Macro Daisy

Daisy

I hadn't used the macro lens for a while so decided to pull it out earlier this afternoon. As usual, I didn't have any particular subject in mind and decided to photograph whatever I found. These small Daisies seem to be all over the place at the moment so I photographed a few of them.

More photographs inside.

Daisy

As usual with macro photography, the biggest challenge for me was composing the photograph while  holding the Canon 430EX II with one hand and the camera in the other. I probably should have gone into the house brought a light stand or a tripod to make life a bit easier.

Daisy

These photographs were taken with the Canon 7D and the 100mm macro lens. For lighting I used a handheld 430 EXII. The photographs were taken at an aperture of around f14-16. The flash was firing at 1/8 or 1/16th. I didn't use ETTL for this shot. I set the power of the flash manually and moved the flash around until I was happy with the level of light. The photographs were taken at 1/250.

Around Sydney - Australia

The Skyline - Sydney, Australia

I hadn't been out in the city with the camera for sometime so decided to go for a bit of a walk last night. I started off near Mrs Macquarie's chair near the open air cinema but didn't have any particular route in mind. I wasn't after any specific shots last night, just a walk and an an intention to photograph whatever came up.

More photographs inside.

The Opera House & Harbour Bridge - Sydney, Australia

The next subjects were the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge. I'd been to this location to photograph them before (to take this photograph) but the light conditions were very different. This time I got there after sunset and the sky was a rich blue in colour.

The Opera House & Harbour Bridge - Sydney, Australia

I would have preferred to have used a longer lens for the photograph above but unfortunately, I only had the 24-105mm lens with me. I was surprised that the smaller sails of the opera house were not lit up. That resulted in the main sail being a lot brighter than the others.

Cahill Expressway - Sydney, Australia

The next stop was a bridge overlooking the Cahill Expressway. Being a Saturday night there wasn't a lot of traffic on the road but a 30 second exposure was sufficient to photograph a few light trails as cars moved to and from the city.

Chaos on William Street - Sydney, Australia

Heading up along William Street towards Kings Cross on a Saturday night is probably the worst place to drive in Sydney. Kings Cross, the red light district in Sydney, is a hive of activity with thousands of people hitting the clubs in the area. The ever present hoons add a level of stupidity to the whole experience.

The Archibald Fountain - Sydney, Australia

The Archibald Fountain in Hyde park was the last stop on my walk. Built in 1932 , the fountain was a gift to the city bequeathed in the will of J. F. Archibald. It is intended to commemorate the association between Australia and France in World War 1 and is the work of French sculptor Francois Sicard.

All photographs on this post were taken with the Canon 7D and the 24-105mm lens. I also used a tripod for these photographs.  

45/52 - Ace

Ace

I was quite sure that the strings on a Tennis racquet could be used to produce bokeh if lit from the correct angle. I decided to test this out yesterday and produced a couple of photographs which doubled up as this week's entry for my project. The main problem which I had to contend with was working out an angle which produced bokeh as well as a half decent composition for the photograph itself.

Lighting setup shots inside.

Lighting Setup - Ace

This again was a two light setup.

The main light was a bare Canon 430 EX II fired at 1/64th from camera left. This light was used to light the closer edge of the racquet. I placed a white foam-core board at a slight angle under the racquet to bounce the light from the 430 EX II back onto the under side of the racquet and create some separation on the black bottom edge. The effect is subtle and can be seen on the bottom edge of the racquet on the right hand side of the "Wilson" sticker. If I hadn't placed the white foam-core board under the racquet, this section would have been black and would have merged into the background.

The bokeh was created by a Canon 580 EX II fired at 1/128th from in front of the camera and slightly to the left. This flash had a CTB gel on it. The light from this flash also created the highlights on the further edge of the racquet.

I used a black foam-core board as the background.

42/52 - Ignition

Ignition

I've never tried to photograph smoke before so I thought I'd experiment a bit. I wanted the photograph to be a bit more than just smoke and ended up with this. The hardest part of taking this photograph was obviously the timing. Thankfully I invested in a remote trigger sometime ago and it came in pretty handy!

Lighting setup shot and details inside.

Lighting setup - Ignition

Sorry this photograph is a bit dark. Most of the space is taken up with a black foam-core board which I used for the background.

The only flash used for this shot was a Canon 580 EX II fired at 1/64th and zoomed to 80mm.

I used a piece of white paper to bounce light onto the tea-light.

The light at the back of the shot is the TV. I was watching Australia play Italy in the rugby world cup.

23/52 - Longines

Longines

I decided to use the macro lens to photograph my wife's watch as this week's shot for the project. I still haven't used the tripod for macro shots and it's pretty tough without it. The depth of field is so shallow that the slightest movement blurs the image. I used a straight-forward one light setup for this shot.

Setup shot, inside.

Setup - Longines

I used a Canon 430 EX II fired at 1/8th from camera right to light the watch. The light was bounced off a white foam-core board placed just out of frame on the left of the camera. The shot was taken from directly above the watch.

