Leo Kowal

Timelapse Photography

Leo Kowal — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 16:42:12 +0000

Previously when I compared the D7000 to higher end “professional” camera’s, I wondered why people would spend thousands more on a D1X or D4 when they can do just about everything with a prosumer camera like the D7000. Not only do the higher end cameras have a full frame sensor, but they also perform better in low light (ISO) and most importantly, they can shoot photos continuously without running out of memory (buffer, cache, whatever they call it these days).

Graveyard Timelapse

I ran into a memory problem when I shot this timelapse at the New Forest Home Cemetary in Chicago. I wanted to take one picture every second, continuously for about 5 minutes. Sorry, [buzzer sound], no can do. Once it shot about five or six photos, it would lag a little bit until the photos were processed and stored on the memory card. So I’d get five shots in five seconds and then it would go three seconds without a shot and continue on. The solution was to switch from RAW to medium sized JPEG. Lowering the amount of data that the camera needed to process, fixed the problem, but left me without a digital negative. The result was still pretty cool, but it left me eying a higher quality camera as I love to shoot RAW. I used a dolly and digital controller to give this timelapse movement.

Supplies Used

Nikon D7000
Nikon AF-S Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8G ED
Kessler Camera Control Module (to trigger the camera between moves)
Phillip Bloom Pocket Dolly
elektraDrive Bundle
Manfrotto tripods to support the Dolly

How-To

Once all the images were taken, I simply cropped the images to 1280 x 720 (720p resolution) in Photoshop and then used Quicktime Pro to create an image sequence. I don’t recall if it was 10 or 6 frames per second. I then took the .mov file and added some music to it using Adobe Premiere Pro. Enjoy!

The Drive

Midnight Tubing

Interactive 360° x 360° Panoramic Photography

Leo Kowal — Sat, 11 Dec 2010 23:27:11 +0000

The first time I saw a 360° x 360° interactive panoramic image, I was blown away and immediately knew it was something I wanted to do. I shot plenty of regular 360° panoramic images for the real estate industry back in the early 2000′s when I did side work for a California based company called 3CIM. My latest stint with panoramic photography literally puts the viewer in the middle of the scene. You can look 360° left and right as well as 360° up and down. This type of panoramic projection is also known as equirectangular!

Equipment Requirements

In order to accurately capture these types of images with minimal effort, I got my hands on these key pieces of equipment. Keep in mind that I am shooting a Nikon D90 which is a DX-sensor based DSLR. Although I have a 24-70 f/2.8 (FX Lens) and a 70-200 f/2.8 (FX Lens), I opted to get the 10.5mm DX lens so that I would get a true fisheye. When I tried the 16mm f/2.8, I lost a good 40+ degrees which would have required additional shots to create the same panorama. The 10.5mm f/2.8 only requires 7 photographs for a full 360° x 360° panorama! Very nice!

1. Nikon 10.5mm f/2.8G ED AF DX Fisheye Nikkor Lens

2. Manfrotto 303SPH QTVR Spherical Panoramic Pro Head (Black)

3. Manfrotto 055XPROB Pro Tripod Legs (Black)

4. PTGui Pro

Panoramic Gallery

Note: After starting the panorama, click the Full Screen button to get the full experience! Bonus: Right-Click on the panorama (in full-screen) and select Little Planet View! Psychedelic drugs are optional.

Curtiss Street Apartments – Downers Grove, IL in USA

Lake Harriet – Woodridge, Illinois in USA

St. Patrick’s Cemetery – Lemont, IL in USA

Castaldo Park – Woodridge, IL in USA

Greene Valley – Naperville, IL in USA

Downtown Downers Grove in USA

2011 Jeep Drive Away Event

Leo Kowal — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 03:53:43 +0000

Chrysler contacted me to take some photos of a “Drive Away” event that they were hosting at Soldier Field. In a nutshell, they were unveiling a new 2011 Jeep model and this was to be an informative pep-rally for the dealers. At the end of the event, each dealer drove away with a new Jeep. Pretty cool! Not sure who paid for the cars, but all I know is that I didn’t get one.

I worked as the Department Information Administrator (IT, HelpDesk and Network Admin) for the Chrysler Midwest Business Center from January of 2007 – September of 2008. While working there, I had the opportunity to showcase some of my design and photographic skills. I must have left some sort of impression because the marketing manager asked if I’d document the event for them.

The main objective of the shoot was to capture the layout of the event. All of the cars were lined up around the outside of Soldier Field. An aerial photograph would have been the best way to capture the scene, but renting a helicopter can get quite expensive (although I have done it and it’s super fun!) Besides taking to the sky, a panoramic image was the next best solution. Each panoramic image consists of 5-6 vertical images stitched together using Auto-Pano Pro. All the shots were taken with Nikon D90 and my 24-70 f/2.8 lens. My ISO was set to the minimum since it was bright and sunny, I also had the aperture pretty much wide open since it didn’t really matter much and I used the built in light meter to figure out the shutter speed which ended up being around 1/2000. Nice and bright! I touched up the levels a bit in Photoshop, upped the brightness and contrast a tad and there you have it!

