Chili oh chili~

Last week, I bought myself some Mee Goreng for dinner in the Ramadan Night Market. One thing I felt weird for that, they gave me four raw green chili to eat along with the Mee Goreng. Hmm... I'm not sure how am I going to eat that, and I don't really like to eat chili. So I keep it for my next photography practice.

This post, I will be sharing the photos I took with the free chili that I got them from Ramadan. I shoot these photos around 12-1pm on the weekend. Strong sunlight shining down directly from the sky. Without any question, I used my Mahjong paper as a diffuser, making the sunlight softer before it hits on my object.

Grabbing my D90 with my 50mm f1.8 lens on it. I took a shoot directly above my set. No reflector, flash and tripod involved for all the shoots. After a couple of test shot, I decided to add some props and a cut on of the chili with a knife, splitting it into half. Then I have the smallest size chili cut into small pieces. This makes the photo more interesting than before.

With my 50mm f1.8, I can't do much with it. So I added in my macro extension tube, trying to get some close up photos of the chili. With the macro extension tube, things became more fun. I took a few shoots hand held and that is it. End of today shooting. The weather is so hot, that I can't stand to make any more shoots.

One thing I realized through this shooting, actually this macro extension tube is not that bad. It may not be as sharp as the macro lens. But it still allows you to get pretty close to the object. With proper lighting control, I believe it can get some sharp photo as well. I will try to shoot with the macro extension tube along with artificial lighting setup. Hope fully I can get some good macro photos.

Although the chili looks a little bit OLD, this is because I didn't keep it in the fridge. But do leave a comment on the photos if you feel so. C and C are all welcome.

Cheers,
Lu Ting Jieh

When Potatoes Meet a Cloudy Day~

Last Saturday, I woke up and saw the potatoes that I bought a week ago. I am supposed to use it for my second fake ice-cream shoot. Somehow I ate some of those and left only four mini size potatoes. This is not enough for me to make a few scoop of "Ice-cream". So I came out with an idea, why not I just shoot these potatoes?

With joy and excitement, I quickly setup my equipment. I have my old formal shirt, a spoon and a plate as the probs. A mahjong paper as a diffuser. With no doubt, the hero will be the potatoes. It is a hot and sunny day, I'm sweating like mad after I setup along with a couple of test shoot. But that is not going to stop me, I continue working on the potatoes in the kitchen.

When I'm half way done, the sky became cloudy suddenly. I felt so disappointed but I can't do anything with it. I have to remove the mahjong paper as it is too thick to be a diffuser under such condition and I do not have a good reflector to reflect the lights. So I shoot this series without any diffuser or reflector. I used only my D90 and my 50mm f1.8.

These are the photos I manage to capture for this series.

As you can see from this photo, I have my tweezers along to style a little bit of the meshed potatoes. And I had a small tiny piece of cheese on it. Just to make it looks better.

I play around with the depth of field. As you can see, I'm trying to bokeh away the foreground and let my hero become outstanding in this photo. Below is a photo that I shoot it with f8. The depth of field increased, everything on the "table" is sharp and only the background is being bokeh-ed. This give a different kind of feeling, more like tea time feeling.

Anyway, I still prefer the shoot with a lower depth of field. Here is another shot with a low depth of field.

After playing around with different angles and different way of placing the hero and probs. This is the photo that I love the most.

The rain started to rain around half an hour later. I packed my things, and get myself some rest.

After shooting everything, then only I realize the colour combination is not that good. The piece of cheese does not enhance much. I should have add some green around the hero. Perhaps some herbs.

Cloudy day give a natural softlight, sometimes you don't need a diffuser in a cloudy day. But you may need a huge reflector in order to clear the shadows. For my case, I need to DIY myself a larger reflector soon, A4 and A3 papers are not enough.

If you guys have any ideas to take good shots in a cloudy day, do share it out. C & C are all welcome.

