David Anderson
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The worst smell – by a HUGE margin IMHO is a dead whale.
There was one on the north coast of Fraser island for a while and it was foul and reached far out to sea…
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A picture is thousand words that takes less than a second while a thousand words is a picture that takes a month.
with natural light. IMHO, natural beats even the best studio.
😮 😮 😮
Quick – stone the heretic !! 😀 ;D
I agree with Arron (ducks for cover ;)) for the most part, but natural light isn’t always perfect and can change quickly, while studio lighting (in or outdoors) gives consistency to photos.
The idea of shooting outside with a 50mm wide open is a good one, the lens is ideal for that sort of photography and will give you nice milky portraits if you keep things framed tight and the background at a distance.
The 50 will also get you nice shots using natural light in the house near windows.
I’ve done a lot of the shots of my kids in and around the house with a 50mm or 85 mm in natural light because it’s quick and easy and the only way to keep up with the little s***’s…That said, home studio is a good thing and the umbrella idea is a good one as is getting some reflectors and backgrounds.
In the studio we use big sheets of styrofoam for reflectors – not sure where you get them, but they don’t cost much and work great.
Having one of the fold up round silver and white reflectors from someone like Lastolite is also very useful for general photography.Here’s some examples of portraits shot at big apertures in natural light.
(Any excuse to show of the kids ;))
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A picture is thousand words that takes less than a second while a thousand words is a picture that takes a month.
Hi Aaron,
First up – most product photography is very simple and very boring so no need to worry about dressing it up too much.
The first shot is a bit dark and a little flat, but I like the next 2 a lot.
A couple of things though – most of the time (in my experience) the clients want clean shots on white so the product is easy to deep etch and drop in.
A shot with a more involved background might be done as a second option or a hero shot, but most of the time it’s just on clean white.
(Your reflections would make for good hero stuff.)I say this because if you shoot stuff with a boring old white background the light on the product has to rock just the same and should be the main objective.
The light you’ve done here is very nice on the bright work, though looks dark on the blacks.
(hard to tell on these small screen shots)
I’m guessing a little more front reflected light would fix it.The best way to have a clean background is to keep it far enough back from the product to light it separate.
With a reel that might be 3 or 4 feet depending on the light source.It’s important that you don’t have too much light bouncing off the back onto the product.
I always shoot just the backlight first to check that it’s not hitting before I start on the main light.
It’s also a good way to check that the background is clean white and not blown-out or a little grey.
If you get that right it can save hours of etching.www.dsaphoto.com
A picture is thousand words that takes less than a second while a thousand words is a picture that takes a month.
I’m a fan of Scott rods, though I haven’t tried the Scott warmwater series so can’t comment on them, but I have a Sage Bluegill rod here to review and it’s awesome, not just for the rod, but the line as well.
The line and rod work together better then any other rod & line I’ve cast for it’s intended purpose.
It has serious feel and is very accurate.
www.dsaphoto.com
A picture is thousand words that takes less than a second while a thousand words is a picture that takes a month.
All I can really add to the advice above is to NOT buy the thin mount Hoya filters as they fall apart and scratch very easy IMHO.
I have 6 or 7 of them and to be honest – they suck.
I’m replacing them with B&W slowly and I now also have a Sigma for my 16-35 – it’s proved quite good.
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A picture is thousand words that takes less than a second while a thousand words is a picture that takes a month.
Hey Spencer, is that you in the glo-bug colored budgie smugglers ?
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A picture is thousand words that takes less than a second while a thousand words is a picture that takes a month.
Never seen a HDR that worked well either.
Your example are nice shots, that IMHO would have been good shot as natural photos – they don’t look bad, just a little overcooked on the computer.
Most people new to photography (and some old hands who should know better) tend to go to hard on the post process on the computer and the shots end up looking overdone and to far removed from basic reality.
My advice is learn the basics first and try to keep the post to a minimum so you get a feel for shooting things right in the first place.
www.dsaphoto.com
A picture is thousand words that takes less than a second while a thousand words is a picture that takes a month.
You have a hatch at the shops ?
Were the fish rising ?
Great shots BTW .. 😉
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A picture is thousand words that takes less than a second while a thousand words is a picture that takes a month.
Hi K,
Will would be a good guy to know if you like shooting bugs.. 😉
Welcome..
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A picture is thousand words that takes less than a second while a thousand words is a picture that takes a month.
The thing with tri-pods is weight.
I’ve owned a lot of them over the years and I found that i never dragged them out un-less I had too because of weight and sometimes got caught out without one.
(my main one must be 15+ KG’s)A big, very heavy tri-pod is a must for some serious work, but you can get great results with the light ones of you take care in shooting and making it solid.
The carbon ones are more expensive – but because they weigh so little I carry one always and tend to use it and IMO thaqt make it worth the money.
I can’t remember the model, but it’s a Gitzo and has 4 sections and gets to around 5 -5 1/2 feet…
There are some very cheap crappy plastic leg tri-pods around as well and though they might not last forever or be well made – some of them are very light as well and it would still be better then nothing.
www.dsaphoto.com
A picture is thousand words that takes less than a second while a thousand words is a picture that takes a month.
In the shot of the fisherman at sunset, do you you meter on the sky and then fill flash the person? (Can’t you tell I’m new at this?!)
The camera would have been in aperture mode with the exposure compensation (ambient) set to -1 and the flash in ETTL.
(guessing a bit here – as it was a while ago)On most cameras that should do it, though if you’re diffusing your flash it might need a bit extra (+1/2 ?) to cover a shot that wide.
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A picture is thousand words that takes less than a second while a thousand words is a picture that takes a month.
Chickens butt or no chickens butt, I don’t drink Fosters.. 😀
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A picture is thousand words that takes less than a second while a thousand words is a picture that takes a month.
