Day 226 - Relearning the Alphabet: The Letter "C"

"C" for Crumpled


I don't have an armchair, so I couldn't get the "C" out of its curve.

Susmita, if you're reading this, please accept my thanks for the great ideas for the series!  I will definitely try the other subjects that you've suggested.

I wanted to make up for the lazy shots I took yesterday - admittedly, I was exhausted and I'd had a really long day.  If I hadn't missed posting the day before, I would have refrained from posting yesterday.  But anyway, I will take comfort in the fact that I have made the effort of coming up with something today.

And the renewed energy sprung from the fact today was my last working day before the holidays!  Yay!  I will have two weeks off, although those two weeks are chock-a-block with activities!  The first week will be filled with chores, and the second week will be spent with a very dear friend in San Francisco.

@Swati:  I can't thank you enough for inviting us to spend time with you guys!  I can't wait to see you! :)

The images were shot with my 90 mm macro lens, most of them with the lights turned off and subject illuminated with my Lights App on the iPod.  The one with the white background was shot under fluorescent light.  They're all kinda similar shots, but I like the slight colour variations in each.  I would love to know which one you think turned out better than the rest.

f/7.1, EV - 2/3 stops, 30s, ISO 200, AWB, Aperture Priority

f/5.6, EV - 2/3 stops, 30s, ISO 200, AWB, Aperture Priority

f/6.3, EV - 1/3 stops, 0.3s, ISO 200, CWB, Aperture Priority

I changed the base of the subject to make it sit on a white cardboard, instead of having it sit on glass. 

f/6.3, EV - 1/3 stops, 30s, ISO 200, AWB, Aperture Priority

The background didn't turn out the way I had wanted it to - I will definitely need a white seamless background for this one.  However, I loved the spotlight effect in this image.  I changed the base of the subject to make it sit on a white cardboard, instead of having it sit on glass. 

Day 206 - Week of Lights - Rushing

I was rushing to post before midnight, so I did a few quick shots.  But I was still too late.  Ah, well!

Taken in a dark kitchen, light source is my iPod Lights App held in front of subject, at camera top.  I tried a couple of shots using aperture priority, but I was getting a far slower shutter speed than I wanted, causing overexposure.

So, I switched to Manual mode and set the shutter speed and aperture and got this shot.  This shot has minimal processing - I stepped up the vibrancy a bit, and that's all I did.  I wanted the lines to be brighter, but overexposing it a bit didn't yield the desired results.  I guess I will need to find another way to do this.  This goes on my list to try again in the future.

90 mm, f/4.5, 3.2s, ISO 400, AWB, Manual Mode

Day 205 - Week of Lights - Lemonade

My weekend started today as I've got the day off tomorrow.  But I would have loved this long weekend more if I knew I could just chill and do as I pleased.  Well, life isn't so simple, nor was it meant to be.  So, I have to run errands and get a lot of important stuff done tomorrow, including an oil change and getting winter tires put on.  At least I know that driving will be better when the snow hits.

To commemorate the early start to the weekend, I decided to drink lemonade out of my stemware!  What an idea!  No, I'm kidding!  I just needed another subject for the light experiment for this evening, and I thought that trying to catch the rainbow reflections would be nice.  But the light from the iPod wasn't bright enough to do that.  But I got close to what I wanted, so I gave up after about 10 shots.  Again, I shot these images with the lights off.

In the first image, the colour you see in the background is created by the streetlights reflecting on the wall; and the junk I had on my table, behind the subject, helped create the soft patterns.

Both shots were taken with the 90 mm lens with the glass placed on top of my iPod screen with the light coming from the Lights app.

f/6.3, 30s, ISO 400, Aperture Priority, AWB

f/6.3, 1/6s, ISO 400, Aperture Priority, AWB

I think I like both the shots!  The bottom one looks quite pretty actually.

Day 204 - Week of Lights - Slacking Off!

I was that close to not doing my shot of the day!  But then I roused myself out of my tired and benumbed state and took precisely four shots.  I definitely like the red version over the blue or yellow ones.

Any guess what this might be? ;-) 

Day 202 - Week of Lights - T for Tired!

Thanks to those who visited my blog recently and started following my ramblings.  I hope to keep this interesting and informative with all my quirky experiments with different things.  Please feel free to comment and give me feedback, so I can keep improving.

I have decided on the theme of the week and I think I'll try to keep this theme (of themes) going on for as long as I can do it.   As you've already gauged from the title, the theme is Lights for this week - yes the iPod app I used on the marble yesterday.  

And yes, I truly am tired.  Went shopping after work and was stuck in traffic for over an hour.  

I used Tic Tac (and in case you're wondering, I ate them all once I finished with my shoot) and put them on the white foam core board I have.  

What started off as this (grayish because of the fluorescent lighting despite the CWB):

Turned into this:

And then, this:

... with the lights out.

If you look carefully, the blue image has quite a bit of vignetting (dark edges), but the bottom one doesn't have as much.  That's because, the light from the iPod (I was holding it steady just above the tic-tacs) in the blue image falls off pretty close to the subject.  

However, noticing the dark edges, I tried to eliminate that by moving the light around to the corners as much as possible, without throwing the "T" into too much shade.  And by moving, I mean literally moving the light all over the subject while the shutter was open, like I'm painting the subject with the light. 

Upon reviewing, I found that the pink one still had quite a bit of dark edge in the top left corner, whereas the bottom right corner was pretty well lit.  

I guess I will have to work on this again soon.  The small source of light is the reason this is happening.  I might try keeping the overhead light on the next time around, and see what results it yields.