FX Finally

Finally committed to a (used) D700+MB-D10.

Shuttle count of 97xx, but MB-D10 looks extremely used.
Still feel the price is pretty worth it, at $2600

An assignment on Interiors

Due to the nature of an assignment (29 Jan 2012), I borrowed this book for some research.

http://www.amazon.com/Architectural-Photography-Professional-Techniques-Shooting/dp/B005HKNOF6/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1328274107&sr=8-3

The assignment was to capture the interiors of a building.

The insights that this book brought was the use of a graduated filter to reduce the contrast lights on the ceiling have on the whole room. Never have this idea; but the concept is similar to balancing the bright sky with the duller earth in landscape photography.

Also brings to mind the long forgotten tilt-shifts, but not useful since it would have been cropped fiercely on my DX cameras. Even with my widest 12-24, I have to work in very tight corners. The polariser was also used to reduce as much reflection on the glass as possible.

one example where the graduated filter will work to its best. The original was to expose correctly for the ceiling lights but the shadows were severely underexposed. This was later brightened up with Nikon Capture NX2.

The same site in the day. While the shadows were still dark, I lit them by bouncing the SB600 from the right since I have a large glass pane at the right!

The decision to bring an assistant who is trained in design proved insightful in composing the pictures. She even noted the dark corners and we tried lighting them with CLS!

The far corner was too dark and was lit by a SB600 via CLS. Balanced with orange gel. There was also some re-arrangement of furniture and the blinds were pulled down to remove the reflections of ourselves in the glass panes.

While every picture worked fine (since we previewed every capture on the MacBook via Nikon Camera Control), one picture stood out particularly un-noticed.

Notice the red reflections on the chairs nearest to the camera. They were from the neon lights just opposite the building. We should have drawn the curtains for this shot...

I can finally appreciate what a tilt-shift might bring in this category, but first I will have to shoot in FX... and that means a new camera.

Shoes Shot

Trying to model a print commercial seen in the papers few months ago.

Taken after at 8pm in the void at my home, 23 Jan 2012.
Setup
- D200 with AF-S MICRO NIKKOR 105mm 1:2.8G ED
- SB600 + SB800, on CLS
- Nikon Capture NX 2

Not really a successful take with the boots, but surprisingly good with the more colourful shoes.
Applied about 10% sharpening at 10pt radius.

First few takes

Tried different feathering of the lights

Still not satisfied. Cannot get the contrast. This method don't work well with dark-coloured shoes.

My beige is surprisingly good

Same goes for this sport shoes.

Setup for the shot. Shot at ISO400 and 1/60s to black out the white walls. Self-made gobo attached to the flash heads to prevent spills onto the white wall too.

Shots after a shower

Taken after a shower starting around the evening, 22 Jan 2012.

Setup

- D200 with AF-S MICRO NIKKOR 105mm 1:2.8G ED

- SB600 off-camera with SC-29

- My LED torch bought in Germany
- Nikon Capture NX 2

Pictures are un-cropped, except for the grasshopper deemed to be too centred for the subject. No other corrections are applied

Droplets on the underside of a leave. Need to wrap the flash head to control light spill

Taken with the torch overhead. Had to point inwards to prevent light spill to the background.

An accidental found!

There were quite a number of tries for the grasshopper. One difficulty was that the subject was too high; I had to extend my tripod collar to its highest, slightly over 1.8m. Also, I didn't want to disturb the subject too much, so had to make do with what was available.

The final shot chosen was with the SB600 slightly overhead to the right of the subject. The below shows the other attempts. Regretfully, not much of the eyes are captured.

Part of the leg is not visible

Too much spectacular highlights. This was lit slightly below and right of the subject. Note the black background on the right of the frame