Loving the G12! Is it as good as the 7D for still life images?

It was *yet* another wet weekend in Brisbane, and I had a bit of time to photograph some of the beautiful flowers I received for my birthday last weekend.

I thought I'd experiment and shoot the same flower set up...with the G12 vs the 7D + 24-70mm L lens. We're talking about a $2,400 difference in the cost of the gear taking the photo here...

Here are the two images....obviously the composition is slightly different, but both were shot hand held in a light tent to give this high key effect....for the image shot with the 7D, I used an off-camera flash. For the image with the G12, there was no flash, I just over-exposed the image by two stops.

Can you pick which image was shot with which camera?

In case you wondering, I shot the first image with the G12 and the second inage with the 7D. For a little compact camera, the G12 and all its manual capabilities is pretty damn impressive, don't you think!

How to photograph paintings/art (behind glass)

Last night was the final session of the Colour II course I've been doing at the Brisbane College of Photography and Art.

It's been a great 8-week course, and last night we learnt how to photograph art - specifically framed pictures or photos behind glass.

Shooting art behind glass would typically throw up the challenges of either the final picture not being well lit; or, the final image showing glare from the glass; or the photographer's reflection showing up in the image; or, when using flash, having that white spot in the image....you could theoretically use a polariser to cut down the glare, but it would darken the image and potentially do funky things to the colours in the painting.

So - the solution was to cross-light the picture (hung against a dark, non-reflective black cloth - as per the first shot). We used the College's studio, with the set up shown below. Two Elinchrom studio lights diffused with soft boxes were placed at about 30 degree angles to the painting. Both lights pointed to the centre of the painting. We later triggered these lights with our (on-camera) flash acting as the master flash.

Dave, our tutor stuck a grey card under the frame (as per the second shot) - when we took a test shot, we included the card in the frame, so we could colour correct using the White Balance tool in Photoshop.

We used a flash/light meter to give us the reading of the light as it hit the painting, and the final settings for my camera ended up being ISO 100, Shutter Speed of 1/200 and f/8.0.

Then it was a case of filling the (camera) frame with the painting, and shooting it straight on at the centre of the painting. Shot 3 is my final shot - with no detectable glare from or reflections in the glass.

So while this set up is not necessarily going to work for shots in a museum (unless you can be bothered - and get permission - to lug studio lights around), it's definitely do-able with my little studio set up. There were a few other nifty hints about how to ensure you completely remove any glare or reflections in this scenario - but you'll have to check out the course to see that in action :)

Two studio lights are positioned at about 30 degrees from the painting.
The flashes were triggered by an LED light sensor.

A white balance card is stuck under the frame to take a test shot, which can
then be used to colour correct with the White Balance tool in Photoshop.

Voila! The finished shot, cropped and with no reflections in the glass.

There's no circus in this tent!

I'm loving the Colour II series of workshops I'm doing at the Brisbane College of Photography & Art. We're covering macro photography in a fair bit of detail at the moment, and this week we covered lighting options for macro work.

I'd seen light boxes and product tables in action very briefly at the Creative Photo Workshops Studio Lighting Workshop I did late last year, but was more focused in that session on shooting portraits of the glam models, than bottles and watches. 

Anyway, this week, we played around with a 80cm x 80cm light tent, and I really like the soft light a portable white box like this can throw around pretty much any object you put in it.

The lecturer was telling us that he'd experimented a lot with light tents and found that it really didn't matter too much where (on the outside of the) light tent you fired the flash (or studio lights) - that it would just throw a nice diffused light into the tent and keep harsh shadows out of the image.

So now, of course, I need to experiment for myself...I found a nice cheap light tent online, and am patiently awaiting its arrival. Watch this space for the practice attempts...

Lights, Camera, Action!

Sooo....despite saying I wouldn't buy anymore camera gear this year (famous last words!), I bit the bullet, and this is the lighting kit that's heading my way. I'm not sure where I'm going to install this stuff in my very small apartment, but I'm sure I'll find it a little corner and make it feel welcome.

The purchase was inspired by my recent week with Shelton and Glynn from Creative Photo Workshops. This kit will (theoretically) let me re-create some of the cool work we did in the studio lighting and advanced flash workshops.

One of the websites that Glynn referenced as a resource, was strobox.com. I've been checking it out this morning (the perfect answer to housework-related procrastination...), and it's very cool! The site describes itself as:

Strobox is a place for all types of photographers to share how they set up that amazing photo! The easiest way to learn is to look at photos and their lighting diagrams so you can see for yourself how they were created. 

If I want to create a shot, I simply go to the strobox.com home page, select the type of shot I want to create, select the equipment I have (or think I want to use), hit Search, and a bunch of images come up together with a plan of the lighting setup that was used.

This shot below, for example, came up when I looked for "Fashion" shots, using a strobe, softbox and hairlight. The page also lists the camera settings, and where the photographer is feeling particularly helpful - the light settings. How good is that??

I'm sure that after I get over the first hurdle of working out how to set up this kit, I'll be right onto strobox looking for ideas.

365 Challenge #232 - rockin' the studio!

Yesterday was another huge day in at Photo Continental - all indoors for the Creative Photo Workshops Studio Essentials workshop.

We arrived to find all manner of backdrops, reflectors, tents, soft boxes, umbrellas and grids set up for 6.5 intensive hours of LIGHTS, CAMERA, ACTION!

It was also my first real road test of the Tamron SP AF90mm F/2.8 Di Macro 1:1 lens, which became my favourite portrait lens in about the first 10 minutes of shooting. It's SO crisp. Was that an a-ha moment about the benefits of prime lenses over zooms?? Methinks yes. I deliberately shot with the Tamron lens all day to see what this little baby was capable of. I was absolutely delighted with the results. You can see more of the images from the day in my Flickr Photostream.

We kicked off with a portrait of the beautiful Eve, in a simple one-light setup against a black mottled background. A soft box provided lovely soft light around Eve and gorgeous catchlights in her eyes. The second setup evolved easily from there, where we introduced a second light to highlight Eve's hair. Seems so simple! Could I replicate this if I had the gear? I think so.

We moved through various lighting situations, with Glynn and Shelton explaining the different qualities of light that soft boxes, beauty dishes and the various other bits and pieces (this is clearly a technical term) created. All the while, my credit card was haemorraging while I pondered how to create space in my very small one bedroom apartment, for a studio.

Just as we built up light, we built up scenes, where we had one person, then introduced a second - really helpful principles for virtually any kind of shoot.

There were also seamless white backdrops and tents, which gave us the opportunity to shoot photos of products. This is yet another area of interest for me in terms of where I want to take my photography, so it was great to be able to experiment with various lighting setups.

Like any of these workshops, the day was really all about light - highlights and shadows, angles and quality of light. We learnt how to soften the light to create flattering portraits of ladies, and how to harden it to carve out the features of our male model, Gavin.

It was another inspiring day of photography. It blows me away to think how many different ways there are to light a subject - natural light, available light, on and off camera flash, studio lighting etc. It makes me realise how little I know about all this stuff, but how much I want to keep learning and practicing!