Saturday, August 7, 2010

Cherries - A second take

An image of some Cherries
Cherries!

We picked up some fresh Cherries during the weekly grocery run and I decided to get a few images of them before they disappeared. I've been playing around with off camera flash for sometime and took the opportunity to experiment a bit more. I photographed some cherries a while ago and really liked the rich   shades of red on the fruit. I was hoping to light them in a way which accentuates the colour and texture of the cherries and I'm pretty happy with the results. Read on for more info and the setup shot.


A photograph of the lighting setup used to capture the image of Cherries above
The lighting setup for the image above

I used a Canon 430EXII as the main light source for this shot and fired it into a reflective umbrella at 1/32. I used a reflective umbrella as I wanted to light a section of the image evenly and didn't want too much light to spill onto the glass. The umbrella was half closed to control the spill. If I fired the strobe directly onto the Cherries, the light would have been too harsh. In order to get warm light I used a Full CTO gel on the flash. In hindsight (which is always a bit of a bitch...) I should have used a 1/2 CTO gel instead.

A sheet of glass was placed under the Cherries to create a reflection. 

The pile of Cherries to the left were about 4 - 6 inches behind the main subject so that they would be out of focus but add a layer of interest to the image and give it some context. I used a few tea light holders (which were around a foot behind the subject) to create some "home made bokeh" and balance out the composition.

The shot was captured at a shutter speed of 1/30th of a second and an aperture of f/2.5. I used a slow shutter speed to allow the ambient to burn in a little and light the image a bit more evenly. If I wanted to use a faster shutter speed, I could have used a reflector on the right of the subject to achieve the same result.

This shot was captured with a Canon 7D and the Canon 50mm f/1.8 lens.


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