Day 199 - Dark Field Lighting

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ISO 100 f/11 1/200s 1 SB-800 @ 24mm 1/64th power inside of pocket softbox with black construction paper flagging the middle.

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Nothing exciting here, typical dark field lighting of a piece of glassware.  I set this shot up because I don't see setup shots for these very often.  Some people might include a sketch of the setup which is not always easy to understand.  I tried this shot back in January in my dinning room, but I was not happy with the result that I got.  The two large pieces of foam board on the side of the glass are used to prevent the glass from picking up any reflections from anything else in the room.  This shot was the first one I took.  I tried stepping up the power, but I preferred this shot at 1/64th.


setup shot



until tomorrow,
enjoy

Day 175 - After Glow

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1 SB-26 on each side of the glow in the dark ball @ 85mm full power triggered with Pocket Wizard Plus IIs and a Sekonic 758-DR.

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To start lets see what this shot looks like with all light turned on in aperture priority.

ISO 100 f/22 1/2s (pretty boring image)


Let's cut the lights off and add a stop to the shutter.


Not enough light! You can see a faint glow, but not what we want.

Now for the inspiration behind this shot. Years ago, film cameras had flash sync ports with the settings "M" and "X". M for Flash Bulbs, and X for electronic flash. So what's the deal, and why should you care. Before electronic flash, people used flash bulbs for extra light in a shot. The problem was that flash bulbs took awhile to reach maximum brightness; therefore the M setting would trigger the flash bulb just before the shutter opened, and the X setting would fire the flash the moment the shutter was fully opened because electronic flash duration reached it's maximum power much quicker than flash bulbs. Years ago I read of a hack where film photographers would use the flash bulb setting to fire electronic flashes to light phosphorescences before the shutter opened, and flash itself would not appear in the final exposure. I found this exciting, but I was never willing to risk the 120 film to try it.

Now for the process of how I did this.

setup shot first.

I have a special trigger cable that allows me to trigger my camera using my Pocket Wizard Radio transceiver. In this case, I used my Sekonic flash meter with built in transmitter because I only own 2 Pocket Wizards. Setting everything to channel 1, I press the test button on my meter. This will fire the camera and flash simultaneously, the problem is the flash is so fast that the exposure is over before the shutter ever opens. Pocket Wizard worked around this by having the camera trigger receive the input on channel 1 and then transmit on channel 2 allowing the camera to trigger all flashes on channel 2 allowing everything to sync properly. In my case I left everything on channel 1. The flashes fired charing the ball, and then the shutter opened when the glow in the dark ball was at its maximum brightness.

What I did, was basically simulate the "M" mode used for flash bulbs to allow me to do phosphorescent photography with a digital camera. The most interesting part is, I came up with my exposure settings out of nowhere; and I was right on 1st shot with no adjustments to ISO, aperture, or shutter speed.

Just for fun! Let's set my flash trigger to channel 2 as intended.


what a mess!

until tomorrow,
enjoy

Day 164 - Bare Knuckle

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I got my Bare Knuckle up and running again after 1 year of being in parts. I will hopefully have a matching rear wheel soon. I really wanted to do a 3 light setup tonight, and here is tonights process.

I started with 1 SB-26 @ 50mm full power into a reflective umbrella camera right triggered with a pocket wizard plus II.


Looking good! Now a little fill from the left with 1 SB-800 @ 50mm 1/4th power with a shoot through umbrella.


I am starting to like this shot! I have pretty even light from left to right across the bike, but the shot was looking a little soft and needed a punch. I then added in 1 more SB-26 @ 85 mm full power down the hill from the bike to get a nice clean hard shadow. The soft light from my umbrella gave enough fill to not had a mug shoot hard black shadow on the wall.


The third flash is in the very left of the frame. I used only one pair of radio triggers for this setup on the 1st light. The other 2 flashes were triggered with the built-in optical slaves. I am really impressed that my 3rd light fired from this distance.

And here is the final image

ISO 200 f/5 1/200s


until tomorrow,
enjoy

Day 163 - Gone to Seed

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ISO 100 f/32 1/160s 1 SB-800 Camera Left 2 inches from subject @ 105mm set TTL triggered with Nikon CLS.

