Stills with Reflection

I got a new living room table a few weeks ago, a quite large one with glass surface. I thought it could make a nice studio effect with reflections. And so last night I got myself as far as trying out ideas. I found a couple o smooth white stones I've picked on a beach ages ago, two pieces of spectrolite stone, fethers, coloring pens and onions to start with. Equipments I used: EOS 5D Mark 2, EF 100 f2,8 Macro, a tripod, remote control, a reflector and a flash light. I had one light towards the sealing in the corner, otherwise the room was dark. To play with light, I used the silver surface of the refelctor to cool of the yellowish flashlight light. Using an f-stop between 9 and 14, I got time to play with directing the light from different angles. The exposure times are between 20" to 30".

The biggest problem is dust and a cat in the house. First the cat thought I was being really good to her, placing the stones to play with. Just when I was about to shoot, she jumped up on the table and my setup was gone. And the dust, no matter how I wiped and cleaned there it was. Luckily Lightroom 5 has an easy spot removal tool to solve the problem.

Playing with Post-Crop Vingetting

Sometimes I find it just fun to play with post editing. When the pictures I've got are nice but somehow lacking the "wow" element for different reasons but still holding a potential for something more. Yesterday morning was kind of gray, the night had been cold enough for frost crystals form but the light was not dramatic enough to bring out the beauty. We had about an hour and a half to spend on photography and so we did, regardless the uninspiring light. At first when I looked at the pictures on my computer, I felt like tossing them all in the bin but today, after a second look in Lightroom...and using post-crop vingetting to bring out the drama...some turned out pretty cool.

More Fall in B&W

I love fall, the smell and the silent drama of endings. To me it somehow feels so rich, like if there was gratitude for all that was. Life in a slow withdrawal, full of promises of a sweet return. Today I had the EOS M with the 22mm M lens with me, it is really convenient to carry around just in case.

Fall in B&W

Colors of Fall are interesting to shoot in B&W as the color of the leaves can vary from green to yellow and red in between and each comes out a little different in B&W

 

 Here we have mostly dark orange leaves and some still green, doesn't make much of a difference to how summer green leaves comes out in B&W. 

In these two pictures the trees are mostly bright yellow as the sun falls on them and the water and stones are in the shadow with a shade of blue. If the leaves were deep green as in summer time, they wouldn't come out this light.

Guess what colors we have here?

Details of October with a Tele Zoom Lens

October came with all the beautiful colors of fall. The weather was finally gorgeous today after days of clouds and rain, the sunny weather brought out the brightness of yellows and red. Usually I gear up with a macro lens for details but today I decided to try the Tele-Zoom, EF 70-200 f4 L to see how that works.

 This lend gives quite a nice bokeh but to work it for details is very different compared to a macro lens with the closest focus distance of 31cm. The tele zoom needs 1,2m. The magic is to find object you can shoot at that distance and get enough space behind it to make the object stand out. For these pictures I used fstopes between 4 and 5.6, played a little more with the ISO speed to make sure I get a shutter speed fast enough to fight the wind playing with my objects.

 All in all I'm pleased with the results I could get, like the two images below. 

Morning Dew

What I like about the end of summer is that the night get chilly and still the days are warm. A very good weather condition for taking the camera out for a walk in the morning, there are dew drops everywhere. The choice of gear is easy, a macro lens on any camera body is fine. I waited all week to get the time and not having to rush out for work or other business and the weather was gentle, no wind and a clear sky. 

EF 100 f2,8 Macro, 1/250  f-stop 4 ISO 800

 When I shoot Macro in nature I turn of the Auto-focus, to get the focus right where I want it. In the image above and the two below I used a somewhat shallow f-stop so that the back ground would not become too busy but show something of the nature of the plant. I tend to use an ISO between 400 and 800 to be able to use a faster shutter speed when shooting macro freehand.

 For the last two pictures I used an f-5 to get a little more depth of field. I shoot in RAW, so I can choose in post processing if I want to go B&W or use some other presets. Today was a B&W day, and I can always go back to the RAW file for color.

Girl Power - Sarca

The other day I did my first promotion shoot for a girl band. I was really excited about the opportunity to discover my ability to capture the girl power and bring it into my work. The band Sarca is from a small town Hyvinkää in Southern Finland. The girls have played together for many years and they've had some radio time already. We had agreed on a location for the shoot, Hyvinkään Wanha Villatehdas, a beautiful old factory surrounding with gorgeous red brick walls and other details. The time of day was going to be just right, the light is already much softer at 4PM in August here in Finland. Then it was just to hope for good weather, as we were going to shoot outdoors.

Before the session, I did some back ground work. I listened to their music and watched a few of their YouTube videos, to get a sense of the energy I needed to connect with. And when the girls showed up, I just had the feeling we'll work well together, some really nice girl power, an interesting mix of opposites coming together in harmony, soft and firm, tough and gentle, wild and contained and with a feeling of mysterious depths, like if they shared a secret place together.

