Workshop #8 - Deep Etching

For this workshop we learnt an effective way to deep etch a subject on the cyclorama. This is useful for our digital imaging major assignment, in which we have to take a photograph of someone in the studio and place them in a landscape.

Firstly you need to light the subject appropriately, and then you need to lighten the background to make it white.  In order to illuminate the background without light falling or reflecting onto the subject, two barriers need to be set up to block the background lights. (I used Ginettes sketch as I found it very useful. Thanks G!)

Workshop #7 - Copy Work

The important thing about copy work is that the colours MUST be accurate. This is essential as it is very important to portray the artwork with accuracy. Copy work is rather boring, and is just used to create a record of another artwork, there is no room for your own personal 'composition' etc.

Lighting is very important as it has to be even throughout the frame. For this we set up two lights both at 45 degree angles and used a spotmeter to make sure the lighting was even. The colour control patches are used to make sure the colours are accurate.



For this shot we used the Sinar digital back on the large format camera using multi shot.

Workshop #6 - Tilt Shift

I was away for the tilt shift workshop as I was getting my tonsils out. But I will talk about my folio tilt shift shot instead. These shots were taken on the haselblads with the adapter.

Before

After

As you can see it made an amazing difference to the depth of field! I was actually very surprised at how well it worked. We did the workshops with the view cameras in location, but I feel I benefited much more from the studio practice as I could see the results immediately and could compare.

So by tilting the lens, instead of the focus getting softer towards the back of the frame, it puts the corners out of focus depending on which way you tilt it. So I had to be very careful not to over correct.

Workshop #6 - Macro

I actually had quite a bit of fun with this workshop, and I almost enjoyed figuring out the mathematical equations we needed!
Unfortunately Burkey lost the files for the shots that we took, but I was very pleased with our stamp, and how sharp it was. It was amazing the kind of detail you can get in an object when you take it at 1 to 1 magnification.


Here is the info we got from both our shots.  


Shot 1 : Watch Shot 2 : Stamp

Magnification Factor 0.5x or 1:2 1x or 1:1

Camera Hasselblad H3d2 5d M11

Sensor Size mm 33.1 x 44.2 36 x 24

Lens focal length  80mm 90mm Macro

ISO 100 100

Extension Tubes Yes No

Focal Distance  120 180

Bellows Extension  2.25 4

Stops Increased 1 2

Light reading N/A 2.8f 1/8 sec

Adjusted Exposure N/A 2.8f 1 sec

Workshop #5 - Chrome

I decided to choose a coffee grinder for my chrome workshop as it was basically the only chrome object I could find in my kitchen.
It proved rather challenging as it is quite curved, and I took a long time trying to get the curved line nice and sharp by using card to define the shapes.

So it isn't a great shot, but the lighting does make it look very 3 dimensional, which is an important part of chrome photography.

Workshop #4 - Glass

Here are the shots we took for our light and dark field glass. The light field worked much better I thought, and the lighting is much easier to control as you can just move the black paper on either side of the object.

The basic idea is for light field illumination to place the object with a light behind it (preferably on a light table) and use black cardboard on either side out of the frame to create edges in the object.

With dark field illumination you have a light behind the object, but directly behind is black cardboard, so the light just shines on the edges.

Studio Folio - Thunder eggs

For the shot of my choice I decided to do another macro shoot. I decided to capture the detail of thunder eggs, as they have some really interesting patterns and textures. I used my 100mm macro lens on my SLR. They were fairly hard to light as the surfaces are glazed and are reflective, so it was almost like shooting another glass object.
If it is suitable to submit, I want to crop sections of 4 or 5 shots and present them together, like the photo below, as I think it is more interesting than just submitting one.

I would really appreciate any comments or suggestions! Thankyou!

I have a fair few cross sections to choose from, so if you could let me know which ones are your favorites that would be great! If you specifically like one and think I should just choose that, let me know, as all of the crops obviously have more of the rock in them. Here is a bunch of my favorite cross sections.

Studio Folio - Galileo's Thermometer

This is another glass shoot for my studio folio. I like it better than the decanter.

This is a Galileo's Thermometer; the glass balls move up and down depending on the temperature. For the background I used red and blue colours to represent 'hot and cold', to emphasize that it is a thermometer.

Studio Folio - Red Wine

My second shoot for studio folio, just a bottle of red wine. I am quite happy with this and I think the colours worked out well.

Studio Folio - Glass Decanter

Here is my first shoot for studio. It is a wine decanter, but I am not happy with it. The wine was too dark, and just came out black even though it was back lit. The actual glass itself is also poorly crafted and has dents and other problems with it. So I will probably end up shooting something else.

Workshop #3 - Hasselblads

Yay we got to work with the hasselblads finally! And they were SO incredibly slow. I am considering downloading the software so I can use it on my laptop rather than those ancient apple computers because it took almost 5 minutes to take each shot!
We also had a fair bit of trouble getting the camera to work, so I can't say it was a terribly 'good' first impression. But after the half an hour it took to finally take a picture, it looked great! The quality is just lovely and there is just so much you can do with such a large file.

For the exercise we decided to go with a sort of 'Bunnings Warehouse' kinda company. So we used the ladder as our prop. The cover page shop is supposed to put a 'friendly face' on the brand, while still being casual and accessible. Our landscape spread page shows off the artistic and 'new age' side of the company. Overall I think the shots work well and it was an interesting experience with these wonderful devices.

Workshop #2 - Product Revision

We were working tethered for this shoot, which was a great new experience which I am sure to use in the future. It was great being able to see the image on a large screen and made it much easier to notice flaws in the focus and composition etc. Therefore I think a greatly overall quality can be expected from photos when shooting tethered to a computer. I still like taking the shot through the camera however, because it just seems weird to actually take it from the computer without even touching the camera!
For my packaged product I chose to do fortune cookies. I had an asian style material and a candle temple thing as my props. Originally I had the material as the background (the first shot), but it was wrinkly and it just looked really tacky, so I tried having it on the ground (the second shot) but in the second one the product gets lost in the background so I think it works better having it behind the product just to add some separation, but next time I'll iron it first!
Overall I think the revision was ok, but I really want to get into some new stuff.

Workshop #1 - Portrait Revision

For this image, I was just experimenting with different colours of cellophane in front of the lights. I had a blue backlight, shining through a piece of wood with lots of holes in it, and a green snoot light on the subject.
I wanted to use a rembrandt lighting style for this portrait to make it look more edgy. I don't know what you would use this portrait for, maybe advertising a club or something?

Main light: f8
Fill Light: f4
Ratio: 4:1
Background: f22 (due to backlight)

As this was mainly an experiment I am not going to be too hard on myself about the style, but I under exposed the image a fair bit, so I had to lighten it a little in photoshop to bring out the shadows a bit. The backlight effect didn't work as well as I had hoped, as you can see the outline of the light through the holes. I am surprised at how vibrant the green and blue came out though, I didn't expect it to make such a difference.