Photo365-20091221 – New York State of Time, originally uploaded by HokiePerogi.
1/60 sec @ f/2.0, ISO 1600, 50 mm (EF50mm f/1.8 II)
If this post seems a bit different than the rest, it is. I am writing this photoblog post on my iPhone while sitting in a movie theater waiting for my friends to arrive. While the interface is no where near as polished as the normal we. Page web page which I use to create the entries, the iPhone application is very handy to help pass time and keep the project up to date.
Today’s photograph is of one the three clocks we have hanging in our dining room. This clock, showing the New York City skyline is my favorite of the three. I lived just across the river from New York City in Hoboken, New Jersey for three years. This view of the skyline, albeit a more modern skyline, was part of my everyday sights.
I chose to process this picture with a New York inspired preset. Not only was the name of the preset perfect for the subject, the style of the preset gave the photo an old fashioned feel to match the historic skyline depicted on the clock.
Photo365-20091220 – Time to Dig Out, originally uploaded by HokiePerogi.
1/500 sec @ f/7.1, ISO 100, 50 mm (EF50mm f/1.8 II)
This was the scene in our neighborhood the day after the big snow storm hit us. The sun was out and the skies were clear creating a beautiful scene that I wanted to try and capture with my camera. Sure, the fence in the bottom of the picture is not ideal, but I was not yet ready to venture out of the house more than a few feet.
There was no “magic” photograph needed to create this image. I applied a slight crop to remove some of the unimportant details on the left and right side. Unlike most of my snow photographs from yesterday, the 7D got the white balance spot on for this scene. The majority of my time was spent tagging and titling the picture in Lightroom.
Photo365-20091219 – Winter Wonderland, originally uploaded by HokiePerogi.
0.6 sec @ f/8.0, ISO 800, 18 mm (EF-S18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS)
This was the view tonight out our front door in Leesburg, VA. We got hit with the “Storm of the Century” today. By my last measurement, we had about sixteen inches on the ground. Believe it or not, this is the view of our street after the plows came by twice earlier in the day. It is going to be a lot of fun digging out of this tomorrow!
I used my tripod to take this “long” exposure. I wanted to avoid using an ISO higher than 800 so that I did not have a lot of noise in the picture. All the white snow caused havoc on the 7D’s white balance sensor. I would not say that the 7D auto white balanced turned all the snow gray like many professionals say a DSLR will. Instead, it turned the picture yellowish. This was quickly fixed in Lightroom using the eyedropper white balance tool. I used the mail boxes on the middle left of the frame as my gray point for the tool.
Easy and flexible white balance adjustments are just two more of the many reasons to always shoot in the RAW format on your DSLR. Sure, there is an extra step of converting the RAW format to a JPG to be shared, but it gives you so much more flexibility in post-processing. Many photos that I have shot would have been trash if I had shot them exclusively in JPG format.
Photo365-20091218 – Ginger-yum House, originally uploaded by HokiePerogi.
25.0 sec @ f/14, ISO 400, 50 mm (EF50mm f/1.8 II)
Today my fiancee and her nephew made a ginger break house together. Upon coming home and seeing it on the dining room table, I knew it was going to be my subject for today. It was practically in the perfect place too, right in front of the tree. In order to get the star bursting effect on the tree lights, I knew I would need a small aperture and a long shutter speed.
I set the camera up on the tripod and placed an Apollo softbox at camera right. I then set up the white disc reflector on camera left to open up the shadows on the left side of the house. I took a few shots to determine the best flash power settings to light the ginger bread house. I quickly determined that I needed to modify the light from the flash with a CTO (color temperature orange) gel to more closely match the ambient light from the tree. After getting the ginger bread house lit to the way I wanted it to look, I started to slow down my shutter speed little by little until the exposure of the tree was spot on.
In hind sight, I should have corrected the white balance during post processing. It seems that there is an abundance of yellow in the final picture. My guess is that the 7D auto white balance chose a flash setting instead of a tungsten setting. I should have manually set the white balance to match the color of my gelled flash to avoiding having to make an adjustment during post.
Photo365-20091217 – Portrait Practice, originally uploaded by HokiePerogi.
1/250 sec @ f/6.3, ISO 200, 70 mm (EF70-200mm f/4L IS USM)
Today I wanted to put the new gear to the real test. I decided to add a background and reflector to my gear so that I can use them to take corporate head shots for my company in February. I left myself plenty of lead time to iron out any kinks in the setup or my technique.
I set up the background and paced off eight feet to where I would be standing for the portrait. I placed one of my light stands on the spot to mark it for the time being. I then paced off eight more feed and set up the tripod. I used the light stand place holder as a focusing point. Next, I placed the background light on a small table a foot behind where I would be standing. The Apollo softbox was then placed at camera left and in close. The last piece of the puzzle was setup up the new reflector and stand. Once it was all hooked up and angled properly, the reflector was placed camera right and in close. (I have included a setup shot at the end of the post.)
