1/250 sec @ f/8.0, ISO 200, 50 mm (EF50mm f/1.8 II) I tried to get a bit more creative with my lighting technique tonight. I have included a set up shot below of what the configuration of the two strobes and two foam-core boards was during the shoot. I thought it might be easier to show the setup rather then try to explain it entirely in words. I chose a side lit lighting scheme in order to attempt to bring out the texture of the wood work in the cabinet. In post processing, I ran the image through Topaz Adjust to open up the details a bit more.
1/250 sec @ f/8.0, ISO 400, 50 mm (EF50mm f/1.8 II) I got my inspiration for today’s shot from Flickr. I typically will check out the Flickr Interesting Today feed via Flickriver when I am lacking inspiration. I lit the mug from both camera right and camera left. I used umbrellas set up in the reflective mode to shape the light. Unfortunately, I did not record my settings for the power on either of the flash heads.
I brought the image into Photoshop CS4 and tried out a few Topaz Adjust presets on the photograph. Again, I forgot to write down which particular preset it was, so I am unable to share. Sorry.
1/250 sec @ f/14, ISO 400, 50 mm (EF50mm f/1.8 II) My mom brought a box of pens for us on her visit. Instead of throwing them out, I guess she thought we could use them. They actually write surprising well. I dumped the box of them onto my fiancée’s day planner to setup up this shot. I had to strategically rearrange a few of them, but mostly it was random chaos.
The lighting setup consisted of two reflective umbrellas. Both were set at 1/4 power. The umbrellas were placed at opposing corners of the TV tray table on which the scene was setup. During the shooting, I worked my way around the table and captured frames from different angles and heights. Because of this technique, I do not remember where the flashes were in relation to the camera for this particular image. However, for this type of cross lighting, the best lighting is usually produced when shooting at 45 degree angles to the lights.
1/250 sec @ f/8.0, ISO 100, 50 mm (EF50mm f/1.8 II) There is a good chance that I may be taking head shots for many, if not all, of the employees at my company. I decided I would give the easiest head shot setup a try just to see the results and how long a typical shoot would take to setup, shoot, and post process. I used a post from my go to lighting information source, strobist.blogspot.com to help me. At first, I was shooting myself to test out the setup. Luckily, my fiancée came home while I was shooting and she graciously let me use her as my subject.
The one thing I would change about this setup would be to bring the umbrella a bit closer to the wall on camera left. Doing this, I would get a bit more light bouncing off of the wall and onto the shadow side of my subject’s face. Other than that, I like the results.
For the head shots of the employees in my company, I will most likely need to change a few things. After showing some head shots for business reference material to our CEO, he decided that he wants some color and texture to the background of the head shots. To recreat the effects in the reference photograph, I think I will need to do a three light setup (key, fill and background) with a fabric backdrop. The only two pieces I will need to purchase are the background flash and blue backdrop if I get to take the pictures.
I am hoping that I get this great opportunity. Not only will it save my company some serious money, it will let me get my feet wet in the professional photography world.
1/8 sec @ f/3.5, ISO 800, 23 mm (EF-S18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS) After work tonight my mind was on things other than photography. Almost all of my concentration was going towards fixing my fiancée’s Blackberry Tour so that it would sync properly with her Google Calendar. I eventually fixed the syncing issue, but not without my blood pressure going up more than a few points. At one point in the saga, I decided I needed to put the phone down and take a picture.
It only took me a few minutes to find an interesting subject for tonight’s photograph. This handy tool was in our basement utility room. Can you figure out what it is?
I took the photo using the available light in the basement. I held the tool out at arms length and snapped several frames using different points of focus and aperture settings. In post processing, I played around with both the Topaz Adjust and Silver Efex Pro plugins until I found an effect I liked. Silver Efex Pro was the winner tonight.
In case you haven’t figured it out, the tool in question is a fan blade duster. It attaches to the end of a painter’s pole and helps clean the dust off of both sides of your ceiling fan blades. It is available at HomeDepot in or around the household cleaning isles.
1/80 sec @ f/7.1, ISO 400, 50 mm (EF50mm f/1.8 II) I was playing ball with my two “puppies” this evening and just loved the expressions on Mela’s face towards the latter end of the play session. I decided to try a different approach to lighting the scene than I have been using recently. For the past few weeks, umbrellas have been my light modifier of choice. In this scenario however, it would was too difficult to predict where Mela would be so that I could properly pre-aim the lighting gear. Instead, I decided to light the whole room.
To accomplish this, I placed a 580 EXII strobe on one of my light stands and stuck it in the corner of the room. I adjusted the head so that it was pointed up at roughly a forty-five degree angle into the corner where the two walls meet the ceiling. I then extended the light stand so that the flash was about 4 feet from the ceiling.
