crazy experiments

I promised to share some of my crazy experiments, so here goes. I'm obsessed with lighting, as all photographers should be. I love to see the behind-the-scenes setup on where the lights are placed, modified... This book Light: Science and Magic especially appealed to the scientist in me. The authors not only talk about how light behaves, they also demonstrate how light interacts with different materials, like metal, glass, skin, etc etc. Glass is especially a tough one, because it is reflective and transparent at the same time. The trick, as it turns out, is to light it from behind, either white with black edges, or black with white edges.

how many shots in a bottle of wine??

Last summer my wife took the kids to visit her parents in Chicago. Home alone, I took out a bottle of Pinot, but I had no one to drink it with. So I shot it.

Take one. 3'x4' softbox camera left to produce a highligh that runs down the side of the bottle. White reflector camera right. Not enough separation especially on the right side, can use a little kicker light.

Take two. Switched to a lighter background (newsprint on cardboard). Shows more depth and separation, but right side still too dark.

Take three. Added kicker light camera right. Better, but the front of the label still has a dark band.

Take four. Added a piece of white paper cut out to the shape of the bottle, and taped to the back of the bottle. Snooted flash from behind point at the cutout. A different look.

 Take five. Snooted flash from behind without the paper cutout. Er, kinda cool, but no.

Take six. Back to black background. Hmm... need to tweak kicker.

Take seven. Kicker only. I like that...

Take eight. Snooted on-axis flash to light the label. Interesting...

Take nine. Silver reflector camera right as kicker.

Take ten. Switched main light to camera right, and used a gold/silver zebra reflector for fill. I like this one the best. With that, I went to bed with a smile...

Setup shot. So I'd remember what I did...

if you want something to look interesting

"If you want something to look interesting, don't light all of it."

This quote comes from Joe McNally's book, The Moment It Clicks. Couldn't agree more. Also applies to "someone" by the way. For Joe, that someone happened to be Mr. Tony Bennett.

This is Mr. Li, a member of the local youth symphony, lit by a 3'x4' softbox, camera left, with the face of the softbox turned away from him to feather the light. Imagine Mr. Li being at the center of the clock, and the camera is at the six o'clock position, the softbox is at about ten or eleven o'clock. If you placed the light at nine o'clock, it will light all of his face, and you won't get the shadow on the nose and cheek. Be sure to shield the lens from the strobe to minimize flare.

"oh, I wish I had my camera with me!"

"Oh, I wish I had my camera with me!" is something I used to say a lot to Kodak moments. You may have as well. Now-a-days with my iPhone, this is no longer the case. I always have a camera on me, even when I go for a ride on my bike. In fact, sometimes when I have both my iPhone and big Nikon on me, I'll pull out the iPhone because it's easier/quicker for a shot. And frankly I've been impressed with what that itty bitty camera can do. The camera app that came with the phone doesn't have too many controls, but I found by tapping on a specific location on the screen, you can set focus and exposure at that location in the scene. There are, of course, lots of camera apps out there that will give you more controls. I kinda like the simplicity of the built-in app. I also like apps such as Instagram that forces you to do a square crop, and then choose from a number of preset processings. I typically go through the different of presets, and one of them would speak to me more than the others. Sometimes I'll use the Photoshop Express app to do slight adjustments, crop/rotate or add artistic borders. Most of time it's straight out of the camera or Instagram. The lack of fancy controls and processing is not necessarily a bad thing. At moderate or low light the shutter tends to be slowish, and you can get really interesting results just from that, like this first image with the road streaking. And a few more Kodak moments, caught on the iPhone. In some cases, drive-by shooting.

when you come upon good light, take it

As photographers, we ought to be obsessed with light. Observe light, see what it's doing to the scene. Is it hard? Soft? Warm? Cool? Where is it coming from? Where is it going? Look at the edges of shadows, are they clearly defined, or are they soft and indistinct? What light brings out texture? How do you light water or glass? How does metal reflect light? Everything is a mirror, you know. When you come upon good light, take it.

Sometimes people want to know exactly how big your lights are and how far away they are from the subject. Just tell them, "well, it's kinda relative." You see, the sun is anything but small, but it's also really far away.

Someone once said, "Photography is all about the light," to which his friend countered, "Photography is all about the shadows."

Yes.

This one afternoon little Miss K came over for a play date. As the kids were playing in the room, I came upon some magical light. Not sure if I could recreate this in the studio even. The late afternoon sun flowed through the window that was halfway shaded with translucent Hunter Douglas. The other half allowed direct sun to come in, caressing the floor while diffusing reflected light all over the room, bouncing off the walls. The pool of sunlight on the carpet created wonderful catch lights in Miss K's eyes. Oh, there were a couple of skylights up on the ceiling too.  200mm and click. Ahh....

 1/160 sec @ f/2.8, Nikon D700, 200mm

three clicks this way, three clicks that way

Super short tip today. Most modern DSLRs have the aperture and shutter speed dials set to 1/3-stop increments. So remember this,

     "Three clicks is a stop."

When you turn that aperture dial three clicks, you're either opening up or stopping down the aperture by a stop, depending on which way you turn. In default settings, turn the dial to the left on a Nikon to open up. Canon people, turn to the right. Same goes for the shutter speed dial. Now if you're in manual exposure mode, turning either dial changes the exposure, depending on which direction you turn. To keep the exposure the same, simply turn one dial x clicks in one direction, and turn the other dial x clicks in the opposite direction.

Heck, we might even start talking about exposure in number of clicks, as in, "give me 5 clicks more exposure." (as opposed to one and two-thirds of a stop).

Try this: put your camera in manual exposure mode and set the aperture to f/8. Now turn the shutter speed dial so that the meter indicates proper exposure. See which way you turn to cause the indicator to move towards the "+" and "-" directions. Now turn the aperture dial three clicks towards the "+" direction, you should be at f/5.6, and the meter should indicate three "tick marks" from center. Now turn the shutter speed dial in the opposite direction by three clicks. The meter should once again indicate proper exposure as metered.

The good thing about manual exposure mode is that you're in control. The bad thing about it is, you're in control.

Why is it called a stop? Back when Pterosaurs flew in the sky, aperture dials and shutter speed dials had only full mechanical stops. Oh how I miss my aperture rings.

1/200 sec @ f/2.8, Nikon D700

inspiration: david duchemin -- a mentor i never had

Painting with Camera

1/20 sec @ f/32, Nikon D700, 105mm

"Perfection is overrated, and technique without passion is like vision without a voice, it rarely moves the heart." -- David duChemin.

These words are sweeter than the sound of the mockingbird.