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Made With Love By Jackie Moon – Summer Shoot

Leo Kowal — Sun, 23 May 2010 03:21:39 +0000

In case anyone is wondering, photography is a huge part of running our company Autumn Creative LLC, but I’m not really for hire and I only shoot things that I WANT to shoot. Jackie Moon happens to be my girlfriend’s (Mary) best friend, but she doesn’t get special treatment because of that. She gets special treatment because she is dedicated to her pursuit of becoming independently wealthy and she has AWESOME style and is a brilliant designer! It obviously shows through in her crochet patterns!

Just like the seasons, fashion changes constantly and I got the opportunity to shoot Jackie’s summer line of crochet patterns. This time around I was lucky enough to have a second photographer shooting along with me (Jeff Lintz), and it proved to be a great experience as he captured some phenomenal shots from angles that I wouldn’t have been able to get to! If you can shoot with a second photographer, do it! You’ve got nothing to lose!

This was the third shoot for Made With Love By Jackie Moon and it’s obvious that Jackie is becoming a seasoned veteran when it comes to preparation. She had her clothing picked out ahead of time which made the photo shoot VERY efficient! The ladies were beautiful as always and they were working the camera like runway models. Mary seemed uncharacteristically comfortable posing (as you can see in the image on the right), she’s a true undercover top model!

Originally, I planned on shooting at the same place we did the last two photo shoots, but it turns out that the tree canopy blocked out too much light. So much that we would have had to shoot at ISO 600 – 800 just to keep our shutters at 1/125th with the aperture wide open. Yikes! Good thing I scouted the shoot location out beforehand. We ended up heading over to the Morton Arboretum and found a nice shady tree with some tall grass that provided a great backdrop for our photo shoot. Good times.

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Made With Love By Jackie Moon – Winter Shoot

Leo Kowal — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 00:41:04 +0000

I had so much fun working with Jackie on her last shoot and was fortunate enough to work with her again today! Her product is so beautiful and she looks great in front of the camera! She has an very natural and cute style that everyone should be drooling over! Let’s hope that her crochet patterns sell very well!

We headed back to the same neck-of-the-woods that we shot in last time, but this time conditions were quite different. Instead of overcast, we had direct sunlight and instead of leaves and lots of brown, we had snow and tons of white! Needless to say the camera was shooting really fast today! Again, I brought the reflector/diffuser, but I was very happy with the direct sunlight! They say that shooting in direct sunlight creates harsh shadows and poor results. I think this may not be as true in the winter. Something about the sun today was not as intense. The light was beautiful and the images turned out great!

Her best friend and my girlfriend Mary got in on the action today as well! You’ll see Mary all over this website as she is no stranger to modeling! She looked great as well! They are two peas in a pod!

The shots below we shot at ISO 100, f/3.5 at 1/400-1/1600 using a Nikon D80 and my Nikkor 70-200 f/2.8G ED-IF AF-S VR. All of the light was natural light, no diffusers or reflectors, just the sun! Everything was shot RAW and white balanced with a WhiBal!

Jackie currently sells her crochet patterns on Etsy.com and will eventually transition to http://www.madewithlovebyjm.com.

Image Gallery

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Made With Love By Jackie Moon – Fall Shoot

Leo Kowal — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 04:48:11 +0000

I don’t have much experience shooting fashion, but putting myself in the shoes of the designer makes the process so much easier. The objective is to show customers what the product looks like while conveying a feeling or mood. Much like her products, I wanted to keep the images clean and natural.

We found an area in a forest that had a topography similar to something a meteor would create. A great flat base to stand on with an incline that made for beautiful background eye candy, especially shooting with a wide open aperture. All of these images were shot with my Nikkor 70-200 f/2.8G ED-IF AF-S VR at ISO 100, between f/3.2 – 3.5 at 1/50 – 1/200th. I brought a reflector but didn’t have to use it since the clouds created a brilliant softbox for me. Very soft and even light provided by mother nature is ideal for any type of photography! I shot everything RAW and used a Whibal for white balance. Check out my About page for a list of my equipment.

Jackie currently sells her crochet patterns on Etsy.com and will eventually transition to http://www.madewithlovebyjm.com.