When I fired the flash using this setup, the middle portions of the room received very pleasant light with little, to no fall-off. All that was missing was a little bit of fill light for each frame. In order to stay flexible with where I could take each picture and still get a nice fill, I decided to use the built-in flash on the Canon 7D.
A great thing about the Canon 7D is that you can easily adjust the flash power of the built-in flash. For this picture, I dialed it almost all the way down in order to just get a small “kiss” of light on the shadow side of the frame without giving my subject “flash eyes.” Not only am I abled to control the flash power of the built-in flash on the 7D, I can make remote adjustments by using the camera menus to all Canon-branded flashs capable of acting as slaves. I can make these adjustments when shooting in full manual mode (non-ETTL mode) or I can make ratio adjustments when shooting in ETTL mode. Because of this great feature, I was able to dial in the power of the flash in the corner and the built-in flash power without ever having to leave my spot on the ground or disrupt my play time with Mela.
Boy…I love technology!
1/250 sec @ f/10, ISO 200, 89 mm (EF70-200mm f/4L IS USM) Yup, another food shot. Tonight I wanted to recreate an item that may make it onto the final menu at our wedding next September. During the food tasting earlier in the week, we got to try the mashed potatoes and some of the fixings that would be served with them at the mashed potato bar. Unfortunately, we did not get to see what it would look like when they were served. I decided to take some of the leftovers and prepare a sample of what the dish might look like if we are to chose it for the final menu.
The photograph was lit using two reflective umbrellas. I am trying to remember why I chose to use the reflective umbrellas instead of the shoot through, but nothing is coming to me at the moment. I bought a notebook yesterday at Staples to takes notes of these types of details, but alas, I have not started to use it yet.
Post-processing consisted of very few adjustments. A slight boost to the saturation and a little bit of sharpening did the trick.
1/250 sec @ f/10, ISO 200, 50 mm (EF50mm f/1.8 II) My mom and I swung by the new Wegmans to pick up some pizza for dinner tonight. While we were there, I also picked up a package of sushi for my fiancée. Her and I are both getting more and more into sushi recently. The picture today is of the spicy jumbo lump crab roll. Luckily, I had some time to take some shots before my fiancée got home for work to eat my subject. I was able to take my time and experiment with all types of angles for the shot once I had set up and adjusted my lighting. The beauty about shooting strobist-type shots in manual mode is that you can keep your light constant while you play around with your composition. Until I adjust the settings on my camera, flash, and/or subject to light distance ratio, I am guaranteed to have the same lighting with each click of the shutter release.
1/30 sec @ f/1.8, ISO 1600, 50 mm (EF50mm f/1.8 II) From the looks of this photography, you would think that Leila, our yorkiepin puppy, had just as big of a meal as my fiancée and I had tonight. Before taking this picture, we were at our food tasting for our wedding next year. The food was EXCELLENT….except for the cakes. It seems as though the pastry chef forgot an ingredient or two in both of the sample cakes that we tried. Luckily, our coordinator is having another sample cake made for us next week.
Anyways, Leila settled in next to here “mommy” for a little puppy nap. She loves to be under the covers and snuggled up. I think the paws in this picture add to its cuteness factor. I just wish I had had a wider depth of field so that they would have been in focus too. I could have closed down the aperture a few stops to gain more depth of field, but I would have lost more light. With the lighting conditions the way they were, I would have needed to use a flash or push the ISO well above my current comfort level with the Canon 7D body (Adobe Camera Raw has not optimized its RAW file processing for the 7D).
1/50 sec @ f/1.8, ISO 1600, 50 mm (EF50mm f/1.8 II) During a peer group meeting this evening, I took the opportunity to take some photographs in the entertainment room where the meeting was held. The niknaks, decorations, and color scheme in the room were very appealing. The niknaks that caught my eyes first were this dish and vase combination situated in a cubby next to the pool table. I find this an interesting place to put delicate objects when you consider how often pool table balls tend to “jump” off the table.
The picture did not come out as sharp as I had hoped. The lighting in the room was less then optimal and I did not want to break out the flash from my gear bag for this quick shoot. Now that I have seen the results, I wish I had. It is tough to tell whether it was camera shake that caused the picture to be unsharp, or if it was a bad focusing job. Either way, I rushed the shot and did not get the results I was hoping for.
In post processing, I applied a preset called “Matt’s Sin City Deep Red” created by Matt Kloskowski.
A self-proclaimed tech-geek, I enjoy anything powered by batteries or electricity. I'm not happy until I understand the full potential of any new gadget I get my hands on....
