Second attempt for Fireworks shooting

There are many events in Singapore have fireworks, such as Chinese New Year, National day, New Year, Chingay etc etc. My very first experience in shooting  fireworks is during the Chinese New Year 2011. I've tried several shoots with my 18-55mm kit lens, but all the photos are over exposed or composed wrongly.

This time, I had a second chance for fireworks shooting which is the National day of Singapore. Actually, there are fireworks before the actual National Day. They will have fireworks rehearsal  every weekend for the pass few weeks. I don't know why I choose the actual day to shoot for the fireworks. It is so crowded and I can hardly find a spot to shoot. Luckily I came along with some friends, and they had pre-booked a slot opposite MBS.

We reached there around 4:30pm, hanging around for a few hours just for the fireworks which start at 8:15pm. Gosh, it is very tired to stand in a crowd for few hours but it is worth waiting for it. The fireworks are very nice, but to get a good photo of it, it all depends on your skills and experience.

With my current knowledge and equipment I have, it is still not good enough to produce a good fireworks photo. Here are some of my photos I took just now.

Camera: D90
Lens: Vivitar 24mm f2.8 (after 1.5 crop, around 36mm, I use this lens because I'm still in my own 35mm training. Getting myself to see things in 35mm)
Shutter Speed: 6 seconds & 4 seconds
Aperture: f11
ISO: 100

There are a lot of ideas like "how to shoot a fireworks" or many people will "TEACH" you how to shoot fireworks. Learning it theoretically is very different from producing a good result yourself. This is the second time I shoot for fireworks, with all the knowledge I've read online and applying advise from many people. I'm  not getting what I want and still not satisfying with the photos. I guess the best way to capture a good photo, is to get yourself hands on, experience it and learn from it.

Basically this is what I learn/hear from other people:

1) Get a good spot where you can frame the fireworks and some interesting foreground or background.
2) Set to f8-11, ISO 100, shutter speed at 10 secs (luckily I shoot at 6 seconds, people teach me to use bulb and shoot more than 10secs. I wonder how they do it.)
3) Cover your lens with a black/white card while the fireworks is shooting up and remove the card while the fireworks burst. (I don't have a black/white card, I used my cushion/divider of my camera bag)
4) Then repeat the steps until the fireworks end.

It sounds simple, but when I look at the results. I know I still got a long way to go. And there are much much more details that you have to take care of it during the shoot.
With this camera set up in such a crowded condition, it is very hard to compose what you want. The fireworks just blast out everywhere, the area it cover is so huge, that I'm definitely unable to capture everything in one frame with my lens. After today's experience, there are a few things that I must improve for the next fireworks shooting.

1) Go early, get a good spot for composition.
2) Get a wider lens (Gonna spend money again, aiks) or get a better spot where it suits your lens.
3) Shoot in a shorter shutter, perhaps 2 seconds or
4) Shoot in the 6-8 seconds but really make use of the black card. Some sort of capture first two seconds, then cover for 2 seconds, then open for another 2 seconds.
5) Get some food and drinks along. It is not a good feeling standing there for a few hours with not food/drinks.

If you have any suggestion or ideas, feel free to voice it out loud. I still need to learn from all of you.

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. =]