29 Oct 2010

Convex Mirror for my Strobist DIY Beauty Dish!

My Convex Mirror for my Strobist DIY Beauty Dish arrived at Midas in Centurion today, so I went and picked it up! It was a grand total of R25 (US$3.27), so not too bad.

Here it is by itself:


And here it is mounted inside the CD spindle cover:


The idea is that the convex mirror will throw more of the light from my SB600 flash into the white bowl of my Strobist DIY Beauty Dish and distribute it more effectively towards my victims willing volunteer models. More light is always a good thing in photography.

The ugly mug hiding behind the camera is me.
;-)

Sample photos to follow soon, watch this space!

23 Oct 2010

Strobist DIY Beauty Dish, on the cheap!

Some of you may remember that a while back I made my own flash diffuser. The original post is here. Well, I am sad to say that it was a dismal failure! In fact I couldn't tell the difference between photos taken with or without my diffusion disaster... at least it didn't cost me anything!

But for some time now I have wanted to build something more effective, a Strobist DIY Beauty Dish! Woohoo! But would it work?

Stuff I used:

1. Old flower pot
2. CD spindle case
3. White and black spray paint
4. Plain white piece of plastic
5. 4mm rivets and washers
6. White silicon
7. Stanley knife

19 Oct 2010

Monochrome Waterfall - The "magic" of black and white film.


I may have posted this one in the past, but when looking through my photos this morning I was struck by how wonderful real black and white film looks and how, try as I might, I just don't quite seem to be able to replicate that look by converting from digital. Can anybody explain to me what the magic of black and white film is? And have you had any success getting your digital to get that same look? If so, please let me know how, I am sure there must be others out there wanting the same answers!

Nikon F801s, Nikkor 50mm f1.8D, Ilford XP2 Super, polarising filter to get rid of reflections, 5 second exposure on a tripod, developed in C41 by my local lab, scanned on a CanoScan 5600F, edited in the GIMP.

17 Oct 2010

I found a true artist!

As I mentioned here: Am I an artist now? I have heard that you are not a real artist until you have photographed a toilet, so using that criteria I have deduced that my friend Chun Chung Lee over at Light Frame Photography is a true artist in the very real sense of the word! Check out this beautiful photo right here: Time For Reflection

A hearty round of applause is in order!

16 Oct 2010

Welcome to the Free State!

Miles and miles of flatness:


But the people are great! Just love them!

Featured Photographer - John Sevigny

Love him or hate him, the guy certainly stirs up emotions and makes you sit up and take notice!

This is my favourite John Sevigny photograph, something in this pic just speaks to me:


A whole lot more John Sevigny here: www.johnsevigny.com and here: http://gonecity.blogspot.com/

15 Oct 2010

Ellie - Cross Processed!


Another of Ellie, but this time by natural light and run through the "Cross Process" plugin of Paintshop Photo Pro X3.

14 Oct 2010

Low Key Portrait


I attended an excellent studio lighting workshop by Pat Bredenkamp today and at the end we were allowed to play with the lights for a bit, so I had some fun! Single 250 watt studio light high right and slightly behind the model with snoot and honeycomb grid.

12 Oct 2010

The Aliens have landed!!

I was bored and decided to have a little fun with an LED flash-light, my tripod and a few victims willing volunteers!

Arrested by the Aliens!

Bedazzled by the Aliens!
Please be careful of those Aliens!

28 Sept 2010

Secret Film Development Process

I have been working on a new top secret film developing process which I shall now explain for the more technically minded among you. Please keep it to yourself because if this gets out then everybody is going to be doing it and it won't be unique, or secret, any longer.

Here it is step by step:
1.) Acquire any old 35mm film camera (cheap because nobody wants them any more) I used a Trip 35, but this process should work equally well with other types/brands too.
2.) Find some heavily expired, discontinued slide, E6, film. It's even better if it has been hand rolled into a C41 negative film canister. For the purposes of this scientific, photographic research I used Kodachrome 64, hand rolled into a 200 ISO Agfa negative film canister.
3.) Load said film into purchased camera.
4.) Find a subject and shoot it.
5.) Take film out of camera.
6.) This step is very important. Take film to local film development lab and hand it in without telling them what the film really is. They should just stick it through the regular C41 machine and press "go", or whatever it is they do back there that got so expensive to do in the last ten years.
7.) When you go to pick up the film they will think the film is ruined and they might not charge you for the development. Make sure you take the film home anyway, don't be a sucker.
8.) Scan your film as negative film.
9.) Mess with the resultant images in the GIMP/Photoshop/Paintshop Pro, etc. until it looks kinda old and groovy like the samples below.
10.) Post them on-line for all to see and claim that you have discovered a new top secret process for developing film.






