Light Painting on Vacations

Well it seems that the good days were over.

Back into Luxembourg and after almost 40 degrees in Croatia and a lower one's in Munich here the weather is not so good.
It looks like winter times have come in August, the weather is no longer the same as in the old days where they were almost fixed and now one day is summer the other is winter... what are we doing to the world :(

Anyway, I decided to pickup where I left, on the last post, and bring you some more cool stuff you can do with only your small strobe and also on vacation ;)

As we all know vacations are vacations and you're wife will tell you, almost of the time what to do, and keeps pushing you out "why did you bring the damn camera, aren't we on vacations?". Well if that happened to you you know what I mean, if not be prepared.

On vacation I usually travel light with my Powershot G6 but this time decided that I wanna to make some good photos and some good HDR (later on Flickr) and since I never been to that place why not carry a little more gear and take also the tripod, and again my wife complained (TRIPOD!!!).

Well enough of this bla, bla, bla thing and back to what I want you to see.

In the island of KRK photographic matter are everywhere from the beach to public places the people are nice and the weather helps also the light there is amazing the colors are so rich and the tones very nice.

One of those nights I went into the pear to make some night scenes and decided to use the flash on something different.

So I set the camera on the tripod, ISO 100, AV 9.0 and TV 15s and shoot the great sky at the marina.

Well... the shot did not came so good since it looked like so many others I've seen on some postcards they have there.

With Strobist in mind and after making my first try on Light Science and Magic book i decided to give it a live shot.

Grabbed the 580Ex popped up a couple of times to test how much light will be needed to fill what I wanted and this is what came out.



Well I set the flash to 1/64 after several manual tries. I was popped manually for better control of what I wanted to illuminate. Also got some details on the other side on the docks.

The tourist were admiring the chimp (Me) from the other side of the pear while I was running from one side to the other with my 580ex on the hand painting the boats ;) cool.

Thank god my wife was at the rented apartment or else she would have laugh to.



Setup shot is this one. You can still see me on the left side chimping ;)
This was a difficult to get focus on the boats since there were a lot of movement on the pear water and the boats would not stop for a moment, but I think I did I good and different capture.

The next shot I tried to put some people in it and balanced the WB to tungsten in order to get a stronger orange on the background and balance the tourists on the bench while they were admiring the BIG boat.



Here is the setup shot:



Since I was my assistant I had to run back and forward to and from the camera in order to get a clean shot and had to be careful so people would not leave their positions.

The settings were Av 5.6, Tv 1/3s and ISO 100. The flash was set to 1/128 and I was really very close to the people so the light won't spread too much into their fronts.

Hope that you make some great experiments with this technique that sometimes can save you in some difficult situations with parts of the photo with no light, also you get a different vacation photo.

Something com into my attention today while surfing around.
The subject is PHOTOGRAPHIC MEMORY and I was thinking I had a pretty good one until I saw this 2 videos from Stephen Wiltshire himself.




Take a look at them and take a minute to think how much information can your brain storage...

So go make yourself a favor and use it.

Until next time keep clicking,

Rui

Light Painting

Hey I was sleepless tonight so I decided to put my gear up and make a long time assignment a real thing.

I always wanted to try the Light Painting but never had any time to do it, there is always something that comes up, and once again this stays behind.

After seeing a lot of new videos and it's setup on the Strobist, about this issue, I decided to try my Homemade one.

This is a simple way to make that you really wanna try it out and maybe later on make some more complicated ones like seen here.

What I've used:

- Canon Flash 580Ex
- Black Straws Snoot (Get one yourself Part1 and Part2)
- Book Light Science and Magic UK (or other of your choice)
- MagLite flashlight
- Camera and Lens
- Monopod and Tripod for the Flash
- Gadget Infinity Triggers (Flash and Camera)
- Remote camera release button



First of all the setup shot.

Canon 580Ex with Black Straws Snoot to the left pointing a little down to the book (105mm,1/128). Camera ISO 100, Tv 200, Av 22, sorry if the book came out burned but the room was too dark to be illuminated besides my wife was a sleep.



A closer look at the Black Straws Snoot Grid pointing at the book to get the light effect on the book and in the table.



I started to paint with the flash light around the book and in front of it also, do not point the light directly into the lens or you could blow a couple of shots :)

The flames are made with a small MagLite flashlight covered with my thumb and index fingers that gave it a reddish tone, then moving along the book to create the effect.

Nothing special just use your head and create some amazing stuff with this simple setup.

