Starting a general Photography hints thread

[LauraN]

Here is one that I found.
Homemade Light Box for Product Photography » StudioLighting.net
I am still searching for the original one...It had you make one for use in full sun, where you take 2 card tables and put one upside down on the other and cover with a white cotton fabric. I'll post it as soon as I re-locate!

[cheffysteffy]

Yes I agree we should have an area just for photography. Great suggestion.

Stefan

[Ross]

Originally Posted by LauraN

Here is one that I found.
Homemade Light Box for Product Photography » StudioLighting.net
I am still searching for the original one...It had you make one for use in full sun, where you take 2 card tables and put one upside down on the other and cover with a white cotton fabric. I'll post it as soon as I re-locate!

While this is really a nice one, you can make a simple shade for use outdoors by using a wire cone/basket designed for tomatoes and covering with a white, thin fabric. The full sun is the light source. I made one and still use it. Place the cone/cylinder upsdie down over the plant (or other object) and the fabric dulls the shadows and makes them less harsh (that's the point of this home made one).

[tomancreed]

Just wanted to second the Nikkor 60mm f/2.8d lens, I used this lens a lot with the my D100, its a great lens you can,t go wrong. One of these days when I can afford it I would like to add the Nikkor 105mm f2.0D Autofocus Lens another fine lens.
TC

[tropterrarium]

Anyone shooting LF? I use an Arca F-line compact 4x5", with one macro lens (plus some others from Schneider 72XL to T-Nikkor 360/500/720 triple convertible). Love flash with LF (an old Contax TLA 360 with PC sync cord and a Sekonic 558 flashmeter). Lite disks are wonderful, I have a couple of 5-in-1 with diffuser and reflectors. I think flash gets a bad reputation because all too often one can see FLASH!!! all over the image. Properly diffused and balance with reflectors, it can look very natural. It takes some practice to get there. For LF, I tape a white piece of cardboard to the Lee compendium shade, and I can position the cardboard by moving the compendium. Works wonders.

Other camera is a Canon 5dmkII. For close-ups I much prefer 100 mm focal lengths, rather than the 50-60 mm versions. You get more space to work around the plant with the longer focal lengths. I use a Zeiss 100 mm/f2.0 Makroplanar ZE, spectacular lens, just too bad it only goes to 1:2 without extension rings (Kenko set). Have had previously also Nikon 105, Olympus 50 (first macro in 1986) and 90, Pentax 100, Zeiss 100/f2.8 for Contax. The Canon MPE 65 mm is quite useful as it goes from 1:1 to 5:1 without bellows etc.

Tripods: a couple of Gitzo CF, with Linhof ProfiII and Arca B1 ballheads, respectively. Hardly ever use the macrofocusing stage. The offset for the center of gravity is more annoying than repositioning the tripod by a few mm.

Black has the advantage to be neutral in color value, so in comparison of multiple shots, the true color of the subject is not affected by the background, either by reflection of the light from the background, nor psychologically, when looking at pictures. It also has the greatest contrast to the subject, which will also help with perceived sharpness of the subject.

Should post some pictures, but gotta run now, sorry ...

[tropterrarium]

Epi-gigantea.jpg

Here's a LF image of Epipactis gigantea, flashed. For 4x5" it is about life size (1:1). The original scan is about half gig, so this is much reduced.

[astoner]

Originally Posted by Ross

I personally use micro-fiber cloths, available from optomitrists, meant for plastic eye glasses. I believe Wal-Mart sells large ones in the eyeglass section. They won't damage coatings on lenses. I never use solutions unless something drastic has happened. Be sure and always use the same side of the cloth against the lens. I prefer to watch the direction of the label and keep my hands on the same side all the time. Oils from your hands will get on lens otherwise.

I never really thought about this, it's a really good tip. I don't think I clean the lens often enough anyway and I'm betting I was putting oil from my hand back on.

[tropterrarium]

Originally Posted by Ross

New post: information on lighting control that you can carry with you in the field (so to speak)

Reflectors - used to bounce natural light into shadow areas of blossoms. These will work even if the sun is not shining as the sky is usually very bright compared to the shadow areas.

LiteDisc

Screens - used to reduce the contrast of bright sun-lit plants down to a range the film or digital camera can handle.

These are available as translucent LiteDiscs from Photoflex as well. The idea here is colors always appear more saturated when direct light is not hitting them. Ever see the bright reds of fall color leaves right after a rain or in a mist and the sun isn't shinning? They are much redder than when the sun is shining. You (or an assistant) can open one of these discs and hold above the plant, between the plant and the sun, and it will reduce the strength of contrast between highlights and shadows. The closer the screen is to the plant, the brighter the light will be.

Most of the better-equipped local camera shops carry or can order these discs. I personally have discs from 12" up to 60" size in many combinations of reflectors and screens. They collapse down to 4" to 24", depending on full size.

I agree with Ross on the lite disks; I own a couple of 5 in 1's. For people who don't know whether this is really worth it, here's a suggestion to improve your plant pictures by a big leap for next to nothing:

Find a white piece of cardboard. Hold it on the opposite side from the light source just outside frame next to the plant/flower. This will brighten up the shadows and make the lighting softer. Once you see what a white piece of card board can do, then you may be ready to shell out some $$$ for a lite-disk.

I ALWAYS have two pieces of 6x8" card board in my camera bag, and some masking tape, with which I tape the white cards temporarily to whatever is available: sticks, tripod, lens, camera. for close ups, the cardboard is much easier to position than the lite-disk. Often I diffuse a flash through the diffuser of the 5-in-1, and use one or two cardboards on the opposite side. This makes very nice soft light, but still is not flat.

For those interested a bit more, read Hunter & Fuqua "Light: Science and Magic". It explains lighting contrast, subject contrast and the various effects very nicely. Highly recommended.

[ChasWG]

Here's a shot that is a good example of one light source and one bounce card. I like to keep a few different piece of foamcore around. Some black, some gold and some white.



In this case I used a gold colored piece of foamcore as the BG and another piece of white to bounce some light back in, opposite the light source.

Tech info: Canon 40D, Canon 24-70 f2.8L with 12mm of Kenko ET's. Light was from a 100ws strobe triggered via YN RF-602 system. 1/80th @ f7.1, ISO 100 shot at 57mm.

[ChasWG]

Also, another tip/rule of thumb - when shooting hand held and not using a flash of some sort is to try and keep your shutter speed higher than the focal length that you are using. This greatly reduces camera shake and blur in your images.

An example: If I'm shooting my 70-200mm f4L at say 180mm then my shutter speed should be at least 1/180th or faster, preferably faster.

The longer the focal length the more camera shake blur you are likely to introduce. This is one of the easiest things you can do to take sharper images.

So if you follow this rule to the other extreme, you'll see that the wider the angle of view, the slower your shutter speeds can be. I still don't like to go slower than 1/60th hand held, but sometimes you can get away with it with a wide angle lens.

Example: Canon 40D, Tamron 10-24mm SP Di f3.5-4, 1/8th @ f20, 24mm focal length, leg braced against a fence.