3/52 - Grand Marnier

A Bottle of Grand Marnier 

This shot of a bottle of Grand Marnier (Orange and Cognac liqueur) has probably been the most challenging shot, from a lighting point of view, that I've captured to date. I got the idea for this image after seeing a photograph of a bottle of Hennessy taken by Atton Conrad. Since I had only 2 lights to work with, I had to capture 5 separate images and merge them during post processing.

For those of you who are interested in the lighting, read on.
Unfortunately I didn't capture any of the setup shots as there were too many! Instead I'll describe the lighting I've used for each of the shots and upload the individual images.

Shot 1 - Contents of the bottle and the label

Shot 1 - Contents of the bottle and the label

The Grand Marnier bottle is dark brown in colour. In order to light the contents of the bottle, I placed a Canon 430 EX II directly behind it and fired it towards the camera at 1/2 power. To light the label, I used a snooted Canon 430 EX II fired from camera left at 1/16th. The snooted strobe was gelled with a 1/2 CTO. In order to control the light I played around with the aperture and finally settled on f18.0. I could have got the same effect by controlling the output of the flashes but it was easier to change the aperture instead.

Shot 2 - Defining the left edge of the bottle

Shot 2 - Defining the left edge of the bottle

The effect of this shot is subtle in the final image. To light just the edge of the bottle I fired a Canon 430 EX II zoomed to 105 mm through two sheets of white foam core board. The space between the foam core boards narrowed down to about a 1cm gap. This controlled the spill and only defined the edge of the bottle. the strobe was not gelled for this shot.

Shot 3 - Defining the right edge of the bottle

Shot 3 - Defining the right edge of the bottle

The setup for this shot was identical to the shot above but on the right hand side of the camera.

Shot 4 - Background

Shot 4 - Background

I wanted to light the background of the image a little to give it some depth. I placed a candle just behind the bottle and had the shutter opened for 5 seconds at f4.0 to capture the image above. The light from the candle was soft and warm and I felt it suited this shot.

Shot 5 - Light Painting

Shot 5 - Light Painting

This shot was the hardest to capture. I used a clear glass lined with an Orange and Red gel, filled with clear marbles and a tea light as the light source. The glass was also wrapped with dark tape to allow only a section of it to be exposed to the camera. I had the shutter opened for 3.2 seconds at f4.0. During the exposure I moved the glass around until I captured a light trail I was happy with. This took a while as it was not easy to create a decent light trail.

The image above is a composite of these 5 images.

Kiwi Fruit

Back lit Kiwi Fruit

I was playing around with the flash over the weekend when I composed this image. I wanted to capture an image of backlit slices of Kiwi fruit on a black background to highlight the "furry" exterior of the fruit while capturing its green insides. Read on for lighting information.

I placed the slices of Kiwi fruit on a piece of glass which was suspended across two chairs. I lit it with a Canon 430EX shot at 1/64 from under the piece of glass (not directly under, it was just out of the bottom of the frame in the shot above). The differences in the shade of green on the slices was caused by the thickness of the slices themselves.

I could have shot the flash through a sheet of white A4 paper to make the light source appear larger and create a white background but I wanted to go for the black background and back light the fuzzy exterior of the fruit.

I'm not sure about this image to be honest. what do you guys think?

It was shot with a canon 24-105mm lens mounted on a Canon 7D. No Tripod was used.

Travel Guides

Two travel guides for Europe

We are in the middle of planning a trip to Europe for September and have spent a fair bit of time, over the last month or so, looking for accommodation, travel options and deciding what we want to see and do. With everything finally booked up, I can't wait to leave. We still have two months of work to get through before we finally get four weeks off. Time has been passing fairly quickly so hopefully it won't seem like ages before we leave.

I've been thinking of taking this shot of a couple of travel guides for a while and actually got around to taking it last night. Read on for lighting information.

Before reading the lighting information, try reverse engineering it by looking at the image above. Pay particular attention to shadows as that will help you identify where the strobe was positioned.

I placed a white foam core board on the right hand side of the subject and fired a Canon 430EX (also camera right) at 1/16 into it. A second foam core board was positioned camera left and angled to reflect the bounced light back onto the travel guides. I used a 1/2 CTO gel to warm up the light a little.

The flash was triggered by the inbuilt wireless trigger on the 7D. I used a Canon 24-105mm lens to take this shot.

Zoom Zoom Zoom

The wheel of a Mazda

I thought I'd take a break from the usual bird and butterfly shots and add a bit of variety to the blog, so here's a shot of the wheel of a Mazda. I had a few minutes to kill and the camera was with me. This resulted in the shot above. I liked how the Mazda logo was positioned and I felt all the leading lines made a strong composition.  I wanted the image to be a black and white one and exposed the image accordingly. Read on for more lighting information.

I actually didn't use any strobes to light the wheel. The shot was taken around 10.00 in the morning with the light coming from camera right. The wheel was slightly turned and this allowed the light to only hit the face of the wheel and keep the insides and grooves in shadow.

Do drop a comment if you have any suggestions on how this shot could be improved.

Waiting for dinner

Vivid Sydney

Images from Vivid sydney, Sydney's festival of Music, Light and Ideas.