Cheers,

Lu Ting Jieh

Ice-Cream Photography?

In my mind, I always wanted to make some photographs of Ice-creams. By just dreaming it, it is useless, action must take part in it ! If I do not take the first attempt, I will never learn how to shoot an Ice-cream. In this post, I will share some photos that I took during the weekend.

As a novice photographer, I need more time on styling and composing. If I use real Ice-cream, I will be wasting tons of money Ice-cream as it will melt very fast. I do not have confident to style it and shoot it in time.  In order reduce the cost, I replace with the "ice-cream" that will never melts: MESHED POTATOES! I learn this from reading books and articles online. 

It seems to be a almost perfect replacement. It will never melts, I can style it as a long as I want. although it is placed under the hot sun, it just wont melts. I can slowly compose and recompose anytime I want. There is only one thing to care about. The color will change after it exposed to the air for some time, but that is after an hour or more. 

Behind the scene, mixing up the meshed potatoes with color. We used 3 potatoes to make four scopes of "ice-creams". Total three colors, orange, yellow and green. One color each for the first three scoop, and a mixture of all three colors for the last scoop. TADA!! LIME, ORANGE & CORN flavor ice-cream!!!



Here comes the "ice-creams"!!! This is a test shot with only the camera and "ice-cream". To make it looks more real, chocolate topping were added.

All the photos were shoot outdoor. (Not a problem at all, as it wont melts)

Camera : D40x (I miss my very first DSLR~)
Lens:  Nikon kit lens, 18-105mm f3.5-5.6.
Others: Again, my favorite equipment, A4 papers as background and a piece of aluminium as a reflector. Last and not least, a very cute bowl for the "ice-creams".

Here are the final results of the "Ice-creams".

It does't look perfect but I'm quite happy with it as a first attempt. The progress if this experiment is very fun, and I've learn that, it is actually very good to shoot outdoor. Using the natural light, controlling it with reflector. In the future, I will add in diffuser for my shoot.

The largest problem I'm facing is how to style the "ice-cream" to make it more real. My crafting skills on the "ice-cream" is just not good enough. Second, the potatoes is just look too hard. Looks like I need to figure out how to make the potatoes melts in order to fake the faked ice-cream to look more real. Haihz.. complicated. I replaced the ice-cream with potatoes because it doesn't melts, in the same time, I want it to melt a little to looks real. Looks like, the best way is still shoot with a real ice-cream.

Before ending, I want to say thanks to my dear who is helping me all the way long and giving creative composition for the shots. Well actually some of the photos was taken by her!

Anyway, do leave a comments or suggestion. C & C are all welcome.

Thanks for reading.

Cheers,

Ting Jieh

The Queen of Fruits - Mangosteen!

Last weekend, I don't know from which part of my brain came out of this idea. Getting myself for a Mangosteen Photography session. There is one thing I must admit is... THIS FRUIT IS HARD TO SHOOT!

The skin colour of the Mangosteen is very dark in colour but the fruit itself is in white colour. It is not easy to have the light control on this fruit. You can easily have the fruit overexposed or underexposed due to the high contrast of the skin and the fruit.

And the other issue is the fruit itself is not nice. It is not as good looking as a strawberry. MUAHAHAHAHA. Forget that, just a joke. The second issue I want to bring out is, the colour of the fruit will change very fast. It will become yellowish very quickly. Just in a minute or two, you will start seeing the colour change.

This time, I have news papers as the background. Using natural light coming from the left side. After a couple oh shoots, I feel that the lights are not strong enough due to the cloudy day. My A4 paper reflector is just not enough for this situation. The light source is low, and the object very dark. So I intended to add in another light source from a Sunlight temperature light bulb to play around.

With the light bulb behind the A4 paper, playing with silhouette.

