Snooting a Snoot is very snooty indeed!

Had to snoot my snoot today to get the shaft of light exiting the front a little more tight and controlled to highlight a label on a wine bottle. Here is the snooted snoot:

Piece of cardboard from a recent tent purchase (not a light tent, the camping kind) with a round hole cut in and a toilet paper roll cardboard tube stuck in the hole tightly. All taped on with some masking tape. Worked. No more to say.

And here is the result, well two of them really, one with a white background and one with a black background:

Three Light Product Photography Tutorial

Today I have a quick and simple "how to" on putting together a nice slightly low key product shot with three lights. Here is the final result and then I will go through the steps on how to build the lighting to get this photograph:

How to Enlarge Your Lightsource for Softer Light, easily.

I did a little experiment this evening just to demonstrate how to make a really large lightsource and give much more even light on your subject than just blasting away with direct light.

I have two 65x65cm light boxes that are quite handy. So here is a pic of them set up pointing directly at a nice Dutch vase. The camera was on the tripod in front of the table.

From here it looks like that should make for some pretty good light on the vase, but as we can see in the next photo they also leave some not so great specular highlights on the vase and two distinct shadow areas behind the vase.

Not a bad photograph as such, but we can do much better than that! So, in order to increase the overall size of the light source I simply faced the lights up at the ceiling. Of course I also had to increase the power output of the lights because the light now had much further to travel and the inverse square law robs us of light very quickly when we increase the distance the light has to travel.

As you can see from the pic above the light has now been spread over a much larger area. So what has that done for our lovely Dutch vase?

Well the first thing you notice is that the ugly specular highlights have vanished and the light is much more evenly spread on the vase itself. The second thing is that the shadows behind the vase have also disappeared. Overall a much more pleasing result!

If all you have are two speedlights instead of the bigger studio lights then don't be disheartened because the exact same principle still holds true and will work just great. Simply pump up the power a bit and let 'er rip, it will have a similar wonderful softening effect on the quality of light.

Happy product photographing folks!

Putting my Light Tent and Elinchrom lights to Good Use

For the last couple of years I have been buying up beer mugs in second hand stores, and it was all started by my daughter who purchased this mug for me at a boot sale:

It turned out to be pre German unification, so it has a little age to it as well. Since then I have added to my collection and below you can find a few of them. I used my light tent with black board inside for the seamless background, an Elinchrom D-Lite-it 2 with 65x65 softbox and Nikon D300s with Nikon 40mm f/2.8 DX G AF-S attached. All manual settings for consistency from shot to shot. Post processed with DXO Optics Pro 8.

 

Natural Light Still Life Photograph

Taken with only my D300s and a bunch of natural light coming in through the window... and an underrated 18-105mm Nikkor kit lens.

I buy props from time to time in second hand stores that have a used, worn, or old look about them just for these kind of shots and keep them handy in a drawer, like the wooden cutting board. Sometimes I just like the look of something even if it isn't particularly old, like the striped cloth, which I think works well with the wood. The bottles on the left were from an antique shop. The fruit veggies and nuts are from the kitchen, some of which was used for dinner shortly after being returned to the kitchen! :-)

Getting the right look in post is usually a matter of trial and error, and lots of experimentation, but the more you do it the easier it gets to arrive at the look you want to achieve. Every photo is different to me and needs to be moulded into my own vision for what I want the final product to be. There is no single way or magic potion that will work for everybody. This kind of thing is always very subjective and according to taste, mood, the weather and the alignment of the stars, so be prepared to take time and find out what works for you.

Photographing an Easter Egg Display

My wonderfully creative wife made a beautiful little Easter Egg display and I just had to photograph it... before I eat and demolish it! ;-) Love you Älskling! ♥

...and a quick pull back shot to show how simple the lighting is:

A Heart for Valentine's Day!

Another Take on Photographing a Bottle of Wine

As you know I recently posted something on shooting a bottle of wine in a light tent, to see it CLICK HERE.

Well, this time around I wanted to try something a little different than the last shoot and go for an entirely different look.

One Bottle of Wine, One Light Tent and Two Elinchrom D-lite-it 4's.

A very simple set-up to photograph the bottle of Pomerol wine shown above:

Agfa Isolette

I originally posted a little about this camera here: Girl with Agfa Isolette, but this time around I just got a better pic of the camera. More about it at the Camerapedia website, simply CLICK HERE.

Some time or the other I need to get all the ingredients to develop my own film and then I may have a stab at actually using it.

