Light
I am not an artsy photographer, but I noticed this play of light on the wall of my apartment the other day, and had to try and capture the emotions it evoked. The first photo is as shot:
In some ways I like it as it sets the environment, but I saw a more abstract image there:
Still it was not isolating the abstract image I had seen in my mind:
Here I converted to B&W with a green filter effect, and adjusted the curves to give a more film like image:
I like how the light from the blinds curve and flow into one another and repeat. I would like to hear comments on the images. As I do not think I am particularly good at this kind of image, I will not get upset if you are hard on it. Links to your own similar images are welcome (I will have to watch the spam filters as they are hell on links in comments).
Is it really ten days since my last post?
Been slowly recovering from the flu a couple of weeks ago.
EBay gets worse! It is extremely hard to find a way to contact a seller. I bought another 16″ reflector and the invoice was for the more expensive shipping. Paypal (Remember, PayPal is part of eBay now) would not let me change it. An invoice request put my message way down at the bottom of the email where the seller probably did not see it. Finally I found a way to send him a message, and no I do not remember how I found it. Within a couple of hours I got a new invoice and paid for the item. Note that this was not a problem with the seller, but one with ebays stupid new website.
Another item from Hong Kong seems to have went astray. The seller says she is sending me another, free. Today was about the first day it could be here, but it wasn’t. Maybe in the next couple of days? I have ordered stuff from HK before and usually have it in a week. Stuff from mainland China takes about two weeks. This is the first time something simply did not arrive.
I tried to order four adapter bushing for my flash heads from Adorama via Amazon. They are needed to fit the heads properly to regular stands which have 5/8″ mounting studs, while the Norman heads have a 3/4″ mounting hole. Adorama wants $8.29 each for these, when I put it in the Amazon shopping cart it came up with $9.00 each for shipping. That’s $36 to ship something that weighs about an ounce each. Needless to say I passed on that purchase. I will get some nylon bushing stock and make some myself; just a matter of chopping off a piece an inch long and drilling a 1/4″ hole in the side.
I came across an interesting section over on the Strobist site. They had a section where readers did film noir style shots (LINK). About 1/2 of them were of the “Does my big knife, or gun, scare you” type, but the rest were quite interesting to look at. Anyway it motivated me to try converting one of my digital test self-portraits to B&W.
B&W Conversion
I do not think I did too bad, I actually changed the curve to a film like one.
Monopods Are So Useful
I have found all kinds of uses for my monopod. Of course, it is handy to support a camera, but I have also used it as a walking stick, a mike boom, and now….
Monopod as a light boom
The second section fits the grip clamp and the flash head fits the foot. That leaves the top section to be extended or collasped to balance the flash head.
200w/s into the lens
Is that slightly over exposed?
Working pod
A little better from this side.
Looks like a could have just bought a grip head and saved a few bucks, but you know what they say about hindsight.
First Impressions Vu-Pro VP-501 Boom Light Stand
Ordered this on Sunday from Owen’s Originals (LINK), and received it today (Thursday). The stand at $59.95 was about ten bucks cheaper than eBay prices for similar stands and Owen’s Original offered free shipping for orders over $100. The packaging was marginal; the box was starting to come apart, and ther was no padding inside. The plastic wrap on the stand was ripped and there were gouges in the metal of the stand. As I mention in a previous article it seems to be the same as several others sold on eBay and elsewhere on the web under different names. I have set it up with a light head and checked that it would support the load OK. I have not as yet actually used it.
First, it seems adequate for the job. However, it does not give a feeling of quality. The stand itself is a two section stand, the bottom half of a four section stand by the looks of it. It has a spigot/stud, with a 1/4 threaded spur, that goes into the clamp for the missing top section. The stud on the boom is mounted the same way. One of my Norman heads would not lock onto the stud as the threaded spur kept it from going in far enough to catch the groove around the stud with the thumbscrew; another head fits fine. I tried it with a Photoflex type umbrella mount and that worked perfectly. So, it must be the Norman Umbrella mount that is the problem.
