Red
Flower Macro using extension tube.
Straight off the camera with no processing.
Nikon D70s, 50mm f1.8 Lens, Nikon PK13 Extension tube, Nikon SB80DX Speedlite
Fatherhood Friday 11: We like books… Sometimes to Eat.
Colds,colds,colds, colds with a slight outlook for COLDS! Will they ever go away? Even the weather has taken a steep dive towards winter.
At breakfast this morning we sound like a household of chain smokers with pretty much everyone having a cough of some sort.
Emily: With all the bad weather we havent been able to get out and have a run round much this week so even with a cold Emily still has energy to burn.
Emily said something Hilarious earlier this week, but I forgot to write it down, and when I asked Amanda what it was she looked kinda annoyed and wouldn’t tell me so I’m assuming it was partly to do with her. Hopefully my brain will kick into gear and spit it out later on.
Samantha: Favorite place to be this week has been sitting in front of the book shelf looking at books, pulling washing of the clothes dryer and staring out the window at birds.
Has reverted back to waking up every other hour at night so we are waiting for her to get a bit better before having to “break” her sleeping habits again.
New word for the week: “ook”
“Must get more ooks!”
“Im sure there are more “ooks” in here somewhere…Wait?… is that a lion?”
Nikon D70s, 18-70mm Lens, ISO 200, Nikon Sb80DX Speedlite. f4.5 at 1/30th second with Speedlite at full power bounced off the ceiling.
Im on a Boat…No Wait Im on a Caravan on a Boat
Seen near Balclutha in the lower South Island.
I guess they couldn’t decide between a caravan holiday or a boat holiday… Win for Kiwi ingenuity.
Nikon D70s, 18-70mm Lens ISO 200. f8 at 1/80th of a second
Same Shot 3 Ways with IR
Here is a comparison of the same shot but taken 3 different ways.
Shot 1: Boring!
Nikon D70s, 18-70mm Lens ISO 200. f8 at 1/320th second
Shot 2: Same shot but with Cokin 007 filter straight off the camera.
Nikon D70s, 18-70mm Lens ISO 200. f8 at 2 seconds with Cokin 007 filter.
Shot 3: Using Cokin 007 filte rand processed, much more interesting!
Nikon D70s 18-70mm Lens ISO 200. f8 at 2 seconds with Cokin 007 IR Filter then converted to black and white with photoshop.
Goldilocks, Princesses and the Three Lions… The Full Book
This is a book me and Emily (3 years old) made. Emily put things where she wanted them and then said what had to be written on each page and I took the images.
Enjoy
Storm is a Comin
Storm coming in over Makara.
Ended up getting very wet and having to take shelter for about an hour before heading back to my car.
Nikon D70s, 18-70mm Lens. f4.5 at 1/200th second
How it was Done 2
Here goes another “How it was Done” Post
This is the setup for the image that I use for the header of my page. I took this middle of last year and hopefully it again shows how you can get good results without much of a studio or too much equipment.
Equipment Used: Portable Backdrop Kit x 1, 500W Electra Compact Flash with barn doors x 1, Superclamp x 1, Nikon SB80DX Speedlite x 1, Nikon D70s with 18-70mm Lens x 1, Remote shutter release x 1, Tripod x 1.
Shot 1: This is my lounge complete couches, bookcases and even folded washing stacked randomly around. I did move one couch so I had enough room to set up the portable backdrop kit across the room so i could hang the studio light off it pointing directly down and then used the barn doors to create a circle of light on the floor.
With shots like this I usually use something like a chair to act as a reference for focusing the camera.
Lens at 28mm f3.5 at 1/8 second without flash going off.
Shot 2: Same shot as before but with the camera lens shut down to f18 and at 1/125th of a second. Using a reasonably fast shutter speed with studio or speedlites means that anything not in the direct light will be much darker. Even though you can see some of the surrounding things in the room these will be easy to remove in Photoshop later.
Shot 3:
Enter the model (me). Using the remote shutter control with the camera set to 2 second delay I fired off a couple of shots to see how the lighting looked. I was pretty unhappy with the result since it left no light in the face when I had the hood up. Apart from this the general feel of the spotlight effect was pretty good.
Shot 4: I added a speedlite to the shot which was set off by the main strobe and set it to half power. This fixed the problem with their being no light on the face while still maintaining the spotlight effect.
Shot 5: After checking the lighting on my computer I decided it was “Go Time”. Since this was a dark and dramatic lighting situation I tried to put as much tension into the pose as possible (the way the shoulders are held and the was the hands are clasped). The remote is palmed in my left hand so you cant see it and the speedlite held in place by my feet and legs. It wasnt the most comfortable pose that’s for sure, with any movement making the speedlite move and have to be repositioned.
This shot was the best of the ones I took. All up with the test shots I took around 140 images.
Shot 6: Ok I now have the image I want so its off to process in Lightroom.
