Product photography course

I've spent this weekend on a product photography course and I've had a really good time. Yesterday we had the theory and demo part of the course (8 hours) and today we had workshops in groups of three (6,5 hours). I learned a huge amount of information about different ways of lighting and setting up images, and a few neat little tricks to use in my future Photoshop work also. 

Yesterday I felt a little uncomfortable spending the whole day in a small space full of strangers (well, 13 people + me), but having a day for observing the new faces and with minimal social interaction made today's practical work easier. 

The workshops were great. With only three people per group it was easy to learn all aspects of the task, and everyone got to bring their ideas to the table (yep, even I managed to open my mouth). Our exercise was to photograph a commercial product image of a salad in natural light. We used the sun light coming through a window (filtered through a kind of a white paper) and two silver reflectors. 

Here are our best results:

Shopping for some cheap inspiration

I've been quite low on inspiration lately (again) and I've been just studying the theory of photography online, watching tutorials on Youtube and stuff like that. Somehow I always end up finding myself in photography forum topics on lenses and equipment, and that's pretty much how I bumped into a discussion of Canon EF 50mm 1.8 II lens. It started to sound so delicious that today, after all the resistance, I took a 100 € bill I had gotten as a Christmas present from my grandpa and I bought myself a 'nifty fifty'! After all, isn't gift money meant for buying something nice, instead of paying the rent? ;)

I have to say, I'm already in love. I love how small this lens is and the 1.8 is really something I've always wanted. And as many people have said in the forum discussions, the fixed focal length really makes you think more about the composition. In addition, it's already proving to be a wonderful lens to practice more efficient and quick manual focusing, having the focus ring so close.

I have only taken a few test shots with it, but even those test shots look pretty nice to me.

Psychedelic plant (dead-center, I know, but I think it kind of works).
f/2   1/15s   ISO200   50mm

f/1.8   1/15s   ISO400   50mm

f/1.8   1/15s   ISO200   50mm

f/1.8   1/15s   ISO100   50mm

f/1.8   1/25s   ISO200   50mm

Panning practice vol. 2

I practiced the panning technique more today and I think I got some much better results than last time. Let me know what you think. I shot these in RAW, so I'm trying to learn to change my process a bit. I chose RAW mainly because a horse this dark is likely to turn out too dark when shooting in snowy environment.

This one is my favorite because the eye is in focus. The snow is still slightly gray-ish but whatever.
1/20s   f/9   44mm  ISO100  

This was the second best. The muzzle is in focus in this one and she looks cute and happy. :)
1/20s   f/9   49mm   ISO100

Photo Walk vol. 2

I spent a couple of hours today walking around in Pyynikki esker conservation area taking photos. It was incredibly beautiful up there with the sun shining from a clear blue sky. You know I love these kinds of days. Here are some of my favorite photos from today's walk.

I must have looked silly when taking this...*tree hugger*

When you have no one else to model for you, Mr. Buttons comes to help. He hangs from my camera bag. :)
Personally I like this shot a lot. The DOF is pretty much perfect.

And the happy photographer herself. Now I totally get the fuzz about how hard it is to get the eyes sharp and in focus when shooting self-portraits. I had to re-do this shot a gazillion times. So much for spontaneity...

I've been wondering a lot about shooting RAW. I have read from so many photography forums that it is absolute must to shoot RAW, you'll get so much better results is you want to process them on the computer. Now that I have tried it out, I'm having mixed feelings about it, mostly because my whole PP process has to change completely if I want to shoot everything in RAW. 

I know I don't have to shoot absolutely everything in RAW, but then that just makes it even more complicated when some photos can be previewed in Windows Live Photo Gallery and some can't. And that is what I have always done first. After previewing I decide which ones are worth more work in Photoshop. 

I have tried using Adobe Bridge and the program that came along with the camera, Digital Photo Professional, but I just don't feel at home with them, so to speak. And is the quality really that different? I'd like to hear some opinions and advice. Right now I just find the JPG so much more convenient and faster. 

Testing, testing...one, two, three...

1/10s   f/3.5   ISO400   20mm   No post-processing

I haven't got anything great to publish yet, but I have been playing around with my new toy a lot (duh..). The one thing I've always wanted to have is the manual focus and with that more control over the depth of field. So now I have it (!) and I've been playing around and shooting close-ups of stuff around me. I'm also thrilled of being able to use ISO1600  indoors with tolerable noise in the photos (even in large size which you can't see here). 

I've been reading through the camera's user manual and my two photography books; Digital Photography 1, 2 & 3 by Scott Kelby and Parempia kuvia Canon EOS -järjestelmäkameralla (Better photos with Canon EOS DSLR) by Jukka Kolari and Peter Forsgård. The latter came with the camera and the other one I got as a Christmas present. Both of these books have been really helpful and they have these difficult technical stuff explained in fairly simple terms (well, I just about understand them, so they gotta be simple). I've always avoided learning the technical things about lenses and stuff like that before this, mainly because everything I've tried to read has been really difficult for me to understand.

With this new camera of mine I've really come to understand how much I have learned with my old camera. Seriously...Using a proper DSLR is now so much easier after shooting over two years with my Sony that has all the manual controls in it. I remember when my dad got his first digital SLR and I tried to study its manual. It was like trying to learn Chinese! Well maybe not, but you know what I mean.

1/8s   f/5   ISO1600   43mm   No PP

1/15s   f/5   ISO1600   43mm   No PP

1/10s   f/5   ISO1600   41mm   No PP

1/25s   f/4.5   ISO800   33mm   No PP

1/1600s   f/3.5   ISO1600   18mm  
PP: shadows/highlights adjustment and vintage effect
Now that I look at those numbers I think the ISO could've been lower...:)

Yeah, so...these were some of the practice snaps I've been taking just to get to know this camera better. The weather hasn't been good enough for me to go for a walk. It's snowing and the black and white scenery outside really doesn't push my inspirational buttons.  

