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I don't recall if I've posted about my guitar on this blog or not, but I finally generated a nice photo of it.
Long story short, I started building a custom guitar for myself about 18 months ago (last July). Lots of things like school, etc. got in the way of my having as much time as I wanted to work on it, so it took a really long time. But now it is very nearly finished. I am expecting to sand flat the last 10 coats of lacquer and then cut polish to a finish this Wednesday.
But for the time being, the guitar looks awesome in the sunlight. The slightly excessive amount of lacquer on it is extremely reflective, but not yet flat; so the reflections take on interesting textures.
Aperture: f/2.8
Shutter Speed: 1/125
ISO: 100
Focal Length: 50mm
Handheld
I'm proud of the guitar, and have been enjoying playing it—the tone worked out to be exactly how I planned it back when I was first selecting my materials.
I haven't been feeling very inspired for the last few days. I know this happens to everyone, but it's a frustrating situation. Anyway, here's today's shot: a toy Rolls Royce in a DIY softbox. I was going to process it to go in the Motionless set, but it didn't seem to fit the theme very well.
click to enlarge, or see it on Flickr
Aperture: f/4
Shutter Speed: 0.3 seconds
ISO: 100
Focal Length: 100mm
Tripod
I kind of liked the color here, although it's not my first choice for a multi-million dollar car. Yeah. Hopefully something more interesting will enter my head soon.
Don't ask why the title of this photo is "Assassinate." It's a really long story. And not the kind that's funny, just the kind that makes you say "I wish I hadn't asked why the title of that photo is 'Assassinate.'"
Anyway, I was playing around with different directions and distances of light. I found that when the light source is further away from the subject, the shadows are more defined. Not wanting too many harsh shadows that would make the photo too busy (and distract from the simplicity that is one of the features of the Motionless set), I opted for one of the shots that had the light source closer.
click to enlarge, or see it on Flickr
Aperture: f/8
Shutter Speed: 1/10
ISO: 100
Focal Length: 55mm
Tripod
I'm pretty happy with how this turned out. If I could change one thing, I would have made the light a little more directional from the side. The image could use slightly more contrast. And the DoF is a little shallower than I wanted, but that's not too distracting.
I was reading tips on how to take better still-life photos a while back, and one site said that, especially if you're planning on converting to monochrome, contrasty side lighting is usually desirable. Today, I noticed that a piece of furniture in our house was getting hit with some powerful side lighting from the sun shining through our windows.
So I busted out the camera and tripod and tried it out. I must say I'm pleased with the results.
click to enlarge, or see it on Flickr
Aperture: f/11
Shutter Speed: 1/10
ISO: 100
Focal Length: 49 mm
Tripod
The sun provided much stronger light (and therefore even more contrast) than the desk lamp I use for artificially lighting smaller subjects ever could. The texture on the chair really stood out with the side lighting (which, now that I think about it, is something I learned in my digital photography class: side lighting enhances texture).
The only thing I'm not super happy with is the composition. Too much going on in the bottom right, not enough in the top left. But oh, well. You can't win them all.
Anyway, on an unrelated note, at about 5:00 today I'm heading out to shoot Prom photos for a few of my friends and their dates. I read up all about how, and my dad showed me what I need to know about using his speedlight, so I should be set to get some very good results. I'll almost definitely post about that tomorrow.
I'm really enjoying still life. Though my kit lens isn't prime, I have a hard time seeing a huge improvement in sharpness and optical quality. Also, I like to use my kit lens because it can focus MUCH closer than my Dad's 50mm and 85mm primes can. Until I find a way around this, I'll probably be using my kit lens for Motionless photos more often.
click to enlarge, or see it on Flickr
Aperture: f/9
Shutter Speed: 0.8 seconds
ISO: 100
Focal Length: 55 mm
Tripod
I like the texture of this shot, and I also like the simple background provided by shooting on white paper.
When I get enough photos in my Motionless series, I may do a mosaic. I think it would look good because the photos would be relatively uniform.
My dad owns an f/1.4 50mm EF lens, and recently told me that prime lenses get clearer and sharper photos than zooms. I wanted to shoot some still life photos, so I decided this would be a good time to try a prime—I already had lots of control over lighting, subject, etc. so I figured I wouldn't be needing to zoom to make adjustments in framing and stuff.
click to enlarge, or see it on Flickr
Aperture: f/5
Shutter Speed: 1/10
ISO: 100
Focal Length: 50 mm
Tripod
Well, he was right. Though I'm very happy with my kit 18-55, and I think it gets really good results, the 50mm is sharper. Noticeably so.
After lots of experimentation with different apertures and compositions, I decided I like this one best. The DoF isn't paper thin, but the entire lock is not in focus. Also, the centered composition made this photo a good candidate for my Motionless series, and after applying the effect in Photoshop, I liked how it fit. The only thing was that since I had white background, I had to dial down the vignette opacity quite a bit to avoid it looking too harsh.
The weekend photograph challenge at DPS right now is titled Less is More.
I decided to participate.
Anyway, here's my submission:
click to enlarge, or see it on Flickr
Aperture: f/2.8
Shutter Speed: 1/8
ISO: 100
Focal Length: 100 mm
Tripod
I took this as simply as possible. Just a white background (paper), a very simple subject, a small depth of field, black and white with no tint, no crop, no vignette, and centered composition. And I'm now completely convinced that Less really is More. I prefer taking and looking at simpler photos in general. Perhaps that's why I like macro so much; it tends to exclude noisy or busy details and really focus in on just one thing.
