Introduction to Digital Photography week 6

Bottles

After four weeks off we return to college. This week Ian was off sick and we had another tutor.

When I walked into the studio (as this was where we were this week) there were 4 different still life set ups around the room. The setups were a bottle on a table with a light shining on to it. Each one had a different colour bottle and a different light. 3 out of the 4 lights were remote trigger flashes and the 4th was a daylight light. We were also given a light meter to read the conditions for optimal images using the M (Manual mode) on our cameras.

This is what the daylight setup looked like

When I saw this and found out that this was what we were doing today I thought "this is going to be boring". However when I started working my way around the room and working with the other students and comparing notes I found the session really interesting.

I really liked the way some of these pictures turned out and how the different lights worked in different way and gave different results.

Here is a small selection of pictures that I took over the course of the evening

F8 1/15 second

The focus on this one is half way down the bottle, so inside the bottle is in focus and the neck and wall behind are slightly out.

F11 1/60 second

F11 1/60 second

F22 1/80 second

Using the overhead light you can only see the bottle and nothing else that was present in the room. Brilliant

F22 1/60 second

 F22 1/60 second

I liked the way the light reflected on the table surface here

London November 20th

I popped down to London over the weekend and had a mini adventure. Here are a couple of pictures I got of Tower Bridge after the light dropped and the lights came on. Unfortunately I did not have my tripod with me so I had to rely on walls and a lifebuoy to steady my camera.

Hope you like what I got

F6, 2.5 Seconds

F3, 1/2 second

I like these shots but I would like to try these again using my tripod

Bonfire night 6th and 7th of November 2010

I was very much looking forward to Bonfire night this year for the chance to get out with my camera and experiment with taking pictures of Fire works. I was once told by a photographer that taking pictures of fire works is a great way to practice the technique used for taking pictures of lightening.

With that in mind I set my camera to M (Manual), with a 2 second shutter speed and an aperture of F8, grabbed my tripod and headed to Barking park's display on Saturday 6th November.

Here are the pictures that I took on Saturday at Barking Park

F8, 2 seconds

F8, 2 seconds

F8, 2 seconds

F8, 3 seconds

F8, 5 seconds

This one is my favourite

F8, 5 seconds

F8, 5seconds

F8, 5 seconds

F8, 4 seconds

F8, 2 seconds

Here are the pictures that I took on Sunday in Ashford

F5, 2.5 seconds

F5, 2.5 seconds

From the photos above I had a better day on the Saturday than the Sunday. I believe that F8 was a better aperture to use than F5. With F5 some of the fire works looked a little out of focus, but with F8 they looked great.

The Barking Park display did have more large explosion fire works than Ashford and this also helped with the quality of pictures.

F5, 3 seconds

I had seen this done on the web and wanted to give it a quick try. This picture looked good, although we only had one try and could not really change the location as I was already set up to take pictures of the fire works.

To make this better what I needed to do what to have a dark background without the lights and flash at the end of the shot to show off the subject who is waving the sparkler.