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First Self Portraits with Impact 1 Light Umbrella Kit

Last night, before I headed off to bed for the night I took a bit of time to set up the light kit, Impact 500W Light Umbrella Kit, and actually get snapping some photographs this time. I created a very simple set up and had intended on going black and white with the photographs from the start. Next time, especially with color portraits, I’ll use my SB-600 as a fill flash.

Here’s the set up I used:

I was pretty happy with the results which is fantastic since I hadn’t done my hair and was wearing no makeup and have never really had a lot of luck with self portraits in the past. I found three or the 60 photos really embodied the emotion I wanted and I used Lightroom to go gray scale and adjust my settings to really make the photographs pop. There were a couple other shots I liked but I think I might try them again another time and see if I can have better success without that silly hat on!

Hat used solely to hide my bad hair day

If you were cool enough to have a browser that could view frames there would be a lovely slideshow here waiting for you, since you are not cool enough: <a href=”http://www.flickr.com/photos/terriann/tags/20071204selfportrait/show/” mce_href=”http://www.flickr.com/photos/terriann/tags/20071204selfportrait/show/”>view the slideshow here</a>

Other Great Lighting Set-Ups

Upgrade Your Tripod: Bogen/Manfrotto 486RC2 Ballhead & 190XB Legs with Low Profile Feature

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Back in August I went on a B&H shopping spree and got myself a new tripod legs and ball head.

This was kind-of a big deal for me since I went from my old $40 Walmart Tripod that I was ashamed to use in public to my new beautiful $300 Bogen/Manfrotto tripod legs and ball head.

I looked at all the kits in my price range and unfortunately couldn’t find one with the parts I wanted so bought my legs and ball head separately.

New Equipment

One of my favorite parts of the 190XB Tripod Legs if the low profile feature. It’s super easy to use and really quick to switch to.

Low Profile on 190XB Tripod Legs

Switch to the low angle adapter

First switch to the low angle adapter by detaching it from the bottom of the center column, then pull out the center column (make sure you’ve loosened that screw before you pull), then pop in the low adapter and tighten the screw again. Take a look at the collage below for details, custom made for you visual learners!

Switch the legs to a higher angle

Then to get the tripod low you just need to push in the leg release lever at the top of each leg and pull out the leg. You can hear it click and lock in at 25,46,66 & 88 degrees. With all the legs compacted and at 88 degrees the tripod (without ballhead) has a profile of only 3.3″. Cool huh?

Scott Kelby Recommends Similar Equipment!

In his book, The Digital Photography Book , Scott Kelby recommends similar equipment. Well actually he recommends the older versions of this equipment as his “budget” picks on pages 8 and 9 but B&H refers you to these items…the updated gear!

DIY Canvas Photography Backdrop ($20.34)

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I read a great blog entry, on the Strobist blog last month about making your own backdrop by dying a canvas drop cloth that you can pick up for under $10 at Home Depot.

Note: Don’t be scared of dying. This was my first time, and it didn’t hurt.
Though next time I will use gloves.

Since I had to grab silver spay paint and painters tape for update some old lamps that have been lying around the house I decided to grab a 6′ x 9′ drop cloth while I was there. I ran to the craft store in the plaza and bought 4 packets of black Rit dye, then it was off to the house to get to dying.

Dying a Canvas Background Steps

Step 1: Gather Supplies

6′ x 9′ Canvas Drop Cloth be aware many drop cloths have large seams that will show after the dying process
4 packets black RIT dye
1 empty cranberry juice container (for dissolving the dye powder)
1 cup of salt

Yea, about the one cup of salt, I’m winging it here…

Step 2: Pre-wash the canvas

This will remove any residue on the cloth and get the cloth wet as is instructed by the Rit directions. I used warm water and detergent.

While the cloth was being pre-washed it was a good time to dissolve the dye and add the salt to the mix. I used an empty cranberry juice bottle – 8 cups of water (two per packet) was a good fit!

Step 3: Dye it up!

