Second Look

Recently, I shot a bottle of Rakia from Bulgaria (Stress Reliever) which proved to be really tricky to shoot. I reused the light setup to take another take on the vodka bottle that I shot a few months back when I was "Reviving The Kit" lens.

Light Diagram from the Rakia Bottle shot

I'd show the vodka bottle that was shot a few months back and the a few weeks ago side-by-side. I'd love to hear what you think is better.

Reviving The Kit

Second Look

So, what do you think is better?

Flash Gels And New Shoes

Recently my wife and my kids gave me a new pair of shoes for Father's Day. Anything new is a good opportunity for some product shots as the subjects are still in their best condition. It is also a good chance to try something new, experiment with some stuff, and practice photography.

Thank you to them for fueling me with these.

Happy Expressions

As I was trying out my DIY soft box -- biggest of my DIY soft boxes as of now, I took time to make my daughters as my models. Though they didn't cooperate as much as I want them to but it I believe it turned out well. So, I just want to share their happy expressions during my short experimentation.

I really just love that I was able to capture these happy expressions.

Mini Cakes

My wife recently bought some mini cakes for gifts for friends. There were some leftovers and of course being so interested in food photography at the moment, I couldn't help and resist experimenting with it. Below are two photos of the same mini cake. Hmm.. I just had time to take photos of one (1) mini cake as I took these close to midnight () of December 18, 2009. Yes, I took these photos at night and not during the day.

Bon Appetit!

Bokeh - Out Of Focus (DIY)

So, what is Bokeh? Bokeh in photography as defined by Wikipedia is the blur, or the aesthetic quality of the blur, in out-of-focus areas of an image, or "the way the lens renders out-of-focus points of light".

I created something similar to what is found in the Internet to create artistic bokeh or bokeh with different shapes aside from the common circular, pentagonal, octagonal shape of bokeh. By the way, I also read from the Internet that the bokeh is also affected by the number of aperture blades the camera lens has but I can't recall where I have read it exactly from.

Anyway, back to creating different bokeh shapes was something interesting and I tried it myself on my kit lens. Basically, it's like overriding the default bokeh shape of the lens. With the Christmas season, I took the chance to create and experiment on this one as there's a bountiful resource of light points from Christmas lights.

Here's my best photos:

Straight Curls

Circular Curls

Circular Triangles

 Here's my do-it-yourself interchangeable bokeh accessory that yielded the above photos:

Here's a link for my inspiration to create myself a bokeh accesory: DIYPhotography. Thers's more DIYs in there to try as well.