Pumpkin Carving

We had a playdate / pumpkin carving today.  It was our first time to carve a pumpkin.  I originally wanted to take some photos but I was doing most of the carving.  Oh well.

I was reasonably satisfied with our pumpkin and wanted to take shots of it when we got home.  Originally, I took a simple shot with a snooted SB-800 firing through the hole on the top of the pumpkin to illuminate the interior.  I didn't gel the SB-800 because I supposed the light would pick up the yellow color of the pumpkin interior.  I shot at sync speed, base ISO and f/8 to get a reasonably back background.  I also placed a reflector below the pumpkin to get some uplight.  For my lens, I chose the Sigma 50-150 2.8 to isolate the subject.

I felt that the shot didn't do justice to our first pumpkin.  I looked through Flickr's strobist group for pumpkin photos for inspiration and was humbled.  I wanted to show some respect for my fellow photographers/strobists by doing a photo that was at least a bit more creative than my first attempt.

I thought it would be good to show the reversible design of the pumpkin.  First, I placed an SB-800 in a ziplock bag and stuffed it inside the pumpkin.  I then placed the pumpkin on a black table with a glass surface and took a test shot. 

It looked like the idea had potential.  I also liked the way the flash made the pumpkin glow.  I cleared up the table and wiped it clean and took another test shot, this time using a YN-560 to experiment with a green gel as a spooky background light.

The background light looked ok but I thought it would be better to use it as rimlight instead.  I placed it on camera left, and with the wall on camera right, the light would bounce back to create a rimlight on the opposite side as well.  I also used a longer focal length to reduce the field of view to hide the wall on the right:

In postprocessing (with Corel PSP X3), I decided to use levels to make the shadows stronger for a more sinister look, which became the final result (after some cloning and spot healing to remove dust on the glass).

Preparing for Halloween Photos

Halloween is just a little more than a month away. If you haven't learned balancing ambient and flash yet, you still have a month to do it! :) Check out this related post: http://betterfamilyphotos.blogspot.com/2009/11/taking-halloween-pictures-part-2.html

Remember - in terms of balancing flash and ambient, the easiest scenario is when the subject is dark while the ambient is bright. That would allow you to set the ambient to the level you want, then use flash to illuminate the subject to the exposure you want, without either interfering with the other.

Related tutorials:

• http://betterfamilyphotos.blogspot.com/2010/05/balancing-flash-and-ambient-part-1.html
• http://betterfamilyphotos.blogspot.com/2010/08/balancing-flash-and-ambient-light-part.html

If you want to learn TTL Flash in general, check out:

• TTL Flash FAQ: http://betterfamilyphotos.blogspot.com/2009/08/ttl-flash-faq.html
• TTL Flash Tutorial: http://betterfamilyphotos.blogspot.com/2010/06/ttl-flash-tutorial-in-10-lessons-part-1.html

Taking Halloween Pictures - Part 2

Part 1 here.

For Halloween, we took our toddler to California Adventure.  We had a great time.  We plan to go back next year.
The pictures weren't perfect but I was satisfied with some of the portrait shots, and overall, the pictures were noticeably better than those from last year's Halloween, thanks largely to better understanding of TTL flash.

What went right / suggestions for nighttime shots:

1. Handheld umbrella.

I used a handheld umbrella to take some posed shots. I used the umbrella as key and I got the light I wanted for the subject.

For this shot, I took the exposure in manual mode.  I set aperture at its widest at 2.8 because I wanted a shallow depth of field.  I started out with max sync speed to minimize the ambient on the subject, so the subject was lit only by the soft directional light from the umbrella, then would increase ambient from there as necessary (by using a higher ISO or slower shutter) but I liked how the shot looked so I left it there.

2. Using ambient backlight.

There were spotlights throughout the park.  I took advantage of these spotlights to use them as rim lights for drama (to the extent the subjects cooperated).  To do so, I just positioned the subjects where the spotlights were behind and above them.

In one area, there was a cool-looking spotlight shining through a "fog."  I positioned my wife to block the spotlight itself, allowing just the corona of light to shine around my wife and our toddler.

3. Off-camera flash.

Inside the park, Disneyland's security objected to my use of the handheld umbrella, at first claiming that it was professional equipment, then next arguing that it was a sharp object.  Not wanting to ruin the fun of the evening, I decided to put the handheld umbrella away and just used the bare SB-800 handheld, in wireless mode.  Using the flash off-camera helped avoid the flat lighting from using an on-axis flash as key light.

