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My industrial design class just completed their semester-long power equipment design project culminating with the building of full-scale appearance models. I set up a make-shift photo studio in a lightly used classroom and over the past 24 hours shot over 600 images. All were taken in RAW format (DNG) with my Pentax K10D and my 18-55mm kit lens and FA 35mm f/2 AL and processed in Adobe Lightroom. By shooting in RAW I was able to set the white balance for all the shots with one click by selecting an underexposed portion of the white backdrop with the eye dropper tool in Lightroom and then copying and pasting that setting to all images.

Most of the shots required a heavy dose of positive exposure compensation while shooting to keep the white backdrop white and not grey. I was pretty diligent with the use of the histogram while shooting so there wasn’t much need for exposure adjustment. I just made sure there was a good spike on the right hand side of the graph without going very far into the mid tones. Here’s a shot of the “studio” set-up:

I positioned the white paper backdrop centered under a row of fluorescent lights so that there was a row flanking the backdrop on either side. This provided nice even lighting front to back and reduced shadows to a minimum.

For each of the 14 students I took anywhere from 40-70 shots (all hand-held @ ISO 400). I started with low-angle orthographic views at a medium focal length (35-45mm) followed by eye-level perspective shots at a wider angle (35-24mm), short depth of field detail shots (to hide any imperfections), and specialty shots as required (use, high angle, ultra-wide low angle perspective, etc.). All in all I was really pleased with the results right out of the camera and I think the students ended up with great shots for their portfolios.

Unfortunately, the confidentiality agreement I signed prevents me from showing most of the shots or even revealing the client or other interesting project details, but here are a few ambiguous detail shots of the final models to show what I was able to achieve with this make shift DIY studio set-up:

Oh, and I have over 2,000 photos that I have taken of the students working on their projects this semester that I need to burn off onto DVDs within the next week!

April 22nd, 2009 | Tags: Adobe Lightroom, Auburn University, backdrop, DIY, exposure, FA 35mm f/2 AL, final, fluorescent, industrial design, model making, paper, Pentax K10D, project, RAW, Robert S. Donovan, SMCP-DA 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 AL, studio, white balance, whitespace | Category: technique | Comments Off

I’ve already blogged here once about taking sunset photos but after taking this blue hour shot tonight I just had to share how easy this is.

I had to run downtown around 6pm to pick up some fresh oysters from the Fish Market. On the way out the door I grabbed my Pentax K10D, 16-50 f/2.8 DA* (borrowed) and tripod. I made a bee line down 21st Street South (past the Fish Market) to the viaduct that goes over the railroad tracks into downtown. From this elevated vantage point over the tracks I knew I would have a decent view west with enough streetlights for some killer starburst action.

Here’s the set-up for this shot:

• camera mode: MANUAL (you can’t do this in AUTO!)
• aperture: f/22
• shutter speed: 30 seconds
• ISO: 100*
• white balance: AUTO
• flash: OFF (!!)
• IS: OFF
• auto focus: OFF (manually set focus to ∞)
• self timer: ON (2 second delay)
• focal length: widest setting (here: 16mm)
• battery: fully charged (!)

*Nikon users with ISO 200 as the lowest setting may have to back off the shutter to 15-20 seconds.

That’s it. Mount the camera on a tripod, compose the shot, trip the shutter (using the self timer prevents camera shake), step back, and wait. If you time the light right that’s all you’ll ever have to do. The small aperture ensures everything is in focus and creates dazzling starbursts. The long exposure pulls in all kinds of light and colors and the low ISO keeps things s-m-o-o-t-h. I did shoot this photo in RAW but all I did in Lightroom to this shot is apply my standard import settings and touch up a little sensor dust.

Truthfully, I rarely look at the exposure meeter for these shots. I usually just take a 30 second f/22 shot at ISO 100 and check the LCD. If it’s too dark I’ve probably missed the magic blue hour and it’s either time to pack it up or break out the DIY bulb switch (though I usually try a few in vain at f/16 and f/8 just to be sure). If the shot is too bright I’ll just back off the shutter to 15 seconds and try again. If that doesn’t work I just wait a bit until the light drops off some more. The only real hard part is getting the timing right (most people are packing up to leave about the time I’m setting up for my best shots) and being patient (30 second exposures can seem like an eternity sometimes).

It’s really one of the few never-fail shots if you use these settings. Trick is you pretty much have to use all of these settings to get decent results. Break out the tripod and give it a try tomorrow night!

Here are a few more examples on my Flickr stream if you’re interested.

February 7th, 2009 | Tags: 21st Street South, 30 seconds, Adobe Lightroom, AL, Birmingham, DA* 16-50mm f/2.8 ED AL [IF] SDM, dark, DIY cable release, downtown, evening, exposure, f/22, Fish Market, manual, night, oysters, Pentax K10D, self timer, starbursts, streetlights, sunset, tripod, www.booleansplit.com | Category: technique | Comments (4)

Here’s the above image without processing in Lightroom:

As you can see it was a grey and dreary day. I tried to manage the exposure to make sure I kept some cloud detail in the highlights of this photo. However, this meant the foreground was a bit dark. It got even darker when I pulled back the Exposure to -1 to really get the sky to pop. So, I dialed in a big handful of Fill Light and a touch of Recovery. Finally, I tweaked the individual color Luminance sliders to get the blue sky and the yellow crane to really pop. I applied similar settings to the rest of the photos I took with varying results:

Unfortunately there was a locked fence around the facility which greatly limited my composition options. I’ll have to try again sometime when there is better light.

January 10th, 2009 | Tags: Adobe Lightroom, Alabama, chip mill, exposure, fence, Fill Light, Highway 280, logs, Luminance, overcast, post process, Recovery, single image HDR, timber, trees, www.booleansplit.com | Category: photos | Comments Off