Something very different for me this week - Macro and Food!
This shot was taken as part of a commission job for a friend who is setting up a website to promote her cake business.
Shot with the D300 + Sigma 105 at 1/80 @ f4.5 (Full Manual).
The cakes are lit by a large window camera right, with the shadows filled in by using a reflector (camera left).
Had a great day shooting - Really pleased with the results too.
This week's image is a 3 shot HDR taken with the Canon G9.
I used the tiny tripod built-in to the Wrap cover on the G9, on the roof of the car to keep everything still.
Shooting into the sun gave me the glare that I was looking for to emphasis the rays.
I love the 'warm' feel to the light, especially how it picks out the tree on the right of the frame, with an almost 'hair light' feel.
The three shots were combined in Photomatix as usual.
Back to a grab portrait this week of Megan, post 'Bisgetti' for dinner!
Simple handheld shot in natural light (the conservatory acting a a lovely big diffuser again!).
D300 + 85 1.4 (@ f2.2 to give enough depth of field for the face, but blur the background).
Slightly reduced the levels of the background in the CS4, but other than that, straight from camera.
I need to be able to do this with studio strobes!
Must practise more...
This weeks' image was taken at the annual Fireworks party at Bedford Rugby club.
The shot was handheld using the G9 in full manual mode.
I selected a shutter speed of 3 second - Taking 3 separate images which were then combined in CS4 using layer masks.
Simple, but effective.
This weeks' image is a full length portrait shot of the girls in their Halloween costumes.
It was shot with the D300 + 35 1.8 (1/60 @ f8) with two Speedlights.
The SB-800 (camera left) firing through a Ezybox softbox (at about 45° to the girls), the SB-900 directly behind them (to separate them from the black background), all controlled from the built in commander flash.
The commander was also set to provide a small amount to front fill.
Even with the SB-900 behind them, the original shot had the girls lost in the background a little - so I had to do some work in Photoshop to help out:
Original Image
I added a new Layer (which I increased the levels on) to bring the hat and wig detail back.
Adjusted levels on Hat
I then masked out the rest of the image (which returned them to their original 'correct' levels).
I then did some other dodge and burn adjustments using the Wacom Tablet to increase / decrease the levels as required across the image.
