My industrial design class just completed their semester-long power equipment design project culminating with the building of full-scale appearance models. I set up a make-shift photo studio in a lightly used classroom and over the past 24 hours shot over 600 images. All were taken in RAW format (DNG) with my Pentax K10D and my 18-55mm kit lens and FA 35mm f/2 AL and processed in Adobe Lightroom. By shooting in RAW I was able to set the white balance for all the shots with one click by selecting an underexposed portion of the white backdrop with the eye dropper tool in Lightroom and then copying and pasting that setting to all images.

Most of the shots required a heavy dose of positive exposure compensation while shooting to keep the white backdrop white and not grey. I was pretty diligent with the use of the histogram while shooting so there wasn’t much need for exposure adjustment. I just made sure there was a good spike on the right hand side of the graph without going very far into the mid tones. Here’s a shot of the “studio” set-up:

I positioned the white paper backdrop centered under a row of fluorescent lights so that there was a row flanking the backdrop on either side. This provided nice even lighting front to back and reduced shadows to a minimum.

For each of the 14 students I took anywhere from 40-70 shots (all hand-held @ ISO 400). I started with low-angle orthographic views at a medium focal length (35-45mm) followed by eye-level perspective shots at a wider angle (35-24mm), short depth of field detail shots (to hide any imperfections), and specialty shots as required (use, high angle, ultra-wide low angle perspective, etc.). All in all I was really pleased with the results right out of the camera and I think the students ended up with great shots for their portfolios.

Unfortunately, the confidentiality agreement I signed prevents me from showing most of the shots or even revealing the client or other interesting project details, but here are a few ambiguous detail shots of the final models to show what I was able to achieve with this make shift DIY studio set-up:

Oh, and I have over 2,000 photos that I have taken of the students working on their projects this semester that I need to burn off onto DVDs within the next week!

Mr. UPS brought my new Pentax FA 35mm f/2 AL lens today. It has an equivalent field of view on my K10d of 52.5mm, making it the closest you can get to a real “fast fifty” FoV on a Pentax DSLR. This lens has been discontinued by Pentax so I figured I’d better snap one up while I could. I paid $330 from B&H with free shipping. Good thing I acted when I did because it’s now not even listed on their site any more…

I’ll be testing it over the next few days for my review. Here’s a shot of the kit (shot in my kitchen studio):

I’m really digging the lens hood (and thus planning a new center-pinch lens cap purchace).

Pentax K10D, SMC PENTAX-DA f/3.5-5.6 18-55mm AL @ 55mm + SMC-A 50mm f/1.7 (reversed), ISO 800, f/8, 1/30 sec, +0.7 EV, IS on

This tulip was shot hand-held with a DIY super macro set-up. Lighting was via a nearby window:

The title of the photo comes from a portion of a poem by Algernon Charles Swinburne called Atalanta in Calydon:

For winter’s rains and ruins are over,

And all the season of snows and sins;

The days dividing lover and lover,

The light that loses, the night that wins;

Pentax K10D, SMC PENTAX-DA f/3.5-5.6 18-55mm AL @ 18mm, ISO 160, f/4, 1/30 sec, +1 EV, IS on

Read all about Auburn University’s Department of Industrial and Graphic Design’s annual Designing Green competition on my personal blog.

Designed by Aran Mun, the hand-made laser cut cardboard trophy above was shot in a simple whitespace studio with a single incandescent bulb behind a white umbrella diffuser (reversed from the set-up shown below):

RAW file processed in Adobe Lightroom to correct white balance and tweak the exposure slightly. I shot another version at f/8…

…but I preferred the way the vignetting and shallower DoF in the f/4 shot really adds depth to the photograph and focuses your attention on the logo. Best thing about having access to a studio like this is that the total time to set up for this shot and snap the four frames I took was less than 2 minutes!

Click here if you’re just interrested in seeing all the photos I took during the event.

