365.53 Wino (first attempt)

Even though I’m always already asleep by the time their Studio Photography Insights hangout starts, I’m still going to try my hand at Alex Koloskov and Dave Nitsche‘s weekly project.

This is my first attempt (but not my last: the next will have to wait) at shooting this week’s assignment, an unopened bottle of red wine.

Seeing as I don’t drink, this bottle is on loan from a neighbor. I thought I’d try for a sort of disco (as in 1976) vibe. This is shot number 217 out of 227 attempts… Needless to say, there was some cursing and gnashing of teeth involved, and my apartment is a wreck.

I’m not happy with this much at all, but it’s got a few interesting things going on methinks:

  1. the backlight, uneven though it is, is quite striking.
  2. the tungsten glow from underneath is fairly rocking.
  3. the slightly soft focus, thanks to my sneaky multiple-exposure process (see below) gives a hazy sort of vibe to the whole image that sorta works for the subject, imo.

So I need to get some better light going on the front, while somehow avoiding all the reflections I got earlier.

And I need to get the camera and subject lined up better.

And I need to get the flash involved to a greater (and more obvious degree).

And I’d like to get some light shining through the bottle, but given the green glass + red liquid, I don’t think that’s going to happen…

I may make some more attempts tonight, but I doubt it. I’ve already been at it for 6 hours, and I need to try to get the place straightened up, have some dinner, and relax before my early-honking bedtime so I can get back to my day job tomorrow. Whoo!

So.

D7000, Nikon 75-150mm E Series, at about 140mm (~210mm equivalent), ISO100, 1/20th (chosen by the camera as I was in Aperture priority by accident), f/3.5,  three shot multiple exposure, processed in camera.

Shot 1: no flash, just the styrofoam-cooler-as-softbox-ish-type-thing and two LED light bar things I picked up at the home improvement center earlier today.

Shot 2: SB700 at 1/128th power, with it’s diffusion dome in place, about 4 inches in front of the subject and about 16 inches below, and with a handheld flashlight aimed down onto the top of the bottle to give it some definition.

Shot 3: same flash setup, sans flashlight, deliberately defocused.

365.52 Point of Impact, part 7: Liquid Metal

Aluminum roasting pans were on sale at the Fiesta for $1 each, so I bought a rectangular one and an oval one…

I wondered what the grooves and ridges in the pans would do for the light, and I got my answer: they make it Awesome!

This setup was rather complex: the SB700 (on the not-broken-after-all Cactus V5 trigger) standing to the right, and slightly in front of, the subject, zoomed to 70mm and on the narrow beam, fired over top of the subject and into the round roasting pan, which I bent up quite a bit so it would cantilever out a bit and positioned on the left of the subject, and slightly behind, angled back towards the camera a bit, so it would bounce light into the second roasting pan which was directly next to the flash.

This is probably a bit confusing, so here’s a picture (and I think I’ll start doing this for most of my shots going forward):

365.52 Point of Impact, part 7: Liquid Metal
75-150 @75, 1/10th, f/16 (also back about 5 feet from the original shooting poisition)

I think I’ll head back to the Fiesta and pick up about 20 of these pans and stack them in the closet for future flash-bouncing fun!

Good times.

D7000, Nikon 75-150mm f/3.5 E Series at 150mm, ISO100, 1/250th, f/16, SB700 at full power, and bounced all over the place.

 

And thus ends my full week of shooting the same object over and over again… I think I got some good shots, and definitely got to play with flash some, so GoGo. This weekly project thing might just become a regular occurrence…

 

365.51 Point of Impact, part 6: Obelisk

And this was the most frustrating one yet…

68 shots (all virtually identical, unless you’re me and after something relatively specific) in, I knocked over the cheap old tripod that was holding the snooted SB700 and Cactus V5 trigger onto the fancy tile in the kitchen.

Bye Bye Cactus trigger; Hello D7000 Commander Mode, with all its attendant PITAness.

50-odd shots later, many of them black, and I changed the position of the subject (mostly to prevent the reflection of the D7000’s flash, which was set to fire only a ‘shoot now’ flash, but of course this ‘invisible’ pre-flash shows up in anything even slightly reflective, and I’ve yet to find anything that will block this and still allow it to serve as a trigger, hence the Cactus V5 purchase… but I digress)…

and it took 3 shots in the new position—1 at the previous settings (1/100th, f/11), one at the new settings, and one with the camera position changed slightly to get today’s 365 shot.

Jeez.

Anyway. I like the swan/dragon flare shape thing, and the starburst, and the shadow and the visible reflected light from the various sheets of foamcore that was precariously balanced in various places. So it’s win, despite the frustration of broken Cactus trigger and being forced to use the commander mode…

To its credit, the commander mode makes it considerably easier to change settings on the remote flash, and in truth I would use it instead of the Cactus triggers if it weren’t for the reflections I get from the trigger flash…

Anyway:

D7000, Nikon 36-72mm f/3.5 at 72mm, ISO100, 1/250th, f/16, SB700 at 1/4 power, triggered via the commander mode on the D7000.

365.50 Point of Impact, part 5: Small Craft on Milky Sea

And once again, this took a long time…

And once again, I’m too tired to say anything about this shot…

D7000, Nikon 75-150 f/3.5 Series E at 150mm (~225 equivalent), ISO100, 1/250th, f/22, SB-700 at 1/2 power, fired into the CerealBoxStripBox(tm) with its diffuser in place, triggered with Cactus v5 system.

And, once again, the CerealBoxStripBox makes some amazing light…

365.48 Point of Impact – part 2 – Ist es nicht sehr schön?

And this one really was fun! And it went quickly too!

I did tear half the apartment apart to get the camera in a position to shoot it, but that’s my own fault for not yet having a proper shooting platform set up: soon, probably not this month due to work-related time constraints, but soon.

Ok. This was another multiple exposure shot, this time with flash. Both were shot with the D7000 and 75-150mm f/3.5 E Series, zoomed all the way in, with the ISO set at 100:

Shot 1: 1/200th second, f/16, SB700 at 1/2 power fired into the CerealBoxStripBox(tm) that I positioned over the subject and slightly behind, as I wanted the light to spill over the side and bounce off the foamcore below to illuminate the underside.
Shot 2: 1/2, f/5.6, same flash set up (I meant to shut off the flash and try to get some hint of the yellow tungsten bulbs and afternoon light in the reflection, but I forgot, or got in too much of a hurry, or something… I don’t remember). Either way…

I think it’s beautiful.

365.47 Point of Impact, part 2: Dizzy

Well, this was a fun one…

D7000, Nikkor 10-24mm f/3.5 – 4.5 at 10mm (15mm equivalent), ISO100, 1/60th, f/6.3; SB-700 with its Florescent filter thing, at 1/4 power, camera left, triggered with Cactus v5 trigger.

I don’t do much with the 10-24 unless I’m shooting real estate, and this photo shows it! Wow. I need more practice with this lens, and with shooting in general.

It didn’t help that I put in a 9.5 hour day after not sleeping well thanks to the light snow fall and loud drainpipe outside my window last night. Yuck.

But tomorrow is another day, and another step towards getting better at making photographs! Woo!