8:51:55 PM ISO 100, 50mm, 1/25 sec, F/16 (Mouse over to change)
The “Golden Hour” happens one hour after sun-rise and one hour before sunset. This is a point where the sunlight is not too strong, has a warming colour to it and comes in from the side. Last night I sat in a chair taking an exposure of the sunset every minute. I rolled the exposure speed longer and longer as the sun went down, keeping the meter needle centered on area meter mode. There were about 70 photos taken, in all. I liked the lighting quality the most at about 50 minutes before sunset (when these two pictures were taken). The lighting turned very purple during the last 20 minutes of the sunset.
It was amazing to see how much the lighting changed from one minute to the next, too. These two shots are only 1 minute apart yet the ground was lit completely differently. Most of the time this wouldn’t matter because I am usually set to aperature or Tv mode, but it changes the subjet itself drastically.
I would like to do this again, but with a much more interesting subject & composition and compile it into an animation showing the change over time. I was shooting this in a slight drizzle and none of my gear is moisture resistant so I had to do it under our 2nd story deck.
So I’ve been working with on-camera flash photography for a while and I’ve gotten the hang of it. I’m also starting to get a strong desire to get my flash off the camera, which I believe will start to produce more natural photography. Mastering flash is important if I want to get an image out of tough lighting; I can only bounce so much.
I read a review of the new TTL compatible PocketWizards on The Strobist and I think these will be my ticket. A pair of them is cheaper than a lens so they’ll probably be my next investment, along with a flash tripod, umbrella and soft box. And some more Ni-MH rechargeables. Two sets barely lasts me an evening.
ISO 160, F3.5, 1/60 sec
Oh my god the colour! I have never shot pictures with such deep and rich colour before with my 5D. So far I’m quite pleased with my purchase of the Canon EF 85mm 1.8 prime lens. It has contrast and sharpness that I have never shot with before and the depth of field is like butter with 8 rounded aperture blades and the ability to shoot at F1.8 while retaining most of it’s center sharpness.
However, when shooting at F1.8 on a lens of this reach, you have a very narrow margin of focus. My Canon 5D classic had no trouble focusing, however, with this fast lens. Even when focusing on a single AF point, it was fast and smooth. I’m still losing shots, however, due to my own mistake on focusing on incorrect points or simply shooting at too low of an aperture.
I was present at Dade’s grand opening in Calgary. They needed an event photographer so I took up the task. They’re a great space with fine art and fine furniture. Darcy and Greg are beautiful people both inside and out and I would like to thank them for giving me the opportunity to shoot their great event!
During the drive home at 6:00pm today I couldn’t help but gawk at the perfect cloud formation 360 degrees in all directions. This evening at about 9:15pm there was a bright golden hue being cast into the house and I had a look outside. I scrambled to grab my camera, threw on my 50mm 1.8 and a gradated ND filter and snapped a bunch of shots. I chose this one as the better of the bunch. All I did was export it from CR2 to jpeg with a resize to 550px high (full view is 1024 pixels high). There was no saturation tweaking or the likes.
Today I was shooting some family photographs and I tried to put a bunch of theories together. I was using an ND gradated filter to keep the sky from blowing out, I used a circular polarizer to cause clouds to pop and I used fill flash to keep my subject from being too dark. Here is one of the resulting photographs from playing with all three of these. This was shot at about 5:30 pm when the sun was pretty strong. You can probably note that the ND filter was turned slightly, causing the sky to be a little dark in the upper left which helps direct the eye a little.
Animals don’t cooperate, especially dumb animals, and chickens sure are dumb. At about 3PM is when the eggs are ready to collect from the old chicken coop and today I decided to bring my camera along with me and climb into the chicken pen for a bit of one-on-one with our food.
My little step brother took the reigns of my camera for some of the day yesterday. He kept asking if it does video and was disappointed that it doesn’t. These photos haven’t been doctored and they exactly how he took them. Pretty good :)
I walked 68 blocks yesterday. I walked along 11th avenue, 17th avenue, and through the residential area in between. The bright sunny day is a situation I haven’t photographed before. I found myself attracted to architecture again, especially big shiny architecture that reflected the beautiful cloudy sky.