Day one of PMA is in the books and as promised here is my first round of interesting product picks with comments. I will have more to report as the show continues and hopefully some additional in-depth reviews of a few of these items. Let’s dive in:

Prior to the show opening I headed up to the press center to pick up a lanyard for my badge and check things out. Outside of the press center I ran across Greg Downing from xRez standing in front of an awesome panorama of Yosemite valley that he helped create. Rather than try and explain what’s going on here I suggest you hit the xRez site and check it out for yourself. Very cool stuff.

The show opens to a pretty good crowd. I’m used to bigger shows (CES, for example) so this seems a bit tame to me. The show is contained within the two floors of the South Hall of the LVCC. CES, for example, uses the entire LVCC + the Sands Expo Center.

Joby has added a much needed ball head with bubble level to their often-imitated-never-duplicated Gorillapod.

Ever wonder what a Nikon D3 looks like cut in half? Wonder no more!

The LensPen people have come up with a nifty little sensor cleaning accessory the SensorKlear Loupe. At $60 I still think it’s a bit pricey for a magnifying glass + LED flashlight but it does feature a nifty slot in the side so you can reach in with your LensPen to get that pesky last speck of dust while you’re using the scope.

Not technically a photo product (nor a product on display) but I spied this “Wrist Writer” product on a guest at the Sigma booth. It features 25′ of paper on a spool that can be manually advanced to keep a running logbook of shot notes while in the field. I recommend field use as it is pretty incredibly dorky for anything where you might encounter other people ;-)

Also while in the Sigma booth a snapped this shot of a fellow Pentaxian’s DIY BlackRapid R-Strap. More on that later. I’m digging the 31 f/1.8 Limited lens, though.

I know I said I wasn’t going to blog about the mainstream products but I had to take a look at Panasonic’s new G1 while I was there. I find these new small form factor DSLRs quite interesting. Unfortunately, this photo illustrates the problem I have with this whole concept. Why would I want to bolt such a nice tidy little camera to such a huge lens? I mean isn’t the whole idea to have a smaller camera system?

Investigating further I uncovered the other problem with this system. Above is the complete collection of compact lenses for the G1. Clever concept but too limiting for enthusiast use IMO.

Naturally, I spent much time in the Pentax booth. They had a very interesting macro photography demonstration set up on display.

I also spent a little time with their new smc DA 15mm f/4 ED AL Limited wide angle lens. This is an absolute jewel of a little lens. I couldn’t tell much about the image quality from the few test shots I took on the show floor, but the thing just felt so nice that I know it will do well ;-)

Olympus had a very clever display for one of their ruggedized pocket cams. They were frozen in a solid block of ice. I presume at some point they will remove them from the ice and prove that they still work…

Samsung has arguably gotten the most attention at this year’s show with their new NX compact APS-C sized DSLR. This photo answers the question of whether or not there will be multiple lens options available for this camera. I like the little pancake lens but I refer back to my Panasonic G1 comments otherwise. Samsung says this camera “bridges the gap” between compact pocket cameras and full-sized DSLRs. Sounds to me like a compromise situation where no one wins.

Jill-e debuted a new line of stylish leather camera bags for men called “Jack”. If you don’t know Jill-e check them out. They are doing some really nice things with camera bags from a fashion standpoint that I haven’t seen before.

Here’s another Jill-e bag design featuring a highly functional “gatemouth”-style opening that makes getting at your gear while wearing the bag much easier. This proves that Jill-e is thinking beyond just style.

Next I visited the Crumpler booth where they were stuffing their bags with toilet paper (?). I complained about the difficulty of accessing my gear due to their universal use of a flap-over design and was told in no uncertain terms that Crumpler “always puts style above functionality.” Hmmmm.

For you studio lighting types I’m here to report that CFLs are now all the rage. This one has the output of a 250w incandescent lamp but outputs almost no heat and lasts 10K hours.

Lunch break: $13.85.

Zeiss Pentax mount 50 f/1.4: $550 MSRP. This could be the ultimate bokeh tool. I took a few sample shots and was immediately blown away by the complete lack of vignetting. I’m planning on getting a review sample or two to do a more in-depth analysis.

