Day 215 - Christmas Theme (Pt. 4)

Just a continuation of the Christmas theme I'd started way back in October.  The first one was a quick shot while I was playing with the flash and got bored from not getting what I wanted.  

I also took the opportunity to get a little bit more comfortable using the monopod.  Although I found a couple more ways to be more effective and efficient with the tool, I'm absolutely convinced that you can't use it for anything slower than 1/8s shutter speeds if you want to get any sharpness out of your shots.   In fact, I think I'm steadier when hand holding my shots at 0.5 secs, than I am with the monopod at 1/8s!  Now, that's something!

154 mm, 1/10s, f/5.6, ISO 400, Shutter Priority, AWB

I had to use Shutter Priority because I wanted to fix the minimum shutter speed to avoid camera shake.

154 mm, 1/100s, f/6.3, ISO 400, WB set to Flash, but later adjusted in Lightroom, Manual Mode, Flash fired at -2 stops, external flash fired powered down to 1/8, placed 6 inches to right of subject and bounced off ceiling.  Phewww!  That was a long description! 

I'm not very happy with the second image.  The background is quite cluttered in this one, and could definitely have been better composed.  But as far as light is concerned, I think it's a slight improvement over previous tries.  I'm yet to figure out the power levels on my external flash - maybe I'm reading the levels all wrong as there are no markings on the bars to show the different levels and the one page user guide that came with it was mostly written in Chinese (at the expense of sounding ignorant, I wouldn't know if it was Mandarin or Cantonese).  Maybe the mystery will one day be solved?  Maybe I'll break down and Google it one day!

But meanwhile I'm definitely considering a light kit.  But the dilemma is always which one to get first - camera body, lens or light?  

Any suggestions?

Day 172 - Soft focus & bounced flash

My experiment today would have been to use my YN460 flash to light the background to make it look white.  Instead, it turned out that the flash wasn't behaving itself at all, and consistently turned out some really gray backgrounds.  I switched over to custom white balance and then decided to use the flash to bounce some light into the centre of the flower as it was showing up really dark.  That didn't go too badly and I did get the centre to lighten up a little.
I was hand holding the camera since I couldn't find my tripod head and the soft focus was purely accidental.  I had a bit of camera shake when trying to shoot the gerberas.  I found the soft focus actually looked pretty nice on the LCD screen of my camera and instantly decided to try and play with that.  So, I intentionally took a few shots with a soft focus and then touched them up in Lightroom.

250 mm, 1/8s, f/9.0, ISO 400, Aperture priority

250 mm, 1/4s, f/9.0, ISO 400, Aperture priority

250 mm, 1/5s, f/9.0, ISO 400, Aperture priority

Day 167 - Creating a watermark in Lightroom 3

I have been super busy with work again and haven't had the time to do any photography.  Today was a gorgeous Thanksgiving Day, but I had to slog 10 hours at my computer - go figure!  I guess, I should be giving thanks that I do have a job to keep me busy.  I try to count my blessings each day, but sometimes it's difficult not to crib when you know that you are missing something in your life that's more exciting!  For me, it's photography - I guess I'm obsessing over it a little bit too much, so it's good to give myself these little breaks! ;)

I have a few bracketed shots of this church I really love, that I again wanted to turn into HDR. And again I thought, I should give that a break as well!  So, I edited it as I normally would and touched up very minimally.  I sharpened it a bit, and added a little bit more clarity and vibrance.  That's all!  And yes, I figured out how to create a watermark in Lightroom 3 while I was at it.  In case you're new to LR3 as I am, and are looking for a way to use this feature, just follow the quick steps below.
I'm using a Mac, thus the screens you see are for the Mac, only.  I'm quite certain the Windows version will not be too different.
1. You can create the watermark as you're exporting your image after processing it in Lightroom.  Simply click on File -> Export in the menu bar.
2. You will see the export dialog box:

Scroll down to the Watermarking section. As you can see, I have my default set up as Shinydewdrop.

3. Open the dropdown box and select Edit Watermarks to start creating yours and ensure that the Watermark option is checked.

4. You can pick between a Text and a Graphic style for your watermark.  For the first part, I've chosen the Text option.  In the blank editable portion at the bottom-left of your screen, add the text you would like to display as your watermark.  (To create the copyright symbol ©, use Option+G on your Mac and the Windows version would be Alt+0169).  Another easy way to do this is to find the © symbol on the Internet and then just copy-pasting it into the window.

Feel free to play around with the options available for adding effects to the watermarking.  

5. Once you're done, click Save.

6. At this point you will be asked to name your watermarking preset.  

7. Give it a name and then click Export.

8. You might also want to use a graphic.  To do that, you will first need to create a graphic file.  I did mine in Photoshop Elements 8 and then used the Graphic option in the Watermark Editor. Here is a link to a good tutorial for creating a signature file/logo in PSE8 that I found on the Internet and should work in any version of Photoshop as well: http://www.myjanee.com/tuts/brush/cbrush7.htm

9. The rest of the process is exactly the same.

This is the shot I processed with the little logo I have created for my website that I'm currently working on. 

I hope you will benefit from this quick little tutorial.  And if you do, please leave me a comment to let me know if it was helpful and easy to follow. 

And this image will have to serve as my photo of the day! :(

Day 154 - Fly me to the moon

Day 136 - The rains spoil the day

I wanted to do some downtown photography since it was a nice overcast day, but the moment I stepped out of the office to do that with a colleague, it started to spit.  Not wanting to get the cameras compromised by the rain, we took ourselves to the World Trade Centre and tried to find some nice subjects.

I found a couple of interesting things and then tried a little post-processing again.  I'm preparing for cooler weather and more indoor photography. :-(  The thought depresses me, but the reality is that soon enough, we'll be pelted with the snow and who knows how long that might last!