Continuing Working at the ideas

In an attempt to stop me going rusty and to have me continue to learn the skills from the TAOP course, I have gone back and looked over the exercises and using them as a loose basis I created a brief for myself.

In this case I wanted to have another try at the lighting exercise and have a go at a combined dark field and edge lighting experiment.,

I setup the softbox behind a piece of A4 black paper which was clamped to a lighting stand a little in front of the softbox.

 Brandy Shot

D80, Aperture f27, Speed 1/180 sec, ISO 100, 145mm (35mm Equivalent 217mm), Matrix Metering Mode, Flash White Balance, tripod mounted, 55-200mm, Single Studio 180W Flash head with softbox.

I am pleased with the colouration of the brandy and that the curviture of the inside of the glass is shown by the small amounts of defracted light within the glass itself.

Large Brandy Glass
I then moved on to a larger glass, one which was almost as wide as the piece of black paper once it was composed on the table.

D80, Aperture f27, Speed 1/180 sec, ISO 100, 95mm (35mm Equivalent 142mm), Matrix Metering Mode, Flash White Balance, tripod mounted, 55-200mm, Single Studio 180W Flash head with softbox.

I converted it to black and white and then used photoshop to adjust the saturation colour on the glass to give it a very slight blue hue as I wanted to show the bowl shape of the glass.

Crystal Glass 
Again I changed glasses, this one was slighly smaller, but it had the one advantage of being cut crystal. This allowed the light to reflect around more within the glass as the crystal cuts helped to deflect and disfuse the light.

D80, Aperture f27, Speed 1/180 sec, ISO 100, 105mm (35mm Equivalent 157mm), Matrix Metering Mode, Flash White Balance, tripod mounted, 55-200mm, Single Studio 180W Flash head with softbox.



While I was pleased with the glass and the light effect it produced I was not too happy to see that a lot of the table below the stand and the glass was being reflected up into the bottom of the glass. Next time I will have to place down non reflective black card to stop the reflections and to soak up some of the bounced light.

Crystal Glass Single Side

I adjusted the glass and the lighting stand holding the black piece of paper a little and then had another go at the crystal glass, this time I wanted only to capture one side of the glass.

D80, Aperture f27, Speed 1/250 sec, ISO 100, 105mm (35mm Equivalent 157mm), Matrix Metering Mode, Flash White Balance, tripod mounted, 55-200mm, Single Studio 180W Flash head with softbox.



Using the slightly faster shutter speed meant that with the adjustments I photographed the glass capturing only the light refelecting from once side. I was really pleased with this image.

What I learned

At the end of the shoot I looked over the images and ditched quite a few as I was not fully happy with the performance of the lighting; I have overlooked the power of the lighting and had set it too high forcing me to change ISO, speed and Aperture because once I started shooting I forgot that I could adjust the lighting power down even further. I did however get a few images that I was particularly happy with, including the single edge of the crystal glass.

Exercise 40 Contrast and Shadow Fill

What: The main brief of this exercise was to take a number of photographs of a single subject where the light would be varied to demonstrate contrast and shadow fill.
Where: Inside the house with the outside light blocked by blackout curtains.
When: During the day.
How: I setup the still life with the camera locked off in a tripod pointing directly at the subject on the same level. I then started with a bare bulb flash and then worked through the exercise using a number of homemade reflectors and flags to demonstrate what happens to contrast and shadows when these items are used.

Up until now I had only really used a golden reflector and a black flag I had never tried to used white reflectors or silver reflectors, so I was interested in seeing what would happen.

Again I went back to the small Chinese statue as I wanted something with a lot of relief but also with a little shine on it so that I could see what happens to the light as it is reflected back from the subject from the reflectors.

With the camera in a fixed position and the lighting in a fixed position at right angles to the camera and at the same level as the subject, the exercise asked me use different reflectors and to move them back and forward to demonstrate that the amount of light reflected back was dependant on the reflector and its distance from the subject.

Bare Bulb

D80,Aperture f/9.5, Shutter Speed 1/180 sec, ISO 100, 66mm (35mm equivalent 99mm), Pattern Metering Mode, Flash White Balance, Tripod Mounted, 55-200mm lens



The first image is from a non diffused flash, just a bare flash bulb flash. I can see that there is a massive amount of light coming from the flash and it is overexposing the subject. The quality of light is hard to control in this case.

