Relying on Irish Weather for a planned photo?

cormie

I'd like to get a few decent shots of my vans (4) with a view of Dublin in the background. I've found a decent enough place to take the shot, although it's not ideal, it's a good view and catches the chimneys in Ringsend as well as Killiney hill and all that's in between. It's going to be a bit tight for the 4 vans though

Anyway, ideally I'd want a sunrise shot so it would be a case of waking up early and driving the 4 vans there, which will need at least 4 people driving a van each, I guess the photographer can meet at the depot and drive one up himself (if he's 25-70 years old with a full license)

Is there any truly reliable way to plan this so it can be done in the one morning? Any good websites to check for specific hourly forecast with sunrise times, cloud level etc? Has anyone experience with such shots and have you any examples of your work (please post below if so), any great locations to suggest for such a shot?

Something like this would be cool with the vans instead of the Holywood sign, with a bit more emphasis on the vans than the view.



Any feedback and advice appreciated!

Tallon

Just check met.ie for weather

How much are you willing to pay the photographer?

Can you post a google maps link to the location you're thinking about?

magicbastarder

i don't think *anyone* in ireland would be specific (or deluded) enough to forecast exact levels of cloud cover far enough in advance for you to plan this photo.
sunrise times are much easier, you can get apps for your phone for that.

Tallon

magicbastarder wrote: »

i don't think *anyone* in ireland would be specific (or deluded) enough to forecast exact levels of cloud cover far enough in advance for you to plan this photo.
sunrise times are much easier, you can get apps for your phone for that.

You can just google it and google will tell you

Try 'sunrise Dublin'

flyingsnail

Tallon wrote: »

You can just google it and google will tell you

Try 'sunrise Dublin'

I use the Photographer’s Ephemeris for this. Not only will it give you the times for sun and moon rise/set, it also allows you to place a marker on the map that will draw lines across the map showing you where each of them will be in relation to you. You have to pay or IOS or Android but it is free for windows and mac desktop.

http://photoephemeris.com/

Kenny Logins

I find yr.no is pretty good at the aul weather guessing.


http://www.yr.no/place/Ireland/Leinster/Dublin/hour_by_hour.html

Splinters

To be honest the shot should be pretty easy to get. Unfortunately theres no special photographers method to predicting the weather, we're at the mercy of it just like everybody else.

My suggestion would be to either find a photographer flexable enough who will agree on a price with you for the shot regardless of if it takes 2 or 3 attempts. The other would be to aim for the location shoot but have a plan B on the morning it that fails. Remember a good photographer should be able to make almost any location look cool.

AnimalRights

Funnily enough I've never ever planned a photograph b4 but this week I've seen 2 pics from my area of buildings when I googled and I just fancy my chances of doing better and the 1st thing that came into my head was the weather too.

cormie

Just a little bump on this, Splinters, I got your PM and replied but never heard back. If anyone else has experience and a portfolio of such shots, or could recommend another photographer, please post below too

I really should have bumped this earlier while we had the weather, seems it'll be dull for another week now

Corkbah

what you want is someone who is experienced with taking photos of vehicles (Paddy_CIRL) and understanding of landscape photography (too many to mention names)

to me is seems that the images taken would most likely be stacked and ND/grad ND/circular polariser filters would be required

can you give us an example of what you want to do with the images - are they for trade magazines, billboards, advertising flyers....possibility of requiring additional lighting/reflectors etc .

this is a commercial shoot and requires more than simply a photographer and a camera - in my opinion.

as has already been mentioned - it could take several days to get the photo "right" - do you have an image board (mock up drawings of what you want the image to look like ?) ...or are you still seeking locations ?

what exactly do you want ...an image of 4 company vans with dublin bay in the background ?

and what do you want to do with the image ? most photographers can take a good image and this can be transformed in post processing (sometimes it makes it look fantastic - other times it makes it look over processed), some photographers can create fantastic images straight from the camera....these are usually the ones who will quote you several thousand to do this kind of a shoot.

