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
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
Diving Man Multi Pop
Diving Man Statue with three pops from from different angles with speedlite on the end of a monopod.
Nikon D70s, 18-70mm Lens at f16, 33 Seconds at ISO 200
Ambient light is not my friend AKA More painting with Light
For those of you who have been following this blog, you will have noticed that I have been trying different things with Painting with Light. The idea of this shoot was to try using some of these techniques in an urban setting, A kinda Urban Grafitti with Light if you will.
This was the first shot at it and I ran into some big problems right from the start. This sculpture is directly behind “The Behive” (New Zealands parliament buildings) so I thought there might be some issues with security guards. In standard New Zealand fashion two burly security guards rocked up and asked what I was doing but in a kinda apolligetic “we are just doing our job” way and then wished me good luck and hoped I got some good pictures.
Because the sculpture was lit from the front I had to shoot it from the back looking towards the road which was brighter than I wanted so I had to use a ND8 filter and an ND4 Gradient to try and balance the light a bit which then made the torch light too dim.
Nikon D70s 18-70mm Lens f8 at 58 seconds
With this shot I took off the ND8 filter but left the ND4 Gradient on and moved the location of the sphere into a slightly darker area of the image then reduced the shutter time from about 1 minute to about 45 seconds.
Nikon D70s 18-70mm Lens f8 at 45 Seconds
After noticing that there was a dark patch behind the “Banana” sculpture decided to try and see if the ball would look better closer to the camera. I think this image probably worked best of the 3 and also offers the best possibility to put someone inside the sphere since the flash will be out the side of the frame.
Nikon D70s 18-70mm Lens f8 at 34 seconds
All in all there was pretty much too much ambient light and these have been rather harshly tweaked in Lightroom and then Photoshop to get them looking any good at all. I think next time I try this it will be somewhere where it is nice and dark… Possible a cemetery… Should be interesting.
Oh and I almost forgot… I shot a heap of video of all this happening… Will try and edit and put on somehow…
Sycamore Seed
A Sycamore seed dropped in a dark room then lit with a speedlite set on multiple flash of 1/50th of a second.
This sounded kinda simple but doing everything yourself ment that I shot nearly 100 shots and only got a few that were any good.
Nikon D70s, 18-70mm f 11 at 1/10th second with SB80dx set to 1/50th second on multiple flash.
Darkhalide Photography 
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