Fun with UWA Lenses

So, what happens when you have an Ultra-Wide lens, some shafts of sunlight, and a cat who really wants to know what you're doing pointing that big, black box at her?

Something like this:


An important specification to know for any of your lenses is MFD, or Minimum Focus Distance. The MFD is the absolute closest your subject can be to the focal plane (normally your sensor in a dSLR) while still having the lens able to focus on the subject.

The temptation with an Ultra-Wide is to spin it back to its widest setting, and try to get in as much of the scene as possible. While this is an appropriate technique in some circumstances, it's generally a whole lot more gratifying to use the usually much shorter MFD to take advantage of the inherent distortion in such a lens.

The cat above is quite the butterball, but you'd never know it from the picture. I got down nose-to-nose with her, and shooting at 10mm, got as close I could while still being able to focus. She obliged me (for once) by stretching her neck out to see what I was doing.

Shooting at aperture of f/5.6, to increase DoF (and compensate for any missed focus) I made the shot. If I were using my next-widest lens, which goes as wide as 17mm, I would have had to have pulled the camera back an additional four inches, and it would have looked a more normally-framed shot, and more of the cat's Rubenesque shape would have been apparent.

Your camera is pretty bright...

...but it's not infallible. Take the following two shots, taken moments apart.

For the first shot, I've let the camera do its thing. It's in Program-Auto mode, and the flash is mounted on-camera, and set to E-TTL mode. I think even the ISO is set to auto-select. Metered on the Birthday Girl, and made the picture.



As you can see, the exposure is pretty decent. The camera selected a fairly wide aperture of f/4, because it was pretty dark in the room, and aimed for a shutter speed of 1/60, which is pretty standard for the Canon system. ISO ended up at 800, which is good enough. The flash did fire, but, it was pretty low; basically just enough to add a little fill, if I had aimed it straight-on, which I never do.

So, not a bad picture, overall. It's a good snapshot of a very happy event. Unfortunately, I don't like the dark shadows on Gram's face, and there's no detail in the curtains. Technically, it's a rather imperfect shot.

I've got a pretty decent flash that I tote around with me. I'm using Canon's flagship strobe, the 580EX II, and it's got some sauce. I knew that even with a diffuser and at an angle, this flash is more than powerful enough to light a scene of this size without breaking a sweat. With that in mind, I kicked the camera and flash into Manual.

I metered, once again, on the birthday girl, but deliberately underexposed the scene by around four full stops. To compensate for that, I dialed the flash to 1/32 power. I aimed for the same 1/60 second exposure, but stopped down the aperture to adjust the exposure, and to increase my depth-of-field.



Better, no?

If the flash was overpowering, I would have adjusted the power on the flash. If the flash wasn't powerful enough, I could have opened the aperture a bit, and decreased the shutter to compensate to keep the same ambient exposure.

Overall, it's good to keep in mind that brilliant minds have designed your camera, but none of them are looking at your screen after your shot. Don't be afraid to slip the bonds of auto-exposure every now and then.

Months go by...

So, I'm officially retiring from the 2011 Pic-a-day challenge. Unfortunately, I've been swamped both professionally and personally, and I can't devote the time to these images that they, and you, deserve.

Additionally, most of my personal photography these days is analog - I've been shooting, developing, and now enlarging and printing, a bunch of film. It's a slow process, with roughly a week going by between exposure and final print, so, it's tough keeping a daily schedule.

I will still be posting - this is, first and foremost, a photography blog. Expect more detail shots, more behind-the-scenes and setup shots, and a good bit of darkroom technique, as I become proficient enough to pass it along.

For now, feel free to enjoy a time-lapse video of one of the aforementioned personal projects:



Working on the deck. This was accomplished by setting the camera on a tripod in Aperture-priority, setting auto-ISO, manual focus, and using a "Shoot" brand remote control with an integrated intervalometer. I took one shot every 30 seconds, and combined them into a time-lapse video using Google Picasa.

Hey - Ya'll wanna see something cool?

Playing around with a series of 16 shots captured at Numidia Dragway over the weekend.



Heh.

Shameful, really.

It's been over a month since anything new has dropped on this blog, and for that, I apologize.

I've been shooting (lots!), and have even gotten some editing in (not as much...), but, I'm keeping my clients happy, and, these days, my dance card is pretty full, so, there's that.