Bryce Thatcher and the crew at Clik Elite had some of the most unique bags I have seen yet at PMA this year. They have a very narrow focus right now on the adventure sports set but I’m told to keep an eye out for some more “mainstream” products that might appeal more to everyday outdoorsy folks like myself. Their first batch of products should be showing up at your local REI store in the next couple of weeks.

LowePro had a huge collection of bags. The one that caught my eye was their new Classified series of shoulder bags. They feature un-camera bag-like take-it-to-work styling with that gatemouth type opening that makes so much sense to me. My Crumpler may end up in the bottom of the closet for good.

Another clever thing I spotted in the LowePro booth was this camera mount on the handle of their roller bag. Perfect for those airport departure lounge self portraits. I get the sense that LowePro’s design staff actually uses (or at least consults with people who use) their products. Lots of clever design features like this that are missing on lesser bags.

This is the Ray Flash ring light accessory. As you can see, it bolts up to your existing external flash unit and re-directs the light to a large ring around the lens. This type of lighting is very popular for portrait photography. I find this to be very clever but am somewhat appalled at the $200 price tag. Pros won’t bat an eye at it but us amateurs need a more cost-effective solution. Plus, it seems a little plastic-y for the $$ IMO (though I have not used one yet).

Not a very good picture of a very clever product solution. The Shootsac is a function-specific neoprene shoulder bag with multiple compartments that allow one to keep all their lenses within easy arm’s reach. The designer has seen fit to add a fashion component with a bunch of interchangeable covers (none of which I would have chosen). Were I still shooting Canon and had a bunch of L zooms this product would make a lot of sense. As it is, my little Pentax lenses would get lost in there.

Trek-Tech has some very interesting products all based around a very slick custom magnetic tripod mount (shown above).

The most interesting Trek-Tech product was their MagBag system. Using the same magnetic tripod mount, the MagBag securely supports your camera beanbag-style. It has a number of other unique features that I hope to go into more detail about at a later date.

Across the asile from Trek-Tech (and at the far back corner of the exhibit hall) I found Black Rapid’s tiny booth. I found their new R-Strap a few weeks ago while doing some camera strap research. From the information I read online I couldn’t quite make out how the product worked. I got the fact that you attach the strap to the tripod mount on the bottom of your SLR, but I couldn’t see how it would be much better than a regular strap. The main benefit is shown above- the strap stays stationary while the camera slides along the strap on a D ring. I could do without the SWAT-style padded-strap-with-pockets styling, but overall it seems a very clever attempt at a solution to an age-old problem.

After the show I returned to the hotel to retrieve my laptop and download my pictures from the day while enjoying a cold one.

Then, I treated myself to a table for one at Mon Ami Gabi at Paris for some wine and steak frites :-)

Day two I’m back looking for things I missed and spending more quality time with some vendors looking for some nuggets to report on.

I got this idea from my Flickr friend Jim. I’ve played with this idea in the past but didn’t have the right combination of lenses to really make it work. Seems the kit lens on my Pentax K10D and my 20 year old Pentax-A 50mm f/1.7 make a pretty super duper super macro lens.

The trick is to shoot through a second lens, thus dramatically shortening the minimum focus distance of the combined lenses. This works best with a medium focal length primary lens (attached to the camera) and a fast secondary lens held (typically backwards) in front of the primary lens.

In this case, the 49mm diameter front element on the 50mm fits perfectly inside the 52mm diameter of the 18-55mm Pentax kit lens. I found that I had to zoom the kit lens all the way out to 55mm to eliminate vignetting. I tried reversing the set-up but the 18-55’s  smaller maximum aperture resulted in vignetting at all focal lengths (hence the need for a fast secondary lens). For the shot above I simply switched the camera into manual focus, dialed in a handful of positive exposure compensation and got up close on a bulb on our Christmas tree:

Depth of field is essentially non-existent- as is typically the case with all macro lenses. Changing the focus of ether lens had very little effect on the focal distance to the subject. To achieve focus you have to simply move the camera back and forth while composing through the viewfinder. The problem is that with such a micro thin slice of DOF any movement will throw off your composition. I ended up dialing up the ISO to 800 so that I could get a decently fast shutter speed (around 1/100 sec) and taking a bunch of hand held shots to get a couple of winners. Use of a tripod would have certainly helped, though holding the secondary lens in position while composing the shot on a tripod might be tricky.

