Forum: Post Your Photos!
03-01-2012, 11:07 PM
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The Hatchling prowling the Salt Flats.
A custom, one of a kind outfit from the now closed Pretty Pervy of London.
These images are from the first test shoot with this costume, watch out for more of the Hatchling coming soon |
Forum: Photographic Technique
06-06-2011, 07:02 PM
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I may have doing this without even realising - though haven't shot this style for some time now.
A favourite of mine some time back was to use a large ocotobox above and angled down, with a silver relector below to kick more light to the underside of the face. My general rule of thumb was the distance across the face of the octobox equalled the distance from the subjects face, so it was usually in quite close compared to other ways I'd light things.
@ Wombat, Benjamin is by far the guru on this stuff, but if I can offer a suggestion ....
The below image has had no post-processing other than the B&W conversion
This was achieved with a beauty dish above the camera firing slightly down and a small'ish square softobx directly in front of the model and down around waist high firing up and a low power. I reckon I've overdone it on this one, but still, detail in the eyes is kept, but skin blemishes or wrinkles are blown out with that lighting technique and that sounds like what you're after.
Had I done a full length shot using the set-up I'm fairly certain the drop-off in light would have looked similar to Benjamin's example.
However - blowing out the lines will also blow out a lot of character, so you might be shooting yuorself in the foot.
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Forum: Mini-Challenges, Games, and Photo Stories
06-13-2011, 11:48 PM
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Not quite a "Park" Bench, but it is a similar item for parking one's butt on at the end of a Jetty . |
Forum: Pentax Medium Format
11-23-2011, 11:47 PM
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I've had the 645D for a year now - LOVE IT!!
I've shot:
- Studio portraits
- On location portraits in full sun and at night in low light, outdoors and in clubs
- Landscape in all weather and lighting conditions
- Wildlife
- My kids' birthday parties
- Holiday snap shots
- Shows and events at clubs
- Macro
The 645D may be seen as, or promoted as, a specialist tool only for the serious landscape shooter or studio work - but it is NOT a one trick pony.
The lens thing has already been addressed - there are a lot of great lenses out there that will work with the 645D, no adapter needed. I'm shooting with the new 2.8 55mm prime, an older 645 4/120 Macro and an Arsat 30mm wide angle. The Arsat and Macro were second hand and combined cost me less than AUD$800.
I'm not a pro, no one pays or sponors me - I just REALLY like my photography and have always had a thing for larger formats. I'm married with kids, have a mortgage and am on a single income (mine).
I could easily have a mid-life crisis and blown ~$10K or more on a new jetski or motorbike, or an overseas holiday. Going from a APCS sensor pentax and wanting to go full-frame or bigger I wouldn't have got a lot of change, if any, from a new D3s and a lens or 3. If I'd done that, no one would have batted an eyelid ... but $10K on a single, non Canon/Nikon camera, HOLY CRAP!!
I've shot with a lot of film gear, I've used a lot of gear from Nikon and Canon, I had long term loans of Hasselblad and Phase One gear before settling on the 645D. Never had a single 2nd thought or regret since picking up my 645D.
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Forum: Post Your Photos!
11-20-2011, 06:43 PM
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I shot these a few weekends ago and I'm still working through all the images as we manged quite a few "keepers".
I had so most fun on this shoot, possibly the most fun I've had with a camera invloved - it was an awesome day and I had a blast - even after slipping on the rocks and falling flat on my back right at the start of the day.
The images are a mix of natural light, natural with some fill, and strobe as the main light balanced with natural.
Lenses - mostly the new 2.8/55 and some with the 4/120 Macro.
The tail is a creation from the folks at Pretty Pervy and it comes up to her waist, it's been combined with a latex bodysuit from my collection with the zipper and seams cloned out - other than that there's very little post production work.
The mermaid is a good friend of mine from work who I've talked into modelling for me.
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Forum: Photographic Technique
09-26-2011, 12:36 AM
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With my chosen niche, I come across smooth heads quite often - but I like seeing the reflections/shine. One example from a test-shoot taken on the weekend attached.
Maybe go the opposite way and instead of trying to reduce the effect, polish that noggin up good and shiny and make it a feature :p
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Forum: Weekly Photo Challenges
07-25-2011, 08:40 PM
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Got together with some friends from my photography club to give them an informal "lighting 101" course on the weekend.
I also took over a selection of stuff from my props collection and had some fun using them as my models while they played dress-ups with the stuff I bought.
Then as you do, we finished up by vac-sealing one of them in a vac-bed ..... just a typical, cold, wet, wintery day spent indoors really, though we did get a break in the weather for the outdoors shot.
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Forum: General Talk
06-14-2011, 12:16 AM
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We get it fairly often and it's sadly surprising how many people fall for it :(
The lastest batch originate from India and the caller will pose as someone from Microsoft or another Computer or Telecommunications company saying they've got info that there are viruses originating from computers in your area and they've detected your PC is infected. If you're gullible enough they'll then guide you through a series of steps to either let them remotely access your PC, or direct you to a website to download a "test" and you'll end up with some nice new malware on your computer.
depending on my mood at the time I either:
- hang-up immediately,
- scream as loud as possilble to give 'em a shock and then hang-up
- Ask "Does anyone actually fall for this crap?" and see what they say
- tell them they need to talk to my dog as he does all the IT stuff in the house and put the hand set near the dog so they can hear him panting and slobering
- Tell them to hang on a second, just got to grab something off the stove, be back soon .... then leave the phone off the hook tieing up the line and see how long it takes for them to hang-up (a little over 15 minutes is the record so far)
- Let them go on and pretend I'm at the PC, when they tell me to do something I'll do the wrong thing .... what?? Click the X at the top of the screen, but not the browser has dissapeared ....what? You're accent is hard to understand, I thought you said re-boot so it's doing that now and I've got to wait .... I can't do that as I'm running Ubuntu on my Mac in a virtual Unix windows environment with a homebake bios controlled by a prototype headband that reads my thoughts ......
