Thursday 31 May 2012

Sarah and Andy

Had a fun shoot with Sarah and Andy last night - lots of interesting shots to come when I get back to my desktop, but here's a little taster....

Canon EOS 5D Mark II, f/8 @ 75 mm, 1/100, ISO 100

Tuesday 29 May 2012

Sort-of self portrait

Camera set by me, but shot taken by my friend Helen!

Used the 135L wide open @ f/2 with a dash of flash to give highlights in the eyes and lower facial shadows given the strength of the sun.

Helen did well to nail the focus, but if I'm going to be critical I'd rather not have had my foot amputated!

Canon EOS 5D Mark II, f/2 @ 135 mm, 1/4000, ISO 100, Flash

Monday 28 May 2012

Sunday 27 May 2012

Jessica the photoshopped fairy!

Had a quick go at turning Jessica into a fairy in this shot.

First I took a portrait of Jessica @ f/2. I then asked her to leave the frame and with the camera mounted on a tripod to ensure the position was the same I took a three shot series bracketed to one stop.

I blended the three bracked shots in photomatix and then used the result with a layer mask of the portrait in Elements. I then used another layer to add the wings. I think I could do better with the wings by distorting them slightly to give perspective, but another time maybe!

Canon EOS 5D Mark II, f/2 @ 100 mm, ISO 100

Friday 25 May 2012

Pheasant

Just a dash of fill flash here!

Canon EOS-1D Mark III, f/3.5 @ 102 mm, 1/640, ISO 100, Flash

Thursday 24 May 2012

Sculpture at Sunset

Spotted this on my travels and thought it would make an interesting photo. 3-shot hdr.

Canon EOS 5D Mark II, f/2 @ 135 mm, ISO 400,

Wednesday 23 May 2012

Jessica - yesteryear style

I had a very quick shoot with Jessica this evening. We have some plans for the shots which I will work on later, but here is a quick snap from the shoot. Fill flash was provided with a 580EXII on camera and the sun provided some rim-lighting.

I liked the rich colours and felt they would be further enhanced with a yesteryear colour palette.

The shot was wide open on the Zeiss 100mm to give a thin depth of field. I included the winding path to help the feeling of depth.


Canon EOS 5D Mark II, f/2 @ 100 mm, 1/400, ISO 100, Flash

Monday 21 May 2012

Rachael Triptych

@roorootini @lencarta

A triptych of Rachael lit with a Lencarta Smartflash with white 40cm beauty dish above and to camera right. Hair light was provided by a gridded reflector on a Safari head slightly above and behind Rachael.

Canon 5D Mark II, 24-105mm @ 50-65mm f/9, ISO 100, 1/125 sec

Sunday 20 May 2012

In a country Churchyard

3-shot HDR on the 14mm f/2.8 which I then processed using Color CP2 and a vignette in LR.

Canon EOS 5D Mark II @ 14 mm, ISO 100

Friday 18 May 2012

Bee Woman Candid

I've no idea why she's dressed as a bee!

Canon EOS-1D Mark III, f/2.2 @ 135 mm, 1/640, ISO 100, No Flash

Thursday 17 May 2012

Wednesday 16 May 2012

14mm test shot - Church in Harlestone

Recently I've been swapping my kit around a bit - offloading stuff I don't use and trying some new bits.

I had a Canon 50mm f/1.4 that wasn't getting used and did a direct swap for a Falcon 14mm f/2.8 manual focus lens. (Falcon is a re-branded Samyang)

The lens has no electronic connection to the camera so doesn't report aperture or even have focus confirm (unless you mount a special chip). I tried a focus-confirm chip, but it was a waste of time - live view on a tripod is the way to use this lens.

Anyway, from my initial test shots I'm very impressed with this lens (nice review here)

It seems very sharp indeed with very little chromatic aberation.

This shot was an HDR of 3 images to bring out foreground details whilst holding on to cloud detail.


Canon EOS 5D Mark II, f/8.0 @ 14 mmISO 100

Tuesday 15 May 2012

Rachael Lingerie Shot

@roorootini @Lencarta One more shot of Rachael - this one lit with a Lencarta strip box camera left on the Safari, and a gridded reflector at head level camera right on a Smartflash.



Canon EOS 5D Mark II, f/6.3 @ 45 mm, 1/160, ISO 100

Monday 14 May 2012

Rachel and beauty dish

@RooRooTini In this shot I decided to emphasize Rachael's head and shoulders by powering a flash with 40cm white dish mounted higher than the two strip boxes which lit her body from either side.

Canon EOS 5D Mark II, f/6.3 @ 55 mm, 1/125, ISO 100

Saturday 12 May 2012

Rachel half body backlit

@roorootini @Lencarta - Same setup to yesterday's blog post. This one needed more careful editing as we were working in a very small space and the background wasn't large enough for the length of portrait. Lots of darkening and cloning later and we have....

Canon EOS 5D Mark II, f/9 @ 35 mm, 1/125, ISO 100

Friday 11 May 2012

Rachael backlit studio shot.

@roorootini @Lencarta - I used Lencarta lights for this portrait of Rachael - Main light was a Smartflash with a 40cm white beauty dish, with a pair of Safari with reflectors - one behind Rachael and the other with a grid uplighting from the front to add definition.


Canon EOS 5D Mark II, f/9 @ 60 mm, 1/125, ISO 100

Sunday 6 May 2012

Watching the helicopter

I used a small aperture here to get a slow enough shutter speed to blur the blades slightly.

Processing: Converted to black and white before adding grain.


Canon EOS-1D Mark III, f/13 @ 180 mm, 1/200, ISO 100, No Flash

Saturday 5 May 2012

Man in thought candid

My first post from the 5D Mark II. I've recently exchanged my 1DsII for a 5D Mark II. The 1DsII is a heavier, more professionally built camera, but using manual focus lenses is sometimes easier in Live View (missing on the 1DsII) and the larger LCD on the 5D II means I can be confident I've nailed focus when using the viewfinder as was the case with this shot.

This gentleman did not look terribly happy and was clearly lost in thought. To capture the loneliness and emotion I cropped heavily to give space around the subject without other clutter. I used a thin depth of field by shooting at maximum aperture on the Zeiss 100mm. (f/2.0)

I converted to Sepia and then tweaked the levels of what would have been different colours in the original shot. Finally I added a mild vignette.


Canon EOS 5D Mark II, f/2 @ 100 mm, 1/2000, ISO 100, No Flash

Thursday 3 May 2012

Tuesday 1 May 2012

Grounded boat

I used a 100mm f/2.0 lens wide open here to limit the depth of field and try and give the photo some depth. I also added a vignette.

Canon EOS-1Ds Mark II, f/2 @ 100 mm, 1/6400, ISO 100, No Flash