mek42 does Project 52

[Mark Lattimer-Hedley]

Much better Mark your learning bud you'll have much better luck when you get your longer lens it will make all the difference and give you a lot more options, good effort.

[mek42]

Originally Posted by UK_Mark

Much better Mark your learning bud you'll have much better luck when you get your longer lens it will make all the difference and give you a lot more options, good effort.

Thanks!

It looks like my speedlight will arrive tomorrow and then the adapter for my other lenses sometime next week. This will give me an excuse to go all manual, though I think I could still go aperture priority since my body will meter through lens without lens CPU info.

I finished reading the Lighting 101 series at Strobist last night (ok, ok, it was really early this morning :guilty grin: ) and my FLPS (FLCS? - friendly local photog store at any rate) is offering a free flash seminar this Saturday.

Speaking of flash, it looks like PC cable systems and the CowboyStudio wireless transceiver system cost about the same ($30 - 50 USD), so some sort of off camera flash system may be the next purchase in a few weeks.

[mek42]

I got a little crazy tonight. I recently read the "Lighting 101" series at Strobist, so I've been thinking about off camera flash. Then I saw Tony's "eye" photos for the macro challenge. Then a bunch of neurons fired all at once in my brain and I ended up with a screw loose* (giggling at the planned pun).



A macro of a screw eye. Shot in a 3 sided white poster board (matte side) half box (bottom, two adjacent sides). I used a lens reversal ring, so some exif is wrong. I used a Vivitar 50 mm f 1.9 lens at f 16.

The exposure was 3 seconds, during which I used the pilot button of a YN-560 flash at lowest setting three times in different spots. Two of these were triggered approximately in the plane defined by the lens and a line perpendicular to the lens but parallel to the ground making an angle of about 30 - 45 degrees to the lens. One flash on each side of the camera. The other one was with angle 45 - 60 degrees to the lens and directly above the camera.

*Ok, ok, the screw eye wasn't quite loose, but partly screwed into a pine block to hold it up in the air. I was hoping to see some interesting shadow effects, but they weren't even visible in my first one-flash-fire attempts

I'm really proud of this shot. I think I have good image quality and I like how some of the eye looks almost translucent due to how it was lit. The only thing I don't like is hoping that I have to clean my lens (and not my sensor).

[mek42]

Here are a couple baby shots I took while playing with my new flash. I has handholding the YN-560 off camera with PC cable and using the matte side of a bit of posterboard rubber banded to the flash as a reflector and also aiming the flash at ceiling for bounce. My baby much prefers smiling at daddy and not the D2Hs, so I was holding the camera off to my right, with a slightly wider zoom to compensate for no viewfinder, had AF-C turned on and was smiling at my daughter between flash and camera.



This is another one I took while learning the flash. Not sure if I was using viewfinder or not. Mostly wanted to catch her neck control.



During the post of both of these I learned that "shadows and highlights" in RawTherapee mostly just scrunches both ends of the histogram in toward the middle. I left it off for these as I liked the dark background. Yes, there is a bookshelf and some other living room crap behind the baby, but the baby is what I care about.

I white balanced on the right shoulder (left in image) of her shirt. I'm wondering if I should have white balanced to the body area of the shirt, as it seems a bit grey. Is this a white balance or a "where the flash landed" effect?

[Mark Lattimer-Hedley]

Hi Mark, in terms of quality the 1st capture of your child is the best i have seen you post so far,cute looking child with a cheeky grin, nice series.

[mek42]

Thanks! She reminds me of (somewhat frighteningly) Rodney Dangerfield with that expression.

I went out to Syracuse yesterday and had the baby with me who needed to be changed and fed fairly promptly on the way home. So, despite bringing the camera with me, I didn't take any shots, but was looking and have some ideas the next time I'm driving that way.

These are all on route 5 from DeWitt going toward Canastota. In Fayetteville before the plaza area, coming down the hill you can see a beautiful red church steeple sticking up out of the trees and other buildings background. I actually turned off to the left halfway down the hill to try and catch a quick shot, but there was a tree in the way from the shoulder of the road. Next time I'll try to remember to turn off closer to the top of the hill or maybe even turn off to the right instead of left.

Next, in Chittenango there is a long straightaway "downtown" and a church on the first curve. Both of these shots I think would be better with a 70 - 210 (maybe even 300, especially for the steeple) rather than the 18 - 55 I currently have, enough angle to show the framing of the roadside and buildings, but enough telephoto to do justice to the church in question.

Lastly, between Chittenango and Canastota there is a farmstead where all the houses and outbuildings have matching white walls and green roofs. Trees obscure the other direction, so there's only on shot. By the time my brain clicked that there was a shot waiting, I'd passed the optimal point and noted someone was tailgating a bit, so decided not to turn around but to just get our little girl home for changing and feeding.

I don't get out that way much, but I'll try to catch some of these the next time I do.

[Rustburn Graphic Designs]

The daughter's portraits are adorable... Rodney Dangerfield and all... cute expression and sharp and clear.

[OTL_Photo]

Mark, nice shots of da bambino...! Not quite so sure on the macro thing though; my eye wanders looking for the in focus point... might just be the subject with the shiny that didn't quite catch my eye though.

[wolfd]

Nice baby shots, Mark.

[mek42]

Originally Posted by OTL_Photo

Mark, nice shots of da bambino...! Not quite so sure on the macro thing though; my eye wanders looking for the in focus point... might just be the subject with the shiny that didn't quite catch my eye though.

Thanks. Also, I realized the next day, after sleeping off the excitement of playing with the new flash in an atypical way that I may have some focus issues with that screw eye. I had setup my tripod on the chair instead of floor, which has a cushion, which may lead to wobble, ..., lead to ghosting. I've got an idea to reshoot it - going to move the table out (I feared tripping over the tripod last time) and fiddle a bit. Maybe even tonight.

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I reshot it tonight. Much happier with this one. Was walking by paint color swatch display in WalMart while buying Sophia more formula - "Hey, these look the same size as my flash!" More photo details in the description of the shot. Reversed lens, so some exif is wrong.



Would it be ok to add this to the eye macro challenge, or is one non-traditional shot enough there?