Enjoy,

Rui

Apparent Light Size (étude)

It looks like I was getting a little behind on the Lighting 102: Unit 2.1 - Apparent Light Size.

But I manage to get a little bit of time, this afternoon, to post some of my images along with the setup shots and good info to help you out on your quest.

I did a lot of thinking after seeing a lot of good pictures about this exercise on the Flickr dedicated page so I decided to be a little bit more specific on what this is all about.

My starting point was ISO 100, Tv 200 and Av 9.0 this was then made through all the images in order for them to be consistent. The position of the light was to camera right and a couple of meters from the subject (Apple, not the computer) also not very far since the room was small but the distance enough to mount the umbrella.

The apple was standing still in a small kitchen chair, did I mentioned that since we moved to Luxembourg furniture is not abundant around the house, and I try to choose a good position so you can see the background effect as well as shadows around the subject.

So with this in mind my only concern was to get the flash with enough intensity to get a good exposure... I know I could have done it with exposure but at least this way you can see some easy to see results just by looking at the pictures, so blame me on this ;)

Since this étude has nothing to do with getting the best possible light for the apple or even trying to get too many lights to get it right. This time I only used one strobe (Canon 580EX) triggered by the Gadget Infinity and some reflective and translucent stuff to get an idea how BIG can a small light become.

Enough of talking and let's get to business...



I set the 580Ex to 105mm and 1/16 for the power.
You can notice the harsh shadow cast on the left side of the apple produce by the small strobe pointing right at it. Also you can see part of the apple illuminated by the lighter part of the chair and also some light on the background the spill from the strobe onto the white wall behind the apple.



Here the setup was the same 580Ex was set to 105mm and 1/16 but I used a StoFen on the flash head to create more of a candle light pointing right at the apple.
As you can see now we have a more "soft" light on all of the scene and a not so pronounced background and shadow.



Now I changed the 580Ex light size and set it to 24mm and 1/8 power and used it through the umbrella to get bigger soft light.
You can now notice that the shadow is almost gone and all the scene as a more pleasing look.



Here the 580Ex was set to 24mm and 1/2 but use it into the umbrella for reflective purposes.
It looks like the light is coming from everywhere. Look how soft everything is turn to. The shadows and the highlights.



Next I decided to try with the same settings but with a silver umbrella, the 580Ex was set to 24mm and 1/4. Not much different from last one but if you look closer you can still see some at the background and also had to use less power.



580Ex was set to 24mm and 1/1 but used up against the white ceiling and background wall to create a large reflective area.
This image shows how good can a large reflective area become when you use your small strobe against it. Very soft shadows and all around the apple you can see this soft light.



580Ex was set to 24mm and 1/1 but used up against the white ceiling and background wall to create a large reflective area, now added the StoFen to the flash.
Have you noticed that even thou it was the same settings just by adding the StoFen it created a shadow cast on the apple and it's pole?
The background didn't look so pronounced either and the front light on the apple is now a little more visible.



580Ex was set to 24mm and 1/8 but used through the umbrella and used a reflector to the left side to catch some light that could spill from the umbrella.
Here I posted 2 pictures of the same thing but the second one I changed the reflector to gold so you can notice were that little light is getting at the left side of the umbrella... can you see it?



580Ex was set to 24mm and 1/8 but used through the umbrella and used a silver reflector to the left side catch some more light from the umbrella.
The changing was only on the reflector's color but that made some difference



580Ex was set to 24mm and 1/4 used through a big white reflector.
I was trying to create a big softbox with the reflector or simulate a window on the right side.
It looks like I accomplish that since the light was coming through a BIG white reflector it also came out soft and diffused enough.



To finish up I got to sheets of paper (so you don't start saying that you cannot make this étude because you do not have a big reflector or an umbrella and don't come up with any other excuse) and put one near, almost glued, the apple and the other one behind it so I could, almost, recreate
the last setup with 2 sheets of white paper.

The 580Ex was set to 105mm and 1/1, for full power since the paper is a little more thicker than the reflector, used through a white sheet of paper and also put a white sheet of paper on the left to catch some light on the other side of the apple.

Some of the light that went around the paper also gave a little ambiance to the background and illuminated the back part of the apple and the paper on the right gave it a little more fill in. NICE!!!

Hope you have enjoyed this nice étude and prepare yourself for the next one.

Please visit Lighting 102: Unit 2.1 - Apparent Light Size, make yourself a favor and make this one.

Enjoy.