode and inverting layers. They produce somewhat similar results, and with enough effort could no doubt produce exact replicates. That said, there is definitely something fun about doing it in camera and getting something that would otherwise have taken quite some time in post

 

[acparsons61 1]

Great work. I've been trying it with my D300, but there's no live view for multiple exposures. Quite a task to get a good shot, great work. I tried it with 8 exposures, this was the best that I could do: https://www.flickr.com/photos/machavelliar/8825616682/

 

[Scatterbrained]

Pretty cool. I'm actually surprised that I've not seen more of these since the feature was brought into these cameras.