These days, I don't get excited about shooting something unless I can light it. It's a matter of preference, but whatever it is, I like it better when its lit.
So, with a bit of free time today, I had to test a lens that I'm selling on eBay. This should enable me to show the difference between lit and natural light shots.
For today's exercise, I used a Canon EOS 5D Mark II with the Contax Carl Zeiss Sonnar T* f/2.8 lens. It's actually a fantastic portrait lens, but I didn't have anybody around, so I'd have to settle for some object.
Here is the natural light shot:
And here are two shots that were lit by a single light. That was a Vivitar 285 at 1/4 power coming from camera left.
These shots were processed the same way. Not a whole lot into it, but I shot these in RAW, so it needed some sharpening and a little tiny bit of adding fill light to bring out some details. I kept the amounts the same though.
So while the natural light shot is not bad (or at least, I think), I prefer the punch of the lit shot and that the background is not blown out.
Somebody asked me before what my dream job would be. My reply was quick and simple: in-house photographer for my beloved Arsenal Football Club. I pictured it in my head ... taking photos of new signings, shooting portraits for the Annual, editorial type photos for the magazine and matchday programmes, etc. I was mostly likely smiling during the brief silence when I daydreamed all of that. I was then asked if I orgasmed from thinking about it. Actually, yes ... twice.
I am active member of the L.A. Gooners, which is the Los Angeles Arsenal Supporters club. I was tasked to shoot our initial shirts for the 2010-2011 season. The first shirt is a take on the logo of Arsenal Football Club. The second one features fan favorite, Emmanuel Eboue. There will be more as the season progresses.
The shirts were shot on white seamless with the following lighting set-up:
My key light was a Calumet Travelite 750 with a Calumet Soft-Lite Reflector, on camera axis, and high. My two rim lights were Calumet Travelite 750s with strip softboxes. One was bigger than the other. There was no science to this, it's just that I only have two strip softboxes and they were not of the same size. For the background, I used an Alien Bee AB400 with a 20 degree grid. Camera-wise, it was a Canon EOS 5D Mark II with the Canon EF 85mm f/1.8 lens.
This was a quick, simple set-up which provides me with good separation, even with the white shirt on a white backdrop. The lighting was primarily for a portrait. In hindsight, I probably needed an on-axis fill such as a ringflash or a speedlite with an umbrella. The light fall-off is discernible around the chest area.
Anyhow, if you're an Angeleno or visiting Los Angeles and wish to catch a match, visit LAGooners.com or our Facebook page for our match fixtures and venues. You can also follow @LAGooners on Twitter. Enjoy the early morning pint (or two) and sing with us as we cheer on the mighty rip-roaring reds!
A few months ago, Canon offered an Instant Rebate of $100 for the purchase of a Canon EOS 5D Mark II. It's not much, but coupled with a Bing! Cashback of 12%, I got a pretty good deal on a the 5D2. I managed to sell my Canon EOS 5D for $1100, so pretty much I upgraded to the 5D2 for about $1000. This upgrade is pretty much for higher ISO capabilities and video. Other than those two, I find nothing else has improved from my old 5D. Anyhow, three months in, I've hardly shot any footage of video.
This is what the set-up looked like: The lens is a Pentax screw-mount lens (M42). I have an adapter that lets you mount M42 lenses to Canon EOS bodies. Since this is a non-Canon EOS lens, there is no auto-focus and the aperture is set using the aperture ring on the lens. For this video, I set the aperture to f/2.8 and focused the lens to infinity. The camera was set to ISO 6400 and the white balance was set to Tungsten.
The movie was "edited" via iMovie. All I did was cut it down to 90 seconds. I have no idea how to post process these video files. Oh ... and I had to remove the audio to hide my road rage and filthy language. Just kidding. I was all smiles throughout this drive. Anxious and excited to see the results.
But alas, the end product ... is less than stellar. Its boring, although the fisheye effect is quite surreal in video.
As far as the equipment goes, I am impressed about the low light capabilities. I figure this is quite difficult for video cameras to achieve. The noise was quite visible though. I thought it would be cleaner. I shot three clips. The first one was a minute long. The second one was almost nine minutes long and the third, which contained the original footage in this movie, was a little over five minutes long. There were no pauses or any lag. I guess that means that the PhotoFast compact flash card also performed admirably. The window mount seemed solid. The Saab did quite well too. I was expecting the footage to have a lot more shake or vibration.
It's a lot better than the garbage that my Sony Webbie PM1 produced:
With the holidays unleashing its wrath, I had little to none when it came to photography projects. My hands were itching to handle a camera. So, on a chilly Los Angeles night, I braved the cold and drove around to take photos of the Downtown L.A. skyline. It always looks nice and clean on the day after it rains. I guess the rain washes the smog away? Interestingly and appropriately, LA by Milky Soul was the first song that came on the iPod when I headed out.
First stop was the top of the hill in my neighborhood. This is located on top of White Knoll Street (I might be wrong).
With the above photo (as well as the header photo), I used the Canon TS-E 24mm f/3.5L tilt-shift lens. I figured I would practice on my selective focusing and didn't take it off for the rest of my expedition that night.
Then, I drove down the hill to Beaudry where it crosses 3rd to 6th. You can walk to 3rd, 4th, and 6th on the freeway overpasses. This overlooks the 110 Freeway. With these photos, I played around with the white balance and took advantage of the mixed ambient light to produce funky colors.
Thank you for looking, I hope you appreciate my work. You can find more of my stuff on Flickr!
I found the Canon TS-E 24mm f/3.5L tilt-shift lens on craigslist for $500. It retails around $1200, so even though I didn't have a need for it, or even have an idea how to use it, I bought it. Worse case scenario, I can always flog it back on eBay.
I was pretty excited to use it and play around with its unique features. Even though I've lived in Los Angeles for 13 years now, I had no idea where to go to be able to play with it. Yeah, I know - rarely get out.
After 15 minutes of driving around in Downtown LA, I thought my safest bet was the Walt Disney Concert Hall. When I say safe, i meant "pretty safe". Its dowtown, after all.
Can't go wrong with Frank Gehry's work. First thing I wanted to try was why this is the lens of choice of architectural photographers. Unfortunately, I had no idea how to do it. I just wanted to tilt and shift, if you know what I mean. Here is the best I can come up with:
I played around with it a little more to test the selective focus:
Quite fun, I must say. But unless I can learn more about architectural photography, I have no reason to hold on to the lens. I might as well sell it and and buy the new Lensbaby and pocket the rest if its just going to end up as that sort of toy. I'll take it out a couple of more times and decide. I'm still not sure if I like it.
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