The grip-head that came with it is a rather shoddy looking plastic one. It should be OK if you do not over tighten it. Many users do not seem to realize that the boom is supposed to be balanced and the grip-head just tight enough to keep it from moving, and tighten down real hard. Plastic clamps break when you do that. One can get a metal grip-head for $30 or so, I may do that and use this one for things like foamcore reflector arms.
Vu Pro 501
In the quick snapshot above you can see that it is balancing the flash-head with a bit more than 1/3 gallon of water (less than four pounds), I would think a full gallon would balance a run of the mill monolight strobe. You probably would not even need any weight with just a light speedlight. The stand did come with a sandbag to balance it with, but to me a gallon water jug is just more convenient.
The sandbag is more impressive than the boom stand, I see nothing to complain about. It has two pockets with double zippers and two handles so you can hang it with the blue striped side out or the plain black side out. The trick with these bags is to put what ever you are using for weight, sand, lead shot, washers, etc. in weighed zip lock baggies and put the number of bags in to match to match your needs. Say, for example, four one-pound bags of 1/2 inch washers in the case of my flash-head. That keeps your bag clean and neat. Of course some folks just shovel in a few pounds of muck from the swamp they are photographing.
I also ordered a back-light stand and a textured gray background at the same time. The stand was only $18 and is very light duty, definitely not studio quality. The background appears to be spray painted on muslin. The background came loosely folded so the creases should ease out after hanging for a couple of days.
Owen's Originals Textured Background and the Backlight stand
Whew! I went upstairs to shoot the above photo, and as I was about to put the camera up I stepped on the sync cord and jerked the camera out of my hands. It is the only digital camera I have, and I can not afford to replace it. Luckily after pulling the batteries and replacing them it turned on, but showed the batteries as dead (probably bent one of the tabs in there), but it works fine on AC as the above snapshot shows. New rule: Before moving from the shooting position turn the camera off and unplug all cords!
The above snap is lit by the background light on the background and the BGL is lit by the snoot on the boom, no other lights. It gives you and idea of what the background is like. The back-light stand is definitely wobbly fully extended like that and that light head is only about three pounds. It seems like it is really designed for table top use with speedlights. I will have to replace it ASAP. The boom stand and background I can use for awhile.
Let me make something clear that may not be clear in my comments above. Except for the gouges on the boon arm, I am completely satisfied with these items, for the price. Let me emphasize that the boom stand was $60, the back-light stand $18 and the painted backdrop $40, all with free shipping. If you have a serious photo studio this stuff is junk, but for a part-time home studio it should work well enough. I can not really recommend the back-light stand for use with studio strobes, but the rest is fine.
A couple of points I want to mention, there are some much lighter duty boom stands on eBay, you can usually tell them by the very light duty looking stand. You do not want one of those. This boom stand looks like it may have been made in the same factory as my background stands, I bought those from a website as well. In both cases I saved money over what I would have had to pay on eBay. eBay is just not a great place to buy new stuff.
Last Bits Ordered
I ordered a boom lightstand, a backlight stand, and a background from Owens Originals on the web today. Those are the last things I need, as opposed to want, to setup the studio. I do not know just what I am going to get, from the descriptions the stands seem like the better ebay stuff, as opposed to professional stuff which is about twice the price. What I know about them is they have a pretty good reputation for making decent backgrounds.
The photo is linked from their website. I ordered the 6×9 background, the one in the photo looks like the 10×20. The stands are Vu-Pro brand. Hopefully they will be adequate for my current needs. The thing was he offered free shipping, so I saved a few bucks.
I have my first sitting coming in Tuesday evening. It will be my first non-self-portrait with this setup. It will be nice to actually be able to see what I am doing. Self-portraits, at least with my equipment, are a hit and miss thing. To think of it, the last time I did formal portraits I was using a Rolleiflex, a single Honeywell Strobonair and a reflector. It was not as long ago as that sounds the strobe was about the 10 years old, and the Rollei was old enough to drink.
This whole thing is going to force me to keep my apartment picked up. I will also have to spend time out and about trying to drum up business. I guess I will also have to work at not being so surly.
What? Me? Worried? (I really need to work on retouching eyes in Photoshop)