Beginner Photographer - Blog Posts

Brave little flowers on campus on Imbolc day.

Dark Imbolc 2 Galway City, 2024

Experimenting with "Lightpainting" product shots. Shot on a wooden stool in  a basement using some flashlights (both LED and regular).

Bgnd (for the beer) an iPad.

red led used on the V8 can (composited 3 shots)

LED light only on the persimmon, and a smooth plastic wall sheet from ikea on the stoool

a bit of post  on all.

Bottom photo is the "studio" where they were shot (a basement ;-) and the ‘high-tech' ;-) lighting tools (led flashlight, krypton bulb flashlight, iPad).

Just playing at this point. Still getting the hang of it all.

SELFIES 2 the project continues...for now.

"SELFIES" I had setup some T5 fluos with a white muslin backdrop, and needed to fire off some test shots for this. [sidenote: tons of issues with the color and light until after editing I realized one bank of the T5's was at a different color temperature than the others--which totally throws the whole thing off as far as color/exposure consistency… be sure to match up your kelvin and kill any stray ambient fluos in the room. For mine, even the gray cards were inconsistent on these tests].

I am loathe for self-portraits. I don't like shooting myself– I have the same insecurities just about everyone else does. I prefer shooting inanimate objects or others who are portrait or model material. But a setup… I can deal with that out of practicality. No one will see that.

My family is pretty much the same. I'll fire off some head shots of my wife or kids when they are around that look AMAZING , and they usually dictate that "these can NOT wind up on the net… or anywhere for that matter!" Funny, because they ARE very photogenic.

So of late, I always see these "self-portrait-a-day" projects, and I think they are utterly amazing. I rarely feel like I have the time for such things, but also  really don't like confronting myself. Even the "filter" of drawing myself offers me more comfort than photographing.

So earlier this year, I settled on the "selfie-a-month-or-so" project instead. Nothing like minimal commitment, huh? Some of the selfies I have taken with the old  iPhone 4. Others with the macintosh's built in  camera. Only time will tell if I have the time or guts to stick with this. These low-res versions of the file (72ppi for net at 5 x5) also seem to lose some punch, although that can't be pinned to the camera or the lights. I'll have to check the resampling setting in Photoshop to see why.

Asiatic Lilies-- courtesy of my wife's green thumb!

more iphone pics

experimenting with my iPhone again (and I have the older 4) to take closeup shots. I am really pleased overall with the iPhone's ability to shoot closeup. My wife uses her 4s regularly to shoot and gets really good results. I fully intend to continue using the iPhone in conjunction with my dslr.

Friday the 13th, 2014… the full "honey (or strawberry) moon," with mercury in retrograde.

Shot this almost last minute, just using an inexpensive basic zoom lens and a tripod (autofocus too on most of the shots, no less— I know, I know). It was at 180mm. No fancy telephoto, no telescope mount. The lower photo (longer exposure) shows my perch for a few of the shots. To cut the neighborhood porch lights, I actually shot  from between bushes and trees. From my angle the lights were almost all out of sight.

The top photo is the one I liked the best.

The middle two show a series of adjustments I made. I fired about 17 shots, and started a very small amount of post on them (primarily cropping tight to moon),

old photos the top shot was me experimenting a bit with strobe: softbox/umbrella  mixed. The intent was to do photos ala the "long form" interview head shots. Digital, used the T2i, 55mm. Funny, because the subject is the same person as the bottom shot.

Bottom shot was taken with a medium format twin-lens Rolleicord. I believe 93 or 94? Reflective metered. I developed it in a darkroom (kids--remember to ask your parents about "darkrooms" and "chemical stabilization").  The photo was lost years ago, but not before I scanned it on an old 300ppi desktop scanner. I wish the scan was a bit better.

old photo PROM card from about two years ago. [blurred the name of the kids in the shot]

old photo

Only have the low res version from FB (reclaiming some of my FB shots). A random creepy "sky-before-the-storm" cloud shot-- don't recall if this was Camera or iPhone. I do recall tornadic conditions, so likely springtime or early summer a year or two back.

The backstory

Funny story about these orchids: I got one of the centerpieces from our student design show reception in April. It was the end of the night, and we were cleaning up the area, and there was a remaining orchid after all of the students and guests had theirs, so one of my colleagues said that I should take it home for my wife.

I know very little about flowers, but what I did know was that orchids were supposed to be finicky. It was a cold night, so I warmed the car. There was a support clip that the orchid stems were attached to a small rod on, to train them up. I set it carefully in the cup holder and began to drive home.

As I turned right at some point, my elbow hit the plant, snapping the stems almost in two in two different places. Aaagh! If not for bad luck I'd have no luck at all!