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Forum: Photographic Technique
06-02-2011, 11:25 PM
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For most photographers working for themselves, the actual photography and time spent behind the camera is only a part (and a relatively small part) of being a pro photographer.
For the most part, the majority of the work is business mangement and development work i.e getting out there and selling yourself, promotional work, chasing up clients and the like - not to mention the other stuff like keeping track of accounts, taxes, invoices, insurance ......etc.
Once got yourself some paying clients there's customer relations to build and maintain.
A lot of commercial, good paying work isn't the type where you're "just going out by myself or with other friends where we're all taking pictures, and being able to take my time, and just shoot as I see stuff". Some photographers make a living from art, prints, landscapes and the likes - but the majority of paying work is things like weddings, stock, portraits, commercial/product shooting and generally stuff where you'll be on the clock and working to produce what the customer wants.
I know a lot of very good photographers who aren't pros for this very reason - and I also know a few pros who no longer enjoy photography and never shoot any of their own stuff anymore, they just shoot during work hours for clients. I also know quite a few pros who's technical skills and abilities are average at best .... but they've got the personality to get out there and make people want to hire them.
I've been a semi-pro for some time now and came to the realisation a while back that being a full-time pro just isn't going to happen for me unless I'm prepared to take on a lot of work that doesn't interest me ... then my long time hobby and passion will become "just a job" and I don't want that.
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Forum: Post Your Photos!
04-14-2011, 05:44 PM
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Some from a shoot earlier this year with the lovely Lizzi squeezing into a latex catsuit from my clothing/props collection. Never heard that much grunting, groaning and giggling from someone getting dressed before and it was a very tight fit for her, but boy did dhe look good in it - definitely worth the effort! |
Forum: Pentax Medium Format
01-01-2011, 09:07 PM
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So, I finally got the 645D into the studio for a shoot and had a few hours with the lovely Latasha and an assortment of clothing from my latex collection and some clothes she bought along.
Some things I noticed worth mentioning (maybe).
In the past I'd always put the camera in manual WB and shoot a grey card - either I botched how to do this or there's some issues with the 645D in this area ..... I'll bet it's operator error and will go back to the manual. What ever I did I could not for the life of me set a WB I was happy with, then I did what was previously unthinkable on any other DSLR I've used in the studio, I put WB to auto and it was spot on perfect!
EDIT - Yep, user error on the WB side of things - resorted to reading the manual and have it sorted now.
Now I know when shooting raw you can adjust WB in post easily enough, but as you'd know in just about any raw converter/processor you've got things like daylight, shade, flash ......etc as well as Auto and "as shot". I like to have "as shot" spot on and couldn't achieve that with a manual setting on the day, but the 645Ds Auto setting came to the rescue. I'm using Adobe Camera Raw and ACR's "Auto" disagreed with the 645D's "as shot" which was the auto setting - so ACR and the 645D Auto settings have a difference of opinion.
Focusing took a bit to wrap my head around. I like shooting in the studio around the F8 or lower mark and the DOF on the new 2.8/55mm lens at F8 means focusing and recomposing made it very easy to lose that perfect, pin sharp detail where I wanted it to be. Using the select focus mode helped in some cases, but the options aren't far enough from the centre to help in most cases. Full auto was great for me shooting a model out doors, but in the studio it went to the centre or very close to the centre every time (which isn't where I wanted it to focus).
Those were just niggles though and nothing I'm concerned about and I still absoloutely LOVE this camera! The colours, the contrast, the resolution/sharpness/clarity is miles better than anything else I've used and I've tried a lot of different cameras.
Image size and compression was a surprise. The raw files are still around the 40 Mb mark, still convert to an 8 bit Tif around the 100 Mb range, but with all that white and other solid colours in the studio a quality 12 setting in Photoshop produced a 5 to 10 Mb jpg, making the images more than managable for uploading to my site.
Size and weight wasn't an issue and after a 3 hour session in the studio I hadn't noticed any difference other than when picking up another photographers D3 and it feeling a bit small and toy-like.
If I've got a style it has to be What You See is What You Get with preference for bright, vibrant and contrasting colours and in the past I used to do a fair bit of post to make the image look like what I was seeing in real life - not so with the 645D, it's making me go back to the basics and all I'm doing now is minor dodging and burning and basic healing/cloning of stray hairs or fluff/dust/marks on clothing or the background.
I have been bemoaning the lack of tethering, but really didn't miss or want it during this shoot. The screen on the 645D is good enough to give you a good idea of what the images are looking like, it's easy to zoom in/out to pixel peep and I reckon tethering would just slow me down. After each change of lighting I'd chimp/check the first 2 or 3 shots and then go from there only checking the camera every now and then to ensure I hadn't bumped a switch/dial and inadvertantly changed settings.
Setting sdid vary, but in general they were:
Auto WB
Manual and set to between F5.6 and F9 and around 1/125th
Centre focus or selective focus
Shot in the .dng raw format
Pics attached were opened in ACR, lens correction selected and set to auto using the default for the 2.8/55mm lens - then into CS5 for minor dodging/burning and spot removal. Saved as 60 x 45 cm tifs on my pc, saved as the highest quality jpg and uploaded to my site, my site re-sizes automatically to various sizes and the images below are the re-sized jpg versions. The full sized tifs are incredible (if I do say so myself) and I can't wait to print a few out.
All in all - I loved it and I'm very happy with the images we got from the day. I know I've got a way to go learning the camera and re-adjusting my style to get the most from it and am looking forward to that immensely.
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