After the canvas was done with it’s first wash I set the washer to warm wash/cold rinse and started it up again. I dropped in the dye mix and let ‘er rip. As instructed by the Rit instructions I made sure to reset the agitate cycle before it got to the rinse/spin. After the machine went through it’s rinse cycle I pulled out the canvas and ran a piece of it under the tap in the sink to make sure it was running clear. It wasn’t so I ran it through another cold rinse cycle. After that it was to the dryer.

Step 4: All Done

I pulled out my canvas and it’s more of a warm/cool almost violet hinted gray. Maybe I’ll dye it again to see if I can get a deeper black. For now though this will be a great out-of-focus background to help make my subjects stand out better.

Total Cost: $20.34

Took less than 3 hours from start to finish!

References

Next time…

Yes, I will be using rubber gloves and checking for a seam in the drop cloth more closely.
I’m going to try dying a more earth brown tone as the yellow canvas will probably take that better than the black.

Woot for Plugs 🙂

Lesson as to why you should always give things on the internet a shot and post your results. Strobist Saturday Speed Links 11/17/2007 Cheapo, yes. Spin-offable, definitely!

Smoothie Photo Shoot

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I had planned to photograph the smoothie (which is a raspberry/purple color) in a plain clear tumbler glass, slice of fresh lemon on the edge, with an orange straw that has a pink stripe running down it, against a white background with a little bit of a shadow.

I actually stole a handful of straws from Dunkin’s this morning for this project. Though after doing some Goggling I found some articles that area giving me some different ideas and variations I’d really like to try also!

Food Photography Inspiration and Lessons

Food Photography – An Introduction – This article from the Digital Photography School website shows three photographic samples that all display the food against a lovely complementary/contrasting background color and pattern. There’s some tips too but I found that the images were more powerful than the message the tips.
Sweep & Float – This great lesson from the Still Life With…(Food Styling and Photography) may have been a selling point for my not doing a white background. I don’t think I have the tools, materials and lighting I would need to create a good seamless white background to create the illusion of the subject floating against a white background.
A UK Beer Blogger made photographing beer look easy using the techniques in that lesson!
Despite how easy the beer blogger makes it look, I am less than confident about the materials I have to create the Sweep & Float setup, maybe this is the right time to try and make the DIY $10 macro photo studio. I have a number of boxes from my move still lying around and I know I have plenty of vellum and large sketchpad paper to create this mini-studio.
How to Food Photography – From one of the many informative articles on the food portfolio website this one talks all about lighting: how smaller (closer) lights get detail, and bigger lights reduce detail and cast softer shadows. The article also bring to light (ha ha) some great examples of non traditional direction of lights and fantastic samples of how gels can really spice up a scene.
The article also points out, in a number of shots, how to use the translucency of different foods can be used to really bring that part of the dish to live. Especially with the lettuce and shrimp tale shot and the lemon shot.
Food Photography Tips – This article also speaks of how important the backgrounds as well as some other technical aspects such as lenses, ISO, color balance as well as composition.
Shoot First, Eat Later – And of course a brief from Food & Wine Magazine.

So from those articles I’ve decided I need to stop at a fabric store and grab some interesting orange backdrop. The right orange will provide beautiful contrast to the pink/purple drink and will *hopefully* make the lemon and smoothie really pop. Also, I will create the $10 studio for both the backdropped version as well as an attempt at the floating glass shots. I will try lighting the beverage from a number of different angles, using the translucency of the lemon to try and see if that brings too much attention to the lemon accent, or helps to really lead the eye to the drink.

Photos of the Smoothie

Inspiration on Flickr

On a side note, during my Google search I found this from the food photographer

Cool Photography Equipment & DIY Alternatives

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There’s nothing better than new toys for your camera. Here’s a list of new toys I’d love to get for my camera, great toys I already have, as well as any cost-less DIY alternatives.

We’ve also added some visitor requests – if you have something you’d like to see added to this page drop us a note in the comments!

