Month: March 2014

Food photography is an art…and not an instinctive one at that. After I viewed a food photography how-to by Joe Glyda on KelbyOne, I was astonished to learn that pancakes are sprayed with Scotchguard to keep the syrup and butter from soaking in, that a steamer wand produces the steam off “hot” vegetables and other “steamy” foods, and sometimes the milk splash shooting out of a bowl of cereal is plastic! If I’d known some of the things I learned on this video when I was photographing food for the Famous Mo’s website, I would have done things a bit differently.

That being said, and fresh off my experiment with water drops the other day, I had in my mind something I’ve seen in many wine and beverage ads: an incredible splash as the liquid hits the bottom of the glass. Let me just say that my bottle of wine is very well aerated! I kept pouring it back into the bottle (using a funnel) so that I would get the best effect. I learned that I need to improve my “studio” lighting (two Ott lights in front of a white trifold board supplemented by an off camera speed light setting on the kitchen granite) and I need to perfect my pouring technique. I didn’t start this experiment until well past the time I normally pour myself a glass of Zinfandel and was so intent on what I was doing that I didn’t pour myself a glass until after 8PM, about the same time I ate a bowl of microwaved lentil soup that was not particularly blog-worthy, given what I now know about food photography.

But, rest assured that this is the real deal! Rancho Zabaco Sonoma Heritage Vines Zinfandel was my model this evening. And I must say, it is pretty good! I think I bought it at Costco. I have much more experimenting to do on this technique and I’m sure there are “tricks of the trade” that I should learn but I was pretty happy to get a “crown” in the glass. I also did quite a bit of processing to remove the weird shadows that appeared because of my inadequate lighting and to get the high-key effect I was after.

But, it’s the most yellow rose I have. This is Rio Samba taken during the “golden hour” a little after 6PM with the setting sun shining directly on this flower. I hadn’t taken any photos when I checked my Flickr challenge for inspiration. Sunday’s topic is “yellow.” Rio Samba was there waiting for me.

But, of course I couldn’t…just drop it, I mean. A rainy afternoon gave me the perfect opportunity to spend time with my camera, my macro lens, and my speed light. After reading the section about recycle time and flash duration in “Understanding Flash Photography” by Bryan Peterson (author of the outstanding book, “Understanding Exposure”) I had to experiment with the example he showed in the article, which was photographing water drops. I set up (almost) exactly as he described, setting a box in my kitchen sink, covering it with a brightly colored striped dress (I didn’t have a Hawaiian shirt), adding a bowl of water, and adjusting the faucet until it dripped into the bowl. I didn’t have two speed lights so I used for one. I set the light on my Joby Gorilla Pod (I now have a use for it again…I stopped using it when I got a conventional tripod) and attached it with a TTL remote cord (I wanted to get right to the task at hand and not hassle with the wireless settings), attached my 105mm macro lens, which he used, and spent the afternoon photographing water drops.

I discovered that it is exceedingly difficult to focus on a water drop. I manually focused on my fingertip while the drop was hitting it and at various times, decreased the aperture so I could get more of the area in focus. However, that goal proved elusive and I never did get the little water crown that I so wanted to capture, in focus front to back. Here are a few of the hundreds of photos I took today. It is addictive!

The first shot is the only one I really liked that used the settings Bryan recommended: ISO 200, f/11., and 1/250 shutter speed. I took the little “crown” of water at f/14, 1/320; the third shot at f/22, 1/250; and the final shot at f/20, 1/320.

My macro lens has somehow given me courage to walk right up to creepy crawlies and photograph them. This afternoon I got my camera and macro lens to photograph a spider (!) I’d discovered in the yard clinging to its web but when I returned to the web with my camera, the spider had disappeared. As I wandered around the yard searching for something else to photograph, I noticed a big green bug on a green leaf so I shoved the camera as close as I could and fired away. The breeze caused the leaf to sway and it was very difficult to manually focus and keep the camera still. I got my monopod and that helped with steadying me and the camera but not the leaf. I attached a small clamp to one part of the branch that pulled the leaf with the big green bug down a bit but it didn’t provide enough stability to keep the leaf perfectly still although the big green bug seemed frozen in place. The lens went in and out of focus as the leaf swayed and I managed only a few in focus shots. I think this is a stink bug; it’s about 3/4 of an inch long.

I took this at ISO 200, f/20, shutter speed 1/80

The local neighborhood squirrel pranced by my patio door this afternoon so I followed with my camera. I found him seemingly transfixed atop the fence; it was only after viewing the shots that I discovered he was eating something. I approached, releasing the shutter as I neared him, in an attempt to get a clearer shot; a cluster of leaves obscured his face or part of his body but when I was within six feet of him, he turned quickly and scampered into the Xylosma where he completely disappeared from view. It’s a good thing one of my recent Flickr challenges is “blocked” because now I have three shots to choose from!

It’s a real stretch of the imagination I know, but the lip of this lovely moth orchid makes me think of somebody swinging, arms up holding the rope, legs and feet straight out and, with the petals forming a five-pointed star behind, well, there’s my title, ‘swinging on a star.’ To enhance the little trio of ‘swingers’ I desaturated the greens and yellows.