Diffused Flash

D80,Aperture f/9.5, Shutter Speed 1/180 sec, ISO 100, 66mm (35mm equivalent 99mm), Pattern Metering Mode, Flash White Balance, Tripod Mounted, 55-200mm lens



With a white umbrella fitted in front of the flash to act as a diffuser, the amount of light is reduced and the image is not as overexposed as the bare bulb image. I can see that there is a greater amount of contrast and that the subject has regained some detail and definition. I can also see that the side facing the flash is brighter than the opposite side where little light can reach, as the subject is divided into two unequal parts.


White Card One Meter Away

D80,Aperture f/9.5, Shutter Speed 1/180 sec, ISO 100, 66mm (35mm equivalent 99mm), Pattern Metering Mode, Flash White Balance, Tripod Mounted, 55-200mm lens



Using a large white card placed to the opposite side of the flash, I noted straight away that there was a certain amount of light reflected back into the subject. I can see areas, for example the sleeve on the statues which is now brighter and has less shadow on it as before. This has helped to balance the subject as it is no longer split down the middle with a light side and a dark side, the reflected light has filled in some of the shadows and helped to define the shape of the subject.


White Card Half a Meter Away

D80,Aperture f/9.5, Shutter Speed 1/180 sec, ISO 100, 66mm (35mm equivalent 99mm), Pattern Metering Mode, Flash White Balance, Tripod Mounted, 55-200mm lens



Moving the card in to half the distance away brings in even more fill light. I was really pleased to see this effect and I was surprised that the Inverse Square Law also worked for reflected light. By halving the distance the amount of reflected light had filled in all the shadows and had reduced the overall contrast of the image as there are now less dark parts to the image. I liked this overall effect which I had to admit I would only have been able to produced before by the use of two lights and a certain amount of work to balance the amount of light from each one.

Foil Reflector Dull Side Out

D80,Aperture f/9.5, Shutter Speed 1/180 sec, ISO 100, 66mm (35mm equivalent 99mm), Pattern Metering Mode, Flash White Balance, Tripod Mounted, 55-200mm lens



Again I was surprised, I thought that a dull reflector would reflect less light than a white card; I was surprised to see that it reflected even more light, but with a slight different hue. The fill light this time was not white and in this case did not wash out the statue with light. I can see that there is a difference in the blue hue of the statues sleeve and that the contrast levels of the image have again been reduced slightly.

Foil Reflector Shiny Side Out

D80,Aperture f/9.5, Shutter Speed 1/180 sec, ISO 100, 66mm (35mm equivalent 99mm), Pattern Metering Mode, Flash White Balance, Tripod Mounted, 55-200mm lens



Here things were as I expected, a lot of light was reflected back at the subject and the hue of the light is almost the same. I feel that the shadows are better defined and that the contrast of the image is better.

Crumpled Foil Reflector

D80,Aperture f/9.5, Shutter Speed 1/180 sec, ISO 100, 66mm (35mm equivalent 99mm), Pattern Metering Mode, Flash White Balance, Tripod Mounted, 55-200mm lens



I was very surprised when I reviewed this image as I somehow expected that the amount of reflected light to be less. However the crumpled foil has caused a slight scattering of the reflected light and this has meant that the fill light is diffused and not as harsh as the shiny foil. I like the effect that this has produced as the subjects contrast is a lot better than before without making the shadows too dark, the shadows now are better defined and the hues of the subject are not as over exposed.


What I learned out of this exercise is that reflectors can be used to bounce light back at the subject and that all reflectors have different usages due to the quality of the reflected light. I shall try to use reflectors a lot more now and continue to experiment as I believe that there is not one answer as to which reflector to use in what situation.

