booleansplit.com

photos, tips, tricks, and thoughts from an avid amateur photographer

 
 
 
 

Archive for April, 2009

line of defense

line of defense

Pentax K10D, SMC Pentax-A 50mm f/1.7, ISO 320,  f/1.7, 1/100 sec, +0.7 EV, IS on

Well, the two weeks of spring in Alabama are over and now it’s pretty much summer. Time to start greasing up!

This image was shot with my Pentax K10D and old manual focus 50mm f/1.7 lens. The RAW image was uploaded to Adobe Lightroom for processing. First off I had to correct the white balance as my K10D has never been able to make heads nor tails of our comact flurescent lighting in the bathroom. One click of the WB eyedropper tool on the white portion of the bottle in focus did the trick. Next, I dialed in a tad of positive exposure compensation (+0.17) and then tweaked the Tone Curve by bumping up the Highlights and Lights and down the Darks and Shadows. The resulting S-curved tone curve created the high contrast image seen here. Lastly, I added in a bit of vignetting to further darken the edges of the image and add depth to the shot. To me, the super saturated colors and high contrast feels like a summer beach scene…all from a quick snapshot taken in my bathroom.

studio shoot

imgp31251

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:

imgp2988

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:

imgp3197

imgp3246

imgp3343

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!

handle bar

(title suggestions appreciated)

Pentax K10D, SMC Pentax-FA 50mm f/1.4, ISO 320,  f/1.4, 1/60 sec, +.3 EV, IS on

This photo was taken while waiting in line at Moe’s in Auburn, AL. It was shot from the hip without being composed in the viewfinder. The composition turned out OK but I had to apply a fair amount of post processing in Lightroom to get to this point. Here’s the original unmodified as-shot image:

imgp2190

As you can see, it was a bit underexposed and the white balance was a little out of whack due to the mixed lighting conditions. After playing around with various white balance settings I settled on “Auto” as the best choice. Next all I really did to fix the exposure was jack the Exposure up to +1.42. While I was at it I also dropped the Blacks level to 0 and dialed in more contrast to darken things back up a bit without loosing shadow detail. Finally, I added in a touch of saturation to bring back up the color that was lost when I cranked the exposure.

Happy Easter!

enjoying

boiling

dyeing

feasting

dance floor quietly waiting

the dance floor awaits

Pentax K10D, SMC Pentax-FA 50mm f/1.4, ISO 100,  f/1.4, 1/125 sec, +/-0 EV, IS on

Shot this through the iron gate of a closed nightclub in downtown Auburn while I was on my way to lunch. I really like the way the skylights illuminate the dance floor in the background. The space heaters hanging from the ceiling seem almost alien. I opened the 50 f/1.4 all the way up, focused on the nearest table and let the lens do the rest (including the green halos).

Post processing in Lightroom required a little tweaking of the white balance (I used the eyedropper tool on the top of the table to get the best feel). I also backed all the way off of the black slider and then darkened the shadows back up by increasing the contrast. This revealed more shadow detail but still gives plenty of richness to the shot. I could have acheived the same effect with the Tone Curve tool but this worked well so I left it at that. Finally, I upped the Recovery a little to recover a little highlight detail in the rafters and bumped the Vibrance up a touch to make the image pop in a browser a bit more.

About

I'm an industrial designer and an avid hobbyist photographer. People are always asking me "how'd you do that?" So, I decided to create this site as a place to share my experiences and insights about photography, the gear and what it all means to me. I'm not sure if this site will make anyone besides myself a better photographer but I figure it's worth a try. Take a look around and let me know what you think. Thanks for stopping by!

Subscribe

Recent Posts

Categories

Pages

Flickr Friends

Links

My Sites

Archives