Are there any colors more gorgeous than those which are found in nature? This peacock knows it's beautiful!
Thursday, June 16, 2016
Wildlife Colors
Are there any colors more gorgeous than those which are found in nature? This peacock knows it's beautiful!
Nighttime Photography
One of the benefits of living in Southern Arizona is that there are many cloudless nights. If you look up on many of those nights you can see many wonderful things. To get a shot like this I needed a tripod and a remote shutter release, but the rest was pretty easy. Set it on manual mode, shutter at 1/125, f-stop 7.8 and a 215 mm lens. You end up with results like this with little enhancement needed, though I did brighten it a little afterward. Get out there and look up at the night sky!
Friday, June 3, 2016
Flower Macros and Other Outdoor Photos
Very early on I discovered the beauty in things we otherwise ignore, like the sun shining through the leaves of a tree; closeup shots of a rose in a floral arrangement, or flowers on plants in my yard. Grabbing a camera I think helps us to appreciate the little things in life that we should not miss. Here are a few of many photos that I have taken on such subjects:
Photographing and viewing these subjects is also a way to work off stress, a win-win in my book!
Photographing and viewing these subjects is also a way to work off stress, a win-win in my book!
Light Box Photography
If you have an Ebay account and put items up for auction from time to time I'm sure you can appreciate the problem that I have had in finding the right lighting conditions to accurately photograph sale items. You have to deal with glare, shadows, and other factors which can inaccurately depict the product. Obviously a poorly photographed product might not move very quickly, if at all.
There is also the problem with camera equipment. Not everyone has a DSLR with multiple lenses, filters, tripods, remote shutter releases and all the other things that camera buffs collect for their expensive hobbies. I would would venture to guess that a good percentage of folks have probably even ditched their old digital point and shoot cameras, mostly because smartphone camera technology has become so reliable. For many people, their phone, or perhaps their tablet comes equipped probably the best camera they'll likely ever need for taking snapshots.
I've been taking community college courses and online classes on photography for a few years now and was aware that people who photograph food, art, jewelry and other types of items for publication in magazines, blogs and other web sources all use the light box technique. It's the best way to capture a subject with defused light, that is, light which is even scattered over the subject with little or no unintended shadows.
There are professional studio kits that can be purchased for such shooting, but they can be very pricey, in the $80-150 range. If I were a big-time seller of products on Ebay it might be worth the expense. I am not, however. I do like to tinker though with hobby-type projects, particularly in the summer when I am decompressing a little from the long school teaching year. So I came upon this type of photography in my discoveries with my cameras.
Making a light box requires a box, a box cutter, tape, poster board, glue, tape, and some white muslin cloth. If you don't have muslin, an old clean tee shirt will do, or even gift wrap tissue paper. There are short videos available which are very helpful. I'll post one in this blog as a follow-up.
As for lighting, as the video suggests, LED lighting is probably the best, as they mostly give off white light. Two desk lamps with LED bulbs work just fine. I shot this Asian soup bowl subject in the light box that I constructed with two battery-powered LED auto hazard lamps and my cellphone camera:
There are camera light kits which may be purchased online for stronger lighting, but they don't have to break the bank either. I found a pair of desktop photography lamps on Amazon for about twenty bucks. For less than $50 you can have a miniature studio for product or hobby photography that will produce great results. If you are into photography and looking for some new ideas to explore I invite you to give this a try!
There is also the problem with camera equipment. Not everyone has a DSLR with multiple lenses, filters, tripods, remote shutter releases and all the other things that camera buffs collect for their expensive hobbies. I would would venture to guess that a good percentage of folks have probably even ditched their old digital point and shoot cameras, mostly because smartphone camera technology has become so reliable. For many people, their phone, or perhaps their tablet comes equipped probably the best camera they'll likely ever need for taking snapshots.
I've been taking community college courses and online classes on photography for a few years now and was aware that people who photograph food, art, jewelry and other types of items for publication in magazines, blogs and other web sources all use the light box technique. It's the best way to capture a subject with defused light, that is, light which is even scattered over the subject with little or no unintended shadows.
