I'm still alive! The July 2011 edition

Erm yeah. Sorry for going under like that. But photography disappeared from my life for quite a few months. I don't know why. But I wasn't feeling creative or motivated to go out and shoot.

In an effort to change this, I've dusted off the camera and lenses and jumped into the July 2011 edition of the DigitalFix Photo A Day. A bit of photographic companionship and peer pressure will hopefully help me jump back into things.

As a warm up, and making use of my free time at lunch; I took a macro shot entitled... Lunchtime.

EXIF data: Canon EF 100mm, 100mm, f5.6, 1/640 of a second, ISO400, No flashNo more excuses! More pictures!

The first roll of film

In 2010, I bought myself a film camera (Canon EOS-30) to use when I wanted to get myself out of the comfort zone of digital. With that camera, I'd have to really think before pressing the shutter.

And I enjoyed it. But as I went into photographic hibernation, I never went past the first roll of film. Here is what my first film attempt looked like:

Time to get back into it and put in that black and white film I bought at the time!

A week in 5 pictures

As I mentioned in my previous post, the past week has been hectic and not conducive to a focus on photography. But I took pictures. And looking back on a selection of 5 of them in this catch up post, a few interesting things jump out at me.

• I love black and white. The more contrasty the better. 
• My wide angle lenses remain favourites, but my new 100mm f2.8 macro is a joy to use.
• The best camera is indeed the one you have with you.

More on these as we go through the pictures...

Underground Nova

EXIF data: Canon EF-S 10-22mm, 17mm, f4, 1/60 of a second, ISO 800

"Underground Nova" was taken on the escalator out of the Waterloo underground station in London. I've taken several shots looking up or down, but hadn't previously thought of using the LCD advertising screens, shadows and the strong diagonals to create an abstract underground pattern. It pays to look around.

The black and white conversion helps accentuate the lines, the pattern formed by the screens and reduce the distracting effect of wall colours and grime.

My favourite toy

EXIF data: Nexus One phone, N/A

This is a simple shot taken as I was bringing back my daughter from her child minder. The evening sun was casting long shadows on the walls and her silhouette was just too defined and interesting not to shoot.

There was a small issue though: I didn't have my camera with me. That is, I didn't have my DSLR. But I had my cell phone. "The best camera is the one that's with you," said Chase Jarvis. Something I always keep in mind.

So I took the picture with my phone. And I'm glad I did. The 5 megapixels camera is up to the job on a bright, sunlit day.

Chinese Shadows

EXIF data: Canon EF-S 10-22mm, 17mm, f4, 1/125 of a second, ISO 200

"Chinese Shadows" is a simple shot. But one where you need to catch the moment. Some days, the sun will reflect just right on the windows on the other side of the street and create soft Chinese shadows from the plants in front of the blinds. The effect lasts a few minutes at most. When you spot something like this, seize the moment and take the shot.

The conversion then accentuated the "parchment" colouration of the shot and added some vignetting but, otherwise, left it pretty much as captured. Not much to distract the viewer in a white blind and a few shadows. :)

The way you look at me

EXIF data: Canon EF 100mm, 800mm, f8, 1/80 of a second, ISO 800

Explosion of colour

EXIF data: Canon EF 100mm, 100mm, f8, 1/250 of a second, ISO 400

The 2 pictures above were shot with my new 100mm lens. I got 2 lenses recently: The Canon 50mm f1.4 and the Canon 100mm f2.8. Both produce superb images, as primes do. But I have to say the 100mm has been spending the most time on my camera. Partially because it opens up the world of macro photography for me. It's a lot of fun to try out this new aspect of photography.

But also because it's a great focal length that I've found versatile enough both for macro close ups and portraits.

It brings its own set of constraints though. You often need to raise the ISO to compensate for the small apertures you have to use to get a depth of field deeper than a few millimetres (I tend to shoot quite close with this lens, taking advantage of its 31cm minimum focusing distance). And it's hard to go high enough on shutter speed to capture sharp plants and insects on a somewhat windy day. It's a good thing the Canon 7D deals effortlessly with 800 iso.