Image Gallery

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iStock in Action

Leo Kowal — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 02:07:07 +0000

It’s impossible to know how ALL of my images have been used. After all, as of January 2010, I’ve sold almost 17,000 images on iStock. It may sound impressive and I’m quite happy about the accomplishment, but its nothing compared to the top 10 iStock contributors who have sold over 200,000+ images, and that may be a low estimate. I have had a few health concerns that have prevented me from being 100%, but I still managed to build my portfolio significantly over the last year. Come to think of it, I’ve actually shot more great stock since my health issues started. I have promised myself that I will continue to grow my portfolio and make my images stand out more. Recently, I thought about getting into iStock Video and did a bunch of research and got a Canon HV40 and after a few days, I realized that I need to get back into photography and focus on making that better before I leap into the world of motion pictures. I’m tired of being the “Jack of all trades, master of none”.

Anyways, I wanted to create this post to showcase some of my stock “in action”. The images below are snapshots or screenshots of my images used on various print and websites! This gallery will be constantly updated as I am starting to see more and more of my work used all around the world!

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Portraits with Kyle

Leo Kowal — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 23:51:51 +0000

Last week I got a chance to shoot (almost) 5 year old Kyle. Kyle is the son of an old friend that I’ve known since Freshman year of high school. She actually originally contacted me because her computer was on the fritz and I mentioned that I do photography as well. When I first met Kyle, I knew that he would be great in the studio and the images show it!

I don’t have much experience shooting children, but the few times I have, I ended up working with boys and I think they start to feel more comfortable in front of all the lights when I show them how good my fake fart noises sound (Thanks to my friend Kurt for teaching me). Some of the poses in the shots below are pretty much your standard portrait poses, while others were totally spur of the moment. During this photo shoot, I thought to myself, what if I told Kyle to tell me a story. Turns out that it really helped get some great shots. By telling a story, he forgot that he was being photographed and started acting more natural. In addition, some of the better laughing photos were the result of fake flatulent sounds. I’m 26 and I still think farts are hilarious!

Like my other white background shoots, it is fairly straight forward. Two umbrellas bouncing Alien Bee 800′s at the seamless white background and one medium softbox for the key light. Whibal for white balancing roughly 5300K. Camera’s shutter set to sync speed 1/200th of a second and the aperture at around f/11, ISO 100.

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Dockside Shoot for iStock

Leo Kowal — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 18:10:46 +0000

The idea for this shoot was more of a reason to get out of the house then an actual planned shoot, but I was still happy with the result! Obviously hair and makeup are VERY important no matter where you shoot (studio or outside), you might as well get that right so that you don’t spend too much time editing the photos afterward. You can only edit a photo so much before it is no longer acceptable as a stock image. As I like to say, “You can’t polish a turd”.

For this shoot, I brought my 70-200 f/2.8, a medium reflector, a reflector stand/arm and my Whibal. The first shot shows the subject with semi filtered sunlight on her face, while the remainder of the shots have the sun to her back. In the latter shots, I had the reflector bouncing the sunlight onto the subject. I had to adjust the distance from the reflector to the subject a few times, until I felt it was just right. It was also very windy on the dock, so a small dumbell helped keep the reflector stand in place. (A person holding the reflector would be ideal, but not always possible.)

The makeup, white balance and exposures were pretty much perfect, so there was very little to do in post editing. Just a few touch ups to make some of the mid tones pop, a little more contrast and a slight vignette and that’s it!

You’ll also notice alot of blank space in my photography, especially when I shoot for iStock. For those that don’t know, that is called “CopySpace” and is great for designers! A nice out of focus (bokah) space for copy (words, ads, text, whatever you want to call it). I don’t always shoot this way, but I find that it helps sell the image. I always like to mix it up, some shots with copy space, some shots with no copy space. Cover all corners for maximum ROI.

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Autumn Part I

Leo Kowal — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 20:14:28 +0000

For those caught up in the hustle and bustle of a 9-5, its hard to tell when the autumn winds begin to push summer’s warm, lemonade laced days south of the equator. Twice a year, the angle of the earth is so that day and night are equal, with it comes a sense of transition as well as reflection. I swear, there is a distinct moment where I feel the first brisk autumn winds embrace my skin. Immediately I am filled with visions of cloudy days and psychedelic forests, pumpkin patches and apple orchards, the smell of autumn potpourri and the taste of cider and pumpkin pie. A time for harvest and preparation, exploration and celebration. Every moment outside is a walk through an art gallery. Every corner a new painting that sparks a memory or sentimental feeling.

You’ll never see me taking autumn pictures without my tripod. I don’t care if my 70-200 f/2.8 has vibration reduction, I really prefer having a stable platform for my camera where I can really take my time and frame a shot. If I think I have it, I can leave it in frame and step back for a second and re-evaluate without losing my shot. The Manfrotto tripod with panoramic head is heavy, but I feel naked without it. When buying a tripod, you get what you pay for and if you don’t pay for it, you’ll end up paying for it later. Got it? Good.

The images below are just a sampling of my Autumn collection. I will continue to add to this collection as I sift through my archives. The waterfall image below is a panoramic image even though it is sized to 5 x 7. I really love the high definition I get by shooting panoramic images.

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