The stray cat returns!
I must admit that when shooting a number of the houses in my local area I often find it challenging to see what the camera sees in small rooms. Often the camera is on a tripod in the corner of a room with no room for me to get behind and look through the viewfinder or see the display. The problem of composing the shot gets worse when you put the camera a few metres up a pole! One idea was to have an external monitor so I could see what was going on. Using a USB connection along with Helicon Remote allows me to view the scene and focus the camera whilst looking at my tablet. So much easier in those awkward places! I can’t zoom, but I can compose, focus and take a bracketed set of shots.
I didn’t want a BIG tablet. I have enough to carry about and as I’ve already mentioned I can end up in small places! I opted for the little Nexus 7 as it has quite a nice screen, is small and quite lightweight. As it happens I can use it for Skype and the rear facing camera isn’t too bad as you can see from the two shots in this post. It’s 5MP and I find the handling of the device for photographs more awkward than using my dSLRs. As such, the next set of photos posted here will almost certainly not be from the Nexus!
The first shot in the post is of the stray cat that has returned to the compost heap to deposit yet another litter of kittens. I wish we could catch this cat or compost heap kittens is going to be an annual event! The second image in the post is of some aquilegia I planted at the bottom of may garden last year. Backyard aqualegia
It must be a couple of years now since Frank passed away. Frank was a neighbour for many years and an enthusiastic gardener. He grew all manner of plants, but these orchids were some of his favourites. Quite tiny blooms, but when you see then in a group they’re rather lovely … as they are when you get up close. Frank gave us some of these orchids when he was still active and well, and they serve as a lovely reminder of an old friend.
The image you see above was taken with a 50mm lens and extension tubes to let me get just that little bit closer. Three flash guns (left rear, right rear and front right) were used to illuminate the scene. Shame Frank isn’t here to see his blooms still doing well.
A bit wet … thank goodness for weather sealing on the camera and lenses!! I thought I’d try to get close to this little flower … and then the weather changed! No longer dry and windless, but rain and the flower was moving all over the place. Just for fun I thought I’d try to freeze the action with some flash. A single speedlight placed camera left, really to keep it dry more than anything else! Not too bad. Not a lot of movement in the bloom.
Oh, the flower is white, and it’s foliage is grey/green. Not much contrast in the scene. A bit of a twiddle in Nik’s Silver Efex Pro helped change the contrasts and “sensitivity” to different colours.
The weather wasn’t the best, and there was quite a bit of contrast in the scene. HDR to the rescue again. I’ve been using Nik’s HDR Efex Pro for some time now and have been very impressed with the product. There is, however, one serious weakness when compared to Photomatix Pro and that’s its ability to handle ghosting. In the shot you see here above (nine frames used to make up the HDR image) there were several ghosts of the cars and pedestrians as they moved through the scene. Photomatix to the rescue!
Not been on here for some time. It all started going pear shaped about four weeks ago when I started to feel ill. A brief spell in hospital, and then quite some time recovering from surgery and feeling somewhat worse for wear has kept me away from the blog. Mind you, one week after being on the operating theatre I did manage to shoot the 2013 Schools Trash to Fashion finals. This was a real mission for me, and I must admit to being totally wasted after the show. I’d promised to shoot the event, so I really wanted to be there. The contestants put so much time and effort into their garments and I wanted to make sure we got some worthwhile images.
Supreme garment “Tori No Su (Birds Nest)” by Kayla Rousselle of Lynfield College
The contestants are all school children and their ages range from school years 1 through to 13. Their imagination and creativity is quite amazing and you get the feeling that you’re looking at some of the country’s future fashion designers.
Some of the “Shorn!” Category Contestants
Want to see more? Well, click here to go to the main page for the ST2F 2013 photographs. Just want to see the winners? Click here.
I was chatting to my son about light and some of the challenges you have when trying to take photos of glass. So, to illustrate the point, we grabbed a few glasses from upstairs – nothing fancy as there was a high chance things would get broken – and headed down into the basement! The glasses were placed on my light table which has a glossy white plastic surface. We tried a few different configurations, just to illustrate how we could change the appearance of the image by where we placed the light source.
Ambient light shot This is the first shot. Taken with available light from the window to camera left. You can see a range of reflections on the glasses – I really must tidy up in the basement! Anyway, besides seeing all the clutter in the reflections you’ll notice the glasses seem to blend into the background. Instead of looking at the shape of the glasses you’re probably looking to see just what the clutter is in my basement!
Single flash from below
Same setup as before, except this time I placed a speedlight under the light table. This gives quite a different effect. No longer are the reflections of the basement clutter so obvious and you get a much better idea of the shape of the glasses. One thing I’ve learnt is that when you play with glasses have a clean cloth handy so you can remove your greasy finger prints!
Light from behind with gels
Next we decided instead of having the background predominantly white with the form of the glasses being black to swap things round. Now we tried a black background and had the glasses being white – or another colour! This time a gobo was placed behind the glasses and two white reflectors placed on the left and right of the glasses. The white light table was replaced with foamcore with some glass under the glasses to give some reflections. We also placed some gels in front of the flash to get some different colours.
Light from behind with gels
We used the gel filters from the studio lights; yellow red and blue. The first shot used the yellow gel, but then using both yellow and blue gave us green as you see in this image.