Lenses

LensBaby – Amazing lens that gives you a different kind of control over your photograph the likes of which you’ve never seen pre-Photoshop! It’s all about compressing the lens or expanding it to get your focal point and it produces the effect of an ultra large aperture and allows you to tilt and shift the lens at it’s “sweet spot” compression to shift the focus to another spot on that plane. A back to basics and “fun” kind of lens.

DIY Lensbaby Style Tilt and Shift Lens

I’m having trouble finding sites that are still active and not 404 errors for DIY tilt/shift lenses. Here’s a post on Make anyways. And another article about a homemade t/s f2.8 but unfortunately neither provide instructions.

Diffusers

Gary Fong’s Lightsphere II – Renowned diffuser for your speedlight flash. The site shows great samples of a face on flash vs a bounced flash vs a studio setup vs the lightsphere and at less than $50 the Lightsphere seems to triumph in the samples.

DIY Dome Diffusers for your Flashes

$2 Gordosphere – $2 version looks GREAT! Doesn’t look cheap and kind-of looks like fun to make, the demo shows how to make a great “clouded” diffuser!
Light Cylinder – Uses an inverted dome to distribute the light, doesn’t look so great but is a great idea to tinker with.
Jason Lightsphere V.2 – This one looks pretty cheap but has easy to access materials to give it a try. A demo I’ve used before and had decent results, but nothing like a good diffuser.

Lumiquest Soft Screen – A great little diffuser that attaches to the hot shoe of your camera and diffuses the on-camera pop-up flash. I picked up one of these on a whim one day at the camera store and have been so glad I did, it provides a basic diffusion on your pop-up flash while still looking professional. Great for situations where you won’t be able to use your speedlight and diffuser.

DIY Soft Screen Pop-up Flash Diffuser

Suck it up and spend $15 okay? 🙂

Lastolite TriGrip Reflector – Great reflectors and diffusers. I personally own one of the diffusers and love it. I find it’s even a bright enough white to be a reflector. The grip is easy to use, and the compact design is great for storage and moving it around on location. The packaging didn’t come with instructions on how to fold the product back up, but the online demo did the trick. It took me well over a dozen tries before I successfully folded it up but after practice it’s very easy to fold up, pack up and be on our way!

Tripods

Gorillapod – Wrapable legs on a tripod to hold onto anything. Seems like a great tripod solution for your Digi Point and Shoot but as far as an SLR, it makes me a little nervous!

DIY Bottle Cap Tripod

Bottle Cap Tripod – I’ve never tried this, and although the bottle can’t wrap around a pole like the Gorillapod it is a very portable solution since I know I almost always have a bottle of water or soda on me.

The Pod – Bean bag tripod, I’ve seen and heard a lot about bean bags via the Tips from the Top Floor podcast (Chris loves his bean bag) but This one has the screw to mount the camera and also a strap to hold your lens safely in place while the bean bag conforms to the surface below.

DIY Beanbag

DIYBeanbag – Make your own beanbag! I like the size and shape in this DIY tutorial, very unique.

Get it Right In Camera

Warm Cards – Warm white balance cards, instead of using the 18% gray cards these are tinted blue to provide a warmer temperature when you set your white balance balance.

DIY White Balance Cards

See also: Post processing, Adobe Photoshop Lightroom or piece of white paper. Maybe just print a card of 18% gray that you’ve tinted ever so slightly blue, Printing on 4×6 index cards has always served me well for recopies, I suppose a white balance card would work too..

Climate Protection

Storm Jacket – Weather gear for your SLR. It’s not water proofing, just water protection. I can imagine this would be great not just for rainy days, but also snowy days, or days when the snow might fall from the trees. On a boat where the surf is of concern? Maybe even sand protection if in a desert climate or on a windy beach.

DIY Camera Protection

See also: Plastic bag, clear shower cap, ziploc bag.
Make your own underwater enclosure – This would make me nervous. VERY nervous…but those MIT kids are wicked smart. I think if I was to do underwater work I’d go buy an underwater camera case.