A couple of additional shots taken with this set-up:

My understanding is that you can get similar results by simply reverse mounting certain types of lenses. There are accessories available to do this. Also, I think you may be able to use a threaded step-up adapter ring to attach the two lenses like in my set-up. The $20 screw-on close-up lens adapters (the kind that look like filters) IMO are pretty worthless unless you buy very nice quality ones but you might as well put that cash towards a dedicated macro lens.

The most popular macro accessories (besides a dedicated macro lens, of course) are extension tubes. Again, the price of entry here comes close to a decent dedicated macro lens (or zoom lens with macro capibility). There are cheaper alternatives and quality is less important if you are OK with losing auto focus and communication with your lens. I got some very nice results with my old Canon 5D and 85mm f/1.8 + 12mm Canon extension tube:

Keep in mind that all of these options will limit your focus distance to macro applications. A dedicated macro lens typically will be able to focus to infinity, making it usable as a regular lens in addition to a macro. However, if you have a couple of the right kind of lenses laying around and you want to take some close-up shots, now you know how. Thanks, Jim!

UPDATE:

Playing around a bit more with this set-up and I got these shots:

It also occurred to me that one of the reasons my set-up works so well is that my old manual focus 50mm lens has an aperture ring. This means I can crank it open to f/1.7 to get a clear shot through. More modern lenses often lack an aperture ring and default to the smallest aperture when removed from the camera body. If this happens to you, look for the aperture lever on the inside face of the lens and try sliding the aperture open to get a clear view through your secondary lens.

There are a number of resources out there for creating your own electronic remote shutter release for Pentax DSLRs with a 2.5mm remote port. I don’t use a remote very often as the 2 second self timer seems to work fine for 99% of my photos under 30 seconds. However, longer bulb exposures require a remote. So, I picked up a generic cellphone headset at the dollar store and wired it up to a toggle switch I had laying around. (It seems this design also works for Canon Digital Rebel cameras with 2.5mm remote ports.)

There are 3 wires inside one of these cables: white, red & black. (Four conductor versions will not work with a Pentax so make sure the 2.5mm plug has 2 silver bands and not 4). All I did was cut the cord, strip back the outer jacket to expose the 3 conductors then plugged it in to the remote port on the camera and shorted the red and white wires to the black one to figure out which controlled what function on the camera. In this case the white wire triggered the shutter and the red caused the camera to auto focus. I connected the white wire to one side of the toggle switch with a small acorn nut and the black to the other side. I drilled a couple of holes in an old pill bottle to make a housing for the assembly.

superior ergonomics of the pill bottle housing

In standard shooting mode flipping the switch to the “on” position releases the shutter. You have to return the switch to the “off” position to review the shot and take another (ie: the shutter only fires when the switch is in the “on” position). For bulb exposures you simply flip the switch to “on” to open the shutter then flip it back to “off” to close it. A momentary switch would facilitate non-bulb shutter releases but I found the toggle switch to be perfectly workable as long as you remember to turn it off after the shot. There’s no auto focus function with this set up but that’s not typically a concern for the long exposure shots I take as I usually manually focus anyway. You can add a momentary switch to the focus wire if that’s important to you. Also, you could wire in both a toggle switch and a momentary switch to the shutter release to make non-bulb shots more convenient.

1 minute bulb exposure using DIY remote release switch

Typically I have seen these DIY releases installed in an old film canister. Seeing as how I haven’t shot film in about 10 years I didn’t have one handy and figured the pill bottle was a good substitute. All was good with the use of my $1 release during my first outing until I was stopped and questioned by a policeman while shooting long exposures in downtown Auburn, AL. Seems he was less concerned with my skulking around in shadows taking pictures and just wanted to know what was in the pill bottle :D

UPDATE:

Shot the family Christmas card photo today and needed a little more reach than the original 12″ cord provided. 50′ of old speaker wire from the garage and a couple of extra wire nuts and voila!

DIY Pentax cable release with 50' cord.