[Irma]

I got my diffuser for my D70!!



and here is the picture...



I did another one with the umbrella and works great!!

Here is another I took of a kind of decoration I did with a pumpkin...



I think it is amazing what a piece of paper can do...

I got the tip from this photographer. He use this for macro photography and his pictures are great!

Hope you find it useful!

[Banded Drake]

Thanks for the link Irma , i have a shoot tommorow and i think ill have to make one of those diffusers . Then i can post more in this assignment .

.... Shawn

[Wedding Shooter]

G asked me to work with a picture for the introduction in the wedding album... I received from the Swantje's Mami a bouquet from the wedding decoration... It was beautiful, till I took pictures of it ...
Anyway, I had my invitation to the wedding so I got the idea, with the invitation and the flowers.

Hi Irma,

Very nice - do you think you could borrow their rings and reshoot it with the rings in there. It would look so much better with the rings.

You have lit it very nicely.

[Irma]

You are right!
With the rings would look great and we don't have any picture of the rings alone...

They will come back next weekend I might ask them the lend me the rings for a picture. The thing will be that the flowers might not be nice by then. I will see if I can get another flower anyway and take this picture with the rings...

Thanks for the advice, Chris.

[matthew]

Irma, great job on the diffuser. Simple, effective, and cheap -- it's hard to beat that.

For the rings, if you can replicate the camera position and the flash setup, you might be able to shoot them on top of the invitation and then merge it with the flower photo...?

Shawn, I'm waiting for those pictures...

[Irma]

Thanks a lot for the idea Matt!
I'll do it like this ...

[Irma]

There were no sunflowers in the shop, and the flowers I bought were so small... they were lost in the picture... A bit frustraited I decided to do something new for me... reading the strobist blog I read about using ambient light and flash. They are making a series of 7 pictures. I will post just the one I think looks well...

My window at the left farther than the flash with umbrella. The tutorial says to direct the flash to the subject, but I bounced my flash to the ceiling. As the light from the flash was still to hard I put two paper napkins to stop the light ...
F5.0, 10sec., ISO 50...



This was my best one, any comments to improve are welcome...

[matthew]

This was my best one, any comments to improve are welcome...

Irma, I really like this. The lighting is really nice, and it's been processed beautifully. The impression I get is a nostalgic American 1950's feel, which is funny because I don't think either of us ever experienced it. The cream tones are great. For the lamp, I like the overlap of the bowl and the lack of overlap for the apples. Even the slight tilt to the shade appeals to me.

[matthew]

I first used this technique shooting in narrow alleyways during daylight, so that's something that I'll have to try again for this assignment.

I know it's a little tacky to quote myself, but I actually did make it back to the same shady alleyway with my ultra-wide and flash. I really like the combination of blue sky, shadows, and lit subject. I had the flash on a cable to trigger it, which worked well, but I wished for my wireless triggers a couple of times. Maybe next time...

[Irma]

Thanks so much Matt for your comment. I was afraid it would look a bit flat!

I like what I see in your pictures Matt. I also like this combination of shadows and blue sky. I like all your pictures, but I think the last one is my fav because of the grid. And just now that I am writing this I think How did you do to have the grid as a silhouette and the background lit?
It looks even more interesting now that I think about it.

[matthew]

Irma, I don't think that flat lighting is a problem for your photo. It is very even, but the ambient light is still giving a nice shadow on the lamp, and a nice three-dimensional look to the apples, especially the one on the left edge of the bowl. Your flash has managed to soften the shadows without creating the double-shadow that would make the lighting look artificial. It isn't a dramatic and edgy photo, but it works very nicely as a still life study.

I showed the umbrella photo to my evaluation group last night, and they suggested an alternative crop for it:



I'm not sure I like it better -- I probably don't -- but it changes the structure of the picture to a composition of light and dark triangles that's picked up by the diamond security mesh. This photo was lit by firing the flash remotely from directly below and slightly in front of the camera. I had the head pressed right up against the mesh, so no light scattered upwards to contaminate the lens's view.

Here are a couple more from the same trip....



And a similar idea to the umbrella, with the flash firing from below, but in this case I wanted the light to highlight the security gate and throw shadows along the walls. If I had known the umbrella was just a little further down the alley, I would have skipped this one.

[Irma]

Matt about your umbrella picture.

I think It is one of those pictures where you can work two version and both would be great.

The first one is like part of a story, makes you think about the place, and the blue sky is an important element. When I see it, I always expect to see someone popping up from the roof...