What are you doing here reading this blog post, get out now and go have some fun! GO!

25 Sept 2010

My favourite guest house in Witbank


If you are going to be staying in Witbank at any time in the near future, I highly recommend the D&L Guest House! Great guest house, fantastic service, personal touch.

17 Sept 2010

Contemplation


Another natural light shot, with harsh light streaming in through a window. I like to think it adds mood...

16 Sept 2010

My friend Jesus - Portrait


After shooting a bunch of portraits with my cheapo umbrella/flash set-up I decided to take an available light portrait of my Mexican friend Jesus.

The Nikon 35 f1.8 DX AFS does a really great job, and sharp too!

15 Sept 2010

Micro Stock photography sites are "evil"

At least most of them are... and I have believed for some time that they have damaged the industry. Nice to see someone agrees with me. There is an article here: “Unsustainable” – MicroStock Comes of Age…er, Not. that deals with the Micro Stock photography industry and explains why it is not all coming up roses.

I personally have never had the urge to sell my hard work for a pittance and probably never will develop that urge, but the Micro Stock industry has affected many hard working photographers worldwide negatively anyway. If you feel the urge to work for nothing, at least do it for a good charitable cause, not to simply enrich some jerk in an office a thousand miles away!

Daryl - Portrait


Nikon D90, Nikon 35mm f1.8, SB600 flash shot thru cheap transparent umbrella = lots of fun!

14 Sept 2010

Kevin - Portrait


Putting my umbrella to good use!

I could really get used to having so much control over the light...

13 Sept 2010

Another from the same session


It's amazing what a big difference the cheap budget shoot through umbrella makes to portraits as opposed to direct flash. A definite step up in terms of quality! The diffuse light falls off much more gently, and gives a nicer, more natural look. One day I want to step up to more powerful studio lights, but until then my existing flash units look like they can handle these smaller jobs.

12 Sept 2010

Phoebe - Portrait


Trying out my new shoot thru umbrella with a Nikon SB600 flash inside.

11 Sept 2010

Small town blues!


Late night in Parys, South Africa. It doesn't exactly rock, but it's a nice little town.

9 Sept 2010

In the details...


Everybody liked the previous photo so much that I decided to include another from the same shoot. :-)

12 Aug 2010

WhooHoo! New Camera!

As some of you may know, I really like the Olympus Trip 35, hey I even started a separate blog just for that little wonder of a camera! So when I came across a close relative of the Trip, I jumped at the opportunity and grabbed it with both hands. It is my first range finder camera and is the fantastic but scarce Olympus 35 DC, a fully automatic camera with manual focusing. (Isn't that a contradiction of terms?)


Like all range finder cameras the focusing is very easy and accurate, and the shutter is just amazingly quiet. The shutter speed and aperture is taken care of very effectively by the camera and leaves you free to just concentrate on getting the picture,


As with the Olympus Trip 35 it sports a Zuiko lens, but this one goes all the way open to f1.7! Yeah, now I can shoot in the dark! And if you look at the pics below you can see that the lens is every bit as sharp as the Trip. The main thing I  like about this camera is that the focussing is a lot more accurate than the Trip, but then it also becomes a little slower to use and shooting "from the hip" isn't quite as easy either.






All these photos were taken on expired but frozen for years Kodak Ektachrome 64 slide film and scanned on my CanoScan 5600F scanner. The only thing I did was correct a slight blue cast, resize and brand before posting. No sharpening required, boy this thing is sharp!

If you can get one grab it, as far as I can see there were far fewer of these manufactured than the Trip 35, so they might be harder to find.

Some links featuring the Olympus 35DC:
Photo.net
Flickr
emuu.net
Camerapedia