I really haven’t photographed food before–not in any serious fashion–so when I found myself confronted with a silver platter of chocolate-covered potato chips yesterday at the Candy Factory in Columbia, Mo., I was thrown for a loop.

There was no chance I would use existing light: it was a mix of daylight and tungsten, and exposing for the chips coated in which chocolate would have meant underexposing the others significantly.  So I set up two lights bouncing into umbrellas at either end of the silver tray.  It took me a while for all that I learned about photographing metal–and look how little of it wound up in the final frame!–and its family of angles to come back to me (about 50 chimped frames) but once the reflections were under control, it just became a matter of the ratio between the key and the fill lights.

Ultimately, the SB-80-DX, on camera left, was fired at a third stop under 1/2 power, and the 550EX on camera right was fired at 1/16 power.  Could I have balanced those a bit?  Probably.  The shadows cast by the milk chocolate potato chips bother me a bit.  I’ll file that in the “next time” category.

Canon 5D II and 70-200mm f/4 L IS lens @100mm with 25mm extension tube; exposed 1/160 sec. @ f/11, ISO 200.

Tags: food, light, lighting, lit, strobe, Strobist, studio
Posted in Columbia Missourian, Updates | No Comments »

Romantic ghosts of prom past on the MKT Trail, Columbia, Mo.

For a group project for Advanced Techniques, Vivian Esparza, Charles Ludeke, Lesley Freeman, and I met up at the Martin Luther King, Jr. memorial along the MKT Trail in Columbia, Mo. to make a long time exposure with added light–also called “painting with light” for its surreal effect.

Charles friend, Michelle, agreed to be a model for us on the bridge. After thinking on it for a bit, we decided that we should include a male figure in the photo, and Charles volunteered that he had a yellow tux (rental) in his car from a social gathering a on Friday night.

The background trees were lit with a Nikon SB-900 gelled green. I fired it off at 1/4 power for the nearer trees, and worked my way up to 1:1 for the background trees (knowing that they would be far too dark otherwise). Vivian did a great job of painting the bridge blue (an SB-900 with a blue gel), and Lesley walked along the bridge once with a flashlight aimed downward (on the ground, along the railing). Lesley then used a different flashlight, gelled red, to paint the post and upper railing of the bridge.

Finally, Charles and Michelle would pose on the bridge, and I used my Canon 550EX with the Panera straw-grid, dialed at 1/2 power, to “freeze” our ghosts in the frame.

All told, the exposure came to 5.7 minutes @ f/8, ISO 200 using a Canon 5D Mark II and 70-200mm f/4 IS lens @ 81mm…and a couple hours of experimentation. It was a great collaboration….and I think we might go back in a week to do something a little bit different ( but not in time for class).

Tags: Advanced Techniques, light, lighting, lit, painting with light, photography, strobe
Posted in J7558, Updates | No Comments »

Just an outtake from a class experiment with light painting at Rock Bridge State Park in Columbia, Mo.  This was likely the most successful image of the evening.  There’s also an assignment to pursue this line of work in smaller groups, so look for something different in the coming days.

Canon 5D Mk II, 93 seconds @ f/7.1, ISO 800. White balance and curves adjusted in Lightroom.

Tags: Advanced Techniques, light, lighting, lit, painting with light, strobe
Posted in J7558, Updates | No Comments »

Ryan McCullen of Hubert Builders boards up the window frames of 22 9th Street in Columbia, Mo. The space, which was previously the headquarters of the local Obama for America campaign, is now being renovated for a planned women's boutique.

“Fill flash.”  It’s a term familiar to pretty much everyone.  The only thing that makes it more interesting is when you decide to take the flash off of the camera and place it on a stand.  This frees up the photographer to place the light where it should be, not where the camera is positioned.  For wildlife photographed with a 500mm lens, placing the flash on axis makes a lot of sense–on a cloudy day just dial down the flash to -2 or -3 EV (via ETTL), put a Better Beamer on there, and call it a day.

For this assignment I was working with less space than I would have liked, and what began as a completely open storefront was actually being boarded up by the construction worker, Ryan McCullen.  I really wanted a second light: one inside (behind him) to work in tandem with the flash that I had with me.  Of course, before he boarded up the windows, I had two lights (the sun, hopefully operating at full power…).

I triggered the flash on the light stand with some “Poverty Wizards”–the cheap radio remotes from Hong Kong that are all over eBay.  I do own a Canon remote trigger, but it is based on infrared line-of-sight, and in bright sun it simply doesn’t work.  If I could afford Pocket Wizards…some day.  Until then, the cheap eBay remotes seem to be working!

With a little help from the fill light slider in Lightroom, the image opens up pretty nicely, and the juxtaposition between McCullen working away and the motley crew of people hanging out on the street–”We’re All Vampires” does amuse me.

More after the jump…
Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Advanced Techniques, light, lighting, lit, photojournalism, strobe, Strobist
Posted in J7558, Updates | 1 Comment »

Nikon D300 w/ 24-70 f/2.8 and SB-900 triggered by CLS. Exposed 1/250 sec. @ f/14, ISO 250

For the past few days I’ve been peering over at the other side of the fence to see what Nikon has to offer with regard to off-camera lighting. I had heard about CLS–the Creative Lighting System–for some time, but few here at Mizzou seem to be using it. Finally, I just decided to check it out for myself, so I borrowed a D300 and an SB900 Speedlight and discovered how ridiculously easy it is to control the flash unit from the camera in either fully-manual or ETTL modes. From the perspective of a Canon user, it’s just sick.

More after the jump…
Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: architecture, CLS, Creative Lighting System, light, lighting, lit, Nikon, strobe, Strobist, wireless flash
Posted in Updates | No Comments »

Diane Dorter inspects a Meadow Lark with an injured foot on Sunday, March 15, 2009 at Wild Bird Rehabilitation in St. Louis, Mo. Dorter, one of three paid staff at the non-profit organization, was training Lizzie Vreeland, a volunteer from Washington University, how to care for birds at WBR’s “emergency room.” Many of the birds require medication and are “tubed” via syringes, a procedure that requires great care.

While in Saint Louis last weekend, I dropped in on the site of my final project from Fundamentals of Photojournalism (from last semester), Wild Bird Rehabilitation.  Unlike most of the (few) bird rehabilitation centers in Missouri, WBR focuses on songbirds.  The birds that they work with are brought to WBR by concerned citizens, often people who have birds crash into the windows of their houses, or mauled by their pets in their yard, who want to do all that they can for our avian friends.  This time of year, March through June, lots of migratory birds come through the area along the Mississippi Flyway.

When I came in last week, Diane Dorter, one of three paid staff at WBR, was teaching volunteer Lizzie Vreeland how to care for birds at WBR’s “emergency room.”  Vreeland has been a volunteer at WBR for close to one year, but recently became interested in working with the most critical avian patients at the facility.

I brought along my small light stand and wireless trigger to set up the flash in the corner of the room to bounce off of the ceiling for some fill.  The florescents in the room have a color temperature between tungsten and florescent.  To try to match my flash to the light in the room, I attached window green theatrical gel over the flash head.  However, I was not happy with the results, so I replaced the green for the color temperature orange (CTO) gel.  This was better–much better–but still not perfect.  I realized later that stacking the gels would have been the solution to my problems.  Next time!  More after the jump…
Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Advanced Techniques, color correction, flash, gels, light, lighting, lit, strobe
Posted in J7558, Updates | 1 Comment »