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Monday, June 27, 2011

Details, details, details...

Stained Fork
Got myself excited to shoot some detail shots over the weekend as it was very gloomy and rainy outdoors. Here are some of what I was able to take last Saturday night. How I did it at the end of my post. :D

Don't Fret Pegged

Glitz! Fedora Stitch
Here's my favorite shot of the night:

Cookie
I made my bunch of cookies as my midnight snack after photographing it as it really made me hungry.

Sunday, blessed me with a slight overcast afternoon with a little sun peeping through the clouds. Since the rains have stopped since morning, little critters were out too and so was I. :D

Crab Spider

Big Red Eyes

I'm Hairy

Red Bulb White Veins
The leaf shot reminds me of science class where we used to peek into a microscope to look in closer on leaf structure though this is nowhere near as a microscope photo.

Cereals???
I just found this interesting.



The How.

I used an extension tube coupled with my 85mm with the shots that were produced on Saturday night and then with my defective-AF kit lens for the Sunday afternoon session.

The extension tubes that I used were the dumb cheap ones. It's really like a tube except that it has mounts for the lens and the camera body to be coupled together. Using the extension tubes meant physical manual focus. I said physical is because it's either I or the subject moves forward or backward to get the part I wanted in focus as this type deals with really narrow DOF (depth-of-field).

I used a flash with a diffuser cup with varying light intensity and distance to light the subject. The built-in flash can also be used but I wanted to control the direction of the light thus I used an external flash. Another tip, I used my maximum flash sync speed (1/200 sec for my camera) to eliminate camera shake and get photos that are sharp enough.

The physical manual focus was really a challenge but my love for macro has just been revived! :)

Cheers!

The rest of the other photos are in this album:



Macro


Brown Flower (Chico flower)

Friday, June 24, 2011

One Light

Here's a photo that is pretty much Zack Arias - inspired shot. I have been planning to take this heart pendant of my daughter but during the time I wanted to shoot it, we can't find it. So I told my wife about this plan I have and a few days ago, guess what, they found it and I just shot it.

Here's the result:

Heart Pendant (Zack Arias - inspired)

Yup, that's pretty much it! So, what's with the title 'One Light'? Well, I used only one light for this photo. I practically just lit the background to blow it away to close to white.

The setup. I had a small table propped up in front of a white wall in our home then I placed a white semi glossy white board on top of the table. The table was about a foot away from the wall. Yes, there was a gap between the table and the wall. I then placed my flash on the floor just barely beneath the table's edge pointed to the wall. The gap between the table and the wall was the place where I need my flash to light the wall and bounce that light back somewhere. During the shot I placed a card board wrapped in foil to act as a filler light to shine a little light on the front of the pendant.As you can see there's a small highlight on the metal loop that holds the beads and the heart. I hanged the necklace and pendant close to the glossy board enough to get a reflection/shadow for drama.

Viola!

Heart Pendant (Zack Arias - inspired)

It was a very nice exercise as I had the chance to apply what I learned from reading Zack Arias' blog/website.

I hope you can pick-up something new from Zack Arias' blog/website as I did.

Cheers!

Thursday, June 16, 2011

VW Beetle Hoodie

In relation to my previous post: Volkswagen Photoshoot -- Die-cast, I received an email from a website design firm recently asking for my permission for them to use one of my photos that I took of the VW Beetle die-cast about a week ago as they would like to use it for one of their campaigns for their new website.

Naturally, I was flattered that they'll going to use one of my photos. :) Here's the photo they've asked permission to use:

VW Beetle 1/24 Scale Die-cast
I received another email from them with an attached e-newsletter they're going to use or are using with the VW Beetle photo of mine with an appropriate byline and I just wanted to share it with you how it looks:

Infotex E-Newsletter
This opportunity is a real big inspiration for me. Now, I'm really looking forward for more sets with die-cast toys. One more thing, this photo was taken only with a kit lens and only shows that creativity is what matters and how it's executed, right?