Oh, boy. I borrowed my dad's 100mm macro lens yesterday, and it reminded my why I love macro so much. With a combination of live view, careful and fine-tuned manual focusing, the amazing macro lens, careful lighting, my tripod, and shooting in RAW, I was able to get this shot:
click to enlarge, or see it on Flickr
Aperture: f/5
Shutter Speed: 6 seconds
ISO: 100
Focal Length: 100 mm
Tripod
The lens is beautifully sharp. When zoomed in to 100% magnification on the full-res image, I could not detect any blur at all. RAW, as usual, gave me optimal control over my tones in B&W. I kind of wish I had been more creative with the lighting, but oh, well. At least I got some nice depth.
This makes me even more excited to get my own macro lens. The one I'm looking at is the f/2.8 50 mm made by Canon, and I'll probably pick up an extension tube with it to get closer focusing distances.
While shooting a redux still life a couple of days ago, I found out something that has rocked my photography world. It may sound obvious to you more seasoned photographers out there, but it has completely changed the way I think of this kind of photography:
When you're the guy setting up objects for the shot, you get to be the guy controlling the light, too. All of it.
When I put it to words, it sounds like something that should be followed up with a quick "uh... yeah. Duh." But seriously. I was re-trying the chess piece shot from this post in an attempt to make it better, and it kind of hit me that I wanted to control where the shadows from the chess pieces went. I went and grabbed a portable light that I use in the woodshop and tried a whole bunch of different configurations. It was really fun. Eventually, I decided that this one was the keeper:
click to enlarge, or see it on Flickr
Aperture: f/7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/5
ISO: 100
Focal Length: 33 mm
Tripod
An interesting story about this photo: I tried editing it in the style of my series, Motionless. I absolutely hated what it did to my photo. Something in me strongly objected the to vignette and the tint, to the point that I just couldn't leave it that way. I deleted that version and started over until I got it how I liked it.
So a good day for photography. I learned that controlling the light = win, and that in post-processing, the photo really is the boss.
I've started a new series on Flickr, called "Motionless." It features still life photos in monochrome. To help the photos feel more like they are part of a set, they all have a subtle lilac tint and a vignette. For this reason, I suspect most (if not all) of them will be center-composed, but I can't be sure yet as I haven't taken more than one so far. Here's the first.
click to enlarge, or see it on Flickr
Aperture: f/11
Shutter Speed: 5 seconds
ISO: 100
Focal Length: 29 mm
Tripod
I think I may finally have fixed the problem I was having with terrible compositions. This one may be slightly boring (centered subject), but it's not breaking a bunch of rules at least, and there are no obnoxious lines leading away from the focus.
I'm pretty excited for this set to grow. I'm hoping to really expand my horizons here in still-life photography, monochrome photography, and composition.
And don't worry: no more pottery still-lifes :) And I won't be tracking the set on this blog, so you'll still see a variety of photography types.
This is just another B&W still life shot in RAW. I've ranted about the benefits of monochrome shot in RAW enough, I think. You get the idea.
click to enlarge, or see it on Flickr
Aperture: f/8
Shutter Speed: 2 seconds
ISO: 100
Focal Length: 43 mm
Tripod
Once again, I hate the composition on this. I guess that's a good thing about shooting B&W photos though: I tend to notice things like that more, and it should force me to become a better photographer, which is the whole point.
I think I'm going to try experimenting with some color tints on my still lifes, just to give them a bit of flavor. We'll see where this goes.
I have fallen in love with another specific form of photography. Monochrome still-lifes. Monochrome in general is so lovely when I have the flexibility of RAW. I've noticed a HUGE difference.
click to enlarge, or see it on Flickr
Aperture: f/11
Shutter Speed: 0.6 seconds
ISO: 100
Focal Length: 27 mm
Tripod
I'm not extremely happy with the composition on this. Lines, etc. become even more important than usual when you shoot monochrome, because there isn't color to distract your eyes. So in an attempt to mask some of the lines that are leading the eye in stupid directions, and just generally keep the focus on the center, I added a not-so-subtle vignette. It helped, but I still need to figure out better composition when shooting things like this.
I really like the contrast though, and the shadows behind the vases looks pretty good, as well as the kind of flare of light on the wood.
Man, Nature Macro photography is going to be so jealous.
Last post I discussed what you should do when you're somewhere that you can't bust out a camera, but the good ideas in your brain are reproducing like rabbits. Today's post will be about the exact opposite of that: what to do when you're holding a camera, but can't think of anything to take a picture of.
The answer is fairly obvious. If you write down the ideas you have as you have them, and carry a list around with your camera, you'll always have some to fall back on. For instance, one of the ideas I had yesterday in Calculus was an album entitled "The Matrix in Still Life." Today I got started on it. Here's the first completed picture of the set:
I used a rather gritty texture I exposed myself (I'll write a tutorial on how to get your own textures later, but for now, this one from Digital Photography School is excellent), gave the photo a greenish tinge, and added some motion-blur bullets for effect. Is it a little overdone? Perhaps. But if that's the reaction I get from the general community, I'll know to tone it down for the rest of the pictures that will be in the set. More to come!
