Swede 45
01-17-2017, 01:55 PM
As mentioned in the photocompetition discussion thread, some of you might find it interesting and/or inspiring to see abit of how to and behind the scene things.
So I´ll try to go through some of the pictures I´ve taken, and will take in the future.
First of all, English is not my primary language so bare with me on spelling and grammar.
Good photograpy is not about having the best camera and equipment, those things are tools.
The important thing for someone to master, or at least understand when transfering from simple snapshots to more worked through photograpy is the light. Or actually understanding and controlling the light to your favour in the best way you can.
With an eye for the light and some small helpfull accesories you can come pretty far.
I posted a picture of my Luger some days ago and took the opportunity to shoot with different cameras as simple as I could.
I will go through that shoot and the results.
First off.. indoor with sunlight using a cellphone.
Sony Xperia Xperformance used on basic settings with auto adjust and 23mp.
Picture data is F2 at 1/32 sec exposure at iso400.
I set up on my kitchentable with a big window to the left. Greyish weather outside, so the light is quite dim and soft, not a harsh sun that creates hard shadows and highlights.
I used a regular white printerpaper to bounce some light back from the right hand side to lighten up the shadows.
The sunlight are dimmed out by the clowdy and in general grey weather, coming through that big window it creates a soft and big lightsource similar to a proffessional softbox used in studios.
The reflecting paper even out the light even more by filling out the far side of the Luger that otherwise would had a deeper shadow.
Easy peasy.. equipment used: cellphone and one printer paper.
First picture is the setup.
185454
Second one is unedited, straight from the phonecamera.
185455
Then I used a point and click camera and shot 3 different ways.
Panasonic Lumix 6mp on auto mode.
All pictures are unedited and straight out of the camera.
Pic 3
185456
Same setup for the light as previous in first cellphone pic, the angle made the light from the window cast a big reflection in the magazine that made it overexposed compared to the rest of the pic. I could have played with the cameraangle to get rid of that, or fix it in postproduction if i wanted.
The camera had difficulty to handle the low light at F2.8 and 1/8 of a second so i tried the flash.
Pic 4
185457
The flash on this camera is super tiny.. about 10x5mm and creates a hard flat light.. not a pleasant light. The flash creates hard burnt out highlights and almost no shadows since it is so close to the lens in angle and close to the object.
Pic 5
185458
I cut a piece of printerpaper, about 5x10 cm (2x4 inch) big and just held it in front of the flash close, to create a bigger lightsource.. that gives a 10 times bigger lightsource and softer result.
Way better, not as hard light and not as burnt out highlights, but still no shadows or depth in the picture.
Equipment: Point and click camera + a piece of thin printerpaper.
Now I moved over to DSLR with an external flash.
Sony Alpha 350, 14.2mp, 50mm standard sony lens.
This is an older midrange camera with a cheap chinese knockoff flash with a small 8x8 inch pop up chinese light diffusor.
Nice thing with this flash is that its able to run on radio trigger and dont have to be attached to the camera. Yes, this is quite abit more in equipment, but photography is a big hobby for me. Flash equipment was bought from china online for about 100$
And if you plan to do post adjustments in any editor, RAW file settings (or similar file depending on your camera) gives the best material to work with.
Now, with a off camera flash (or any other lightsource) you can move the light around to create any effects you like. With a flash, you have to take test exposures and adjust the light as you want it. A continous light as a bulb or something you can trace the light by eye.
On a flash you can also use different powersettings to controll the amount of light and therefore also controll the apperature and depth of focus. F13 and 1/125 sec flashsync used here. (on the set up pic, you can see how dark the light from the window is. Same light but the F stop of 13 cuts that out.)
So I used a bit different set up when I no longer was depending on sun light or on camera flash.. I placed the lightsource behind the Luger, used 2 printerpapers to control the light. The back paper is there to cut off some light that othewise would have washed out the background. The front paper is to reflect some light back into the picture and lighten up areas that othewise would be blacked out.. same isea as in the sunlight photos.
The low angle of the lightsource creates shadows that give life to the picture, size of the source creates softer edges on shadows, and the reflector gives highlights in the shadow parts.
Pic 6 Setup
185459
Pic 7 Jpg pic straight out of the camera
185460
The 3 different setups and shooting took about 20 minutes in all, writing this took way way longer!
Pic 8
185462
Finishing off with the edited picture from the DSLR.
Basic editing done on RAWfile in adobe photoshop to adjust colourbalance and colour shineover , cropping for size, exposure and contrast, and some dust retouch.