I’ve been singing that Andrews Sisters song ever since I saw my brother’s Gravenstein apple tree in bloom in Santa Rosa this past weekend. Gravensteins are my favorite pie apples but sadly, while Sonoma County where I grew up was once a major producer of Gravensteins, most of those orchards have long since been converted to vineyards. As much as I love wine, I can still appreciate the need for other crops in Sonoma County, Gravenstein apples being one of them. Despite the dearth of Gravensteins in the area, John harvests enough apples from his own tree to make two or three pies per season; I have been lucky enough to get a taste of one of his delectable apple creations from time to time. I hope these apple blossoms give John a good crop this year.

There’s no Sally Rand around here but these tiny dandelion florets fascinate me and the seed attached to the end of each floret reminds me of a ballerina’s toe shoes while the floret looks a bit like a fan. I took this shot on a magnifying mirror so there are reflections.

I am trying to familiarize myself with my macro lens, which familiarization is proving to be somewhat elusive. Alas, I am going to have to actually read something instead of trying to figure it out by trial and error. What I did learn today is that the background is extremely important. With a macro lens, every piece of lint shows. I first tried using the shiny black granite sample that I have but the mica flakes within the stone seemed to compete with the delicate dandelion florets and the background was not solid black so I changed to a black suede which has a matte finish but the light was completely absorbed by the suede and the photos were too dark. I finally laid the three little florets onto a small magnifying mirror after cleaning it with lens tissue. I can’t really explain why the background is black but I presume it is because the camera, which is black, was directly over the mirror providing the black background and shielding the mirror from the overhead lights.

The other thing I learned is that the closer I get to a macro subject, the shallower the depth of field, even with a small f/stop. I wanted the seeds to be in focus and in order to get them in focus, I used an aperture of f/51! I didn’t realize the macro lens had that small an f/stop. To get this photo, I had to set the shutter speed at 25 seconds.

I found this gorgeous carpet of ice plant in full bloom just around the corner from my brother’s house in Santa Rosa this weekend. Ice plant always puts on such a stunning display in the early spring and is such a welcome carpet of solid color after a drab winter that I had to photograph it. The bee was an added bonus.

It was definitely the bees knees when I had a chance to capture lots of bee photos while I was roaming through the wild mustard the other day. I guess there are a few bees knees in these shots but they look more like elbows to me.

When I was out photographing the wild mustard near my house the other day, a bright spot of red caught my eye—a tiny lady bug crawling on an unopened bud of mustard. The red was such a contrast to the green surrounding it that I stopped looking for bees and focused on the lady bug. Because I was using my 24-70mm lens, I had to crop this shot severely. I wish I’d had my macro lens with me. It was in the trunk of my car but I knew if I left and went back to my car across the road the lady bug would be gone by the time I returned so I took my chances. It proved to be an elusive lady bug. I never got a full on photo because the little creature moved constantly around the bud, always facing away from me, but I love the shot I did get.

Nothing says ‘Spring’ to me more than a lovely field of wild mustard. I’m looking forward to driving to Santa Rosa this weekend for my Mom’s 97th birthday party because Highway 12 cuts through the expansive fields of wild mustard that characterize Napa and Sonoma this time of year. I was planning to stop along the way and photograph the mustard fields but when I noticed a small swath of wild mustard on the side of the road about a half mile from my house, I couldn’t resist stopping, especially because it is the first day of Spring. I parked at the church on the corner, walked across the street and up into the field of mustard. I was surrounded by honeybees and wild mustard. What a lovely sight.

24-70mm lens at 70mm, f/9, 1/200, ISO 100.

Yes, another shot of a hummer. Well, make that two! This hummer is fully appreciative that the bubble’s back.

I took these shots this morning with the 70-200mm lens without the teleconverter and with the flash set to -1 stop. After conversing with Mike at my Camera Club last night, I was convinced that a little flash from the built-in flash is not a bad thing, especially when used as a fill flash. Our discussion related to freezing the motion of the hummer’s wings but their wings aren’t always moving and I thought this shot of the bird peeking from behind the bubble was very cute.

Also for the first shot, I used Adobe Camera Raw to process it. One of the things we learned from Moose, who hates Lightroom, is that ‘clarity’ will explode pixels (I think that’s the term he used) so now I’m afraid to use clarity at all. My friend Connie suggested I try using Adobe Camera Raw instead of Lightroom to see if I can get better noise results, so I did. I did the processing by the seat of my pants because I couldn’t find my cheat sheet. And, for some reason, I wasn’t bothered by the noise in this shot, even though the ISO was set to 320. In yesterday’s shot, over which I had conniptions, the ISO was only 250, not enough to cause noise. The noise must have resulted from other processing I did. Maybe Moose is right to hate Lightroom. But, I processed the other shot in LR and it looks fine to me.

I’ve been doing a little reflection about how many photos I’ve been taking of hummingbirds lately but I need to improve my technique so I’m glad my fountain’s working right again and that the hummers are enjoying their daily morning baths, providing me with lots of opportunity to improve.

