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The Day I Really Lost My HDR Virginity

Sunday morning I downloaded the trial of Photomatix went into the basement and took a few photos of the creepy, poorly lit door, the corner with some light shining in through a window unseen, as well as an old rusty chair. I ran my little bottom back upstairs, loaded up my RAW’s and got to processing.

Now I made an attempt at HDR way back when using Photoshop CS2 but just didn’t get why people thought it was so awesome, and found it frustrating that I couldn’t get the results I desired. It was all about the tone mapping that Photomatix has that gives HDR’s I had seen their magic touch.

The Exposures I Used:

(click to enlarge)

To Create:

Fantastic!

And then there was the Coffee Hop, I spotted it on a drive down RT12 in Oxford, MA.

The Exposures:

(click to enlarge)

The Result:

Mmmmmm… HDR is delicious! Needless to say after running the demo only three times I bought the program. Only $85 with discount promo codes. Just do a search for Photomatix discount or Photomatix promo to see what you can find. And don’t settle on the first discount, I saw discounts of 5%, 10% and 15%. Guess which one I went with?

Rosco Gel Samples Just Arrived

by Learn More Photo 4 Comments

I, along with every other photog-blogger in the blogosphere, has read about using the Rosco Roscolux Swatchbook available free from Rosco (beware I’ve heard there’s a major wait through Rosco) and for ~~$0.01~~ now $1.95 from B&H to color a background using a flash unit.

Well it’s hard to get a hold of the Roscolux Swatchbook. I’ve seen it sell out on the B&H website in as little as 24 minutes before. Though B&H also has the Rosco Cinegel Swatchbook for the same price, and it was in stock, so I ordered it and got yesterday.

The first thing I did was remove the straight pin holding the samples together and replaced it with a clip I had previously used for embroidery floss. This allows me to remove gels easily while not making a mess of the whole situation.

Accompanying Photographs

You can pick up a loop like that at any craft store like Joann’s near the embroidery or notions storage section.

I haven’t had a chance to play with any lighting with the gels yet. You know…work…sleep. But I’m excited to give it a try tonight or tomorrow.

I learned about these gel sample packs by reading a post on the Photography on the.net forums, using gels to create colored backgrounds. I was immediately inspired, especially by the photos posted to that thread by curtis N, agent.media and flg8r.

That was when the Internet twisted my own arm into buying the background and stand I did the video about last week.

While waiting for my delivery I looked and found some other good posts on forums about using gel samples. This post started as a question regarding the effectiveness of a colored background and saturation of the color by the gel, and includes a sample photo. Another post about using gels shows sample photographs using models and still life and also shows demonstrations where you can fill the background with the color, or hot spot the color, even a demo that appears to snoot with a color.

I also stumbled across another post where the demo was using the gel against a white wall. Though one response pointed out that using the gel on white has a tendency to reflect back onto the subject which can cause highlights in the hair to become the color of the gel. Not always a desired effect. I’m quite glad I went with the dark grey background now!

I’ll probably be working on a holder tonight, I’ve been exploding a few options:

Plastic Sleeve and Velcro – photo 2 – Not a big fan of the idea of putting Velcro on my flash
Plastic name tag – Similar to the above plastic sleeve and Velcro, seems promising
Mat Board and Clip – I’d probably use a magnet instead of a clip, and I’d use black mat board
Plastic as Clips – Appears to work well but I would rather separate the gel from the top of the flash in fear of heat transfer and melting
Mat Board and Snaps for Swivel Action – Is a swivel necessary? Not for me. Glad to see magnets work well though
Plastic Strips and Velcro – Again I’m not sure about the gel flush against the flash

As you can tell I’m kind-of being a big wussie about not melting my gel to my flash but even if is unlikely to happen I’d still rather use preventative measures.

I’ll post up my final solution I settle with. My guess is it will be a lot like the mat board with clip, except with magnets since they’re way easier to change quickly and if they’re attached I can’t lose them!

Researching these holders was a big help and lead me to request sample packets from a few other companies such as Lee and Apollo Design Technologies. We’ll see how long it takes for those sample packs to come in.

Update: Lee Gels vs. Rosco Gel Swatchbooks

The Lee Gel sample pack came almost days later. And I prefer using the Lee gels because they use larger samples which cover the flash (or my gel adapter) nicer. I managed to get my hands on a couple of the Rosco Roscolux Swatchbook and I see why they are recommended, that book has a wider variety of colors and focuses mainly on gels. Maybe I’ll do a full review of the different swatch books once I get the last one I ordered.

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