Kevin Meyers Photography Blog

one of my colleagues, greg pierce, raised the following question about a recent photo shown below.

"I remember seeing a video tutorial on how to get that perfect blur from someone riding past you on a bike. It was on open source I think. Do you remember anything like that Kevin or care to share your technique for getting that shot?"

i'd be happy to! i just tried typing this in prose and it took forever and was really confusing...so we'll go with numbered steps.

1) camera in shutter priority mode; you want to control your shutter speed

2) camera in multishot drive mode; you'll want to just hold the shutter release down for many shots hoping for the perfect one. ;)

3) choose appropriate shutter speed; i start with 1/10th of a second and adjust from there, the key is to blur the background, but not beyond recognition. increase the shutter speed if you find the background completely blurred away

4) if your background is far away, make sure your aperture is closed down enough to keep good depth of field. even if your shutter speed is right, the background may be too blurry simply due to shallow depth of field. an increase in iso may be needed so you can close down your aperture to bring definition back into your background blur.

5) prefocus on the area the subject will be moving through; you'll want to take your eyes away from the viewfinder a bit so you can do what's explained next

5) shoot with both eyes open and don't bother looking through the camera; you can't see through it during the exposure anyway and you need to keep the subject in the same spot of the frame. i pick a spot on the subject and make sure the end of my lens is always in line with that point.

good luck and have fun!

i posted the bike photo in question below (shot at 1/13th of a second) along with another blurred motion shot. the fountain shot is a lot easier since it only requires steps 1-3 above. it's shot at 1/10th of a second.

i'd known melissa was coming to town for a while so we planned lunch and a some fun shooting around portland. elena and demetrye joined up with us and it was the first time we'd met, although i recognized elena from the opensourcephoto forum. glad you two could join us! see you again soon.

melissa and i then roamed around nw 23rd ave. taking photos, but since i shot film...well...i don't have much to show. ;)

here are a couple shots of monday's pug (pictage user group) meeting. this was the first held in my studio and it worked out really well. there were a number of newcomers as well as regulars so it was a lot of fun to hang out and chat afterwards. thanks everyone for coming!!

we had the pleasure of learning from melissa jill. she was in town from arizona to shoot a wedding so the timing was perfect for her to hit up our pug in the same trip. she's a super active blogger so click hereif you want to see more photos!

pictured below from left to right: darcie, ellen, melissa, barb, juli, me, craig, laura, mark, john, tammy, jos

yep...i agree, that's an absolutely ridiculous photo of me cooling things down after a workout...but i had no choice! i would've set the place on fire otherwise. i hope you're laughing because i sure as heck am. ROTFLMAO! (for those not in the know, that's what the instant message generation would be saying right now)

here's the 411 (or is there some newer nickname for "information" i should know about?). my energy levels are all over the road map. my refrigerator has nothing in it that resembles what's technically deemed "food." considering my diet, i'm sure my arteries hate me right now. so i'm doing something about it! there's a gym four blocks from me so i have no excuse.

wish me luck!

hey all! i've been shooting like crazy, which means now it's time to be editing like crazy. it will be a bit before you see a lot more images, but here's one for a taste of what's coming.

just a side note...i hated the look of this building as it was being constructed. it looked so plain and boring to me. ah, but that was the point! i finally realize how it was built to reflect the setting around it rather than draw attention to itself. don't get me wrong, nothing beats looking at the sky, but it's also amazing to see the sky reflected in so many different forms on this facade as you walk by from day to day.

come back for more about brian & audra as well as some shoots for other cool couples!

hey all. i've been seeing some really cool headers on other blogs and decided it was time to create one for myself. this one is interactive though...so check it out! let me know how you like it! :)

edit: bear with me as it only works in safari and firefox for now.