SHINY SURFACES

This is the last exercise before the assignments. Its been interesting so far and I believe what i have learnt will take me to the next level. For this exercise, we are to work with objects that reflect brightly. The idea is to see how it is working with such highly refelective surfaces and what can be done to minimize the unwanted effects.
I got some tracing paper, tape and a scissors for this exercise. I also had to browse through other students blogs to see their set-ups as the instruction in my manual did not seem clear enough. Its my recommendation that some of the instructions in subsequent manuals be backed up with pictures for ease of set-up.

I took a few pictures to show the difference a diffuser would make on highly reflective surfaces.

Image 1:Taken without diffuser. ISO 1250,105mm,f/11,1/6s

Image 2: With tracing paper ISO 1250,105MM,F/11,1/8s

Image 3: With Light at a different position, ISO 1250,105mm,f/11, 1/8s

Image 4: With Light at another position, ISO 1250,105mm,f/11, 1/8s

CONCLUSIONS

I have seen from this experiment that there was some difficulty loosing the reflection of the camera lens completely. I tried shooting from different angles and distances and got different results. It was not a verY perfect exercise but i perfectly understand that shiny surfaces present a unique problem when photographing them and something has to be placed in front of the object to absorb the reflection.

CONCENTRATING LIGHT

To concentrate light on an object, I used a snoot made out of card board paper. The aim of the exercise was to depict the image using a flash with snoot and diffuser and with a snoot without a diffuser. My speed light  Nikon 910 has an in-built diffuser than can be pulled out to cover the front of the flash. It indicated a flash to object distance of 2 feet with ISO 250 and aperture of f/16 to get a correct exposure. So i took the first picture without a snooth or diffuser as shown in Image 1 below:

Image 1: Flash without snooth and diffuser:ISO 250,70mm,f/8,1/250

By using a black background and fiddling with my ambient exposure manipulating shutter speed, I was able to achieve the black background. I now took another picture with the snoot and diffuser on the flash shown in image 2 below:

Image 2: Flash with snoot no diffuser:ISO 250,70mm,f/8,1/200

Image 3: Flash with snoot and diffuser:ISO 250,70mm,f/8,1/200

As can be observed, with the snoot only light is concentrated in the facial area of the teddy but with the snoot and the diffuser, the light is spread across the teddy. My flash power was 1/64 . That probably accounts for why the light is severly diminished in Image 3.

Image 4: Processed  image 3 in Iphoto

I tweaked image 3 a bit in Iphoto to lighten and increase the contrast a bit. This has made the image a  bit warmer and i seem to prefer it.

CONCLUSIONS:

I am beginning to feel a bit more in control of the exercises. Concentrating light in a dark background tends to give an image a more atmospheric look as earlier pointed out. However i seem to still struggle with how to achieve a dark background for the image without using any absorptive material. With constant practice, i will get it.

The built -in diffuser in my flash has worked quite well and am happy with the final image. The exercise has also enabled to manipulate my flash in manual mode. I believe the best way to utilize the capabilities of the flash is by using it in manual mode rather in iTTL mode which can sometimes introduce errors.