 First we looked around the old factory to decide were to start. And then it was just to shoot away as long as the light was good. It didn't take too many pictures for the girls to get warm and more relaxed. And while we got going with the posing and camera clicking, the girls manager Minna went to get a beautiful old chair to use in the setting. The chair really made the set up perfect, and the girls played well together, matching each others expression and poses.   

 With many thanks to the lovely ladies of Sarca and Minna, for the fun time we had!

Flowers

The weather was gorgeous yesterday, hot and sunny. I decided to take a walk in the evening and visit my son who lives close by and to ask my daughter in law to join me for a visit to a garden colony with cameras on the way home. I didn't feel like taking photography too serious so I chose a light combo: EOS-M with the EF 100mm  f2,8 Macro lens attached with the adapter.

The garden colonies in Helsinki are places were local people can rent a spot for growing flowers and veggies. As a visiting photographer you are better of if you follow the ground rules of the colony, one is allowed to walk on the paths around the area and take pictures of plants but not to step into the gardens if not invited by the gardener. By following the rules and showing respect for the work of others, you are mostly met with friendly smiles. Sometimes of course the most wonderful plant is out of your reach but there are plenty of plants so close to the paths that you get very close.

 The EOS-M is a really nice camera in many ways, it is really light with a censor that performs really well. It has no mirror and the only way to see what you are doing is the live view option. In terms of camera shake  and framing this is a good thing, but when it comes to focusing it takes a while to figure out how to work with the cameras intelligence so that it doesn't override your own. The auto focus of EOS-M is very intelligent and strong minded, it works by touching the screen on the selected area and then it can follow that spot until it has it sharp. The challenge is to get the auto focus to understand what particular part you want it to focus on. Especially challenging when shooting against the source of light, when you don't really see what you are doing.

 So most of the time the auto focus is about luck anyway, there will always be things you cannot control like wind gusts. So I focus on framing, light and finding the best settings. Then I just hope the auto focus will behave nicely.

 One trick that I've found making it easier is to choose to focus on something with contrast, like in the picture below where I asked the camera to focus on the closest spot between light and shadow.

 
About 50% of the shots came out nice, the other half was clearly about the cameras idea of were to focus.

Then the battery went dead, just when a butterfly sat down to feast on an Echinacea purpurea! Well, my daughter in law still had battery and she was thrilled, lucky her. 

Tall Ship Race Parade

On Saturday July 20th the Tall Ship Race of 2013 was heading out of Helsinki in a parade. My plan A was to go to the fortress island Suomenlinna as the best view of the ships would have been from Western cliffs of the island. Then the news said they feared too many people would rush to the island to get a view and that the delicate sand barriers above the cliffs are already suffering from the increased tourism this year. Thus I decided on plan B, Pihlajasaari, two islands right outside the opening to the harbor.

Many others had the same plan but we got out in time before the rush. There was plenty of space on the ferry and we had the time to walk bare foot across the island to get a cup of coffee at the restaurant. With the cups to go we headed to the Eastern cliffs for a view over the waterway. Slowly the shore was getting more and more crowded. People with and without various camera gear all over the place. The water was getting crowded by small boats.

Then finally the first ship came out. It was hard to get a clean shot of the boats for all the small boats following the parade close to the waterway. A good place to practice the golden quality of patience...wait...wait...wait...NOW! So I got one! Well a couple of others too but this is the best.

   And when it is impossible to leave out disturbing objects, the other option is to include them and make them a part of the picture as in the picture below. The small boats are giving a sense of proportion to the handsome Tall Ship Göteborg.

But the the best shot of the day came in a surprising way. We headed of the island before the parade was over to avoid getting stuck in the rush. Not always the best way of doing things, but my ability to be patient is good when waiting for a good shot but not when waiting an hour to get on a ferry when the event is over. This time I go lucky though. The ferry crossed the waterway very close to one tall ship, too close for the 70-200mm lens. So I pulled out my cell phone to see what it could do:  

 

Later I noticed it could have been worth it to stay longer on the island as the biggest Mexican tall ship left later on.

Tall Ship Race 2013 Helsinki in B&W

Continuing on my post from yesterday. As I worked through the pictures I took at the Tall Ship Race, I first had the feeling I'll just toss them all into the garbage bin. But after a little while I was indeed seeing the beauty I originally saw when taking the pictures. They just needed a little work to come out as my inner vision had seen them. Some pictures came out great by converting to B&W in Lightroom 5 and using a little Lens Effects to solve the problem of beautiful ships and details being absorbed by a detailed background. This actually brought a slight feeling of old times ti the old ships. What do you think?

 A sailor dressed up in old fashion standing on the dock beside the gorgeous Göteborg.

 The ship wheel of Albanus. Albanus is a traditional Finnish sailing vessel built of local pine tree at the Åland Islands.

 Astrid and a few other ships.

 A ship wheel.

The Gulden Leeuw.

Göteborg seen from across the harbor.

More ships coming in on wednesday morning

A lfeboat of the Mexican ship Cuauhtemoc