Photo Of The Day 01/22/09 – Oh no, not me!

I wanted to try a lighting set up tonight.  One where there is a light above the subject pointing down and another just below the subject pointing up.  I believe it is a pretty common set up so I wanted to see what it does.  It would work better with softboxes, but all I have are umbrellas, so that is what I used. 

My hope was to get a really cool photo of one of my daughters.  But Mia was a little too engrossed in her sister’s Nintendo DS and Olivia just was not in the mood to model.  I tried to get a good one of Olivia in the time she gave me, but I could not get the lighting just right, so I had to step in front of the camera.  After a few attempts I got the lighting that I wanted, but then it took me another 20 shots to get one where I did not hate the look I had on my face.  I am much better off on the other side of the lens.

So, as much as it pains me to say this, the photo of the day is not one of my beautiful daughters, but instead the one below of me.  Not because I am a good subject, but because I like the lighting and this photo has more of the "feel" I was going for.  I have included a shot of the lighting set up to give you something to look at besides me.  If you can imagine my head was just below the top flash and a bit to the left.  I was looking at the tripod that you can see just sticking over the top of the bottom umbrella.

Camera:  Pentax K20 50mm prime lens  ISO 200 Aperture f/5.6 Exposure 1/180

Lighting:  SB-25 @ 1/8 power into a silver umbrella below and close + Pentax 360 @ 1/4 power above and a bit to the camera left, both triggered with triggered with AlienBees CyberSyncs.

See the rest of my Photo Of The Day posts here or just look at the photos on Flickr

Thanks for reading my ramblings,

Photo Of The Day 01/20/09 – Want vs Need

I wanted to get the camera out, look for a good subject, set up my lights, and play around until I captured a cool image.  I needed to do the dishes.  Guess which won out.

Camera:  Pentax K20 50mm prime lens  ISO 200 Aperture f/2.8 Exposure 1/60 using aperture priority and exposure compensation at -0.5 (too lazy to adjust the flash)

Lighting:  Pentax using P-TTL sitting on a toaster oven on the counter on camera left.  Triggered by on camera flash and in-flash optical slave.

I think a red gel over the flash would be interesting, but I don’t have any gels.  Oh well.

See the rest of my Photo Of The Day posts here or just look at the photos on Flickr

Thanks for reading my ramblings,

Photograph Of The Day 01/19/09 – The Three Lettermen

Camera:  Pentax K20 50mm prime lens  ISO 400 Aperture f/8 Exposure 1/45
Lighting:  SB-25 @ 1/2 power into a silver umbrella at camera left + Pentax 360 @ 1/4 power at camera right, both triggered with triggered with AlienBees CyberSyncs. Plus the sun light coming in through windows.

The reason behind this image is mostly for practice.  I have a couple ideas for composite images I want to make, but I have never done something like this.  So I grabbed my three letter jackets (just to make it interesting) and gave it a shot.  I see a couple little editing errors, but that is mostly due to just wanting to get it up quickly.  I am cheap, so the editing was all done with GIMP, a great open source image manipulation program.

At least now I know I can make the images I have in my head.  I wonder if they will look as good as they look in my head.  Stay tuned.

For those who are interested the jackets are from: (left to right) Kaiserslautern American H.S., Germany; Doherty H.S., Colorado; Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri

See the rest of my Photo Of The Day posts here or just look at the photos on Flickr

Thanks for reading my ramblings,

Photo Of The Day 01/18/09 – Mia & a 50mm, 1.4

Camera:  Pentax K20 50mm prime lens  ISO 800 Aperture f/1.7 Exposure 1/30
Lighting:  Light from 60 bulb on camera right with some added backlighting from window

If you listen to the podcast, This Week In Photography (TWIP), you know they recommend everyone get a fast 50mm lens.  I got mine this past summer.  If you read my original POTD post you know that I chose it to be the only lens I use for my POTD photos.  I thought the fact that it is a prime lens and I can only zoom by moving my feet would make me work a little harder to compose a good photo and hopefully help me improve by adding that restriction.  We shall see at the end of the year.

Continue reading after the break for more details.

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Reverse Engineering an Avocado

Ok, perhaps not exactly reverse engineering anything, but that is what came to me and I found it funny.  Here is the truth.

Messing around on Twitter I found @HamToastDotCom and went to look at his website and Flickr page.  I found his macro photos very interesting.  After reading his post, “Reverse the lens, how and why” I decided to give it a try.

Read the story after the jump. (more…)

Photo Of The Day 01/17/09 – Bundled up for ice cream

In October 2008 the Vaughn girls, Olivia and Mia’s best friends and neighbors moved to Wenatchee, Washington.  We have been able to keep in touch with Jaeda & Britt through the magic of technology with Skype, email, and such.  However, there is nothing like actual playing together.  Especially for young children.  This weekend their mom had to come in town for work and she brought the girls for a surprise visit.  Well it was not a surprise for Jennifer and me, fortunately.

For the rest of the story and more photos, continue reading after the break.

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