The crop is really nice as well, I like it too, as much as the other one but I see it as a more artistic photograph. Those colors of the umbrella shine so beautiful here... The graffiti works as a pleasant contrast with the colors and straight lines of the umbrella...

[matthew]

I suppose the umbrella experiment should also be in the "cropping" assignment.

I was photographing some flowers the other day -- nothing special -- but I was struck by the difference between two photos with just a slight difference in flash placement.

[Irma]

You are right Matt, the umbrella picture would be a great addition to the cropping assignment...

What I like the most in your recent pictures is the color Matt... The match so nicely, they look the real color they are. Did you worked your WB in LR or did you set it in your camera?

Here is one I took of a seagull in Travemuende today. She was a bit far but still I think the flash worked well. It is one of the few good ones I had with flash... The other ones unfortunately turned out too flashed...

[matthew]

The exposure on your gull is really nice, and balanced beautifully with the sky. The interesting perspective makes for a striking photo. Well done, and certainly worth however many attempts it took.

And thanks for your comment about the colours. The colours in all of my recent photos taken with the E-3 were shot with auto WB and adjusted in Lightroom if needed. I'm not overly happy with the new E's ability to AWB indoors, so I've probably fixed anything with a roof over it, but these outdoor shots are untouched. Eventually I'll build a colour profile for it, but until the script gets updated for ACR4.3 I'm just using the standard lightroom presets.

[Irma]

Of course!! I just forgot that you are a proud owner of an Olympus...

The colors from Olympus cameras are so special, so beautiful.

[Irma]

I have always found very difficult to work with black background. Here is the one I think was the best of the series. I cheated a bit with the light in the cup, I lit the shady part...

My question is if the shadows have to be noticeable or you only work with the light in the subject, and the background has to be black.

[NT73]

That is the effect I see in the dark corner of the kitchen, with something lit by a halogen spotlight.
Very nice work Irma.
As this is for the forum project, no critique needed.

If it was critique I would suggest two different breads/loaves in the basket.

[NT73]

Two kites were flying, and the pattern is in reflective material. I used a little led pocket torch to illuminate them.



One on the beach had lights, which I focussed on and used the flash. Surprise surprise, Why put a telegraph pole on a beach? Never saw it guv.

[Irma]

Thanks NT for your comment...
You are right about the bread the thing was that I didn't think to have it in a picture. Actually, I bought it for our dinner...

Next time I will do it with those beautiful seeds bread we have in the bakery...

Your picture with the tourch light is great. I haven't tried with torch light... but I don't understand well, was it taken at night? So then how did you do to have them sharp if they were moving?

The last one made me laugh...

[NT73]

It made me cry.
It was very dark, that is why the pole didn't show up through the viewfinder. All I could see were jetty lights and the lights on the kite.
The other one the kites once they are in the air, keep fairly still. I just had to point the camera and wait until I or someone else shone a torch. Like the cyclist bands light with the car headlamps.
I was stopping down at first as the reflective material was too bright.
It was in the canaries so it was warm as well as night.
Exif for info.



Model - Canon EOS 350D DIGITAL
ExposureTime - 1/200 seconds
FNumber - 8.00
ExposureProgram - Manual control
ISOSpeedRatings - 100
DateTimeOriginal - 2007:11:10 23:37:02
Flash off.

[Irma]

Thanks a lot for sharing your settings in the Camera NT. Now I understand why it looks so sharp...
You did it really nice.

[Kombisaurus]

I've been playing with lighting a bit lately, and I'm currently in the process of building a couple of simple DIY light modifiers for off-camera flash (a beauty dish and a ring-flash).


1. A test-shot from my unfinished ring-flash. I've pretty much got the light doing what I want it to. Now I just have to build it so it all stays together.


2. A test shot taken when my light-stands and umbrellas arrived. This shot used two strobes (one bounced off a reflector, one shot through an umbrella) and some ambient light.

Sorry for just posting photos of myself but invariably when I'm playing around with this stuff I tend to be home alone.

[matthew]

I like them both, and I'm looking forward to learning more about your new DIY project. There's a commercial ring-flash adapter that I've been looking at, but its about $250 more than I really want to spend.

(For photo #2, is that look "Blue Steel" or "Magnum"? )

[Keith Alan]

For photo #2, is that look "Blue Steel" or "Magnum"?

Hilarious!
I have Blue Steel nailed, and whip it out whenever necessary.