Ideally you would take images of your vans in several locations (iconic landmarks) on different occasions....giving you multiple options for advertising....its a bit more expensive but allows more latitude when it comes to choosing images.

cormie

Just getting back to this now. I've been in contact with Splinters and have received a very reasonable offer to do the shoot and have seen some of his work and think the style could work well.

The images will be mainly for use on my website. I don't really delve in other media but it would be nice to have them for that use too I guess.

I haven't got a definite location yet, just one in mind, but I'd definitely be open for other ones and yep, thinking the 4 (or possibly 5 by the time I get around to doing it) vans with dublin in the background capturing the chimneys and then killiney hill area too.

The location shooting is good of course but would be far too difficult and expensive too I'm sure to arrange with a photographer. I might be better off getting an entry level Canon 1100 or so to bring with me for a few snaps if I'll be in iconic places around Ireland/Europe and hope for the best

dacogawa

The weather guru on here (M.T.) does a forecast here http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055579971&page=204 also there are plenty of links on the main weather forum here http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056531638

I'd never go outside 96 hours in the future but you can get a good guess of what's coming & going. I use the link below all the time for cloud mapping before outdoor filming/shooting, it gives you a realtime cloud map http://www.sat24.com/en/gb it's dark at night but you can click to europe on the top left to see cloud at night.

cormie

Thanks a lot for that. As well as it cloud coverage, rain and wind, I wonder how difficult it would be to predict a beautiful sunset evening?

dacogawa

cormie wrote: »

Thanks a lot for that. As well as it cloud coverage, rain and wind, I wonder how difficult it would be to predict a beautiful sunset evening?

All clear clear sky sunsets look beautiful once the sun is within 5 degrees of the horizon, gets that lovely orange glow but if you're shooting towards it the near side of the vans will be slightly shadowed so I'd use some sort of lighting. As for those amazing sunsets I think that's when there's a bit of cloud between you and the horizon but enough space so it comes through & so it bounces back, I think that's very unpredictable and you just hope for it when you shoot!

cormie

Cool, thanks for that, will hopefully get some good results

ScumLord

It's going to be difficult to get everything organised for a particular time and then a complete waste of money if it doesn't work out and you won't have a whole load of time to achieve what you want.

When businesses want specific images they turn to photoshop. You could take the photo of the vans and insert the sky you want or maybe even preferably take every image separately and combine them all into the background.


You would be able to find all the images you need here, I'm sure someone here has taken a lovely picture of a Dublin sunset that you could purchase, then get someone to take some nice photos of your vans and then they can be dropped into the background.

I think that's the only way you can be certain to get the image you want.

cormie

That's an interesting suggestion alright. My brother actually said the same thing. It's definitely something to consider. I was hoping to get a small little time lapse of the sunset too, maybe with the vans driving off, coming back etc. Might give the photo a try first and if it's proving too difficult could go the PS route..

ScumLord

cormie wrote: »

That's an interesting suggestion alright. My brother actually said the same thing. It's definitely something to consider. I was hoping to get a small little time lapse of the sunset too, maybe with the vans driving off, coming back etc. Might give the photo a try first and if it's proving too difficult could go the PS route..

You can go for that but you have to bare in mind your gambling your money on many different factors coming together. The photoshop route may be slightly more expensive (or not, I've never seen a price for these things) but it's guaranteed results first time. If you go the photo route and it fails you're going to have to pay out twice.

cormie

The photographer has actually offered to do it for the same price until he gets the right shot which is very decent of him. Will go with it and see how we get on, hopefully pull it off in one

Zascar

So will you tell us where the spot it?? map link? Please?

cormie

Well I was thinking up around Stepaside, just had a look on google maps there and noticed a link to one of this guys photos from the same area.

http://www.declanmccarthy.ie/PhotoGallery.php?view=preview&q=dublin&category=14&ImageGalleryPage=6&image=542#

There's also the view from Killiney hill which was my first idea but I just don't think I'd get the vans up into any decent position and the view from the car park is quite distorted by trees etc. Plus there's a height barrier which is too low for vans to get up anyway! It's also only 5 minutes from me. I guess that's where photoshop could come in handy.

