Photo 9: Light Painting

My experiments with light continues!

Armed with my speedlights, a makeshift studio set at home, and a flashlight, I happily played with myself.
Wait that didn't sound right...

I meant I played with light paintings by myself. Hehe :D

I purposely didn't crop out the sides so that you could see the mini studio that I have set-up at home. You'll see two lightstands with a pvc pipe used as the background holder. The background was a plain black clothe that I asked my Mom to buy in Divisoria :D

It didn't take long for my imagination to kick in and I soon did all sorts of "paintings." It'd be a waste not to post the rest of the pics, so here's a compilation of 'em :D

That was actually really fun! I recommend this activity to anyone who wants to play with their flashlights :D

Photo 8: Popped!

It was experiment day, which I did with balloons, water, and my bruddah :D

Timing was everything, and 10 balloons later, we managed to get these frames:

Lighting was simple, just 1 speedlight on camera right bounced from a silver umbrella. The real trick here is setting the shutter at the right time :D

Our simple set-up was like this:

Thanks to David for being my guinea pig and for taking on all those balloons! Hahaha :D

Photo 7: Make-up by Tin Hurtado

I went to a photo shoot for the portfolio of make-up artist, Titin Hurtado. I got to work in a big studio, and I felt like a kid in a playground as I tinkered with the different equipment :D

I am still working on the rest of the photos, so this is just a teaser of the pictures to be released :)

We had a 4-light set-up and they were arranged like this:

We only had access to 3 studio lights so it was a good thing that I brought my speedlights and I used a couple as the second background light. The canvas was not white at all and was more like a gray canvas so we really needed all those lights to wash it out and make it into pure white. If I hadn't done that, changing the background in Photoshop afterward would have been a nightmare!

It was a really great shooting session, I got to meet new people, expand my network a bit, and gained a few more friends in FB :D

Watch out for the rest of the pics! I'll be releasing them within the week :)

Photo 6: Maria

It's Jerica's alter-ego, Maria (which is also her first name :D).

Hehe.

I wasn't able to do any shoots this weekend (busy with other stuff), so I did a quick 20-minute shoot with my favorite model. 15mins to set-up the light, and 5mins for the actual shooting.

The lighting wasn't anything spectacular, just a 1-light set-up was done. I used a full CTO on the speedlight (orange gel filter), and I manually changed the white balance to compensate for it. As a result, the color of the background became deep blue.

The set-up was done like this:

Yep, I had to include Mr. Padapus in the diagram because that's where Maria was viewing the peg while we were taking the shots. Hehehe :D

Oh and I also used a very big aperture opening to blur out the background :)

Technical Details of the Photo:
Camera - Nikon D700
Lens - 85mm F1.4
Aperture - F1.4
Shutter Speed - 1/160
ISO - 200
Lighting - SB900 with Full CTO Gel Filter in a 60x60 softbox

Photo 5: It's the Indian!

I will try something different and for this entry, I'll start off with the technical details of this photo:

1st Featured Photo: Raiz

Technical Details:
Camera: Nikon D40
Lens: Kit Lens 18-55mm F3.5-5.6
Aperture: F10
Shutter: 1/160
ISO: 200

Yep! You read it right! I used a Nikon D40 for this shot! It's an entry-level DSLR that was released around 6 years ago. And I only used the kit lens that came with it.

I wanted to tackle the most popular cliche in photography, which is "It's the Indian, not the Pana."

For some time now, every time I get to do a good photo, my camera seems to always get the credit
 
:|

"Dale, ang ganda talaga ng camera mo!!"

Hehehehe!

So for this week, I borrowed a friend's camera to prove that you can also get good photos with just the basic DSLRs. It's really all about maximizing your equipment and using the light to your advantage.

Having said that, does it mean that I will be giving up my camera?
Heck no!! An Indian with a high-caliber rifle will still get more hunting opportunities compared to an Indian still using a wooden pana! :D

To view the rest of the photos, click below:
Facebook Album
or
Multiply Album


Featured Photo 2: Kristine

 

For my second photo, I wanted to continue showing all the cool stuff you can do with lighting. Minimal editing was done on this photo and the motion blur was achieved by using a slow shutter speed together with the lights. Yes you can do that with Photoshop, but why bother if you can do it in-cam? :D

Technical details:

Camera - Nikon D700

Lens - 85mm f1.4

Aperture - F4.0

Shutter - 1/10

ISO - 200

To view the rest of the pics, click here:

Facebook Album

or

Multiply Album

Photo 4: Double Feature!

I had two shooting sessions for the week and I didn't know which picture to post... So then I asked myself, why not make this a double feature??

Why not?? :D

I picked out two photos from the two sessions, and here they are...

First featured photo: Li-Anne
Li-Anne was my batchmate when I joined Thomson Reuters (Thomson Financial way back then). She asked me to be the 2nd/back-up photographer for her wedding. The main photog was really busy with her and I really didn't want to get in the way, so I was mostly just taking stolen shots whenever I could.

I was observing from the side when I saw this shot... This was straight from the camera, and no editing was done (just minor cropping to straighten it out). I just used ambient light here and a really big aperture opening of f1.4.

Technical details:
Camera - Nikon D700
Lens - Samyang 85mm F1.4
Aperture - F1.4
Shutter - 1/320
ISO - 1600


Second featured photo: Gian

A group of friends asked me to have their photos taken. It was a fun session and we were laughing mostly the whole time :D  Although they did remind me how old I have become and that my age is almost out of the calendar already! :D

Again, no editing was done on this pic :)

A single speedlight was used here, fired at camera right via CLS. It was actually around noon at that time and the sun was high up. The speedlight made it look like it was in the morning and the sun has just come up. It also served as a kicker light to create more separation from the background.

The set-up looked like this:

Technical details:
Camera - Nikon D700
Lens - Nikkor 50mm F1.4 AFD
Aperture - F2.0
Shutter - 1/1250
ISO - 200
Lighting - Bare SB800

Photo 3: Mr. Padapus

I was never known to have high EQ. I learned this weekend that birthdays and credit cards shouldn't go together... So now, Mr. Shuffulafagus (my Ipod Shuffle and running buddy) has found his big daddy, Mr. Padapus :D

This was my lighting set-up for this shot:

A softbox was placed on my right side and it was actually pointed at the back. The light just feathered on my side and only partially lit me up. A second speedlight on a gridded snoot was pointed directly at Mr. Padapus to give him the spotlight.

I can't wait to show Mr. Padapus to my nephew RafRaf. We're going to become bestest best friends! Hehehe :D

Technical details of this shot:
Camera - Nikon D700
Lens - Nikkor 50mm F1.4
Aperture - F10
Shutter - 1/125
Lighting - SB900 on portable softbox and SB800 with DIY gridded snoot

Ok, I'm going to keep this short... I'd like to go back to playing with Mr. Padapus :p  (told 'ya I have low EQ)