So, i think there is good photos taken with all 3 cameras. It is the difference in what gear you got, how you use it and if you edit or not.
Enjoy!
So I´ll try to go through some of the pictures I´ve taken, and will take in the future.
First of all, English is not my primary language so bare with me on spelling and grammar.
Good photograpy is not about having the best camera and equipment, those things are tools.
The important thing for someone to master, or at least understand when transfering from simple snapshots to more worked through photograpy is the light. Or actually understanding and controlling the light to your favour in the best way you can.
With an eye for the light and some small helpfull accesories you can come pretty far.
I posted a picture of my Luger some days ago and took the opportunity to shoot with different cameras as simple as I could.
I will go through that shoot and the results.
First off.. indoor with sunlight using a cellphone.
Sony Xperia Xperformance used on basic settings with auto adjust and 23mp.
Picture data is F2 at 1/32 sec exposure at iso400.
I set up on my kitchentable with a big window to the left. Greyish weather outside, so the light is quite dim and soft, not a harsh sun that creates hard shadows and highlights.
I used a regular white printerpaper to bounce some light back from the right hand side to lighten up the shadows.
The sunlight are dimmed out by the clowdy and in general grey weather, coming through that big window it creates a soft and big lightsource similar to a proffessional softbox used in studios.
The reflecting paper even out the light even more by filling out the far side of the Luger that otherwise would had a deeper shadow.
Easy peasy.. equipment used: cellphone and one printer paper.
First picture is the setup.
185454
Second one is unedited, straight from the phonecamera.
185455
Then I used a point and click camera and shot 3 different ways.
Panasonic Lumix 6mp on auto mode.
All pictures are unedited and straight out of the camera.
Pic 3
185456
Same setup for the light as previous in first cellphone pic, the angle made the light from the window cast a big reflection in the magazine that made it overexposed compared to the rest of the pic. I could have played with the cameraangle to get rid of that, or fix it in postproduction if i wanted.
The camera had difficulty to handle the low light at F2.8 and 1/8 of a second so i tried the flash.
Pic 4
185457
The flash on this camera is super tiny.. about 10x5mm and creates a hard flat light.. not a pleasant light. The flash creates hard burnt out highlights and almost no shadows since it is so close to the lens in angle and close to the object.
Pic 5
185458
I cut a piece of printerpaper, about 5x10 cm (2x4 inch) big and just held it in front of the flash close, to create a bigger lightsource.. that gives a 10 times bigger lightsource and softer result.
Way better, not as hard light and not as burnt out highlights, but still no shadows or depth in the picture.
Equipment: Point and click camera + a piece of thin printerpaper.
Now I moved over to DSLR with an external flash.
Sony Alpha 350, 14.2mp, 50mm standard sony lens.
This is an older midrange camera with a cheap chinese knockoff flash with a small 8x8 inch pop up chinese light diffusor.
Nice thing with this flash is that its able to run on radio trigger and dont have to be attached to the camera. Yes, this is quite abit more in equipment, but photography is a big hobby for me. Flash equipment was bought from china online for about 100$
And if you plan to do post adjustments in any editor, RAW file settings (or similar file depending on your camera) gives the best material to work with.
Now, with a off camera flash (or any other lightsource) you can move the light around to create any effects you like. With a flash, you have to take test exposures and adjust the light as you want it. A continous light as a bulb or something you can trace the light by eye.
On a flash you can also use different powersettings to controll the amount of light and therefore also controll the apperature and depth of focus. F13 and 1/125 sec flashsync used here. (on the set up pic, you can see how dark the light from the window is. Same light but the F stop of 13 cuts that out.)
So I used a bit different set up when I no longer was depending on sun light or on camera flash.. I placed the lightsource behind the Luger, used 2 printerpapers to control the light. The back paper is there to cut off some light that othewise would have washed out the background. The front paper is to reflect some light back into the picture and lighten up areas that othewise would be blacked out.. same isea as in the sunlight photos.
The low angle of the lightsource creates shadows that give life to the picture, size of the source creates softer edges on shadows, and the reflector gives highlights in the shadow parts.
Pic 6 Setup
185459
Pic 7 Jpg pic straight out of the camera
185460
The 3 different setups and shooting took about 20 minutes in all, writing this took way way longer!
Pic 8
185462
Finishing off with the edited picture from the DSLR.
Basic editing done on RAWfile in adobe photoshop to adjust colourbalance and colour shineover , cropping for size, exposure and contrast, and some dust retouch.
So, i think there is good photos taken with all 3 cameras. It is the difference in what gear you got, how you use it and if you edit or not.
Enjoy!