I'm anticipating using the upcoming long weekend for massive editing / posting push, so, expect one massive update to the Pic of the Day shots, and then I should be back on-track, and will return to my once-daily updates.

So, yeah - sorry for the hiatus, and apologies in advance for what's going to be a massive, too-long-to-read update, but, stick with me reader(s), and some cool things are coming up. Some street photography, performance, cool lighting, and new film techniques, all on the way!

Is this thing on?

You'd think that someone who works in IT for a living might have been a little more aggressive in adopting a solution to link his blog with his facebook fan page.

You would think.

In any event, I've attempted to do so, and, if this works, I should be able to see this post on the FB page.

Here's hoping...

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The leaf is dead, long live the leaf!



Digging this shot, because you can see where the old leaf was, as well as all the new growth.

Living room window, with the 70-200, waiting out the breeze.

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Taken on Ilford HP5+ 400, with the 70-200.



I haven't been doing much post-processing on my film shots - the occasional contrast tweak, mild sharpening, and cropping are about as far as I've gotten.

For this one, I cranked the sharpen slider all the way up (to go with the subject, you see), did some dodging and burning (at least some of which is way too obvious to my eye), and played with contrast, the black level, and the highlights.

Eh.

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I've been watching this tree at the edge of the parking lot at work bloom, and I've loved seeing the white blooms against the green of everything else.



Took this from halfway across the parking lot to get the framing as close to right as possible.

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My buddy and I went out this evening to commemorate his continued survival, the successful completion of his first semester back to school, and his birthday, a few weeks early.

I'm cheap, so I figured I'd cover all three with one dinner. We also haven't seen each other for a few months, so, it was long overdue.



Our local chapter of the Mohegan Sun empire has some fairly decent restaurants, so, we headed on down. After dinner, and after he successfully lightened his wallet on the slots, we shot the breeze in the parking lot for around three hours.

As we were chatting, I shot the above. If I'm going to take night shots, I really should pack my tripod. This was the 70-200, on a monopod, with the ISO jacked up to 800.

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I think I missed a good opportunity with this shot:



This is, to my eye, a very compelling subject, and I'm having a hard time conveying that on film.

I do intend another crack at this, with the digital, so I can chimp the shots and see where I've gone wrong. I have some ideas, and I'd like to see how they play out on an LCD rather than waiting a week between the shot and the results.

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We had the moms and grandmoms over for a Mothers' Day Brunch, and this is one of the shots I took toward the end of the day:



I probably shot this at around f/4, and about 100mm, give or take. Pity that film doesn't store EXIF data. I did try to keep a log of my shots, but, that didn't really pan out. Again, pity.

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Today, I was able to lend my meager talents to a great cause.

A great friend and fellow photog has a niece with Cystic Fibrosis, and every year she participates in the Great Strides walk and fundraiser for the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation.

Not fully understanding the nature of the walk (specifically, the walking part) I naively asked L if she'd like me to swing by and shoot her and the rest the walkers. At this point I was thinking that, since the walk was in Kirby Park, it would be around a track. I'd bring a nice long lens, a monopod, and maybe a chair. I figured I'd set up alongside the track, and get some portraits of the walkers.

She told me that she's been drafted as the official 'tog for the local CFF chapter, but, was gracious enough to invite me along anyway.

I never brought up the whole "track" thing.

So, for those of you out there who are unfamiliar with the concept, when a group like this gets together to walk, they walk.

A lot.

Everywhere.

For miles.

I knew my assumptions about the day were wrong when I pulled into the park at the same time as a group of walkers wearing Rainbow Walk shirts.

I said to myself "Oh." Just, that. Oh.

All of a sudden, my nice long lens looked more like a damn heavy lens. My walkabout lens looked like another damn heavy lens. The flash seemed like a damn heavy flash. The "good" digital body? Damn heavy. Even the monopod seemed damn heavy. Pack all that damn heavy gear onto a damn heavy photographer, toss in a few miles of hoofing it, and it adds up to a disaster. I consoled myself with the fact that I was in too much of a hurry on my way out the door to grab a chair. Why would you need a chair for a walk?

As it turned out, the walk portion of the day was scrubbed due to rain. Would I have kept up with the crowd? Hard to say. At least we got some good shots for the CF Foundation.



