No posts for a while. Sorry, but I’ve been busy. Posts will probably be a bit thin for a while but here is a quick one just to try and keep things going. I’m sorry, but I’m not keeping up with reading and commenting either.
This is a first try at photographing a bubble, attempted last night with the YPG photo group. The intention was to illuminate a Union Jack with flash and capture the reflection in a bubble.
Too many light sources in the room me thinks! There were several photographers trying to get a shot and with ‘off camera flash’ it was inevitable that someone would be using a simple ‘slave’ setup. Hence, when my flash fired, then so did theirs.
I’ll try again in a more controlled environment.
Thanks Derek, for providing the setup. Thanks also, for the many ‘bubble blowers’ that puffed through the evening.
I wil probably regret this post. I don’t want to frighten anyone with this ‘selfie’, but I was experimenting at the Yeo Photo Group meeting last Tuesday with my camera, my flash and my mobile phone. This is the first time that I have tried this so please make allowances. Thanks for the help received from Steve and Keith, who both provided useful advice. It is still a long, long way from being quite right though, and I will try again in a more controlled environment. This post is mainly as a record for my own benefit.
The idea was to try to make it look as if my face was illuminated by the screen of my mobile phone. The phone wasn’t going to be bright enough to do it alone, particularly with the high level of ambient light in the room, so I was going to have to use ‘off camera’ flash and try to mimic the screen light. Yes, I know it is too bright and the angles are all wrong, but it was just an experiment. And yes, the back of my hand and the phone are also lit, but how else would you know I was using a phone. I need to show the screen next time.
I was going to try to explain the setup and setting, but I’m not sure that I can remember everything. The camera was at head hight about 3 feet away. Th flash was a little lower, off to my right a bit, and about 5 feet away. My camera was in ‘manual’, shutter speed was 1/100 sec and the aperture was stopped down to f11, in an attempt to darken the room behind me as much as possible. The rest was a ‘tidying up’ job done in Lightroom, but was mostly dropping the blacks considerably to further darken the room behind me.
The phone was not just a prop, as I was able to use an Olympus ‘app’ on it to wirelessly control the camera and view the image while I was taking it.
I’m going to try this again at home, but next time I will try to correct the failings mentioned above. I’ll also try to smarten myself up a bit.
Never let it be said that I don’t post a variety of material on this blog. Some of it is OK stuff, and some of it demonstrates that I am still on a photographic learning curve. This post falls into the latter category. 😕
Last Monday, members of the Camera Club were invited to take some photos of indoor model aircraft flying at a local Sports Hall. Thanks go to Mr Jan Bassett for arranging this opportunity. In the event, only a couple of club members turned up, but this did mean that there was plenty of room for photography.
While having been on the topic of flowers recently, I thought I would post these.
A while ago, a mentor in our Camera Club pointed out what should have been obvious, that is if you get in really close with your flashgun, then it actually produces a fairly diffused light on a small macro subject like a flower, and that the subject can also provide its own built in reflectors. I think these two slightly abstract Lily shots demonstrate this quite well with the absence of shadows. Thanks Keith!
For both these shots an FL50R flashgun was remotely triggered from my Olympus E-30 with 50mm prime macro, whilst held as close to the subject as possible without being in the frame.
Sometimes a few Camera Club members get together to try what might be new techniques for some. This week we understood that there were a couple of lads who might do some action tricks and acrobatics for us. This sounded like a good opportunity to try to hone our flash technique, or so I thought.
Dave's Photo Musings 