Doplets Part 2

just more shots from the droplets shoot..

Its one and a half year since i shot the first round of droplets photos.. here
i just got the inspiration again after i saw the discovery program with high speed camera showing the droplets in action..
this time, i tried with shallower water for the crown.. i felt it much easier to do this time as my wife is helping out and its not like 5'C cold night in wellington.:)
Strobist info : one SB26 bounced from the back wall at 1/4th power triggered optically with 430ex on camera at 1/64th power bouncing on the ceiling ( the 430ex is not contributing much to the exposure but just using it to trigger the SB26)
erased some sensor dust and ugly background bits in photoshop cs3.

Back to strobist

Back to strobist, originally uploaded by Maung Maung aka Mexx.

Just bought a 540EZ flash since my SB24 was broken and this is my first strobist picture in more than 8 months.

and I have nothing much to shoot.. and no lightstand / back drops etc.

this is just my watch ( you can see its dirty :P) on a A4 paper.

Strobist info , 540 ez on camera left firing into A4 paper at 1/8th power. Another A4 paper just beside the watch camera right to have fill light.

Mist

I took this yesterday at the wind turbine .. when we went up there in the evening, it was all covered in low lying clouds.. and all foggy.. very spooky feeling .. like you are in Silent Hill.
Then I started taking photos..
I was trying to explain some flash usage to them and shot this as a proof :D
more to come later..

Quiet

I haven't shot much interesting photos lately. Could be that its harder to find new subject? Could be the shitty week I am having at work? Could be that I am just running out of passion? I dont know.
On the other hand, my flicker gallery has now more than 4,000 views.. also my blog is slowly gaining momentum.. I feel bad that I haven't post a photo or blog post in a few days.. So today I try to find something to shoot.
Here it is.. not a very interesting subject.. A product shoot of my phone .. I was just trying to replicate some of the lighting concepts I learn and used in computer graphics. Using white cards and black cards.

It was shot on a black cloth draped over my chair. The white reflection is the A4 paper I held in my hand above the phone. It was lit by Canon 430ex speedlite firing into it.
Lighting info, Canon 580ex II on camera right 1' above the subject shooting into an A4 envelope on the left. and 430ex further away from camera right shooting in the A4 paper held above by my hand. lighting ratio 2:1 ( 580ex : 430ex) triggered by ST-E2.
my phone was a litle dusty so i did some dust busting in Photoshop afterwards.

This is another closeup shot of my laptop logo in the similar setup.. I was thinking of shooting the whole laptop but the chair was not big enough and I was lazy to move the whole setup to my table. May be tomorrow.

580ex , 430ex, ST-E2 and outdoor shoot

As I mentioned in my previous post, I really wanted to know how 580ex , ST-E2 and infra-red ETTL will work in daylight situation. And I also wanna learn how lighting ratio will help me get nice photos. Lucky me.. Today, my colleague Matt lend me a 580ex to play with and I am a one happy cat.

I just couldnt wait but asked my friend and colleague Pete to pose for me.. We just headed to the car park at the back of the office. I setup my camera in Aperture priority mode. Set my 430ex in Gropu B , ETTL mode. Set 580ex in Group A, ETTL mode too. And then set my ST-E2 to use Lighting ratio 2:1 (more on Group A, 580ex). Lastly, I set my camera exposure compensation to -2 stop to get underexposed background effect like you seen in the pics..


That's it for the settings.. then I placed 580ex on a platfrom 1' above the ground on camera right.. and holding 430ex on my left hand stretched as far as I can ...
Shooting is easy.. all done in less than 15 minute.. no hassle of adjusting flash outputs and apreture to get proper flash exposure.. All handled by ETTL.. and I still have control by using flash exposure compensation and lighting ratio on ST-E2. So.. I am really pleased.. And they worked so well that it even looks like they are photoshopped inside on a blue screen background. It will be better with proper light stand and umbrellas may be..
Except out of 10 or so shots, flash didn't fire on 3. that mean 70% working.. It could be that both flashed are almost 180' on the side and lost line of sight on that occasion. I think it can be avoided with proper placement of flashes.



even though the flash didn't fire.. the silhouette turned out interesting.

Man.. now I am itchy for 580ex.
Thanks to Pete and Matt for making this shoot possible..

Different Flash Diffuser tests for Low Key lighting

I was quite disappointed that I couldn't achieve proper low key lighting with my current setup so I did this little test to figure out how each diffuser is affecting the light quality.

I use all the diffuser I have. omnibounce , inflatable softbox ( about 8" x 6") and lumiquest bouncer.
I also shoot with manual mode without adjusting the aperture to see the light loss from different diffusing method. As usual, I had no choice but to use myself as a guinea pig.
They are all shot inside my room so there's constraints about the camera:flash:subject ratio to control the light diffusing into the back wall. I put myself as far as I can from the wall to minimize the light falling into the background and put the flash as close as I can to me too.

All photos are shot with EOS 30D, Sigma 18-50mm f2.8 EX DC lens at f3.5, 1/180s ISO 200 , focal length 46mm.
Camera is 3' away from subject. White wall behind me 2.5' away. 430ex flash on 1/64 power beside me right 1.3' away.
pardon the focusing.. cos i m too lazy to use remote.

first, unprocessed version .. you can see the light loss from different diffuser by looking at the brightness.

now the lightroom processed version to compensate the exposure / levels..


In my opinion , the inflatable softbox is most useful as it has minimal light loss, less stray light casting on the wall and the soft quality of light on the subject.

Lumiquest bouncer + white trash bag give me the best soft box effect at the cost of light loss.

I think getting a silver umbrella and swivel is the ultimate solution for controlling that kinda lighting.