Right now, there are some really exciting developments on the CF front, but the realities of pharmaceutical research, trials, FDA approvals, and finally acceptance mean time and money, and lots of both. If you can help with either, I'd urge you to do so.

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So, I've got this shiny new lens, one of the finest lenses Canon produces, and what do I do?

I put it on a camera that's fifteen years old, loaded with cheap medium-speed film, and take it on a walk along a garbage-strewn path behind the office.

Heh.

Pictures soon - have to finish, develop, and scan the roll.



This lens is going to be way too much fun. I've finally broken the shackles of EF-S mount lenses. I'll never, ever, ever purchase another lens built for a crop sensor again. This baby works on all of my digital bodies, my current film body, and any other body I can see purchasing in the future.

I believe I've also broken out of my Tri-X prison, as well. This was shot on Ilford HP5+ 400, so, basically a direct competitor to Tri-X. It dries flat, like all the other Ilford films I've shot. Only downside, if you'll call it that, is that it's an extra minute in the tank developing it, but, I'm assuming that means it's even more forgiving of developing variations than Tri-X.

Anybody wanna buy some Kodak Tri-X 400? I've got a few rolls!

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Ho boy. So, I got a damn fine deal on a new piece of equipment. I've been lusting after looking at this lens for a while. I had considered the Non-IS version (to save a few hundred dollars), but, shooting at f/2.8 the other night indoors with the 17-55 proved that I needed the IS, even at high ISOs.

Version II of this lens was just released, so, the price did drop on the Mark I lenses. When one popped up on one of the sites I frequent, at a good price, and with IS, I told my wallet to look the other way and did it.



Yup.

EF 70-200 f/2.8L IS, Mark I

You want speed? It's got it.

You want reach? It's got it.

You want weight? It's got it.

You want bokeh? It's got it.



But since it's not about the gear (right?) let's talk about the shot.



I used a trick I've used in the past to light this.

There's a pane of glass suspended between the stools. On top of the glass is a piece of white posterboard.

Below this setup is the 580EX II at 1/8, through the LTP.

The two 430EZs, set to 1/16, are blowing out the background.

The 160WS Strobe, at a little over 1/8, and through the big softbox provides key on the shot.

Shot at f/8 for detail and the most in-focus areas I could get.

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So, I'll cop to having taken this shot a few days ago.



I pulled into work just as the skies opened up. I reckoned the deluge would pass relatively quickly (and it did), but, I didn't want to get drenched, and I had nothing better to do for a few minutes, so, I took the shot.

Eh. Better than nothing, I suppose.

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My folks and sister came over for dinner this evening.

The Missus and I made Chicken Marsala served over homemade fettuccine, and one my favorite tools in the kitchen, aside from the stand mixer, is the pasta roller:



And anything else I have to say is rendered (even more) insignificant right now - just watched The President tell us that our Special Forces killed Osama Bin Laden, and took his body into custody.

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The Missus!

I saw the late afternoon light coming in through the bedroom window, so I asked The Missus to pose in the sunbeam.



Of course, immediately after I dropped the shutter on the last frame on the roll, I realized I should have turned her more towards the window, and, with the way the weather has been lately, I have no idea when we'll see the sun again.

Hopefully, I remember this for the next time it doesn't rain.

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The Missus...requested...my presence at the Luzerne County Historical Society annual diner this evening.



Not much to say about the picture - I centered the AF point, adjusted the zoom on the lens, and handed it to a friend of ours to make the shot.

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Took a few shots of a bright blue sky with fluffy white clouds this evening with the 620. They were shot on Tri-X 400, through a red filter, spot-metered on a cloud and bumped to +2 EV (to move the clouds into Zone 3), and, just for fun, I held a circular polarizer in front of the lens (because it's too big to thread on) to have a darkening effect on the sky.

I have four more shots left on the roll - I can't wait to see what these new ones look like.



Very little done in post to this shot - a quick, very minimal curves adjustment (after converting to RGB) and a light output sharpening was all it took.

I may have to get a CPL that fits my nifty fifty.

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Want to see a happy sight?



That's 27 rolls of film, 11 cans of cheap beer, and 7 more cans of beer (not shown) on the door.

Is it any wonder why I like it down here in my office?

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Shot some textures today while I was stuck in traffic. The 620, loaded with Tri-X and the the nifty fifty.

The sun was poking up over a big rig on my right, and hitting the rocks on my left, looked OK.