 THE QUEEN OF FRUITS! Shot with D90 + 50mm F1.8

Another shot with my D90 + 50mm f1.8 with natural light only. In this photo, we can hardly see the reflected light. Not very satisfy with this series. Have to do more research and learn how to shoot a better photo in this kind of situation. High contrast object and low light condition. There is another thing I had to admit is the composition. I need to do more homework on that as well as the light control. Do suggest me if you have a better idea. 

Cheers,

Lu Ting Jieh

Shooting fruits and water splash

This weekend, I'm trying to shoot something that I always wanted to try on it, which is the water splash. It seems to be easy, but it is not that easy to shoot when I try it myself.

As you can see from the first photo. I shoot this with my D90 + 70-200mm f2.8 VR1. An old and small fish tank, which I don't think the size is sufficient, but the thing is, it is FREE! My manager gave me that. Then you can see, I have two external flash at both side, triggered by the build in transmitter. Two A4 boxes, a stool, a drawer and a pail to support both flashes and the fish tank. And a mahjong paper as backdrop. Not a very complete setup, but these are what I have, in order to complete this shoot.



Do bare in mind, you need a few dry cloth to stand by. If there is any splash on your equipment, you can clean it off instantly. In the same time, you need a cloth to clean up the water drops on the fish tank every time before you take a shoot.

Here, I'm shooting at settings below:

Focal Length :70mm,
ISO 100,
Shutter Speed :1/200sec,
Aperture: f10.
Flash power: 1/2

I also used 1 piece of tissue placed on the right side of the fish tank to diffuse the flash. It really works for me. Huge different with tissue and without tissue. Reason that I'm using the internal flash trigger, the pop up flash is required to trigger the slave flash. So I bought one accessory, so call the "flash trigger". It is actually a pyramid shape constructed with mirrors with the pyramid head facing the pop up flash. So when the flash fires, the light does not travel directly to the object, but split to the top, side and bottom. With this, I can trigger my slave flash with the pop up flash without any lights hitting the fish tank directly.

After a couple of shoots, these are what I've got.

A single peach and the splash!

Triple peach in action!

Orange and the splash!

If you look closely at the photos, you can actually see that the lighting on the right side is much stronger than the left side. I guess the battery in the left side flash is running low.

With no doubt, I touched up the photos with Photoshop after shooting. My post processing skills are not that good, I guess people can easily see the mistake. But do make a comments or suggestion on that. No hard feelings.

Photos are not perfect, so I must have a re-shoot for the second round with a much complete equipment for setup. Basically, I personally feel that, a minimum of 3 external flashes are required for the shoot. Two on both side, same height as the water level, and one at the back to flash the backdrop. As I mentioned earlier, a larger fish tank is required.

Anyway, C & C are welcome from anyone. I'll gear up and learn more on lighting control and make the second shoot. Perhaps, I'll try more things like colored gel, different color background or different fruits/object.

=]

Cheers,
Lu Ting Jieh

First attempt to photograph an orange

Finally I've found something that I'm actually interested beside Landscape & Nature Photography. I've been reading and studying on food photography for a period, and this is the first time I try to shot a food photography.

It was a boring afternoon, nothing much to do in the afternoon. Suddenly I came out with an idea from no where of shooting an orange. Without thinking it twice,  I get everything set up and start shooting.

I used only one orange, a plate, fake flowers, bamboo mat and a plastic orange juice squeezer for styling. For the photography side, I'm using my 50mm f1.8, mounted on tripod. Shooting in f1.8 and a few pieces of A4 paper as reflector. For the two images at the side, I didn't shoot that pic, it was taken by my girlfriend who is playing with the marco extension tube and the 18-105mm kit lens.

After shooting for some time, here is the result. A start for me to get into food photography.



Not a very good one yet, but I'll work harder on the composition side, color & shapes arrangement, especially in styling. In the same time, I will do more homework on the lighting control. Now I will be shooting all the food that require less styling. Focus more on the shooting skills, white balance, lighting control, colors & shape arrangement, as I mentioned just now.

Looking forward to shoot other type of food. =]