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A quick & dirty in-home studio

Tuesday, July 21st, 2009
Flowers, all strobed up

Flowers, all strobed up

We have some flowers – african violets, I think? In knowledgeable hands, they bloom almost continually.  In our hands, we’re lucky if it’s once a year, in the summer.  They’re blooming right now.

To the right, you’ll see a macro shot of these blooms.  While it can be expensive to get all of the right pieces of equipment, it’s pretty simple to run if you do.  In my case, I have Nikon gear, which means that I have a few flashes, and Nikon’s excellent iTTL flash technology.

So how did I get the dead-black dropoff with the lighting on the petals?  That, after the jump:

Click to continue »

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Dew in the morning

Thursday, July 16th, 2009
Dew in the morning

Dew in the morning

To get the photo to the right, I had to get up early. Which is to say, before the sun rose.  Dew is ephemeral, disappearing shortly after the sun touches it, so you really need to be ready.

Look at the photo closely.  See the lighting patter in the dewdrops themselves?  This is because the dewdrops are backlit.  The sun is behind them and slightly to the left (from the camera’s perspective).

So if you’re up early enough, and the light is right, you’re left with only needing to find the correct angle for the background.  This shot was aimed deliberately to blur out all of the greenery behind the subject, with the intent of hopefully creating bokeh.

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Sometimes you get lucky

Saturday, May 30th, 2009
Horsetail fern in our backyard.  Stupid things, can't get rid of them.

Horsetail fern in our backyard. Stupid things, can't get rid of them.

A couple of days ago I mentioned that I left my camera on auto-bracket. Merrily snapping away, I ended up with precisely… crap.

However, one photo just barely squeaked in as decent. About 5 minutes in photoshop and it came out as you see to the right.

Details on the photo:

  • 105mm macro lens (nikon)
  • f/18
  • 1/80 sec.
  • ISO 640

Seems that 640 ISO is the best that I can do with my SLR.  Any faster and grain really pops in there.

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