The fact that a fair number of my shots end up in black and white also means I can't wait to use my roll of Ilford in my Canon EOS 30. I finished my roll of colour film yesterday and it's now out for processing. Ah the delicious anguish of waiting to see what you managed to capture. :)

Expect a post on those pictures when I get them next week.

Look after Mr. Bond. See that some harm comes to him.

Do you ever have weeks where everything just piles up on you? Weeks when your passion has to take second seat? Of course, you do. Don't we all? Well, those past 10 days have been like that for me. So my shooting has become more sporadic and my ability to update the blog inexistant.

But fear not. I am back! :)

The shots below are from my second attempt at an indoor strobist session at home. Armed with a few more pearls of wisdom, shared by the excellent Zack Arias during his Creative Live week-end lighting workshop, I set out to capture a few more shots.

The set-up was similar to my previous shoot, but with daylight coming through the blind left of camera and the flash to the side of the camera, facing the subject. In other words, I was mixing 2 light sources, with the flash compensating for the strong directional light. The goal was to keep the watch face well exposed.

With the 100mm macro lens mounted, and considering my distance to the subject, the depth of field could become quite shallow very quickly. So I paid attention to that when setting up the shot.

The other consideration for the first shot was to preserve the shadows on the background. 

Armed with this, I remembered Zack's motto: "You have to start somewhere". And that means getting the non flash part of the exposure right.

I set the camera to manual, set the aperture and shutter speed to a combination that ensured proper depth of field (f/11) and would not wash out the background (1/20th of a second). At that setting, the watch face received little direct light and was underexposed.

I then brought in the flash around 1/16th power, checked what that did to my exposure and adjusted the aperture and flash power to taste.

Watch and shadows

EXIF data: Canon EF 100mm, 100mm, f11, 1/20 of a second, ISO 100, 580 EX-II flash off camera right

A similar approach was followed for the following shots, but with different goals in mind.

5 past

EXIF data: Canon EF 100mm, 100mm, f4.5, 1/100 of a second, ISO 100, 580 EX-II flash off camera right

And the final shot of the day was a playful continuation of my first tentative attempt at lighting toys. I felt more confident this time but realised that, sadly, the soldiers didn't stand a chance...

Uh oh

EXIF data: Canon EF 100mm, 100mm, f13, 1/20 of a second, ISO 100, 580 EX-II flash off camera rightSo there we are. I can now start catching up on the best of the next week. Sporadic shooting doesn't mean no shooting at all. I don't think I can stay away from the camera for that long. :)

What about you, dear readers? Been finding the time to experiment with anything fun lately?

Creepy crawlies meet my new toy

When does it become a lens buying addiction?

Nah. I can stop any time! This was was just a cheap second hand copy of a lens I had been lusting after for a while. It was only 3 months old too. How could I pass up the opportunity? :D

So I'm now the proud owner of a Canon EF 100mm f/2.8 Macro USM. I've only started using it. But, from what I can see, that lens is sharp! And being able to focus 30cm from the subject and obtain 1:1 magnification makes it quite a different experience from regular shooting.

On the downside, trying it outside on bugs might reduce you to tears at the merest puff of wind. The depth of field is close to non existent at maximum magnification and you have to stop down so much to increase it that shutter speeds can go uncomfortably low. Especially trying to shoot bugs on a swaying flower.

Good thing then that the Canon EOS 7D can handle 400 or 800 ISO without much noise being visible at all. This came in handy.

Here are my early efforts into the world of macro photography. 

Table for one

 EXIF data: Canon EF 100mm, 100mm, f11, 1/250 of a second, ISO800, 580 EX-II flash on camera E-TTL -1Ev compensation

Table for two

 EXIF data: Canon EF 100mm, 100mm, f11, 1/160 of a second, ISO 400, 580 EX-II flash on camera E-TTL -1Ev compensation

Lavender Landscape

EXIF data: Canon EF 100mm, 100mm, f14, 1/60 of a second, ISO800, 580 EX-II flash on camera E-TTL -1Ev compensationFun times. In hindsight, the flash could probably have been left with no Exposure Compensation or less downwards exposure compensation. I overlooked the fact that it ends up so close to the subject that this turns it into a comparatively wide, and thus softer, light source.