Exercise 37 - Outdoors at Night

What: The main brief of this exercise was to take between twelve and twenty photographs where the subject or areas were light mainly by artificial light. The brief allowed foe outside images to be taken as long as the flood lights lighting up the subject were not easily seen in the image or were obscured completely. The brief also allowed for a number of photographs to be taken inside a building where there was no natural light at all but not using a tripod.
Where: Outside over the main road, in a graveyard, outside a hotel, inside a newly refurbished museum and in a moving car.
When: Mainly at night, although I had seen a number of press and news images of the galleries of the refurbished museum and I knew that they would be suitable at any time of the day.
How: I used a number of setups ; Over the main road I had the camera mounted on a tripod with the head locked off. In the Graveyard I again used the tripod. Inside the museum I stuck to the brief and just hand held the camera. Inside the car I used a combination of hand held and a Delkin “Fat Gecko” suction mounted tripod (See http://delkin.com/i-5829837-fat-gecko-original-dual-suction-camera-mount.html) for more details on the mount.

I had also done a little extra research into photographing neon lights at http://www.popphoto.com/how-to/2010/10/how-to-shoot-neon-lights just in case I came across any but alas I did not.

Main Road

The position that I scouted is a bridge over a long dual carriageway which acts as the main road. I positioned myself in the middle of the bridge and waited for some traffic to arrive. Unexpectedly I found it to be quite a quiet time and I had to wait a while before I saw any traffic at all. I had set the camera to ISO 100 so that I would be able to obtain the light trails from the moving vehicles and I had also set the white balance to shade as it captured the hues to the best representation.

Car Headlights One

D80,Aperture f/4, Shutter Speed 4 sec, ISO 100, 18mm (35mm equivalent 27mm), Pattern Metering Mode, Shade White Balance, Tripod Mounted, 18-70mm lens



I was please to see that the sky had almost the same colours as it had before the sun set and that the green hue of the fields was nicely defined. I like the composition of the image as the lights attract your eye and then draw them off into the distance along the path of the road.

Car Headlights Two

D80,Aperture f/3.8, Shutter Speed 0.3 sec, ISO 100, 29mm (35mm equivalent 43mm), Pattern Metering Mode, Shade White Balance, Tripod Mounted, 18-70mm lens



I moved the camera over to the other side of the bridge which looked towards where the sun had set. I was surprised to find that there was still a lot of light in the sky and that I had to adjust the shutter speed to 0.3 of a second. While I achieved getting both the shape of the vehicle and the tail of the lights I find the final image a little on the dark side compared to the first image where the surrounding were light up more and the image composition was balanced more.

Car Headlights Three

D80,Aperture f/3.8, Shutter Speed 3 sec, ISO 100, 29mm (35mm equivalent 43mm), Pattern Metering Mode, Shade White Balance, Tripod Mounted, 18-70mm lens

I recomposed the image and waited a little longer for some traffic before taking this image. This time the colours and composition balance. I still was not happy and so took another image.




Car Headlights Four

D80,Aperture f/22, Shutter Speed 25 sec, ISO 100, 18mm (35mm equivalent 27mm), Pattern Metering Mode, Shade White Balance, Tripod Mounted, 18-70mm lens

I adjusted the aperture to f/22 as I wanted quite a long exposure time and I wanted to capture the sky and the surroundings of the road. As the aperture was at f/22 I made the shutter speed 25 seconds. This allowed me to wait on the slow moving tractor with its flashing amber beacon and allow it to move past.



I am very happy with this final image as the dotted effect of the flashing amber beacon has created an unusual light trail and an unusual image.

Graveyard

Just as I was moving off the bridge I noted that the lights on the one floodlight building around were on. I took the first image from the edge of the bridge pointing down towards the building using a telephoto lens.

Church Light Up from a Distance

D80,Aperture f/22, Shutter Speed 3 sec, ISO 100, 270mm (35mm equivalent 405mm), Pattern Metering Mode, Shade White Balance, Tripod Mounted, 70-300mm VR lens



Again I like the way that it looks almost like daytime, the orange of the floodlights balances against the green of the fields and the blue of the sky.

Church Light Up One

I moved down into the graveyard beside the church and took this image of the building positioned at the edge of the path a little way in from the front gate. I had to move around to find a position where I could photograph the church without being blocked by a gravestone, a bush or a tree.

D80,Aperture f/22, Shutter Speed 30 sec, ISO 100, 40mm (35mm equivalent 60mm), Pattern Metering Mode, Fluorescent White Balance, Tripod Mounted, 18-70mm lens


I changed the white balance to fluorescent as I noted that the lights on the building were very orange close up and that if I had not adjusted the white balance I would have ended up with an over warm image where it would have been washed out by an orange hue. I like the colour of the sky as it is a dark midnight blue and at the same time I managed to capture the colours of the stain glass window and not allow it to be too over or under exposed.