Corrections Made: Sharpening, Noise Reduction, Vignette (to remove more of the background), Desaturation and Black Clipping (again mostly to remove the background).
As you can see this still isn’t perfect, especially with the light stand in the right of the frame.
Shot 7: Final Image.
From Lightroom into Photoshop to remove the last few bits of background and generally tidy things up and then a quick crop and Done!
Final Image Nikon D70s with 18-70mm lens. f18 at 1/125 second
Enjoy
Fire in a Bottle
Another shot from the “Fire in a Bottle” series.
Nikon D70s, 50mm f1.8 lens. f1.8 at 1/80th of a second. ISO 200
IR Haunted House
Entry for EOS Photo5 Competition for 2009 in the Practiacally Black section
Nikon D70s 18-70mm Lens, ISo 200, Cokin 007 Infra Red Filter
How it was Done
After good feedback from the last post about how it was done, here goes details about how the shots I put up yesterday were captured:
Hopefully this shows that you dont need lots of fancy equipment and a studio to get reasonable images.
Equipment Used: 1 x 10 metre power cable, 1 x multi plug box, 2 x light stands, 2 x 500W Studio lights with 150W modelling lamps, 1x softbox umbrella, 1 x barn doors, 1 x tripod, 1 x Nikon D70s with 18-70mm Lens, 1 x 1GB CF card and 1 x Nikon ML3 wireless camera remote. This effect would be easy to replicate using a couple of house lamps in a dark room with a bit of ingenuity.
Shot 1: Overview of the garage that was turned into a studio. Had to run 10 metre power cable from the house to run the lights.
Shot 2: Set the light with the barn doors pointing at the back wall to control the amount of light that was falling on the wall and the light with the umbrella about 2 metres away from the back wall pointing across the shot to avoid shadows falling on the back wall and creating a heavy side lighting effect. Both lights were set to full power but the strobes were turned off.
Shot 3: First test shot with camera set at f3.8 at 1/125 sec 800 ISO this was with the garage door open which let in more light than I wanted as well as the bluish colour cast at the bottom of the image. I also didn’t like the shadow in the upper right of the frame and so adjusted the barn doors to take this out.
Shot 4: After closing the garage door and setting the camera focus to about 1.5 metres as well as adjusting the camera to f5.6 at 1/60th second I took the first shot with me in it. With self portraits its always difficult to pinpoint where you are supposed to stand, most of the time it’s just trial and error… I sometimes put a light stand in the shot to get the centre and to use as a reference for focus… This time I just guessed and was off centre which I liked anyway. After looking at this shot on a computer I liked the way the light on the wall darkened at the right and the light on me darkened on the left. I knew there would be enough information to make it easy to add more drama in Lightroom and Photoshop.
Shot 5: Props and Action! Yes I did give myself a Mohawk for the day just for the heck of it (its gone now) This is shot no. 23 Unprocessed straight off the camera in Raw. I have to say its the weirdest feeling using studio lights and setting off the camera with none of the usual loud popping noise that accompanies strobes going off.
Shot 6: Final Rendition. Image has been recropped and Lighroom adjustments have been made to make it darker and more dramatic (Direct Positive, Vignette and Exposure decrease). I have a tendency to make stuff darker rather than lighter since that seems to be my base aesthetic.
If people keep showing a continued interest in this type of post then I will try and make it a more ongoing subject of this blog.
Let me know.
Si
Goggles?
Ok this is what happens when I get in the proper headspace for photography and then a couple of friends happen to come along.
I had been thinking of using my garage as a studio (albeit a small one) but had always had problems with doing it because my 500W studio lights only have half and full power so getting them powered down enough to use in a small space is kinda problematic.
The workaround for this was just using the modelling lights and bumping up the ISO to round 800 (which using a D70s means noise galore). I kept the white balance on the camera set to Daylight to get the golden light which fitted this shoot.
Yes its a Self Portrait
A very Angry Frog
Red Kris
Nikon D70s, 18-70mm Lens, ISO 800 f5.6 at 1/60th Second. Lighting from Modelling lights of Electra 500W Compact Lights… Last image has red gel over background light.
Fatherhood Friday 7: Emily turns 4
Happy Birthday Emily, 4 today!
Emilys definition of a superhero is: Someone who is Very Big, Very Old and Just About to Die… These are the only time you are allowed to be super.
Emily is very excited and possibly hasnt slept for the last 2-3 days and talking non stop. She told a friend of ours that he had to get her a present for her birthday that wasnt too expensive unless he was rich cause then it would be OK to get her an expensive present.
Slightly Rumpled Fairy
Sam: This week Sam has become a bookmark thief, I have seriously reread the same page of my book 16 or 17 times. Possibly time for a new bookmark or a better place to put my book.
Word of the week “No!” also first possible sentence: “No Ta Dadda” when she didnt want to give me the toy she was playing with.
Sam with Walking Assistance
Darkhalide Photography 
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