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Monday, December 26, 2011

Toy Story 4...


Toy Story such a wonderful movie series and I just watched TS3, what a great animation and of-course the story too. So no dout I am inspired with it and created below Time Lapse video using my daugher's toys in my Christmas vacation time...Toy Story 4 :)

The difficult part of the entire shoot was to keep my daughter away from the toys while I am playing with them ;) but she came in between and moved the tripod as she wanted to play with my toy (Canon T1i) which resulted in camera shift which you can observe in the video....anyways its fun to handle such challenges ;)

Being no flashes involved  this time, the set up was very simple : a Tripod (on fixed position), cable release to avoid camera shake during shutter press and lots of patience, because after every little move of the toy you have to take picture which ultimately results in a video, the more the pictures the smoother the result.

This video uses 208 frames run with the speed of 6 fps (frames per second)
I used Quick Time Pro to create video out of photographs
Sound track : Carol of the Bells

Exif: f8, ISO200





Tuesday, November 29, 2011

Cool Drops (CD) with two light techniques..

Winter is almost started in Green Bay and shooting table top shot is best idea when you don't find more opportunities to shoot outdoor. So this weekend I tried to shoot water drops on the CD/DVD.

I used two different lighting techniques to get the exposures and both have different results. The first one I used a slow a shutter speed and did a light painting to shoot the drops. Its simple, easy and fun to try the various lighting angles to paint the water drops. I used LED flash light in a dark room with a shutter speed of 10-15 sec. 








Set up is very simple, you need:
  • Tripod to avoid camera shake  
  • A flash light   a dropper/syringe to put the water drops on CD/DVD   
  • CD/DVD - I found DVD gives better results as the light reflected from DVD surface is more dense and cool than CD surface.  
  • Use self timer so as to avoid shake due to shutter release pressure.





For below shots I used my Vivitar flash (Vivitar DF383) with 1/16th power and a shutter speed between 1/160-1/200sec. I wanted to get the bouncing water drop but it was not as simple as I thought because on DVD surface water do not bounce it just splash. In this case, I used shutter release cable to avoid camera shake. Hope you enjoyed the pics.






Here is the setup shot:



Sunday, November 6, 2011

Canon 28-105mm good generic lens...


What a coincident....I recently came to know that my neighbor (Owen Zyltra) is a photographer, thats a great surprise for a hobbyist like me !! Last week we had a chat over his apartment and exchanged our photography thoughts...which was a fruitful discussion...Owen is a Canon shooter (5D / 40D) and has almost all the gears which I dream about, the prime and L series lenses which covers most of the focal ranges, Canon Speedlites, elilnchrom light system, pocket wizards etc etc....so no doubt I was amazed.

The best part is he lend me 28-108mm macro lens ... it’s a pretty good lens which covers generic focal lengths. With my Canon T1i the equivalent focal length comes to 44.8-160mm which give me better compression at f4.5 which is cool.. I enjoyed shooting with this lens indoor/outdoor, low light and with off camera flash... here are some pics I shoot of my daughter Urvi :)

Thanks Owen :)



 
















Sunday, October 16, 2011

Fire is life !

Its been for a while I took these pictures but didn't get good time to post on the blog...so lets start with this nice quote...


A house is not a home unless it contains food and fire for the mind as well as the body.-Benjamin Franklin

Ok let me admit here, its not my own idea, I see this on the net and inspired to try it myself. Its good exploring what other photographers do since it helps me to learn more more and more........

I used Lighter Fuel to get the flames on the glass top. As usual the complex part was achieving "correct" exposures. I started with 'Program' (P) mode to understand what camera thinks about shutter/aperture/ISO to get the correct exposures, obviously the 'correct' was not so correct since it was little overexpose due to low light, but at least I got some reference to start with. After some more attempts I settle down at f/11 at speed between 1/10 to 1/30 and ISO 200 to give me the so called correct exposures.


After the some plain flames shots I tried playing with different objects, the natural choice was Ice but an Egg also came into the frame which I theft from kitchen as my wife was about to prepare egg omelet for my daughter.... needless to say I end up eating this half boiled egg to avoid any further consequences ;)

Cannon T1i with 18-55mm kit lens on tripod












Saturday, September 3, 2011

Vineyard shoot

A different experience







Sunday, August 14, 2011

Low light is not so bad....

On last Friday (08/12) my colleague (Scott Thomson) told me that he is going for moon ling Kayaking in Fox river. I thought its a good opportunity to shoot some of his pics in Kayak.Unfortunately the weather was cloudy and rainy....but the light was perfect to get some magic exposures.

By the time Scott arrived on the bay it started raining and I was in a dilemma whether I should take some strobist shot or wrap up the idea. Thanks to Scott who cooperated and I got few shots which I took with two off camera flashes (Vivitar DF383), one kept in his Kayak facing on his face and other I was holding in my hand to lit up the kayak. I  wish, if there was little more ambient light, the shots would have turn differently...anyways I enjoyed the shoot :)









Wednesday, August 10, 2011

Flower power..

Whenever I see flowers I feel the power of nature which brings me down to earth.


By plucking her petals, you do not gather the beauty of the flower. - Rabindranath Tagore 







Tuesday, August 2, 2011

What people can do with Canon 60D ?

I recently came across this cool video of a Japanese band Adrop; for this song they used 250 Canon 60Ds with 'on camera' flash systems.....I am zapped with the creativity so wanted to record this on my blog...am sure you will like it....Can I ever think of such crazy idea .....naaa


Check the making of this video...



if you go here you can see the still pic's from the music video
http://www.androp.jp/brightsiren/

Wednesday, July 13, 2011

Doty Park shoot

After a long time I got an opportunity to participate in  a group photo shoot for "Focus July Monthly Meeting" which was at Doty Park, Neenah,WI.... thanks to Christy Euclide who organised this.

I had no specific agenda in mind but I was carrying a Westcott 60" umbrella light modifier so wanted utilize it as much as possible. To be honest I am not very happy with the results since I got lot of hard shadows where I was expecting the soft light....might be either I am still not placing the light in right direction or I should have at least one more fill light. The One-Light technique is not quite simple as I thought earlier.... I need to learn more from Zac Arias.

 The best thing about such shoot is, you get new friends who are either professional photographers or newbies like me who came to learn and experience the new things....happy shooting

Model: Skylar Kuehnl
Place: Doty Park, WI
Light modifier: Westcott 60in umbrella