POTD 11/5 2010

After a long absence, mostly due to me not shooting anything that I could put here (for reasons of quality and permissions), POTD is back with a sample from todays tulip shoot:



This is the result of the contorted setup shown in the previous post. Of course, I could have snipped the whole thing off and taken it inside for a studio shot, but I don't like to do that. Never the easy way for me... Besides, it would probably have caused a goodly amount of the dust to fall off.

What the picture of the setup doesn't show is how I light it: I bounce the flash right into my little fold-out bounce, using the white side. This gives a large enough lit area compared to the tiny subject that the light is appropriately rounded without being flat, and makes the details stand out clearly. Again, not the easiest way, particularly because the flash has a limited rotation ability. I look forward to having my own studio some day.

Moving the light a little bit around to illuminate the front of the left stem might have made it nicer, or it might have cut the drama down. I really like the yellow-on-deep-purple effect it has right now, it's one of my favorite color combinations.

I heart my tripod (mostly)

As previously posted, I got a new tripod (Induro AX-214) to replace the too-long Manfrotto. While I haven't been able to go out and use it as much as one would hope for (having a sick wife meant having to pick up extra household chores), I'm giving it a work-out these days. I particularly like the ability to angle the center column. Here is todays setup:



In case it's hard to see, I'm shooting the petal-less tulip that's in front of the camera. I need to be pretty much parallel with the stem, hence the contortions.

I would have been hard-pressed to get this setup without serious damage to the other flowers, if at all. Other situations would simple have been impossible, such as placing the camera right next to a wall. I'm never getting another tripod without this feature.

The downside is that it takes a lot of turning on the two knobs on the column to get them to hold fast. There is no click or other indication of when it's fastened, the best you can do is tighten it a lot and re-check that it doesn't move. If you've been carefully positioning the camera in a cumbersome position, this can be a real bother. But part of it may just be that I should get used to placing the tripod in a place where I don't have to crawl over the tripod to get to the camera.

POTD 21/02 2010

"Snowed over"

"Fall" ©2007 Lars Clausen
Buy this photo at RedBubble.com

This is one where I had good use of my little remote control. Had to shake the branch then shoot immediately when a leaf fell off.

POTD 20/02 2010

"Flachmann's Grocery #2"

POTD 19/02 2010

"Flackmann's Grocery #1"

POTD has been suspended for a while due to appendicitis, lack of good screen and my picture harddisk being out of commission (I now have 2 backups rather than none. I feel a little safer:). I'm now ready to take more pictures and show them off.

This one would have been better off with a shift lens. Unfortunately, I forgot to apply my idea of how to emulate a shift lens, so I had to apply some perspective correction.

POTD 31/12 2009

Not a very artistic photo, but then I don't have a screen that'll do well for editing anyway. Just wanted to show off that my new tripod allows me to take pictures of itself. The carrying bag is behind it, and the little case is a strap-on case with spiked feet. This is much better than the Manfrotto equivalent.

White balance example

One of the first things you learn when you start doing digital photography is what white balance is. Tungsten light has a very different color from flourescent light, which is again very different from sunlight, which in itself varies according to the position of the sun. But an example today struck home just how much a fairly small difference in white balance can do.


When I first saw this scarf done, I commented on how it almost looked like camouflage colours. After the buttons were added, I do a simple shoot of it in (purple) living room, working with sunlight but shooting with flash as I didn't want a multi-second exposure. The light was great and I really liked the way the shape was brought out, too, so I uploaded it as my POTD for today:



Only when I came back to it shortly after did it occur to me that it looked a lot more purple than I remembered it. Back to Lightroom, and sure enough, I hadn't specified the white balance. It was set to 5750/+41 by the camera (probably due to all the green in the yarn) rather than the 5500/+0 that is the "flash" setting. Simply adjusting to the "flash" setting cured all the camera-automatics-imposed ills and gave the picture above. Here's what the difference looks like in Lightroom:



Here's the final version, where the camouflage color way can clearly be seen:



Lesson: Just because the light is controlled doesn't mean the camera will get it right. Not even when the camera knows there's a flash on. Never trust camera automatic white balance. Ever. For anything where money is involved, definitely bring the grey card.