Here's a photo the same guy has taken from Killiney hill: http://www.declanmccarthy.ie/data/storage/attachments/d0c9b8d1a752f573d490b9977b487528.jpeg

pixbyjohn

Surely you had lots of great opportunities this summer, is it too late now?

cormie

Unfortunately I'm thinking that, missed some great opportunities. There's a chance I'll be exchanging a van too for a newer one so in no mad rush to do it just yet until I figure that one out. I guess a nice sunset will be pretty rare in the coming months!

cormie

Just thought I'd bump this again. I started this thread about the best place to get this shot: http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=88392042#post88392042

and along with the shot, I wouldn't mind doing a timelapse from sunrise, to sunset, night and then loops the sunrise back again. Was thinking it may be better to do this in the winter months as the daytime is shorter so if it wasn't possible to do the whole thing overnight, at least it would be a shorter day to get that time lapse?

ScumLord

cormie wrote: »

and along with the shot, I wouldn't mind doing a timelapse from sunrise, to sunset, night and then loops the sunrise back again. Was thinking it may be better to do this in the winter months as the daytime is shorter so if it wasn't possible to do the whole thing overnight, at least it would be a shorter day to get that time lapse?

I think the sun looks better at this time of year.

I think you've gone a bit mad with your planing though. It started with you wanting to get some publicity photos of your vans and now 6 months later you're still talking about it but now 24 hour time lapses are included.

I think at this stage you're probably as well off just to go take a photo and see how it comes out, then you can take it from there.

cormie

Haha, you're right, that's my style :P I see these new websites with backgrounds like this and think the footage could be really nice to have for something like that

ScumLord

cormie wrote: »

Haha, you're right, that's my style :P I see these new websites with backgrounds like this and think the footage could be really nice to have for something like that

I'm the same.

That probably wasn't done using video footage, just some pictures put together in sequence. Often when you see stuff like that on a website it's using a trick to simulate movement, you want to avoid video as a background for a website. You'll end up eating through your bandwidth and annoying customers as the site will be really slow loading. One thing that annoys me about slow loading sites is you think it's loaded, go to click something then some slow loading element pops in moving the page up or down slightly and I end up clicking something I didn't want like an ad.

cormie

Aha, I was wondering how it would work for people on slow connections alright. Looking back at the background, it does appear only some parts are moving. I wonder is that difficult to pull off?

ScumLord

cormie wrote: »

Aha, I was wondering how it would work for people on slow connections alright. Looking back at the background, it does appear only some parts are moving. I wonder is that difficult to pull off?

Not really, most websites run on "Content Management System" (EG: Joomla, Drupal) software now so there's probably a plugin that will achieve it easily enough.

Typically you'd put in some neutral image though, you don't really want something too spectacular or it will be distracting from the content on the page, most of the photo is going to end up covered (or it will make text hard to read) so a nice picture might not fit too well as a background image.

cormie

Thanks for that. I'll get the footage I geuss and then look at implementing it somehow Now how to time the perfect sunrise and sunset?

mikka631

This might help with the sunrise/sunset part of the job.

http://photoephemeris.com/

cormie

Cool,, thanks for that, might come in handy

LeoD

ScumLord wrote: »

That probably wasn't done using video footage, just some pictures put together in sequence. Often when you see stuff like that on a website it's using a trick to simulate movement, you want to avoid video as a background for a website. You'll end up eating through your bandwidth and annoying customers as the site will be really slow loading. One thing that annoys me about slow loading sites is you think it's loaded, go to click something then some slow loading element pops in moving the page up or down slightly and I end up clicking something I didn't want like an ad.

A quick look at the source says it's a 10Mb MP4 file.