There were also some shots where I lucked out on chimping the exposure and got a soft-looking light, I believe because ambient was just at the right level (probably 1 or 2 stops underexposed) to act as an extension of the key light. I plan to investigate this further to do it more consistently.

4. CTO gel.

Especially when there is mostly yellowish ambient light, the bluish light from the flash is a dead giveaway that artificial light was used.  The 1/4 CTO gel that I taped to my flash helped the flash look much more natural.

5. Manual mode.

I've been using program, aperture priority and shutter priority but I tried out manual exposure based on Neil van Niekerk's suggestions. It wasn't as difficult as I expected, even with often-changing light conditions. I didn't do it the right way though. I chose exposure settings purely by guesstimating, looking at the picture taken, and adjusting accordingly.  For such an unscientific way of taking manual exposure shots, the shots weren't as far off as one might expect.  The benefit of using manual exposure was more consistent exposures.  I plan to practice using manual mode in the hope of being more aware of (and in control of) my exposure.

What could be better:

1. Chimping.

As discussed above, I chimped the exposure just using the LCD screen.  I was aware that there were better ways of setting exposure, such as spot metering the white portion of our kid's costume and setting that to +1 or +2 exposure comp, or using the blinking highlights screen, or using the histogram.  But I caved under time pressure and just adjusted exposure based on instinct and a quick review of the shots.  Next time, I have to discipline myself to use one of the more reliable methods (probably the histogram method).

2. Flash blur from excess ambient light:

I set the exposure for ambient light at levels that I guessed were appropriate.  What I neglected to take into account sufficiently was to underexpose the background.  I was too concerned with having the background lights show up to avoid the black hole look.  The truth is, with digital SLRs, I find it far easier to use postprocessing to correct background underexposure than overexposure. Next time, I will err on the side of underexposing the background instead of risking overexposure.

3. Flash exposure.

The TTL-based flash exposure wasn't as smart as I thought. It tended to underexpose white areas.  This wasn't very obvious just reviewing the shot on the LCD screen but could have been easily observed from reviewing the histogram.  Something to force myself to do next time.

Taking Halloween pictures - part 1: the plan

Last year our toddler's Halloween pictures came out mediocre (like in the shot above) because I didn't understand how to control the flash properly.  This year, with better understanding of flash controls, I'm looking forward to the many photographic opportunities available at Halloween.

Here's my plan for this year. We're spending Halloween at Disneyland again, so it will be a good test of whether and how much I can improve my shots over last year's pictures:

1. Balance ambient and flash
a. in TTL, ambient can be controlled not just by shutter but also by ISO and aperture. Last year I controlled ambient only by slowing the shutter, which sometimes led to unintended flash blur like this:

b. I will watch flash exposure carefully and decrease FEC as necessary. TTL may be fooled with predominantly black costumes.

2. Gel the flash with CTO to simulate firelight and candlelight.
Last year I didn't use a gel at all, which made the light from the flash obvious and artificial:

This year, I will be putting two layers of 1/4 CTO (so that I can remove one and get 1/4 CTO if necessary).

3. Use handheld reflective (not shoot through) umbrella:
My plan is to use soft but restricted light, kind of like this photo that I saw on flickr:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/fotokurse-berlin/57502154/
I don't know for sure how the shot above was taken, but I believe that look can be achieved with a gridded softbox, which makes the softbox much more directional.  (Either that or maybe a softbox was moved in very close to the subject to make the light fall off faster.)
Anyhow, a shoot-through umbrella results in more spill.  I want more directionality to add more drama.  I don't have a gridded softbox (or a softbox for that matter), but I do have a reflective umbrella, which is more directional.  Reflective umbrellas (especially the silver ones) can be more specular, but the one I'll be using is a softbox-umbrella hybrid I bought from ebay (like this one).
As an added bonus, Halloween is probably one of the few days in the year when no one will give a second look to an umbrella.

4. Use noise reduction software

Until recently, I never bothered to use noise reduction software.  Now that I understand that I can use ISO to increase ambient exposure (instead of just using a slower shutter speed), I see the need for noise reduction software so I can be more daring with higher ISOs.

The stuff I plan to bring are:

• Nikon D80
• Tamron 28-75 2.8 (I would prefer a 17-50 2.8 if I had one so I could capture more scenery as "establishing shots")
• SB800 w/ two 1/4 CTO gels
• tripod - for long exposures and as a boom for rim light

I have other more ambitious ideas like using the D80's multiple exposure mode to make ghost-like images and composite shots with a "larger" moon, but these are what I plan to do at a minimum.