Southern BBQ sauce is cool, though I’m still working up the nerve to shove a half full beer can up a chickens butt before oven roasting it.. ;D
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A picture is thousand words that takes less than a second while a thousand words is a picture that takes a month.
More then one flash can get tricky, for example they don’t always fire and getting the exposure right can take time.
So, in the field I am looking at the off shoe cord and a hand-held speedlite, while snapping pics of flies at the vise I can use the extra speedlite and set up the Master/slave scenario?
Yeah, a small set-up with a couple of speedlights for flies could be good and much easier to get right.
Mind you, I only use one light from above to shoot flies with a bit of bounce from the bottom because flies are so small.
www.dsaphoto.com
A picture is thousand words that takes less than a second while a thousand words is a picture that takes a month.
Dusty, that would work, though I think you might find yourself running out of hands when trying to use more then one flash for most photos.
The cord allows you to hold the flash in one hand and the camera in the other and still works like normal TTL on camera flash – it’s very fast & easy and really works well for action stuff like fishing.
More then one flash can get tricky, for example they don’t always fire and getting the exposure right can take time.
In saying that – you can get some nice shots using two or more flashes if you take the time.
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A picture is thousand words that takes less than a second while a thousand words is a picture that takes a month.
David –
That last one is poignant. How was he as a subject?
He was very new back then and full of confidence because he was young and going places – he was an easy subject.
(I didn’t get much time with him then)
The last time I shot him, about 2 years ago, he was directing a music video and was a very different person in that he was so focused on his directing he didn’t really want to do many posed photos, though I got a lot of great stuff of him working and had a couple days on set.
IMHO he was a very good director because he was really involved in the production team unlike a lot of them and also worked really well with the talent.
Let’s face it, if a guy like that was giving you acting advice for your video you would be keen to follow listen.www.dsaphoto.com
A picture is thousand words that takes less than a second while a thousand words is a picture that takes a month.
While I agree with everything Will has said about ambient light ect, I don’t agree that there’s anything wrong with the ‘studio look’ in a background.
If what you’re after is a portrait of an angler, I don’t see any problem with shooting it like a proper portrait.
IMHO your flash and how you use it, is seriously important for portrait photography.
While the nice light at the start and end of the day is beautiful, everything in the middle can be very hard assuming you want to keep taking nice shots, you need to control the ambient light and flash to get good portraits.We call them power portraits – and it’s a very common style of photography in the non-fishing magazines.
(I don’t have great fishing example of what I’m going to add here because I don’t get to fussed about fishing shots because I’m trying to get away from serious photo work and relax ;))
Here’s some basics.
First up, as Will has said, some sort of diffusion is a must – the other thing you need is an off camera cord so you can side light to create a shadow to further stand the subject out of the background.
In this first example I have a fairly boring background (BG) with a bit of nice dappled light on it – if i had shot without the flash and properly exposed the subject, the BG would have been much lighter and lost the nice light – and it’s the only point of interest.
This is almost the same situation though more extreme.
I needed the shot to be about the dairy farmer and only wanted enough background to give the impression of a farm
(never mind it’s a carrot farm ;))
By again exposing for a darker background and using side flash to light the subject as opposed to ambient I get a much more powerful portrait.
Once the subject is faced away from the ambient light and in full shadow I have a range of options with how light or dark I want the background to be – here the client wanted it darker.
I would love to see a fishing mag cover lit like this one day, but am too lazy myself.. 😀
The shots above are done with proper flash so they’re cheating a bit, but you can do similar stuff with on camera flash by dropping the BG exposure with exposer compensation.
This is an example (from the film years) done with a 35mm and on camera flash and no diffusion – because the exposure between subject and BG is right the flash works ok – and better than nothing in the very hard midday light.
Because I wanted the beach as a background the subject had to be facing away from the sun and if I had just used ambient the sky would have been white and it would be hard to tell the BG was a beach.
Here’s an example of shooting into the sun – if you do this with ambient you mostly get mush and piss weak backgrounds – it works for fashion, but IMHO doesn’t work well in fishing shots.
The BG is under exposed by around a stop and a half and I’m using fairly direct flash to punch the subject out of the background, but hint at things like global warming ect ect.
If there was no flash here, it would have been very flat and there would be little if any of the color in the sky, the flash (lightly diffuesed, but on camera) also lights the rod and adds the motion.
Again, the flash makes the shot about the fisherman & the cast by allowing control over the BG.
Last example – and a good way of showing how the flash gives shape to a face and underexposure makes the BG look punchy.
The off camera shoe cord ($50.oo ish) and a diffueser is the best money you will spend on camera gear besides body and lens.
www.dsaphoto.com
A picture is thousand words that takes less than a second while a thousand words is a picture that takes a month.
Where/How would one change the Kelvin on a 20D? Is there a custom function.
Not sure how the menus work on a 20D, though if it has manual WB it should let you set the WB to ‘K’ and then set a number between apr. 2000 and 10,000
A rough guide would be that 5500K is normal daylight and more is warmer and less cooler.
If you’re going to try manual do some tests on the same picture with settings from 3000 to 9000 in intervals of 1000 and check the difference.
I normally only shoot fishing stuff in a range from about 5000 to 7000.
7000 would be for grey days and 5000 for the end of the day if it’s all getting a bit orange.
5000 can look good out in the open ocean or on the flats to get really nice blues, yet still keep a fairly normal skin-tone.
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A picture is thousand words that takes less than a second while a thousand words is a picture that takes a month.
Hello JL, those pix look fine to me, though next time how about a food shot as well ??
www.dsaphoto.com
A picture is thousand words that takes less than a second while a thousand words is a picture that takes a month.