So I ran into the house, and grabbed some packing tape, wrapping it around the stems, propping them up. Yeah..that should work I thought to myself. Using the logic of a mischevious six year old, I brought the plant in and showed it to my wife.

She also was disappointed about my careless elbow, and slightly amused at my packing tape "cast." But we figured that we'd give it a go anyway. After about a week, one of the stems showed signs of dying, so I pulled it off and tossed it. The other seemed to be OK though, so I kept it in the sun and kept on watering it. 

It appears to have come through OK (knock-on-wood). You can see in the top pic the areas where both stems snapped, and the one surviving stem thriving with two flowers, and a new "bud" forming behind them. The tape is till in place (afraid to remove it for fear of breaking it again).

The photos

On a rainy Wednesday, I thought I'd photograph this survivor for kicks. Put a cheap poster board v-flat behind it, and propped it up on pizza boxes. Used only window light (which admittedly wasn't much on this very gray day).  

I also wanted to see under similar conditions what I could get out of the old iPhone 4 camera I have (5 mp). The bottom two shots are from the iPhone. They are a bit more contrasty, and have some noise in the bgnd, but look really good in average light conditions. There is also a bit of the flat and tape that got caught in the shot as the angle of approach is different with the phone (tried to smooth the tape on the flat out, and looks sad I know). The data on the iPhone shots is saying they are f2.8, and 1/120 to 1/60th of a sec? What that means on a lens that is a few mm is pretty relative, but still impressive. I imagine the Samsung and the iPhone 5 would look even better. 

Oh...and guess what happened next? The flimsy V-flat fell onto the plant. But alas— alive and well still. That thing is like ROCKY.

My son creates these small paper sculpture-creations using the remnants of tissue rolls. The sphere is from the cardboard tube, and the cube is from some of the tissue. They are really unique texturally.

I shot them on a reflective black surface using an inexpensive LED shoplight, overcast daylight ambient, and a white reflector (all played fairly nicely together). Used the ubiquitous"kit lens" (18-55mm, f4) for the 'macro'/closeups with the inexpensive Photodiox tubes. The Canon "nifty-fifty" provided the other shots.

Experiment Water droplets. One of my sons jokingly quipped that this could be done with paint, milk, or pigs blood. I used water and a glass pyrex dish that I could slide paper under (which accounts for the pyrex logo in every shot…sigh…should've used an unbranded dish or a plastic container).

I also used colored paper as flash reflectors, and an off-camera YN560II flash aimed at the  paper. Used another reflector opposite (almost camera-left) angled a bit. Had some ambient daylight as well.

You need to manually focus on the point where your water droplets fall (AF won't lock in on it otherwise) and use a tripod. I shot at sync speed (1/200 for Canon consumer-end) manual flash, 1/4 to 1/2 for most shots.

You'll get the feel for your flash and camera on this exercise. It is ALL timing. The coveted "crown splash" shot (top) was literally in 3–4 out of over 170 shots.

Want to try again sometime with constants (my LED hardware store light and a few Fluorescent clip lamps).

Experiment Inexpensive aluminum macro tubes (I bought the PHOTODIOX brand WITHOUT the camera digital contacts). This means NO APERTURE control, and manual focusing only. You can see that you have very low depth of field in the bottom three shots. I read about an aperture trick (you set the aperture, then click on the aperture lock, and unscrew the lens while the camera is live and add the macro tubes). In theory this may attract dust to sensor, so not sure about doing it frequently. Used that on the dime, but it was also on a fairly flat plane.

Tripod is mandatory for these, as you sometimes have to take longer exposures as you get extremely close (could have tried new LED hardware store floods, but instead played around with available window daylight). 

Will have to try future tests with strobes and constants.

Experiment Photos of small tin toy robots (spontaneous decision around 11pm). Trying out a very inexpensive LED work floodlight from the hardware store. Used wax paper for a slight diffusion, and a piece of letter-sized, white typing paper for the backdrop. No tripod–just laying on my stomach on the ground shooting. The super closeups are using the macro tubes. The rest are kit lens and nifty fifty using only the LED in the room with little ambient.

homemade camera bag... 7 bucks from hardware store. SUPER tough, double stitched canvas (it is for tools y'know), strong strap. I custom cut some high density foam for the interior, and felted it for a custom fit to the camera. Its a great camera bag for when don't want to carry around the aluminum case (also a repurposed toolbox--with room for lenses, triggers, etc.)

My wife also took some phone cam shots of this (like minds). It's the underside of a freeway overpass. Besides loving the fact that it is so neatly lit, I love the way it gets abstracted... almost like the bridge of a stringed instrument.