Wrapped up on as-yet-undeveloped roll. Once it's developed, I'll scan it and post it. You know the drill.

Ah, the hell with that noise - how about a picture of some cloud-to-cloud lighting, instead?



Storm's rollin' in.

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Shot an abandoned gas station today - finishing up my roll of Ilford Delta 400.

If the 400 base is anything like the 3200 base, I don't think I'm going back to Tri-X. Compared to Tri-X, the Iford film dries flat, rather than curling along the short axis, and, consequently, is a joy to scan and store.

Also, call me crazy, but the base isn't purple, like Tri-X, it's grey. Even though I'm scanning in B+W, I'm a little more confident that the tones are going to be more accurate coming from a grey negative.

So, yeah, gas station. I'll be developing the roll tomorrow, which means a scan in the near future.



And, I believe I'm a convert to Ilford. The base is purple, but, it dried flat. Now, before I do anything rash, like tossing out the last few rolls of Tri-X I have, I also realized that I've been running my Hypoclear at 400% strength, which may account for the flatness. I've got a roll of Tri-X in the camera now - once it's done, I'll process it using the too-strong Hypoclear and see if it dries flat, too.

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Easter - a time to reflect, be close to your family, and participate in chocolate bunny genocide.



You may recognise The Missus - surrounding her is a goodly chunk of her awesome family.

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Following this tutorial on StudioLighting.net, I built myself a C-Stand today.



Total cost for the stand, pre-tax, from Home Depot, is under $60. To put that number into perspective, the big two camera stores in New York are selling mini Century Stands for around $100 each.

I did modify it a bit, by adding pipe insulation around the base, and ditching the casters. I also dropped two compression springs into the base to cushion the landing a bit if the top tube lets go.

I'm working on adapting a paint brush holder into a boom arm, because this is heavy enough to support a boom with very little counter-weight.

I'm also planning on building a second one of these in a very near future. Light stands are good.

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I think the noise of the nifty-fifty racking back and forth hunting for focus woke him up:



Immediately after taking the shot, he got up, hit me in the head, and ate my camera.

Developing this roll was a bit of a challenge after that.

Kidding.

Seriously.

Kidding. No cats, cameras, or photographers were harmed in the making of this shot.

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Tonight was a rough night in the studio - frankly, it seems like I'm in a bit of a photographic rut these days.

I'm not one to bare it all in a public venue, but, a combination of factors have produced in me a certain ennui, and I need to do something to snap that.

I made several images of Pumbaa, lit different ways, this evening, was happy with exactly none of them.

I also shot a mediocre selfie, so, that's what ya'll get:



Lighting is the 580EX II at 1/32, through a barndoor to restrict the light onto the background.

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Nasty wreck on I-81 this morning - had traffic tied up for about an hour.

Apparently, a UPS tandem overturned in the median, and crane(s) had to be brought in to get it back up.

I've been unable to dig up any news stories as to whether or not everyone was OK, although, for what it's worth, I didn't see any ambulances.

This shot is pretty terrible, kind of a "run and gun" - I had the camera pointed over my left shoulder, out the window, set to f/11 to try to maximize my DoF, and when I got close the scene, I listened for the lens to stop hunting and took the shot. Say what you will, but, I was more concerned with keeping my own vehicle between the buoys.

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I picked up a few new lighting modifiers at KMart over the weekend. Specifically, some cheap frosted shower curtains. One is just plain frosted. The other, seen in the background of this shot, has vertical lines in it.



Setup on this has Pumbaa facing the big strobe on camera left, through a softbox, at around 1/4 power. The strobe is "flagged" as best as I could with black construction paper and gaffers tape to prevent spill onto the backdrop.

To camera right, above the pig, angled down, is a small reflector, gold side out, to provide a little fill.

Behind the backdrop is the 580EX II, at 1/8, through a blue gel, and then the LTP. I should have dropped it down a bit, or, raised my camera a bit.



The other nifty bit of this setup is the rig I cobbled together to hold the lightstand. It's a 1/4" wooden dowel, fit in an umbrella mount, with binder clips and rubber bands to hold the reflector:



If I was a little more patient, this should would have been better, because some of the wrinkles may have come out of the plastic backdrop, but, it's a start.

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Today is my sister's birthday.



We had some friends, and my sister, over for tacos. It was a good night.