I set my D7100 with the 70-200mm lens with its 2X teleconverter on the tripod and went outside to watch the hummers bathing. I tried sitting a couple of feet away from the fountain but discovered that it is a real trick to focus the long lens accurately at that short a distance so I moved back to about 8 feet away. I also flipped on the built-in flash (!) to provide a little more illumination and that created a little reflection off the water on the hummer’s breast and the sparkle on its feathers (I think this is a female Anna’s). But, the built in flash (!) also created an odd little reflection in the eye so I used LR’s red eye tool to remove it. I should have attached my speed light and bounced the light instead of using the built in flash but I didn’t. I’m still so afraid of ISO causing grain that I cringed at having to increase the ISO to 250 and when I examined the shot in LR, there was enough grain to make me cringe further so I used LR to reduce the graininess a bit. The tripod really helps me get sharper focus on the hummers but I need to increase the shutter speed significantly to get their wings to show so I’m going to have to either increase ISO or figure out how to effectively use the speed light when I’m photographing in the dim morning light.

My settings: f/8, ISO 250, 1/80 sec., effective focal length 600mm

In 1785, English Poet William Cowper penned the words “Variety’s the very spice of life” not knowing of course, since he wrote those words more than 200 years ago, that in 2014 I would have a very huge variety of spices in my life! Variety became a topic of interest for me today because it was a recent Flickr challenge theme and spices seemed a natural way to depict variety. I dumped out some whole spices onto a cutting board and zoomed in close with my 24-70mm lens and the D800 set to DX mode. The camera’s still set to bracketing mode and this time, I preferred the third exposure, selected by the camera, increasing exposure by 2/3 stop. I also added a bleach bypass effect in Perfect Photo Suite 8 and a slight vignette in LR.

Clockwise from left, star anise, cinnamon, nutmeg, black peppercorn, red chili pepper, vanilla bean, allspice, clove, cardamom. I do use most of these spices on a regular basis, but I wonder what prompted me to buy whole cardamom?

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I don’t know how I managed to capture the clouds surrounding the full moon tonight and, indeed, when I exposed for the moon, the clouds didn’t show and when I exposed for the clouds the moon was blown out. It wasn’t apparent until I fiddled a bit with the sliders in Lightroom. I’ve been wanting to capture the clouds surrounding the moon and was thrilled when I managed to do that.

I took this with the 70-200mm lens attached to the D7100 with the 2X teleconverter set to f/8, ISO 200, 1/20 second exposure. I fiddled with contrast, highlights, shadow, blacks, and clarity to get this result.

Tyger Tyger, burning bright,
In the forests of the night;
What immortal hand or eye,
Could frame thy fearful symmetry

This isn’t a tyger (or a tiger for that matter); it’s not in the forest; it’s not fearful. It’s a lily and no, not even a tiger lily. But, when the sun in my entryway illuminated the petals from behind I thought it looked quite lovely and I decided to photograph the lilies. Ironically, the lilies are on a table painted to look like tiger skin. After noticing both the light and the juxtaposition of the lilies on the tiger top table, I couldn’t get the allusion to Blake’s poetry out of my brain and, feeble that it is, decided to title my post in reference to it.

I was experimenting with bracketing today. I haven’t used bracketing at all and I think I could probably benefit from using it. I guess I didn’t realize it would work in Manual mode but I’m reviewing my camera manuals and watched a KelbyOne video about the D800 and was reminded of quite a few features that I have overlooked in the two years I’ve had this camera, bracketing being one of them. Bracketing is the practice of taking several photos of the same subject using different exposures. My camera allows me to select the exposure range (in this case I chose 1/3 stop) and the number of exposures to take (I chose 3). I used the timer and each exposure was increased by the set increment. My initial settings were f/16 and 1.3 seconds shutter speed; the camera decreased the shutter speed by 1/3 stop in the successive two shots to let in more light and thus increase the exposure. I tend to like darker exposures and I decided to use the initial exposure I set instead of the bracketed shots but I can see where this feature has huge potential.

Thanks to my friends Jesse and Lyle, who came by yesterday afternoon to fix my fountain after reading in my blog that it wasn’t functioning properly, my hummers are happily back in their bubble!

. . . my little chickadee? I love W.C. Fields. This is probably a stretch relating this post to W.C. Fields, but these are kumquat slices, after all.

In my post yesterday, I described Bobo’s recent attempt to demolish my house by turning the window seat into toothpicks, and I speculated that it is unlikely that she could turn a granite slab into sand so I’m going to replace the wood with granite. My speculation was very premature however.

Here she is just a short while ago, “plucking” (my term for her habit of scraping at something with her lower beak while holding a dried pepper in said beak) at the granite sample. The small dark spots to the left of the piece of granite are small pieces of the granite that she handily scraped off with her beak. One wonders what might be in store for my new granite window seat. I think it’s time to resurrect Bobo’s Blog, perhaps with the ulterior motive of endearing Bobo to some unsuspecting human who might want to have a reason to remodel!