Remember that I mentioned I had two white reflectors on each side of the glasses? Well, for the last shot we used two speedlights on low power fired through red and blue gels at these reflectors as well as a third speedlight behind the gobo as in the two previous shots.
Extra coloured speedlights left and right
So there you go, a bit of fun with a speedlight or two in the basement. Good fun and I think my son learnt a little as well as had some fun with the filters, reflectors and speedlights.
A few weeks ago at the Matariki celebrations in Henderson one of my cameras, my Nikon D800, started to misbehave. The autofocus mechanism did the exact opposite of what it was supposed to do and was doing an autoUNfocus. There was nothing I could do with the camera to resolve the problem. I tried cycling the power (removing and reinserting the batteries), doing a factory settings reset, changed lenses, changed focus modes (AF-C, AF-S), single point focus, or use all 51 point. Absolutely nothing worked. It was well and truly stuffed. Then I decided to try LiveView. this worked! I switched back to viewfinder and unbelievably autofocus was back on track again!
Alan Brown playing with the Alan Brown Project.
The camera misbehaved a couple more times that evening, and each time the LiveView trick brought viewfinder focus back to life again. I got the camera checked and no errors were reported. Happy that all was apparently good I continued using the camera with no issues until the Native Noise event at the Town Hall with Che Fu organised by Evitan. Same problems as before. Two green arrows indicating the camera couldn’t focus!
This time a more thorough investigation was conducted and the camera was in the shop for a few days. Again, no faults identified and the camera passed all tests. I must admit to feeling both dismayed that nothing had been identified as well as pleased that the camera had passed all tests. Time to test it again, this time on the Whangaporoa Peninsular when I went to shoot Take Note.
All was going well, really well and I thought the fault had been fixed … until about an hour into the shoot. Same again. Two green arrows and no focus. I felt sick. Was it me? I certainly wasn’t imagining what was happening and I couldn’t identify any action I was taking to cause the problem and switching to LiveView and back again did fix the problem.
I was losing all confidence in the camera and started using my D300 in preference to the D800 now. The D300 had been faultless since day one and I could trust this workhorse. I’d missed shots with the D800 and was seriously disappointed with it so back it went to the workshop.
It came back on Wednesday and as soon as I attached a lens and started to use it I could sense there was something different. It sounds silly, but it just seemed to have been “tuned” or “tweaked”. I now had the D800 I’d fallen in love with last year. I was delighted … but how would it be with the bands? No worries!! I took it out last night to see Cherie Mathieson singing with the Alan Brown Project. I was determined to put the camera into the same type of conditions that had caused it to fail previously. Was I disappointed? Not at all. The camera was a dream to use and behaved perfectly for the two hours I was shooting. Happy? I’m stoked!!
Here’s a few shots of Cherie from last night. ISO 5000, f2.8, 1/125sec, 85mm f1.4G, Nikon D800
So, how did the fault get fixed? Well, the folks at Nikon (Macalister‘s here in NZ) did a superb job. They replaced the viewfinder autofocus mechanism, recalibrated, tested and ensured the camera passed all tests before giving it back. End result? A seriously stoked Nikon user with one wicked D800 😉
My good friend Malcolm Lakatani was there with Che Fu as part of the band even though his proteges were performing in the Smokefree Pacifica Beats competition at the same time. Great news for Malcolm is that his band, Revived Rhythm – as it says on the T-shirt, came in first place in the heats!!
The lighting was good, but even so I was using quite high ISOs to keep the shutter speed up at a reasonable speed. Great effects from the lighting crew – almost making Malcolm look somewhat angelic! There’s more photos from the night on my Facebook page. Maybe take a look and perhaps like the page? That way you’ll get to see any new images I add as I shoot the bands etc. Just a reminder that you can always contact me to come and shoot your band if you need promotional images or performance shots.
I’ll finish this post with a few more images from the night. Perhaps leave me a comment and let me know what you think.
1814 on stage at the Town HallChris Pierce from NZ Reggae band 1814.Lomez BrownJosh Iopu Mase from Three Houses DownAlbert Cook with the band Three Houses DownThe very special Thabani Gapara on stage with Three Houses DownCharlie Pome’e, lead singer with Three Houses Down, on drums for a change!
What a wonderful evening. Cat Tunks from Black Sand Diva helped organise a great group of musicians out at the Corban’s Estate. Outside somewhat wet and dreary, but inside … wonderfully warm with a great atmosphere.
Huia Hamon
The evening started with Huia Hamon singing a lovely Waiata. Really very special to have Huia explain the meaning behind the words so we could better appreciate what was being sung. Very special and quite lovely. Sadly, Huia wasnlt on stage very long, but I did manage a few photos of her. Please take a look here and let me know what you think. Want to know more about Huia? Click here to go to her offcial Blog/Website.
Next to perform were the students from Avondale College. Escorted to the site by the one and only Malcolm Lakatani, these students were superb! A real credit to their tutors and the school itself. Oozing talent … there’s some future music stars in these students that’s for sure!
Following the students we were treated to Black Sand Diva and then Mihirangi Mihi – The Queen of the Loops. I’ve posted a couple of albums of images of Black Sand Diva and Mihirangi Mihi if you’d like to see some more shots. All in all quite a special evening!
