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 188 - White (dis)Balance

When I don't get a chance to do photography during the day, I obviously have to think of indoor subjects in artificial light as I'm not in a position to buy a flash right now.  I have come to a decision that I will just continue to use the lamps I have and find suitable subjects to photograph in that - something that's in keeping with the theme of artificial light.

I used a C-PL for these shots as I was getting a lot of reflections from the serving platter.

This evening's other challenge was the WB and despite using a custom WB, I didn't quite get what I was after.   You will notice the difference in the colour cast in each of the images.  I will have to spend some time figuring out what happened.  For now, I didn't change the WB in post as I wanted to keep a record of what went on with it this evening.

Day 180 - Christmas theme (contd.)

I finally managed the flash with some success.  However, I still fail to understand why it doesn't work on full power, even when the batteries are freshly charged.  I tried different set-ups, but found that holding the flash right over the camera worked best.

Today's experiment was more on the light, rather than on the composition; I somehow threw a few things together and focussed more on the lighting.  Had a long day at work, visiting with a friend, and then another couple of hours of work for my project submission tomorrow.  I will have to compose myself first, before I can compose a shot.  :(

This one had the overhead light on, and I flashed the white background.

This one is with only the flash held above camera.