Shooting Outdoor Close-Ups in Dark

Technique to separate main subject from busy background.

Few days ago I was shooting blossoms of our peach tree but I wasn’t entirely happy with the outcome – the background was way too busy. Cutting one branch and bring it in the studio wasn’t an option and neither was placing some background behind the branch with blossoms. One fool-proof option opened to me was to wait till dusk and shoot with flash. And that is exactly what I did and results were not bad at all. I know that I should have used tripod but this was more about technique then producing a book quality image. It is too late now to re-shoot the peach blossoms, they are way past their prime, but I will use this technique for more outdoor projects where I want to separate main subject from the background.

 

Original image shot in RAW, 100 ISO, 1/125 sec @f/5.6, auto-focus with pre-flash assist, off camera E-TTL flash with prism lens and diffuser, 1^st curtain, Flash Exposure (FE) -1 stop. For razor sharp image I would have to use tripod and strong light for focusing.

During RAW conversion to JPEG I adjusted levels and blacks so that background was more or less black.

After conversion I opened the image in Photoshop and cloned away the remaining background. Then I cropped and tilted the image. I was left with just a peach branch with blossoms against black background. Total time spent in Lightroom4 and Photoshop was less than 10 minutes.

Photographing Vegetable Seeds

As I was fruitlessly waiting for another snowfall so that I could improve my technique to shoot individual snowflakes I was wondering what else I could photograph with my macro setup. As luck would have it I spotted vegetable seeds packets that were out on table for indoor planting next week. I have never looked at seeds from really close so I was blown away how colorful some are. In order to get decent magnification I used 21mm and 31mm extension tubes and for light I used Minolta 4 tubes ring flash with only left tube turned on.

Thai Chilli seed

Red Pepper seed

Red Radish seed

 

The setup.

Dancing Smoke Update

Since I am practically newbie when it comes to editing in Photoshop Elements, which has a fairly steep learning curve, it took me good part of a day to figure out how to put different colors into same smoke. I learn the best by just hacking at it on my own, this way I will remember the technique for very long time. Of course I had a great help from fellow blogger The Bonnie 5, very talented photographer, and also my books on PSE7. This was real fun project and I am sure that I will return to it once it warms up, I was shooting in a garage where it was just above freezing. Now I have to find another indoor project to shoot. Maybe I will clean basement instead…nah, not fun!

Dancing Smoke

Actually, I should have called it Smoke Dancing with Photoshop, it would be more accurate. This is so simple to photograph, once you know how. There are quite a few variables for these shots. Aperture, synch speed with flash, ISO, distance of flash from smoke, distance of smoke from background… It is definitely better to take these shots in a large and draft free room. I have tried to do it in a bathroom with exhaust fan (my incense sticks stink!) but there was so much stray light bouncing all over the place that the background was grey no matter how much I choked down the side shields on my flash gun. Out to the garage I went. What a difference the large space makes! Background was so black it didn’t need any retouching and I had a space to move the flash around. It is fun to find all sorts of shapes in these smoke photographs.

Doesn't it look like spine and a skul?

I see hummingbird head.

Strawberry Drop Set-Up

Foundation of my set-up for this shot was my home made light tent frame. I build it from CPVC 1/2” water tubing and several elbows and “T” fittings and use it for almost all of my indoor close-up shots.

For this particular shot two things are very critical: focus and target. In order to have the main subject as sharp as possible I had to construct sort of scaffolding where I could clamp target that was about the same size as strawberry and as close to location in water as possible.

To do that I have tied steel nut to a string and then lowered it into wine glass. When focusing was done I have raised the nut to a location about 5” above the surface of water. This gave me precise spot from where I would drop the strawberry. It must be dropped from exact same spot every time. I dropped the strawberry from directly underneath the nut, it actually came in the contact with the nut.

In order for strawberry to stand out you will need strong but filtered backlight. I used Vivitar 285 flash triggered by radio and I was strobing through prismatic Plexiglas and diffuser screen. I didn’t try it but I think that you can use white bed sheet and strong spot light or table lamp for the back light. It is worth to experiment with.

The black strips on side of wine glass were created with 2 pieces of black cardboard placed at angle behind and to the side of the glass. You just have to move it around for your desired effect.

The main flash was placed to one side of camera and about half way between lens and glass. Since it was so close I filtered the flash with a sheet of toilet tissue. Again. The flash was triggered with radio.

Now that everything is set-up all you have to do is keep dropping! One more thing: don’t forget to clean the wine glass after every drop. Unwanted droplet of water on front or sides of the glass will ruin your perfectly timed shot. I am speaking from experience, been there, done that.

It can be very tedious but rewarding shoot. I ended up with 1 good shot for every 20 drops. Thanks heaven for digital photography!

More Strobe Photography

As I was working my way through a book on Canon strobe (electronic camera flash) I always came back to photograph on the cover – raspberry dropped into a glass of water. It is a stunning composition but there isn’t any detailed description as to how the picture was taken, just a passing note that 2 strobes were used hooked to radio trigger. I took it as a challenge and after about 5 hours of experimenting I have managed to get somewhat similar image. No raspberries in refrigerator so I used frozen strawberry. I am sure that I could have taken better picture but I ate my prop. I’ll be perfecting the technique once I buy some fresh strawberries.

Oops…I forgot to clean the wine glass in between shots!

My setup. One flash was placed behind and to the right of camera and second flash behind white screen. The flash on left is one from behind. Both flashes were triggered by radio trigger that was mounted on camera’s hot shoe.

I have tied steel nut to a string and then lowered the nut to position where the strawberry will be dropped. When the nut was dead still I focused on it manually and I was ready for the drops.

Book that challenged me.