365/152 Negative Space/3

Not such a good day today, and while my photo is technically correct, meaning, Rule of Thirds followed, theme elements included and exposure perfect, there's no "soul" to it, no emotion. My wife on the other hand hand nothing but her Samsung Rogue at her disposal, and she took something much more interesting!

Mine:

Lens and camera settings:
-not important enough to report-


Hers:


Just sayin'

365/127 Affection/6

To all people with a dislike of photos taken in full sun: it's not evil. In fact, full sun can be your friend! Just remember that full sun will create very dark shadows, kind of like using a flash in a dark room.

A small moment of "affection" between my cats, because they both wanted the one tiny patch of sun coming from a window.

Lens and camera settings:
14-54mm f/2.8-3.5 @ 40mm, f/4.5, 1/500sec and ISO 100.

Perspective, day 3 retake.

After being embarrassed enough about posting the previous photo to ILP, I decided to try something different. One desk lamp and a sleeping cat later, here's the result: A sleeping cat from the perspective of a cat just waking up.

Lens and camera settings:

50mm f/2.0 @ f/2.0, 1/25sec (IS on) and ISO 1600. Light by mainly a small desk lamp just overhead.

Snap!

I decided to try out image stabilization on my new camera, just to see how well it works. The 50mm normally requires a minimum of 1/100sec shutter speed to get a sharp "unshaken" picture (due to its equivalent focal length and FOV being 100mm at full frame). My daughter was having quiet time (previously known as nap time) and one of the cats decided to chill with her. This photo was taken hand held with one hand on a 2.5 lb camera at 1/40sec. It may not be record breaking, but I know a bunch of cameras that this shot would have been lost on either due to running out of ISO or due to camera shake!

Lens and camera settings:

50mm f/2.0 @ f/2.0, 1/40sec and ISO 800. IS on.

And just because most of us are looking to do portraits "professionally" doesn't mean we need to lose the power and emotion of a snapshot! Snapshots are often times the only way to capture a moment, and many photographers forget this when they learn more advanced composition...

365/55 Catchlights/4

A more difficult subject today, because my little one went to bed before I had a chance to grab the camera. These cats run when I grab my flash, I'm thinking because of the noise it makes when it recycles, so it makes for a hard photo to take, especially since they don't like to be chased either.

I finally got him comfortable on the couch, light stand set up and here it is!

50mm f/2.0 @ f/2.8, 1/160sec and ISO 100. Flash bounced into 45" umbrella, 1/2 power, camera left.

Umbrella Play

Completely off topic to the 365 themes, I decided to play around with my umbrella-mounted flash a bit more. I think it's love at first sight! It might be time to seriously think about investing in a good remote trigger and maybe a second flash. I love the way I can control light now! Much more precise than simply bouncing light. Here's an example:

50mm f/2.0 @ f/5.6, 1/160sec and ISO 400. Flash @ 1/2 power.

Sure I could have opened my aperture, but I wanted more depth of field, and I didn't want more power from the flash, so the ISO had to take one for the team. It's all good, just try to find noise in this image, and don't pixel-peep, I mean noise that actually interferes with the overall quality of the photo ;-)

I think I definitely could benefit from a more powerful key light. This flash will work great as a fill flash in slave mode though!