There are professional studio kits that can be purchased for such shooting, but they can be very pricey, in the $80-150 range. If I were a big-time seller of products on Ebay it might be worth the expense. I am not, however. I do like to tinker though with hobby-type projects, particularly in the summer when I am decompressing a little from the long school teaching year. So I came upon this type of photography in my discoveries with my cameras.
Making a light box requires a box, a box cutter, tape, poster board, glue, tape, and some white muslin cloth. If you don't have muslin, an old clean tee shirt will do, or even gift wrap tissue paper. There are short videos available which are very helpful. I'll post one in this blog as a follow-up.
As for lighting, as the video suggests, LED lighting is probably the best, as they mostly give off white light. Two desk lamps with LED bulbs work just fine. I shot this Asian soup bowl subject in the light box that I constructed with two battery-powered LED auto hazard lamps and my cellphone camera:
There are camera light kits which may be purchased online for stronger lighting, but they don't have to break the bank either. I found a pair of desktop photography lamps on Amazon for about twenty bucks. For less than $50 you can have a miniature studio for product or hobby photography that will produce great results. If you are into photography and looking for some new ideas to explore I invite you to give this a try!
Thursday, June 2, 2016
Photography Projects
One of my "newest" hobbies is photography, though I have actually had an interest for many years. I've always been a bit of an experimenter and found that photographing animals, landscapes and food in natural and artificial light has real appeal for me. Perhaps one day I'll also want to learn more about people portrait photography but right now non-people portraits hold my attention most.
For example, a simple trip to Reid Park Zoo in Tucson recently yielded these interesting animal portraits:
The secret to getting these shots really is patience (except for the camel, who seemed eager to pose!). You end up shooting dozens of shots before find the right one. Hooray for digital cameras!
I've also been working with diffused lighting, as food photographers use to highlight food subjects in mouthwatering ways. For shots like this I built a simple light box by taking an 18x18 box and cutting out 16 inch windows on three sides and covering two opposing windows with white muslin cloth. Camera lighting is fairly cheap; you can buy a couple of 600 lumen LED table lights for about $20.
Fill the back interior of the box with the non-glossy side of a poster board and you have a white infinity. For this shot of a rather ordinary slice of Pizza Hut pizza, a couple of boneless chicken wings and two cheese sticks I bought a wooden wall plaque from Michael's to suggest a table, set a small plate of the food on it and placed a fork nearby, shooting from the top window of my light box. The effect is that of a gourmet meal and a pretty cool shot!
I'll post some Youtube videos of people building light boxes in the near future. It's not hard at all to do, inexpensive and the results are pretty awesome. The really good news is that you don't even need fancy cameras to do a project like this, which is very effective if you are a seller of small products on Ebay for example. A cell phone camera can be equally effective!
For example, a simple trip to Reid Park Zoo in Tucson recently yielded these interesting animal portraits:
The secret to getting these shots really is patience (except for the camel, who seemed eager to pose!). You end up shooting dozens of shots before find the right one. Hooray for digital cameras!
I've also been working with diffused lighting, as food photographers use to highlight food subjects in mouthwatering ways. For shots like this I built a simple light box by taking an 18x18 box and cutting out 16 inch windows on three sides and covering two opposing windows with white muslin cloth. Camera lighting is fairly cheap; you can buy a couple of 600 lumen LED table lights for about $20.
Fill the back interior of the box with the non-glossy side of a poster board and you have a white infinity. For this shot of a rather ordinary slice of Pizza Hut pizza, a couple of boneless chicken wings and two cheese sticks I bought a wooden wall plaque from Michael's to suggest a table, set a small plate of the food on it and placed a fork nearby, shooting from the top window of my light box. The effect is that of a gourmet meal and a pretty cool shot!
I'll post some Youtube videos of people building light boxes in the near future. It's not hard at all to do, inexpensive and the results are pretty awesome. The really good news is that you don't even need fancy cameras to do a project like this, which is very effective if you are a seller of small products on Ebay for example. A cell phone camera can be equally effective!
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