Anyway.. after that test.. I wanna go try getting the shallow depth of field and low key lighting using strobes .. So I made this self portrait.. Its really hard getting the focus on my eye and the right framing. Not the best composition but this is what I can get.

430ex on my right 1.5' away with inflatable softbox + a layer of white tshirt to even lower the output. flash at 1/64 power triggered with ST-E2.
50mm , f1.4 , 1/80s ISO 100.

cheers..

Photoshoot

Last nite, Theo and Jude came over to take some photos for their parents.
Even though I've been playing around with strobes lately, its a really good experience for me. Working with people is something I have to work on. I realized I am not really ready for a real shoot. They are fun and friendly to shoot but the problem is I was hesitant to direct them as they are friends. Another this is I should take more time in setting up strobes and angle but I was somehow rushing the shoot. I should do so for upcoming shoots.

Another problem is the limited working space. We wanted to try getting some low key moody portraits but
1. the room is too small and have light colored walls / ceiling so they are all acting like reflectors.
2. I cant move my strobes closer to them to overcome that problem because I don't have a soft box or umbrella to diffuse the light when I place it close.

Anyway.. here are some of them. I am not totally satisfied but there's lesson to be learn and I will improve on it next time. Cheers.

Last rockstar

This is the last of my self humiliating rocker photos .. I croppped the left to get rid of the SB-24 on the tripod..
somehow .. it reminds me of Nirvana's Smell like teen spirits video..

Keep on Rockin'

Well.. What can I say.. I am bored, I have some strobes, I have a lens to test, and I have no model to shoot with.
So here I am.. rocking hard..(the only other hobby of mine that I dig) and taking photos of myself.. which I am not really comfortable of..


I shot them in my room so I had to photoshopped out some unwanted stuffs like light switches and table lamps. But the challenge here is lighting. the SB-24 strobe on tripod was cloned out and replaced with fake lens flare in PS.

strobist info, 430ex on my lower left with sto-fen omni bounce 1/4 power triggered with ST-E2 .. from my behind right, SB-24 on tripod with 8"x6"blimp sofbox in 1/2 power triggered optically.

I used eBay radio remote to get the focus and self-timer to get rid of the remote from my hand .. and started rockin' :P .. and shot a few of them.. And this is the one that I liked..

This shot is from the same place, my camera is on my Manfrotto tripod. But the remote is on my right hand where you cant see it. I wanted to experiment with shallow depth-of-field and wide angle effect that the new Sigma 18-50mm f2.8 EX DC can offer.

strobist info, 430ex on my lower left with sto-fen omni bounce 1/4 power triggered with ST-E2 .. from my behind right, SB-24 on tripod with 6"x8" blimp softbox in 1/2 power triggered optically.

My new EOS 30D and ST-E2

Woot! today I got my new camera Canon EOS 30D. And more, ST-E2 wireless flash trigger. I am really excited to test both and shot a few of these . I am not advertising alcohol here but I just cant find a good subject to shoot today and just shoot the bottle I have. It's actually not even opened yet. The liquid in the glass is just red tea. :)

One thing I noticed is the 30D display gamma is a little bright and I kept shooting it believing that only to find out later.. I calibrated my laptop and 30d with my eye (using adobe gamma and powerstrip) but cant be so sure about it. Please let me know if my images are too dark or too bright.
For ST-E2, it's working very well. except that when it is pointing to a mirror on my wall, my flash is out of sync. But it is avioded by changing the camera position.



This time I was trying to play with tissue paper - snoot.
Starblitz 250 full power with snoot from right and 430ex from left 1/32 power from left triggered with ST-E2.

Me, a great friend called Brad and the amazing EOS 5D

Today, my colleague Brad came over with his camera and lens to have a look at my strobe setup.Ended up being the model for some portrait shoots. Oh boy! I love his EOS 5D. But its quite a beast compare to my 400D and I am not sure if I'll be carrying that camera with me all the time.May be I'm just telling myself that EOS 5D is sour grape.. Haha.Here are the results..

Shoot info, 430ex bounced from left 1/2 power, and Starblitz 250 through plastic bag triggered opticaly on the right.
Shot with brad's camera and lens.. EF 100mm f2.8 macro and EOS 5D

Droplets

More photos here.

Me and the droplets Round 1

Today I tried to shoot water droplets and milk droplets using strobes. It's very tricky as I dont have proper tripod or light-stand.
I had to drop the droplets one by one using a spoon with my hand and the other hand is on the camera to press the shuter release.
Problem is that the droplets wont go exactly to the places as i planned. Using my hand is very bad idea. So they are out of focus most of the time. And my cheap starblitz flash wont rapid-fire and I have literally once chance to capture per drop.
But generally an interesting experiment.
I cant wait to get my hands on C1 remote, ST-E2 , camera tripod , light-stand + umbrellas to complete my Strobist set-up.
One step at a time huh..
Wait for Round 2 here.
Cheers.

P.S. Strobist info, 430ex at 1/2 power on camera bounced to the top right wall and one Starblitz 250 at 1/4 power directly behind, shoot through a white shopping bag. Lens is EFS 18-55 Kit Lens with +2 and +4 close-up filters on it.

Strobist

Finally, got a cheapo 2nd flash with light trigger and started playing around today.
I also bought 2m black cloth to use as backdrop. And here goes.

I am still not very pleased with the control of my light yet cos I still havent got my ST-E2 remote trigger.. And I am using a tiny glass shelf so the size is limited here.. No light stand mean I cant place my lights very high. No soft-box or Umbrella means harsh shadows.

Grrhh.. Photography is expensive..
Hope to cash-in one day though. hehe.