Self-portrait IV - Serious Face

Self-portrait IV - Serious Face, originally uploaded by Venn Diagram.

So, my Honl flash modifier toys arrived the other day - snoots, grids and some gels.

After seeing the posters for the new series of House, I wanted to see if I could figure out how the shot of Hugh Laurie had been taken - this is NOT like the poster, but I think I can see the start of where the differences lie - the essential ingredients, controlled light above the centre of the subject's face is there, it's just the effect on the cheekbones that needs fixing, and the high light on the forehead.

May have another shot sometime - not today though...

Strobist: 430EXII with a Honl 1/4" grid attached, above the camera, about 3' away and set to 1/8th. Small Lastolite silver reflector just out of shot under my chin - think the silver has reflected off the underside a bit much. A small amount of temperature reduction and messing with saturation to try and get a cross-processed look in Photoshop.

Gonna leave old Durham town...

Gonna leave old Durham town..., originally uploaded by Venn Diagram.

SIngle shot from my trip to Durham last week. I've thought this would make an interesting image for a bit, but never been over that way.

Had an idea of taking lots of photos. Unfortunately, discovered that a chance slight knock of my camera bag had smashed the skylight on my Sigma 10-20mm lens. Ouch.

Luckily seems like no damage to the lens, visited the local Jessops for a blast of canned air and a new 77mm skylight. Now £35 the poorer and only ended up with one shot. However, could be worse, at least the lens was OK. :-)

Wouldn't care, but the skylight that was in was a Sigma DG ultra-thin glass - cost something silly when I bought the lens, more than the £35 Jessops replacement. Teach me to go sticking expensive glassware on the front of my lens just to try and cut down vignetting...

Who's that sitting on my seat?!?

Who's that sitting on my seat?!?, originally uploaded by Venn Diagram.

Took this photo a week or so ago, having some fun with macro...

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I went out to take photos of the Three Kings, some standing stones in the National Park. As I left the house and drove away, the light faded, the clouds came in and it looked like rain. So, a quick detour to the Battle of Otterburn Memorial (as I was passing it) to look for bugs and small things to shoot.

This little fella was having a glorious time sitting on one of the picnic benches - I tried a few handheld before nipping back to the car to fetch my tripod.

First go at using Noiseware Community Edition (it's free!) to reduce the noise in the image - the background was awful grainy, and I think it's done a pretty good job all things told. Further experimentation required...

The f-stop sweet spot...

The f-stop sweet spot..., originally uploaded by Venn Diagram.

A tip I picked up from this month's PhotoPlus magazine. Thought it worth passing on as I think it works quite well.

Most lenses suffer at each extreme of apeture, and each also has a sweet spot at which the clarity of the image will be greatest. You can buy charts and stuff (for a price) to help you figure out where the ideal f-stop lies. However, if you get something with enough detail on it (these are the share pages from today's Guardian, the text is pretty small), you can take a series of shots and make your own judgement.

From left to right we have:

f22 - lens stopped right down - the image here is pretty good, If you looked at it alone, you'd probably think it was alright, the difference is RELATIVE...

f8.0 - the sweet spot, as established from a whole set of photos and a lot of pretenting I'm in the optician's (is it clearer and brighter now, .... or now). You can see all the extra bits of ink, the roughness of the paper and the text is sharp enough to cut yourself.

f2.6 - wide as it gets - you'd expect a bit of blur at such a wide apeture, I guess, but not only is it blurred, it's green! It's still "not bad", and I guess I've been shooting a lot of photos like this and thinking "they're just not as sharp as x's shots" or something similar.

So, one lens down, three to go, but I've made a promise to myself to try shooting at f8.0 with this lens for a while and see how it works out....

EDIT : These shots were taken with a Sigma 70mm Macro lens - the most expensive lens I've purchased - if this is the case for a super piece of glass, I'm keen to see the effect in my 18-55mm kit lens...

Backyard irHDR

Backyard irHDR, originally uploaded by Venn Diagram.

I've been shooting a bit more HDR recently, but I realised it's a while since I cracked open the IR filter in my bag. That leads me to the though of "what happens if I take multiple IR exposures and then combine them into an HDR?". I can hear the groans already of the people who don't like HDR, and they're possibly right - the result is odd, to say the least. It's taken out through the back of the house, with a Hoya R72 filter on my 50mm prime, eight images with changes to the shutter speed not the apeture. Combined them all in Photomatix with a bit of tweaking and then that's about it (border added in Photoshop - I like a border on my shots).

I know there are a number of immediate problems with this shot - the reflections in the glass, the less than inspiring composition, but I was in the mood to play with the technique, not go driving off to find an inspirational subject, just for it to turn out pants.

On a filter related note, last time I posted and IR shot, someone raised the issue that filters cost around £200 and it wasn't worth it - it's true that if you want to stick one of these on a 77mm threaded lens (like my Sigma 10-20mm), then you'll be looking around the £150 mark. However, you can get one for a kit-lens fitting around the £30-40 mark.

Linhope Spout Top

Linhope Spout Top , originally uploaded by Venn Diagram.

A landscape shot today, and back to HDR, courtesy of Photomatix.

After the chaos of tramping stands, lights, brollies and the rest around for the self-portraits, it was nice to relax with just a camera bag and a tripod.

I think that the messing around with flash is having an impact on my other photography, and in a good way too. I find myself thinking about light in shots a lot more than previously, and I'm more aware of angles when I set up shop. For example, in this shot, I moved around to the right and lengthened the legs on the 'pod, so that I could get clearance over the boulder at bottom left to see the stream futher up to the next cascade.

The shot is an HDR, processed in Photomatix from five original RAW shots at -2/-1/0/+1/+2 EV. I've consciously tried to hold back the "HDR-ness" of the shot, and I think it's pretty much worked.

Ian & I

Ian & I, originally uploaded by Venn Diagram.

So here it is - the clever techinque from Joe McNally's "Hot Shoe Diaries". Essentially you put your camera on a monopod with a remote release, then hold it in the air - instant hight-angle shot.

This was taken on a wander with my great friend Ian, and is shot with a Sigma 10-20mm lens and a wireless shutter release. I think it would work as well with any camera with a timed release, Ian's Fujifilm has a ten second time. Presuming you can set it to continual focus then it should be alright.

It's one of those things that seems so obvious once you've heard it, but I'd never have thought of it otherwise. Joe mentions it in relation to taking photos of (American) football scrums.