Day 76 Awww. Crap.

Even after several years of doing this, I suck at lighting. But just like art and music, practice makes perfect. Anyways, this is the stack of books I wanted to start reading/reviewing/finishing at the beginning of summer. Actually, this stack should be even higher. Add in a few summer school books (Japanese and Music Theory), med books (EMT) and just random novels/works (Poe, photography and DIY stuff) and the stack grows quite rapidly. Maybe that’ll be tomorrow’s shot. O yea. Don’t forget Shakespeare and the Bible (which I really wanted to finish over summer but so far, I’m not doing so good.)

Credit for photo idea goes to Tracey Luke.

EXIF: ƒ/5.6 1/60th ISO 100 The ƒ/5.6 should give enough depth of field to read all the titles of the books and it also helps bring down the ambient. It does affect the flash power but I can also bring the flash power up. The 1/160th is mostly what kills the ambient light. Unfortunately, unlike my D200, the GF1’s sync speed only goes down to 1/160th, which isn’t good enough to kill the ambient entirely.

Day 4*9 QUARTY

EXIF:ƒ/2.0 1/1.3 ISO400

Day 43

EXIF: ƒ2.8 1/5th ISO 400

Day 38 FLAME ON!

Yay for various sources of light!

EXIF: ƒ/2.0 1/30th ISO 400

Day 6^2

The smallest light I have: 189 lumens. Runs off a CR123 battery. Shooting at 1/2000th of a second is amazing. Especially for constant light. The few times I can actually shoot at 1/2000th is in direct sunlight with a large aperture. Now if this is the smallest light… Imagine the biggest. 😀

Exif:ƒ/2.0 1/2000 ISO 200

Reflector shot. 0.2 lumens. Trust me. It may not sound like a lot, but with night vision, this lights up a room. I mean, just look at the EXIF. No joke. This is bright.

EXIF:ƒ/4.0 1/2000 ISO80

Day 2^5 Light, light and light.

More on the use-whatever-light-necessary theme. I was shooting a product shot (which I didn’t like that much so I didn’t post that.) But I was using this small desk lamp to light into my DIY light tent. Given that it’s so small, it actually gives a really nice quality of light. The back of the light actually reflects some of the light, so it gives it a larger surface area resulting in a softer light. You’d really be surprised at what you can use to light stuff. Go random lighting stuff!

EXIF: ƒ/2.0 1/8 ISO 400

Day 28 Use whatever tools nessessary to get the job done.

No.. This isn’t a ringlight flash. It’s actually a flashlight. Recently, Strobist talks about combining a tripod and a long exposure to bring up the ambient light instead of using flash to light everything up. I used a flashlight for this circle of light. I can bounce the light off the ceiling and I can clearly see everything in my room. No ambient light at all.  In another example of how bright this is: if I cover the flashlight with my hand, I can see the major veins that run through my hand. Flashlights can also be used as a source, for key or for fill. The light was from a Fenix PD30 and this thing is BRIGHT. I can see down a football field with this kind of power. Point is, your light doesn’t have to come from a top of the line SB-900 or 580MK2. Use whatever you have on your body instead of wishing you had an extra flash and regretting later about the picture. In fact, as a general rule, try keeping a flashlight on you. It might even save your life in an emergency situation.

EXIF: ƒ/2.0 1/50 ISO 80 (See? BRIGHT.)