MARKO, RAX & panning

The photo shoot with Juni is gonna get down on 30th! I can't wait. Probably gotta do a little more planning, though. One can never be too prepared, eh? 

I've been browsing through some photographers' websites for inspiration and I found a couple of pretty amazing professionals. I want to share two with you guys. 

MARKO

First one is Finnish photographer called Marko. I love his portraits of Finnish celebrities. Very inspiring and creative. 

RAX 

(Ragnar Axelsson)

And this second one has got me seriously amazed. Incredible grainy black & white photography and his compositions are really inspiring! I especially love the Greenland- and Last Days Of The Arctic-galleries. 

As for my own photography, I haven't done much this week. I received a 35mm Back for my Diana and I'm pretty stoked about that. I bought some film today and will start shooting now. I've been meaning to take a full film from the PopCam to a nearby photography shop to get it developed, but I haven't got around it just yet. Maybe tomorrow.

I had my camera with me at the stable today and I tried to get some shots, but it was so dim already that they didn't turn out so good. I tried to get some half-decent panning shots, but this is all I got.

Here Pretti's head is KIND of in focus....so almost there, but not quite.

Gotta try again when there's more light and I have my tripod with me (uhm...I never have my tripod with me...). Anyways...I also snapped this mobile phone shot of a brilliant cat who refused to move and ended up with two riding belts on his back.

When bored, open Photoshop!

I haven't had any ideas or inspiration for new photos and I was bored, so I started going through my old photos. I made a few new edits. Tell me how you like them! :)

I've been experimenting with digital double-exposures and this is so far the best I've come up with. This effect is very easy to achieve by just pasting a photo on top of another one. Then just play with the layer opacity and the eraser tool and its opacity.

I used the same flower photo in this one. At first I was going to leave it looking very similar to the first image, but then I tried blurring the flower layer and I liked how it just gave the hints of color to the b&w photo underneath. 

Landscape photography

Landscape photography is a field I've become more and more interested in lately. I've been reading a lot about it online and from the Digital Photography book by Scott Kelby (I love love love this book, as I have stated a few times before) and I've come to learn more about the importance of the composition. I've started to think about it more in general also, not just with landscapes. Often when I, an amateur photographer for two years now, take a landscape photo of something like a sunset, for example, I just have a horizontal photo with nothing in the foreground (the bottom of the photo), horizon and the (probably) colorful sky. They never have any kind of wow-factor and I haven't really figured out why. This has usually made me quite discouraged in pursuing landscape photography. But now I think I've figured out a big part of what has been wrong with my photos.

I've read a lot about the importance of the foreground in landscape photography and I've experienced a total change of heart with this field of photography. I feel inspired and I would just want to run out right now and find places to take photos of (but it's midnight at the moment, so I think I won't).

Here are a few links to some articles in dPS and LightStalking.com concerning the foreground in photography and landscape photography in general:

Pay attention to foregrounds

How to get foregrounds right in photography

Where to focus in landscape photography
Landscape photography for the serious amateur 

Here's a good example of what I mean when I say nothing in the foreground + horizon + the sky.
Not all that interesting. It's an okay panorama and all, but as a landscape photo, I've seen much much better.

Now here's when I really put some thought into this thing and ended up with, what I think is a much better photo when it comes to the "flow" and composition. And although I am a fan of sunbursts and lensflare, I'd want a GND filter to reduce those two a bit.

This is an old photo, but I think this has a good foreground too, although I don't remember having thought about it much at that moment. Otherwise the settings could've been better: for example the aperture is f2.7 when it's recommendable to have as small an aperture as possible (usually).

Christmas photography

Home sweet home! I missed my own laptop sooooo much! I hope everyone's Christmas went well. I'm probably going to do a Christmas gift post sometime soon, but for now, here's some photos I took over the Christmas.

View large

On 26th it was my birthday and we had a horrible snow storm here. Thankfully I got my sister to go with me to the stable. I would have never made it there and back again with my car. She also took some photos of me and Pretti. :)

P.S. This is what is looks in the Tampere downtown at the moment. It's totally nuts out there with the huge piles of snow and the crazy people chasing bargains in the after-Christmas sales.

Winter beauty!

I went back to the beach today and I have a few pretty awesome shots for ya. :)

See larger

 Click the image for a larger view.

I love this kind of a weather. Cold, snowy and the sun shines. I can't think of anything more beautiful.

My school is over for this year and now I get to concentrate on enjoying the holidays (wait, that made it sound like I would have actually concentrated on school before today....). 

Obviously I shouldn't start any kinds of projects because I can't finish them. Like the 24 Christmas Songs -theme. Turns out, it's not too natural for me to post something everyday and I don't like to force myself to post. I doubt this will bother anyone, but just acknowledging it.   

This is my December

It's freezing cold today, but it has been clear blue skies so I'm loving it. I went down to the beach today and found a bunch of mallards there. I felt so sorry for them...don't their flippers get cold?

My dad bought this great digital photography book, The Digital Photography Book Vol. 1 by Scott Kelby (Suuri digikuvauskirja in Finnish) and I've started to pay more attention to the camera settings, technique and especially the composition again. In this photo the settings could've been much better, so I had to add some light on the mallards in Photoshop and it shows as messy graininess.

But I have a feeling those ducks aren't going anywhere so I'll be going back there sometime soon for a re-do.  

And as an update to the The Ark situation, me and my friend have tickets now so we're going to see them for the very last time!