For the first few frames, I had the circular reflector with its white side exposed to the softbox. The result from this setup was a heavy shadow on the subject’s left side. Mid-shoot, I flipped the reflector over to expose its silver side and reflect more light back into the shadows.
I like the way the final images came out of the camera. I did, however, open up the exposure a bit more in Lightroom during post processing. The next time I practice these shots, I have to remember to open up the exposure more in camera. What looked great on the back of the camera turned out to be a bit too dark on the computer screen.
Photo365-20091216 – Mug for the Ages, originally uploaded by HokiePerogi.
1/8 sec @ f/1.8, ISO 800, 50 mm (EF50mm f/1.8 II)
Yesterday I had some new gear delivered. The new gear consisted of a gray background, thirty inch reflector disc and a reflector disc light stand holder. I wanted to play around with the light disc tonight and thought that using it in the basement to control the light from the recessed lighting would be a good exercise. I set the mug up on the dry bar and played around with the reflector disc until I liked the lighting.
In post production, I used Nik Silver Efex Pro to apply an antiqued look to the photograph. I felt it was appropriate due to the age of the mug.
Photo365-20091215 – Going Down, originally uploaded by HokiePerogi.
1/6 sec @ f/2.6, ISO 400, 10.2 mm
Tonight I had to work much later than I usually do. I decided to try and take care of the picture for today on my way out of the building. This picture did not look like much when it was first downloaded from the memory card and into Lightroom. However, with a little help from Topaz Adjust in Photoshop, I was able to liven it up a bit. The preset in Topaz Adjust that I used was called Spicify. After applying the preset, I teaked the settings a bit to try and bring out a bit more detail.
I do not think I have figured out how to get quality pictures with the Leica D-Lux 4 point and shoot. It seems that every picture that I take with it is noisy. I have the maximum ISO configured to be ISO 800. I am thinking that I may have to decrease the maximum ISO to 400. I am confused though. I thought the Leica was known for its high quality pictures in low light.
Photo365-20091214 – The Plastic Kind, originally uploaded by HokiePerogi.
1/8 sec @ f/4.0, ISO 400, 200 mm (EF70-200mm f/4L IS USM)
The autumn wreath on the back of our front door has been calling out to me over the past few weeks to take its picture. I finally got around to it tonight. I used my 70-200mm lens and zoomed in as far as it would go in order to get a tight closeup of some of the leafs on the wreath. Out of the three lens that my fiancee and I own, the 70-200mm lens lets us get the closest closeup. However, we have to stand at least six to eight feet away from the subject in order to get it in focus. The lack of a good macro or close up lens has me reevaluating, once again, whether or not my next lens purchase will be a 100mm macro or a 24-70mm / 24-105mm all-purpose. I have thought about purchasing an extension tube to use with my current lens, but I would much rather have a dedicated macro lens that lets in much more light.
I brought today’s photograph into Photoshop so that I could play around with Topaz Adjust presets on it. Ultimately, I picked a present which enhanced the fine details in the fake leafs and made the colors pop. As a last step, I applied a slight darkening vignette.
Photo365-20091213 – Go on Punk, Make My Day., originally uploaded by HokiePerogi.
1/250 sec @ f/8.0, ISO 400, 50 mm (EF50mm f/1.8 II)
While putting together our Christmas photo cards this year, I realized that I did not have many recent photos of our dogs. I have taken several photographs of the “girls” during the project, but none of the more recent ones demonstrated everything that I have learned over the last couple of months. I decided to change this tonight.
I set up a reflective umbrella in the basement where my fiancee and I were watching television. I sat right at the base of the light stand and tested for the proper flash power and exposure by shooting the back of my hand where I anticipated the dogs to be. Once I found my proper settings, I called Mela and Leila over to play some fetch. After a few tosses, I started to take pictures in between throws.
This is one of my favorite shots of the night. I cropped the photo only slightly to remove a light stand leg tip on the bottom right corner. I then applied some sharpening to the whole image and exported to Flickr.
Photo365-20091212 – I Have a Sinking Sensation, originally uploaded by HokiePerogi.
1/50 sec @ f/3.5, ISO 800, 50 mm (EF50mm f/1.8 II)
I had not played around with the Legos in a few days so I broke them out for today’s photograph. The scene was a quick setup in the kitchen. I made the choice to only use available light because I was afraid that strobes would cause distracting highlights on the plastic container holding the race.
Post processing included a little bit of sharpening and a medium to heavy dark vignette.
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....
