Day 156 - Guilty of too much indulgence

This is my new trinket!  Did I need it?  Of course not!  Did I want it?  Well, d'oh!

Ok.. that has been my conversation with myself for the past few hours - ever since I walked into the store I dread walking into.  Anyway, too late now.  I've been feeling really unwell all evening, and I'm consoling myself that it's not the guilt, but probably the 'flu that's killing me.  (Let's hope it's not the 'flu;  I have places to go tomorrow.)

So down to the photoshoot - I was experimenting with my flash again.  I set it to full power about a foot and a half away from the subject to camera left.  I used a white foam board to bounce the light of the flash onto the watch.  All other light sources were turned off.  I held the board just in front of the on-camera flash (powered down to -2 stops because I was using it to trigger the slave flash), so it wouldn't fire directly on the subject.

I used my 90mm lens and shot them all on manual exposure.

The first shot is SOOC.

F7.1, 1/200s, ISO 100

The next one here was without a flash.  When I was processing this, I realized that I could see the colourful reflections of my jammies (see the shot above) on the watch dial, and therefore decided to turn this into a B&W.  I think I like the B&W better.

f32.0, 10s, ISO 200

This next one was flashed with the reflector bent at an angle towards the subject which added that darker part at the top half of the image; I only added a little clarity and luminance in post.

f9.0, 1/200s, ISO 200

This last one was shot with the on- camera flash powered up now to 0, and then covered with the hand.  

f7.1, 1/200s, ISO 100

Day 150 - Indoor portrait experiments

Another photo club meeting activity.  We had to stay indoors because of not-so-nice weather, so decided to use light from different sources to see how the photos turned out.  I have to admit that flash photography is probably not my forte, although I definitely mean to conquer that challenge.  I still prefer the use of ambient light and I hope for my own sake that I learn to use the flash.  Otherwise, winter is going to be a long and boring season with not much to keep me company.

Here are a few before and after shots. I used my on-camera flash at -2 stops to add a little fill light on one, and used a white foam board as a reflector on another.  I was using my 90 mm lens as well, hoping that the f2.8 would help with the low light inside the room we chose to experiment in.

The left frame is with the reflector and the right one is with on-camera flash.

This one was my favourite using just ambient light.  

The photos below are from the photo shoot we did recently with Jim Royal (in the first two pictures below). He was our instructor on how to use reflectors in portraiture.  The location in the first image was a covered area with light shafts coming in through the openings.  We used a silver reflector to catch the sunlight and then used a foam board to catch the reflection bouncing off the silver one to direct it to the face.  This helped soften the strong reflection of the silver one and created a beautiful smooth light.  

The one below was taken with the subject standing with the sun to the right of the camera, and a reflector to the left of the camera.  I didn't really like the yellowish cast which I found too strong, and therefore decided to change this to B&W.  I think I like this much better.

This one was with the subject facing away from the sun, with a reflector held just below the face, outside of camera frame.