January 17, 2012 - Lioness

January 17, 2012 - Lioness
I do, honestly, intend to avoid posting cat pictures. Tonight, the best I can say is that it isn't a panther picture. It is a beautiful lioness statue that our friends brought back from a trip to Africa last year. This statue is very dark wood - and so, tends to be referred to as a panther here at home, though it isn't. CKB suggested this as a subject, pondering how it would be possible to get a picture of something this dark.

The trick, of course, is that the statue is fairly reflective and has good contours, perfect for creating specular highlights and giving texture to what would otherwise be an inky sponge for light. I just needed to provide enough light coming from a couple different directions at once. This took some experimenting.

My set was the dining room table. For a backdrop, I used a red crushed velvet curtain - I think was intended for CKB's apartment, before we got married, but got shelved for years until I dug it out for photo purposes. I threw that over the back of a couple chairs and spread it out over the table. I used two cork trivets underneath as a stage for the statue.

As far as lights go, I currently only have a single flash - the 430ex. This I mounted this on a light stand behind a white shoot-through umbrella. It was triggered remotely with an ST-E2. I started with the light stand to the left of the camera, generally above the statue. Shot a few frames like this, adjusting aperture and shutter speed until I had almost the look I wanted. This frame ended up at ISO 100, 1/60th @ f/4.5. The flash was the "key" light, and was aided by a chandelier from directly above, plus a CF off to camera left. If you look close, you can see reflections from each source.

From there it was mostly a matter of framing by moving myself around and adjusting the angle of the lights. Going with the "available light means using any light source (or modifier) you have available," I added a small bit of fill with a reflector almost flat in front of the statue and another off to one side. For these I used a couple of 14" pizza pans I had on hand in the kitchen. The light stand eventually got moved around to the right and the umbrella was positioned fairly close to the statue.

The frame was cleaned up a small bit in Lightroom. Cropped and straightened, then adjusted the contrast and fill light. White balance remains "as shot." Enabled lens profile corrections and then added just a touch of post crop vignette. Titled it, added it to the target collection and published to SmugMug.

Thanks for reading, comments welcome!

January 16, 2012 - 1991 Penny

January 16, 2012 - 1991 Penny.
Showed the blog to a friend today. He is someone I've known for approximately half my life. He too is a techy and photographer, someone whose opinion I value. He took a read through the blog and pointed out a couple things. First - my critiques sounded defensive. I'm not sure I can argue that without, uh, sounding defensive. I'm not sure I'm even going to try. Part of what I'm aiming for here is a collection of my notes and thoughts on the pictures I take, even if it turns out to be public navel gazing of a sort. I am, for the most part, fine with it - though will perhaps try to turn things around a bit and write more on why I chose a particular image, rather than the things I could have done better, but didn't. He's right, it is defensive, though I do plan to continue sharing some of my thought process.

His next point was perhaps the more important - he asks for more on the thought that went into creating the image. Why did it mean enough of something to capture, process and post? What story is there to tell, rather than the bland tech behind it and the self serving critiquing after the fact.

And, this brings us to tonight's photo - a penny worth of my thoughts. It seemed appropriate, if trite, while I was mulling my friends input. This penny may be about as much as the image is worth - but it is today's story. I do need to think a bit more about what is going into my pictures, rather than just firing away and then posting online. My point here with this blog was not just to take a picture a day, but to get better at doing doing so. Part of getting better is the technical parts, but a larger part is the story and the narrative behind why the picture was worth taking.

This frame was shot with the 5dII and 50mm f1.4 lens, plus a Canon EF 12 II extension tube. Lit the scene with a halogen floor lamp, up and to the right, plus a 430EX flash right and just about level with the penny. Exposure 1/200th at f/1.4. ISO 100. The penny itself is stuck with a bit of gaffer tape to a piece of black granite tile, purchased from the local Big Box home improvement store. I tried bouncing the flash off the wall, from underneath, but was't getting quite the relief I wanted on the coin.

What you see above is was the last shot in the series. I started with the penny clamped in spring clamp used previously, resting on a small couch-side table. I fired a couple shots of this, but thought the clamp cluttered the picture and was holding the penny too close to perpendicular. I next moved to leaning the coin against a small roll of gaffer tape, firing a couple more shots. That improved both the angle and the colors (black, vs blue) - but still created too much background clutter.

Remembering I had a handy roll of gaffer tape, I folded up a small bit and used it as a stand, affixed to and mostly out of site behind the penny. Couple more frames, and I'm feeling like its getting closer. The table itself had some texture, it is wood with a rough slate tile top.

Remembering a trick noted in David Hobby, aka The Strobist's blog post on shooting a shiny new gadget from 2006 (wow, has it been that long??) I dug out my black granite tile and stuck the penny to that. Also added the flash underneath the table, pointed at the wall behind the penny. I shot a few more frames, trading lenses a couple times to get a tight macro view of the coin. I ended up with the 50mm and extension tube. The final adjustment was to move the flash off to the right, sitting on the arm of the couch, aimed at the wall. This helped pick up the relief on the coin - you can see the high-lights on Lincoln's face and jacket, as well as on the edge of the coin and in the lettering.


NB: I did have a little bit of help along the way:

January 14, 2012 - Pizza Night

January 14, 2012 - Pizza Night. We've been making home made pizza for a while now. CKB makes the dough, I do the topping and cooking. Tonight's came out pretty well - she had done some tuning with the dough, carefully logging the changes. This one was part sour dough and part normal yeast, plus was kneaded for an extended time on low in the mixer. As you can see it turned out nicely fluffy.

Photo notes - 5dII, 50mm lens, handheld. Used the 430ex flash, gelled with 1/4 CTO mounted on the camera, but bounced off the ceiling. Exposure is 1/60th at f/4.0, ISO 100. Tuned up slightly in Lightroom.

Critique: Nice rich colors - the pizza pretty much tasted as good as it looked. Didn't have to do too much post processing, filled the frame and there wasn't a whole lot of cropping possible. I'd have liked to have had a bit longer depth of field here, to get more of the pie in focus. The flash was on E-TTL so everything was pretty much program settings. Could have moved to manual, adjusted the exposure and thereby created a bit more depth and drama here. But, this was dinner, and it was hot and ready to serve, so I'll admit my priority wasn't 100% on taking the photo.

January 12, 2012 - Some nights even the cat doesn't want to cooperate

January 12, 2012 - Some nights even the cat doesn't want to cooperate.
Tonight is one of those nights. Creativity is at an ebb, I'm tired, even the cat didn't really want his picture taken. Or - Sorry for the cat picture, next time I'll take a shot of my feet.
 
Canon 5dII, 50mm f/1.4 lens. ISO 1600, 1/60th @f/3.5. Lit with two halogen bulbs, both back behind the camera and to the right.