[lmotta]

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Last edited by lmotta; 03-11-2011 at 04:06 PM.

[Peter Zack]

I would like to offer a word of advice. I don't mean to put off your efforts to learn but a photographers work, whether it is hobby or pro, should never be copied without permission. Certainly others post their shots on the forum to share (as in viewing) but before copying anyone's images, you should always ask permission. I hope you've taken that extra step.

To answer your question (I didn't take any of these shots), they could all be done with the same lens except the last one. I would suggest the best lens for the last shot is a macro lens around 70-100mm A shot like this demands ultimate sharpness and a Macro does this best.

The others are all wide to mid length lenses and I believe all are zooms. In each case the light is quite good and this allows the shooter to stop the lens down quite a bit.

That means the aperture would be around f8 or f11. This makes everything from close to the shooter and into infinity very sharp.

The rest of your question is a little unusual. No special equipment is required to take these shots. All you would need is a sharp, better quality lens, A decent camera (and the K-x could produce any of these) and some basic editing software to sharpen the shots and enhance the colours, curves etc a little.

The first one of course has been converted to black and white and that can be done with various free software packages and in the case of many Pentax bodies, they can do a basic B&W conversion.

The last one is more technical than special equipment. The shooter has set up a primary light source to the camera right that is the main light. There is another secondary light to the camera left (back of camera). Then this is a matter of high-speed shooting. The light bulb has had the glass removed. When the light is turned on, the element will blow without the glass there. So the camera would be set to take a fast series of images continuously the moment the light gets power. What i would use is the K-7 or the K-x cameras and set to Jpeg, focus in manual and shoot in manual with the exposure pre set. Then put the camera in continuous shooting (4.7 Frames per Second). Just fire away as the element burns up. The trick here is to make sure your off camera lights give you the light to get the shot but not to over expose the smoke and wash it out.

What I think you need to do, is order the book, Understanding Exposure by Brian Peterson. It's an excellent starting point to understand all the basics of a camera and how to compose and expose an image.