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One day of rain and the grasses in my flower beds are out of control again. I can't understand how I have so much trouble competing with grass when other people spend hundreds of dollars a year to maintain golf course green lawns. All I really want is a grass free yard with nice flowers and vegetables.

Nikon CLS performed better tonight than I expected. Sometimes I am impressed with how well it works, but always frustrated when it does not. It is a good thing I shoot full manual flash everyday for those days it doesn't work

until tomorrow,
enjoy

Super Moon

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300mm ISO 100 f/11 1/160s. Adjusted White balance in post and cropped to square frame.

Day 126 - Anticipation

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ISO 100 f/32 1/200s 1 snooted SB-26 @ 85mm 1/4th & -2/3 power high camera left triggered with Pocket Wizard Plus IIs.

This is a photo of the center of one of my sunflowers planted earlier this year. I have been anticipating the arrival of this years sunflowers since last years flower slumped their heads after only a few days due to the unusually hot Alabama summer.

I have also been anticipating many other things; such as the sell of my photographic equipment and purchase of next lens. As much as I would love a macro lens the toss up is now between a Tokina 11-16mm ultra-wide angle lens and a Nikon 10.5mm fisheye. We will see what the next week brings.

until tomorrow,
enjoy

Day 125 - Cinco de Mayo 2012

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ISO 100 f/32 1/200s SB-26s right and left @ 85mm 1/8th power and 1 SB-800 @ 17mm 1/4th power from underneath diffused through white paper triggered with pocket wizard plus IIs.

So I posted this a day early, but if I do go out tomorrow there will be no way I could pull this shot off after a few drinks.

This shot didn't take as long to set up the lights as I thought, but I did invest a lot of time cleaning the aquarium and still had extra work in post to clean up floating debris. The timing was more challenging than I expected, and it was hard not to rotate the label of the bottle when dropping the beer into the water. Holding the beer and lime in one hand also proved to be a challenge, but I am pleased with the results.

until tomorrow,
happy cinco de mayo

Day 124 - Green Spiral

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ISO 100 f/32 1/200s @ 300mm .95 meters for a Reproduction of 1:2. 1 SB-800 Camera Left snooted set to TTL triggered with NIkon CLS

Tonight I thought I would be lazy and shoot this new flower I found in the yard earlier this afternoon with my 18-105mm kit lens and a handheld flash set to TTL. I honestly didn't feel like metering light after the work week I have had. The 18-105 lens was not getting as tight on the flower as I wanted; I then went into the house grabbed the 70-300, a flash stand, and a snoot.

I still didn't get the point-of-view I wanted until I got down on my back and aimed up at this flower which was slumping down slightly. A 100mm macro lens would have been a life saver on this one and got me a life size reproduction, but I think I am going to invest in an ultra-wide angel or fisheye lens in the next week.

until tomorrow,
enjoy

123 - The Primrose

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ISO 200 f/22 1/200s 1 SB-800 1/32nd power @ 24mm hand held camera left 12 inches from subject triggered with on camera pop-up

Day 122 - Gone to Seed

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ISO 100 f/29 1/200s 1 SB-26 @ 85mm 1/4 power high camera left 2 feet from subject triggered with pocket wizard plus IIs.

It's been very warm lately. The onions have gone to seed and will be small. The flowers are quickly wilting and dying. It is going to be long hot summer in the south.

until tomorrow,
enjoy

Day 121 - Get off my Daisy

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ISO 200 f/32 1 SB-800 @ 50mm 1/32nd power handheld camera left triggered with on camera pop-up. Worked late this evening, but manage to catch of shot of this daisy with a roach hanging out on it.

until tomorrow,
enjoy

Day 120 - Razor Splash

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 ISO 200 1/200s f/22. 1 SB-26 camera right @ 85mm 1/64th power, and 1 SB-800 camera left @ 85mm 1/64th power triggers with pocket wizard plus IIs.

 Setup shot
 

I found an aquarium the other day on the side of the road and needed to do something with this old Motorola Razor cell phone that has been dead and in my desk for years. I could have spent hours dropping things into this aquarium, this was almost as much fun as shooting last nights shot. I recommend to anyone who attempts this, to clean the aquarium very well and save some time in post. Ever speck of dust and dirt will show up at f/22 when the flash hits it.


until tomorrow,
enjoy