WiimoteI don't like how this photo turned out, but taking it was good experimentation for me. It's as close as I can come to creating "studio" lighting or a lightbox or whatever. I just threw the controller on some printer paper on my stove under the only daylight blend CF bulb in the house.
One problem I've found in the past with taking still-lifes on the stove/counter is that my tripod is more hassle than it's worth. Trying to take pictures from almost directly above the subject while the camera is mounted to a tripod is nearly impossible without tons of fiddling for each shot, or worse, tipping the setup too far over and having your camera come crashing to the ground.
But at the same time, the tripod is a necessary evil when shooting these close-ups. In order to get these pseudo-macro shots, I need to use my 18-55mm lens which has an aperture of f5.6 wide open at 55mm. ISO and exposure times become very unconducive to taking nice, pretty studio shots.
Long story short: time to invest in some lighting.
Question: what's the difference between shooting still-lifes with strobes versus with regular always-on light bulbs behind umbrellas/diffusers??? Mark, I've seen you take portraits both ways, so what's the advantage of each? How do you choose which to use?
One problem I've found in the past with taking still-lifes on the stove/counter is that my tripod is more hassle than it's worth. Trying to take pictures from almost directly above the subject while the camera is mounted to a tripod is nearly impossible without tons of fiddling for each shot, or worse, tipping the setup too far over and having your camera come crashing to the ground.
But at the same time, the tripod is a necessary evil when shooting these close-ups. In order to get these pseudo-macro shots, I need to use my 18-55mm lens which has an aperture of f5.6 wide open at 55mm. ISO and exposure times become very unconducive to taking nice, pretty studio shots.
Long story short: time to invest in some lighting.
Question: what's the difference between shooting still-lifes with strobes versus with regular always-on light bulbs behind umbrellas/diffusers??? Mark, I've seen you take portraits both ways, so what's the advantage of each? How do you choose which to use?
3 comments:
dude, i have a halfsies for this photo. it's pretty sweeet!
i'll let mark answer you questions.
This isn't a totally qualified answer but it works... I originally used continous lighting because it was all I could afford. Those lights w/ shoot thru umbrellas are nice and create some good wrapping light, but they have very little power. You have to get them really really close to your subject. Another pain in the ass is the fact that they need to be plugged in.
Hotshoe flashes are the way to go I would say. They are small and light weight and can pack some power. They can de a little on the expensive side, but it depends on what you want.
The vivitar 285hv is a work horse of a flash. That was my primary flash when doing wedding this summer. Its powerful and has fully manual zoom head and guide number calculator controls. It does lack some features like a swivel head, but it does tilt. It's fucking heavy as hell too. But at $90 is hard to pass up... Even just having one as back up is nice.
Otherwise you can look into getting a speedlite made by Nikon. They make some pretty nice flashes and their newest one is pimp shit... But I think it might cost you about 600.
There are many routes to go with hotshoe flashes, but those are the areas I would to with.
A few end notes I forgot:
If you get the vivitar us HAS TO BE the hv version. This so because it has a trigger voltage low enough to not fry your camera on your hotshoe. The old vivitar 285 were made for film bodies and the trigger voltage want I danger if damaging any real fancy electronics like in those fang dangled DSLR's.
If you go down the path of hotshoe flashes you need to get extras to trigger them off camera. This is a whole different story. We can cross that bridge when we come to it and this has the longest fucking thing I have ever written on an iPhone. We can discuss more this evening.
Ps hotshoe flashes are a little easier in terms of sculpting light.
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