Nikon D300s, Nikkor 40mm f/2.8G AF-S DX Micro, 80x80cm light tent, 2xElinchrom D-Lite-it 4's shot through their softboxes on either side of the tent.

Old Brass Bell shot with a Nikkor 40mm AF-S DX Micro f/2.8G

Nikon D90, AF-S DX Micro Nikkor 40mm f/2.8G, Aperture Priority mode, ISO200, 1/80s, f9.0, two off-camera Speedlights into bounce umbrellas fired via Nikon's fantastic CLS system.

Simple Product Photography Set-Up.

Simple is always good!

And the result:

Studio session with a Famous Fashion Icon!

Probably the most recognized face on the planet, and for all the wrong reasons. If you would like to practice portrait lighting setups on a small scale Barbie is your girl though! She doesn't charge much, she is very co-operative and always has a friendly smile. Oh, and she never complains about working long or odd hours.

Here is my small scale studio set-up:

The light on the left is my Strobist DIY Beauty Dish draped in a swathe of thin white material that basically turns it into a small softbox.

The Barbie doll was set into a cake and decorated for a 6 year olds birthday party.

Bowl of Rice

And below the set-up shot for "Bowl of Rice".

Normally I would try to get rid of the light spill from the flash shooting into the umbrella, but in this case it actually helped with the light I was trying to achieve by reflecting some light from slightly behind the subject.

Nikon D90, Nikkor 50mm f1.8D, f4.5, 1/200s, Nikon sb700 flash shot through a white umbrella with the wide angle flash diffuser out, hand held.

Toyota LandCruiser FJ62 4X4 Station Wagon

I am selling my trusty Toyota LandCruiser FJ62 4X4 Station Wagon.

Well looked after. Motor professionally redone last year by Toyota SA. Comes with bull bar, roof carrier, high lift jack, 4x metal Jerry Cans, full alarm/immobilizer/anti-hijack system, Dobinsons shocks and springs all around, recovery strap, window tinting and cd/radio. The "real deal" for overland travel through Africa!

If you are in the market for a good used 4X4 (and you live somewhere in Southern Africa!), then send me an email at thephotophile@gmail.com

And just in case you are interested, here is the obligatory set-up shot, it is a photography blog after all!

Nikon D90, 18-105 kit lens, taken in the middle of the day but in shade, zoomed to 52mm, manual mode, f8.0, 1/200s, ISO200, Nikon sb600 camera right and sb700 camera left fired wirelessly via Nikon's uber cool CLS system. I underexposed the shot a slight bit and let the flashes sort out their own exposure themselves via iTTL, this had the effect of a darker background which made the vehicle stand out. Isn't technology wonderful!?

Seamless White Background - How To

Just in case anybody was wondering how complicated it is to do a seamless white background product photo shot like the one below, I have included a shot at the bottom of this post to show how simple it can be done.

...and the promised setup shot:

Really not complicated at all! The flash was triggered via Nikon's cool CLS system. The groovy light stand is explained at another post here.

Olympus Trip 35 Cult

I just discovered that a particularly addictive cult exists in the world today that seems to be grabbing thousands of unsuspecting and innocent people and turning them into retro photographers. It is the cult of the Olympus Trip 35.
I was quite innocently lured into this seedy cult this week when I unknowingly purchased an Olympus Trip 35 at a local antique store this week for the incredible price of R30 ($3.90) and I confess that I am hooked!

I am not really sure what it is, but it just feels right in the hand, a small solidly built piece of craftsmanship that simply oozes simplicity. It has a nifty 40mm f2.8 Zuiko lens that is reported to be quite sharp and, judging by the photos I Googled, is quite capable of outperforming some of the more modern pieces of kit out there. Excuse me as I wipe the beads of sweat from my palms...

Judging by the low serial number, mine was manufactured some time in the 60's. I will be able to get the exact date when I get the film out and can look under the pressure plate. I discovered this fact here. I was so eager to get film in and start shooting that I didn't find this out until today when I looked it up on line. Holy smokes, that means this camera is almost as old as I am!

When I finish my roll of film I will scan the results and post them for your viewing pleasure.

You can buy them reconditioned here: Trip Man
Ken Rockwell has a nice little review here: Ken Rockwell Trip 35
Camerapedia lists it here: Trip 35
A blog for it exists here: Olympus Trip 35
You can find a manual here: Trip 35 Manual

The manual is a very reasonable 12 pages instead of the volumes you need to read before you turn on your new dslr.

Please be advised that this cult is extremely addictive and will probably get you too if you don't exercise some restraint and take suitable precautions... or you can just jump right in and smile insanely, yet smugly, like the rest of us!