Pens and bottles (flash and transparency)

Nikon D7000, 42mm (35-80), 1/125, f/25, ISO 200

This week I decided to play around a little with off-camera flash. I also wanted to shoot some pictures of subjects with a mix of color and transparency.

The photo above is a close up of a rack of pens. I put the flash off to the right and triggered it using a remote.

The photo below is of colorful bottles on a glass shelf. The flash is below the shelf.

Nikon D7000, 42mm (35-80), 1/125, f/25, ISO 200

Snowpocalypse

Nikon D7000, 29mm (18-55), 1/3 sec., f/10, ISO 100

So last week it snowed. And snowed. And snowed. Classes were cancelled for two days, leaving me with plenty of photo time on my hands.

The picture above was taken from a spot near the location of last week’s night shot. Having learned my lesson about snowflakes on the lens, I used a hood this time. As in previous efforts, the long exposure necessary to capture the light causes the falling snow to turn into more of a mist in the photo.

Nikon D7000, 48mm (18-55), 1/160, f/6.3, ISO 200

Didn’t take long for the snow to get deep. Here the big, ploppy flakes show up well against dark objects in the background.

Nikon D7000, 30mm (18-55), 1/60, f/4.5, ISO 560

We were doing quite a bit of business at the bird feeder. This picture is less of a planned photograph and more of a quick snapshot through a window with the camera’s settings on auto. Still, I like the way it turned out. I’m particularly fond of the birds caught in mid-flight around the feeder.

Nikon D7000, 55mm (18-55), 1/50, f/36, ISO 100

I love the tiny points of light that shine in the middle of a smooth patch of snow. Even at dawn the sunlight was already quite bright, so I closed the aperture down as far as it would go and worked with a slower shutter speed to bring out the light points.

Nikon D7000, 35mm (18-55), 3 sec., f/8, 100 ISO, retouched

And then Snowpocalypse Two hit less than a week later. Here’s another early morning shot taken with a long shutter speed and a hood to keep the snow off the lens. I also retouched it in Photoshop to make it slightly less orange.

Nikon D7000, 32mm (18-55), 3 sec., f/8, 100 ISO

Just for fun, I decided to add a flash to the long exposure. The objects in the background are too far away for the flash to reach them, but the falling snowflakes closer to the camera bounce it back nicely. The blue color is a result of the camera trying to white balance for the flash. Though I hadn’t anticipated it, I like the effect.

Happy holidays

Nikon D7000, 10.5mm, 3 sec., f/8, ISO 100

Starting next Monday The Photographer’s Sketchbook will feature our eight favorite previously-unblogged photos of 2012. I actually finished the entries a couple of days ago, scheduled them to run and then put the blog to bed for the rest of the year.

Then the snow hit. Though it was really exceptionally cold outside, I did venture out to the deck to set the tree aright and shoot a few pictures. This one was the best. A low ISO and a three second exposure (thank you, tripod!) allowed me to bring out the dramatic oranges in the sky, a good contrast to the bright blue lights.

And because I can’t seem to shut the teaching thing off (even when I’m on break), here are a couple of other approaches to the same subject.

Nikon D7000, 18mm (18-55), 2 sec., f/8, ISO 100

The exposure here gives me a similar sense of light and color. Indeed, I love the strong blues (which is why I got blue lights for the tree to begin with). On the other hand, the shot composition isn’t quite as good. I also miss the dramatic sky.

Nikon D7000, 10.5mm, 1/4, f/8, ISO 100, Vivitar flash at 1/16 strength

The only differences between this flash-heavy shot and the available light picture at the top are the shutter speed and obviously the flash. At only 1/16 of full strength, the flash creates a nice effect; any stronger and the tree probably would have turned into a blob of bright white haze. I also like the snowflakes frozen in midair. Still, if this was The Shot from this set, I’d be strongly tempted to edit out the bird feeder.

RoboRoach

Nikon D7000, 55mm (18-55), 1/2, f/13, ISO 100, cropped

Once a semester I like to devote a class period to useless photo techniques. To be sure, these tricks have their uses. But in Intro to Photography I put a premium on pictures that capture perceptions. For me, saving a moment in time is the ultimate photographic experience. Elaborate set-ups and “fake” photos don’t do as much for me. Thus I don’t generally use techniques that require a lot of prep work.

Still, some of them are fun to play with. This semester I decided to try one I’d never done before: rear curtain flash. This technique combines a long exposure with a flash to create a double exposure without actually exposing the frame twice.

To get this effect, start by slowing the shutter way down (I’m using a half second exposure here), which of course requires a tripod. A rapidly-moving object such as this small robot – dubbed RoboRoach by one of my students – will move a lot in half a second, resulting in a photo that looks like this:

Nikon D7000, 55mm (18-55), 1/2, f/13, ISO 100, cropped

In order to get the subject itself to actually show up, I need a shorter exposure as well. Normally that means a short shutter speed, but here that isn’t an option. However, I can fake it by firing the flash right at the end of the exposure. In the photo at the top of this entry, you see the extreme motion blur of the half second shutter combined with a flash that lasts for a fraction of a second at the end of the shot. The flash freezes RoboRoach, combining the clear, frozen shot with the blurry “vapor trail” of light reflected from the shiny spots.

The trick is to fire the flash at the very end of the shot, which is called “rear curtain flash.” Normally cameras fire the flash at the front end of the exposure, based on the assumption that what you want is what you’re looking at exactly when you press the shutter button, not at the end of the exposure. In truth, most flash photography is done at higher shutter speeds (use 125 as a default), so the “curtain” doesn’t matter much.

But to create this effect, I want the streaky blur to trail out behind RoboRoach. If the flash fires at the start of the shot, the vapor trail will extend out in front of the subject. Thus I need a camera with a Rear Curtain Flash setting, which my D7000 just happens to have.