Church Light Up Two

I moved outside the grounds to the church in an attempt to get another composition of the church and its lighting. In the end I positioned myself close to the ground and moved the tripod down to my level; from there I could photograph the tower of the church between the railings on the wall.

D80,Aperture f/27, Shutter Speed 10 sec, ISO 100, 70mm (35mm equivalent 105mm), Pattern Metering Mode, Fluorescent White Balance, Tripod Mounted, 18-70mm lens



I then cropped the final image as I had too much dead space on the right of the frame which was detracting from the composition. At this angle I noted that the lights were less orange and whiter and that the lights from the church would silhouetted the trees on either side of the frame.

Hotel Light Up in Blue

Opposite the church is a hotel which was floodlight in blue. I moved to the very edge of the property and shot down the driveway and between the bushes that bordered the driveway. I noted that there was a combination of blue floodlights and yellow internal lights

D80, Aperture f/27, Shutter Speed 20 sec, ISO 100, 56mm (35mm equivalent 84mm), Pattern Metering Mode, Tungsten White Balance, Tripod Mounted, 18-70mm lens



I decided to use Tungsten white balance as I thought that the fluorescent white balance would create a very cold blue hue and I wanted to capture the warmth of the internal lights as well as the light blue hue of the floodlights. Examining the image later I can see that the lights almost split the building in two horizontally; the lower half being the warm orange of the internal decorations against the tungsten lights and the upper half being the colder blue of the floodlights. Again I was pleased to see that I had managed to get an exposure where I could balance the internal and the external lights and not over or under expose either.

Trees Light From Below

Just outside the hotel was a floodlight sign, and as I moved away from the building I could see that there was an overspill of light from the triangular shaped sign and that it was being reflected up into the tree leaves above the sign. I liked the differing colours caused by the spill of light so I set up the tripod across the road from the trees and shot up into the leaves.

D80, Aperture f/22, Shutter Speed 30 sec, ISO 100, 18mm (35mm equivalent 27mm), Pattern Metering Mode, Fluorescent White Balance, Tripod Mounted, 18-70mm lens



I then cropped the final image as I had managed to capture a orange street light in the composition. I like the composition of this image as it has both a silhouetted tree and the branches leaning out of the darkness into the bright light.

Street Light

As we parked up home again I decided to take an image of a street light, something which I had struggled with previously. While not strictly within the brief I wanted to see if I could capture the correct hue of light from the street light.

D80, Aperture f/4.5, Shutter Speed 1/6 sec, ISO 3200, 70mm (35mm equivalent 105mm), Pattern Metering Mode, Fluorescent White Balance, Tripod Mounted, 18-70mm lens



While it was better than I had managed before I think I could do better.

Moving Car

Due to my eye condition I do not like to drive at night as I almost have to have my eyes closed at times to protect them from the headlights of other vehicles. I noticed that if I squinted enough the all the street lights and other car lights just became blobs and streaks of light.

Having bought a Delkin mount to use with my previous car, I took it with me when Lindsay was driving me from location to location for this exercise. I mounted it on the passenger window and set the camera up so that I could capture light trails through the windscreen of the car.

Moving Car One.

D80, Aperture f/19, Shutter Speed 20 sec, ISO 100, 18mm (35mm equivalent 27mm), Pattern Metering Mode, Tungsten White Balance, Tripod Mounted, 18-70mm lens

I realised that the windscreen had a slight tint to it so I set the white balance to Tungsten as even today a lot of cars still use tungsten bulbs as their main source of light.



I am very pleased with this image as the light trails really do indicate the movement of the car from my position as a passenger. It is strange to see the many different hues and types of light used, as I managed to capture street lights, car lights, traffic lights and reflected light from buildings.

Moving Car Two

I decided to repeat the shot again, but moved the camera and mount to a different position closer to me in the car, so that I was practically looking out through the viewfinder as we moved.

This time as the camera was closer to me, it received a little more support and it did not vibrate as much. I wanted less of an exposure time so I adjusted the ISO to ISO1000 and set the shutter speed at 6 seconds.

