Opps I Fell Asleep…
I hate it when that happens…but the metal grill looks soooo soft and inviting 🙂
Nikon F5, 50mm f1.8 lens, Ilford HP5+ 400 ISO film
Fatherhood Friday 9: Emily Counts to Hungry
Survived Emily’s birthday party last weekend with only minor injuries (mostly mental ones to me) and managed to get things back to normal in only a couple of days. Possibly scared some of the kids into believing there actually were pirates in our back garden but they felt better when they found the “pirates” gold coins that were made of chocolate, I’m sure their parents probably hate me now after sending their kids back overhyped on sugar.
Colds were the order of the week with Emily bringing one home and sharing it round everyone here (not really her fault but was amusing that one day only Emily had a cold and the next day we all had one).
Emily Quote of the week: Â “96…97…98…99…. I’m Hungry”
Emily riding her running bike round the, still being constructed, bike track.
Samantha: Copious amounts of Snot. Has been literally getting into everything and I mean EVERYTHING! She has worked out how to open cupboards and drawers and is showing much interest in CDs and the things under the television. You can say “no” move her away and watch as she goes straight back to what she was doing.
Word of the week: “Hot” used continuously for almost half an hour after making a grab for a cup of tea that Amanda was drinking.
Samantha at Lollypops Playland on Emily’s birthday.
Old Car
Old car parked in the loading zone behind the Leftbank Shopping Arcade.
It seems to turn up every now and then with a band playing on the back of it.
Nikon F5, Tokina 19-35mm lens, Ilford HP5+ 400 ISO Film
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. Â 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
I Never Knew The Greatest American Hero Wore Sandals
Who knew?
Nikon F5, 50mm f1.8 mm Lens. Ilford Delta 3200 ISO film…No Flash
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
Fatherhood Friday 8: Birthday done but party Saturday
Survived Emily’s birthday last Friday (she even managed to sleep in til 715 which is around 45 minutes more sleep than usual). She had a great day with far too many presents then going to an indoor playground with a friend and then a dinner party with all her adult friends and more presents.
The thought of having 10 to 12 four-year olds round for a party is somewhat daunting and is becoming a logistical nightmare which will be worse if it rains on Saturday like it is supposed to. The things we do! Hopefully this isn’t setting the bar too high for all birthdays that are still to come.
Now that she is 4 her most common saying has turned into “I know that!” about most things so apparently when you turn 4 you now know everything about everything.
Emily on Car Ride at Karori Carnival
Samantha: Getting even faster with crawling and getting better at pulling herself up on furniture and walking along it. Also getting better at disappearing and turning up in places she isn’t supposed to be, such as CD shelves, power cords, book shelves, heaters etc…
She also seems to be learning words (not proper words but understandable what she means) at a very fast rate of a couple of new ones per day.
Not too much mischief this week from either 🙂
Sorry about old pic but didn’t get a chance to develop the 2 black and white films I shot last week which had some pics of the girls on them… Hopefully will sort after the party madness.
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). Â 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.
Darkhalide Photography 
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