Any photographers in here?
- Thread starter ChopstickHero
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NVP5White said:
Good job. I'd like to have a nice macro lens some day. So the lighting was from that little rim light that attaches to the lens, right? Macro pics of flowers always look better, IMO, with water droplets on the petals. Just get a little spray bottle and squirt some on. The light really dances off the water and makes the pics come alive. I know you were just trying to get a feel for your new lens, so this is more of a comment rather than critique.
rjmhotrod said:
No ring light. I have a hot-shoe mounted SB-600 which is a normal looking flash. The head of the flash pivots from 0 to 90 degrees up, and rotates 90 degrees left and right. I rotated the flash head about 75 degrees to the left and bounced the light off of a light-gold sheet of poster board hung off of a sheet of foam core, which was itself supported by a dining room chair.
Bouncing the flash really helped soften the light. Since the poster board was a kind of metalic gold paint it didn't eat too much of the flash power. I think I prefer bouncing the flash rather then using another form of difusion such as a Sto-fen Omnibounce.
As for the water, I agree that the drops can add a great deal of interest to a subject, but I find it difficult to apply the water with a spray bottle because it gets too evenly distibuted of the entire flower and doesn't look natural. Although, I probably will go home tonight and use a dropper to place some water on the flowers now that you mention it.
NVP5White said:
Every pro photographer I've ever been around always seems to bounce the flash. I suppose there's a time and place for a diffusion box (I guess if you want really even lighting across the subject). Foam core is used quite often in photography and videography. I know we keep big pieces of foam core in the van when we need to bounce light (for a fill light, for instance). They come in extremely handy and you can pick them up practically anywhere. Yes, I suppose I would rather rent another light (my light rented to the client, that is), but sometimes you don't have that option.
Nice use of resources.
Here's a few pics for comments. I welcome any comments or critiques.
First one is of my daughter - taken this afternoon. She was sitting on the couch and I liked the way the sun was glowing around her. Note - I'm not sure how she can see out of those dirty glasses.
50mm, f3.5, 1/160, ISO 200
Second one is of my youngest daughter in gymnastics class. Shooting conditions are tough in there because of the low light and the fact that you can't use a flash. This photo has been cropped alot (nearly 100%, I think). Shot using a my 50mm f1.8 lens. I would rather have used a zoom lens, but the low light necessitated the faster lens. At any rate, I wish I would have been about a foot more to the left to get more perspective of the gymnasts behind her.
50mm, f1.8, 1/100, ISO 200.
First one is of my daughter - taken this afternoon. She was sitting on the couch and I liked the way the sun was glowing around her. Note - I'm not sure how she can see out of those dirty glasses.
50mm, f3.5, 1/160, ISO 200
Second one is of my youngest daughter in gymnastics class. Shooting conditions are tough in there because of the low light and the fact that you can't use a flash. This photo has been cropped alot (nearly 100%, I think). Shot using a my 50mm f1.8 lens. I would rather have used a zoom lens, but the low light necessitated the faster lens. At any rate, I wish I would have been about a foot more to the left to get more perspective of the gymnasts behind her.
50mm, f1.8, 1/100, ISO 200.
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I'm not sure why the first pic is not displaying properly in the post. I've attached it the same as I did the second one. I even uploaded a different copy of the same pic (with a different file name) and it still just links it instead of displaying it. Whatever... I'll try it again in this post.
Edit***Screw it. I give up.
Edit***Screw it. I give up.
rjmhotrod said:
I like the first picture. Only change I would make would be to try and get rid of the glare in the right lens of the subject's glasses. Seeing the eye of the subject allows the viewer to make a connection with the subject. There's a lot of communication that can happen just with the eyes so it's important to be able to see one or both. Also, could use a bit more contrast in the rest of her face to give important to this area. I like the close crop and overall composition.
Second picture is not so great. Maybe if the three girls were offset a bit more so you could really tell the three were in the same position or coriagraphed in some way. I like the isolation of the wide-open lens.
NVP5White said:
Thanks. This pic was not cropped at all. I purposefully framed it this way. I hear what you're saying about the eyes. After I took the pic I noticed this as well. But I was not posing her at all, just grabbing "real life", if you will. I agree with your statement though.
NVP5White said:
Well at least I got that part right. Again, I agree with your assessment. I actually didn't think much of this photo in it's original form. It wasn't until I cropped it that I thought it might be something. But you're right, I should have been about a foot or two more to my left to get the right perspective. And I have to pay more attention to orientation - as you can see by the floor that I wasn't level (though I'm assuming that could be corrected in Photoshop).
Thanks for the feedback. I've only had my camera for about 8 months now. I knew absolutely nothing about photography before then. So I'm very happy with the progress I've made in that time. I have a long way to go, but I'm really enjoying learning to be (hopefully, someday) a good photographer.
Togan said:
I picked-up the flowers at a local florist. I know they have a big showroom with walk-in refrigerators where you can pick and choose the exact stems you want to buy. I just bought the two stems and they were a bit pricey, but I think the results were worth the cost.
The technique I used to set-up my studio is not unique; I pieced it together from websites and blogs and forums. For me, I first envisioned the picture I wanted, and then got creative about how I could get there within a tight budget. $7 worth of poster board later I had my own "studio". The best part is it takes about 3 minutes to set-up so I can shoot a quick hundred pictures in the middle of the family room then take the whole thing down so we can use the space again.
I have a picture of the set-up I took with my other digital. I'll post it later so you can see what I'm taking about. I also have some additional images I might post...tried the water droplet thing but I'm not happy with those results (although the technique looks promising).
NVP5White said:
I may be making this up, but I don't think so. It seems that I heard somewhere that some photographers use something other than water to get the "water" to stay in place. I have no idea what they are using. I don't know if a supersaturated sugar water solution would be clear enough to pass for water. But it might stay in place better because of it's stickiness and stronger surface tension. You could place the "water" droplets more precisely, then spray normal water on the rest of the petal/plant with a really fine atomizer. Just some ideas.
rjmhotrod said:
Yeah, I think you may be on to something. I first tried placing a drop or two but they didn't look natural. I then tried blowing water out of a coffee stir but that didn't really work, either. I didn't go to the spray bottle because I wanted a veriety of drop sizes. While the drops were different sizes, they were fairly flat and/or not round.
I'll try a spray bottle tonight and let you know if that works with the smaller dropplets. For bigger drops, I could definitely see a thicker solution or substance working better. At the moment I can't think of anything that would be good, though.
02PROTEGE2.0
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NVP5White said:
sorry i havent read in a while. im looking to get the sb-600 for my D70... but i was afraid id regret not getting the 800. what are ur thoughts? what body are u shooting on?
02PROTEGE2.0 said:
I'm shooting on the D50. I've heard a convincing argument both ways. You get a lot of included accessories with the SB-800: SJ-1 filter set; flash difuser; built-in bounce card, etc.
Since the D50 does not have the ability to act as a "master" flash unit I felt it was better to get the SB-600 and with the difference get a wireless remote trigger from eBay, SJ-1 filter set, and maybe a diffusor, although I haven't found one I really like.
Sincce the D70 can trigger an SB-600/SB-800 remotely while retaining use of Nikon CLS, you may want to consider the upgrade to an SB-800. Of course, $300+ is a lot more money then $185 for the SB-600. Tough call for you...