D80, Aperture f/22, Shutter Speed 6 sec, ISO 1000, 18mm (35mm equivalent 27mm), Pattern Metering Mode, Fluorescent White Balance, Tripod Mounted, 18-70mm lens



Even though there are less light trails I like the sine wave that the movement of that the car set up as it moved over a rather uneven patch of road.

Inside the Museum

Having seen the refurbished museum on the news I decided that it would be ideal for this exercise as there were a number of locations inside the museum which now had no natural light at all.

On entering the museum I found the first location which was a vault like structure which was the ground floor storage area underneath the entrance to the museum.

It was very brightly lit to make it attractive and welcoming to visitors with a number of different lighting styles.
Looking at the colours of the stone and the setup of the lights I decided on tungsten white balance as otherwise the image would have a darker yellow hue to it which detracted from the beauty of the building.

D80, Aperture f/16, Shutter Speed 1/6 sec, ISO 3200, 18mm (35mm equivalent 27mm), Pattern Metering Mode, Tungsten White Balance, Hand Held, 18-70mm lens



It was quite difficult to get a successful hand held shot in such low light conditions, I had to go to the maximum ISO on the camera to allow me to achieve hand held speeds.

Inside the Science Hall

I moved into the back of the museum where they have blocked off all the light coming in through the Victorian arched iron roof and due to the set up of the walls all natural light is blocked off from entering the hall. The main light for the hall comes from the walls and from the exhibition display cabinets.

D80, Aperture f/4.8, Shutter Speed 1/8 sec, ISO 3200, 18mm (35mm equivalent 27mm), Pattern Metering Mode, Fluorescent White Balance, Hand Held, 18-70mm lens



Inside the Science Hall Two

I recomposed the image just to capture the ground floor layout and the lights coming from the exhibition display cabinets only

D80, Aperture f/4.8, Shutter Speed 1/45 sec, ISO 3200, 18mm (35mm equivalent 27mm), Pattern Metering Mode, Fluorescent White Balance, Hand Held, 18-70mm lens


I noticed that there was a lot more light coming off the display cabinets as I needed a faster shutter speed although all I had done was point the camera directly into the room. I can also see that the exhibition display are not so over exposed and that you can now easily see what is in the cabinets.

Inside the Cultural Hall

I then moved up to the top of the museum and went into the cultural gallery where again like the science gallery the natural light has been removed by blocking up the windows and the roof. I wanted to capture the shape of the roof as well as the limited amount of light in the gallery

D80, Aperture f/4.8, Shutter Speed 1/15 sec, ISO 3200, 18mm (35mm equivalent 27mm), Pattern Metering Mode, Tungsten White Balance, Hand Held, 18-70mm lens



A lot of this area is light up using LED lighting which lends itself to tungsten white balance as depending on the colour of the LEDs it can produce a light which is almost the same colour temperature as tungsten.

Inside the Cultural Hall Two

Looking down into the crowded gallery below I noticed that there was a number of different light sources and that the light was coming from all directions. Again I went for tungsten white balance as it made for the best compromise in colour temperature for the whole gallery.

D80, Aperture f/4.8, Shutter Speed 1/15 sec, ISO 3200, 18mm (35mm equivalent 27mm), Pattern Metering Mode, Tungsten White Balance, Hand Held, 18-70mm lens



This has been quite a hard exercise to perform as I found it difficult to find the right lighting conditions for each circumstance. I took a number of images where the white balance did not work out, the shutter speed was incorrect causing over and under exposure.

I was really out of my comfort zone for many of these images as I had to go complete manual mode and at times work out in my head what would be the right exposure time for the image. I’m pleased to say that I did not panic and I just took a few extra seconds to work out what I wanted before setting the camera up.

Again I have learned that there is a great difference in the colouration of artificial light and that I can use the cameras white balance to correct the image where the final result would end up being too cold or to warm due to the tints and hue caused by the incorrect white balance. I was pleased to find that I could obtain the correct white balance through practice and that during the exercise I was able to set the correct white balance before taking an exposure.

What I was really pleased to find was that I was successful in obtaining a few images which although they had been taken after sunset still appeared as if they had been taken during the day; this was particularly pleasing as I have been trying to obtain this affect after being influenced by some of the photographers and their photographs in http://gizmodo.com/5742383/175-photos-of-day-taken-at-night