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The lilies are getting taller - taken with a green filter, and a fairish bit of post done in Photoshop:

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Tax time again.



Taken with the 50mm at f/1.8 (to dramatically reduce my depth of field, thereby obscuring any important details) and the 580EX II through the LTP in E-TTL mode.

I tried something new, and applied some corrections and a JPG conversion in-camera. Sadly, that's much faster at processing these large RAW files than my PC. It might be time to upgrade ye old compy soon.

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Behind "The Standing Fire" lies the remains of an old house. The house is by no means ancient, but, it is abandoned, and looks pretty interesting:



Today, I took a short trip through the woods to check it out.

The house is in pretty rough shape, and smells of home heating oil. There's also a ton of debris visible without going into the house:





However, I wasn't really content to just stand at the door and peer inside, so, I let myself in:



The inside is really bad - there's a gaping hole in the floor, and the structure isn't exactly what you'd call "sound":



Now, I weigh an eighth of a ton, and was alone, so I didn't want to risk going through the floor, but, I shot what I safely could:





I'd like to go back with a second person, a length of rope, and a good flashlight.

If you're interested, there's a total of 28 photos of this short trek here on my Flickr set.

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Long day, longer night, and another shot of a stuffed pig.

Last night's shot of Pumbaa (I've been spelling the poor pig's name wrong since January 2nd) was a somewhat standard headshot type portrait, except I used a stuffed pig.

Tonight's shot is a little different. It's still a headshot, in the most technical sense, but conveys a completely different mood due to lighting and shooting angle.



This is a pretty big set up to light a stuffed pig.



Ambient is cut down to zero.

Fill is the 160WS strobe, through the big softbox, on-axis and down into the pig. It's set at a little over 1/8 (we'll get to that)

Key are two bare 430EZs, from the sides, at 35mm and 1/8 (again, pretty high power for a small studio).

Accent is the 580EX II at 1/4 through the built-in diffuser and a dark blue gel (once more, lots of sauce).

The flashes were set to retina-searing intensities because I had my lens stopped down to f/5.6. I knew when I was making this shot that I was going to take it into Photoshop for some high-pass action, and to get the most benefit from the high-pass filter, I wanted as much detail as possible, hence the smaller aperture.

Because aperture controls flash intensity, each stop smaller on the lens required me to set my flashes one stop higher in the power department to keep the correct lighting amounts and ratios. I normally shoot Pumbaa at f/2.8, so, stopping down to f/5.6 required two additional stops of power out of the flashes. Easy, right?

So, we've got a stuffed pig looking as menacing as a stuffed pig can look. I thought the bugs were a nice touch.

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I got a few softboxes today. One is the Lumiquest LTP, and it's designed to mount to a hot shoe flash. The other is a Flashpoint 20" x 28" for mounting on a bigger strobe.

With these two in my lighting arsenal, I'm now setup to do justice to head-n-shoulders type of portraits. I'm especially interested in headshots, and will be offering free headshots to anyone interested in the very near future.

Tonight's shot should have been The Missus, however, I wasn't terribly happy with the reflection on her glasses, which is something I need to fix. I suspect you'll be seeing Poomba wearing glasses in the not-too-distant future...

In any event, here's tonight's headshot:



Yep - Poomba. I used him to nail down the lighting ratios.

Setup looks like this:



I dialed down the ambient by shooting at 1/200. That pretty much rendered a black frame.

I added the fill light on camera-right by setting the 580EX II to 1/128 and firing through the LTP.

Key was the 160WS at a little over 1/8, through the big softbox.

Finally, accent was one of the 430EZs (behind the stool) through a lime green gel onto the backdrop. All of them triggered with the Cactii.

That's some pig!

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Shooting a new (to me) film this evening. PPS (remember them?) had some Ilford Delta 3200 in stock, and I wanted to see what a real high-speed film can do.

So far I've popped a few shots with the new film, and, even overexposing by a stop and a half with the 50 at f/1.8 reads as hand-holdable even under weak lighting. Removing the exposure compensation and I'm shooting at 1/250 under my relatively low-powered kitchen lights. Spicy!

The urge to tear through this roll is very high, but, I'm going to try to pace myself a bit. This film, unlike Tri-X, ain't cheap, at around $10 for 36 exposures.

For this evening's shot, expect either a cat, a water bowl, or The Missus.

It's a cat!