Archive for August, 2009
Antibiotica at 50mm
She was getting upset. Whenever I took her to a concert she felt like she wasn’t good enough. So I decided to get Lucille new lens: the Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II. The main reason for getting this is the maximum aperture of f/1.8, allowing both very shallow depth of field and more importantly for me: shooting at even lower light levels then I could with my current lens.
So we went for a test drive and took some photos of Antibiotica at a rehearsal:
Antibiotica rehearsal
I opened the aperture to its fullest, boosted the ISO, and started taking some photos. I’ll admit, the lighting was hard, my space was limited, no zoom on the lens and the auto focus on the lens did a terrible job. But nonetheless, some nice photos were taken there.
Antibiotica rehearsal
It’s true: the lens have difficulty focusing at low lighting (such as the above). They are highly criticized for being made out of cheap materials (I’m trying not to throw them on the floor to test that). But that makes the lens cheap, and being made mostly out of plastic and not metal also makes them lighter. In short: they’re a pretty good value-for-money in my opinion.
Antibiotica
Best thing about this evening: I kinda got a show for free. Plus food and beverage! I guess I should do this more often 
You can find Antibiotica onFacebook, MySpace and their website. Listen to some tracks, and I’ll let you know when they have an upcoming show…
Breakdancing with Amit
I’ve seen this beautiful post at Tomer’s blog about a photo shoot of two dancers, one of them a breakdancer. This got me thinking about Amit, and how I can try photographing some action for once with my beloved Lucille.
So we picked up Amit and climbed up to an old fort outside Rosh-Ha’ayin. As the shadows grew long (around 6-ish), we started playing some breakdance music from Amit’s cell phone and began taking some pictures:
I know it’s reletavily a lot of pictures. I simply couldn’t choose between them
I remember when Amit started learning how to break dance. I kept teasing him, saying I can also do this, I can also do that. And I did (sort of)… But he became good. Really good. Now I know I can’t do half the things he can, but still there is that thought: had I taken a different path on earlier in my life, could I have done them? (To be honest – I always feel that way when I see someone doing something better than me.) The answer is “probably so”, but go figure what else what have been different. For now, I’m photographing – and enjoying it.
So thank you Amit – a.k.a. Magnezium – for a great photo shoot.
Studio Photography
I decided to start an advanced photography course at Galitz Photography School. I’ve been enjoying self tutoring a lot, but I do believe this will be a very nice way for me to experience many types of photography and see which aspects are more appealing to me. Not to mention I might even learn a thing or two on the way… Besides, I have too much time on my hands, so why not channel it? If not for world peace, then at least for personal gain.
So three days ago I went to my first studio shoot ever. Yipee… We met at the studio of Raphael Ben Dor, and this was an amazing experience for me. Finally I got to use an external flash! And I don’t mean something handheld. I mean a full scale big flash mounted on a stand, with reflectors, softeners, remote control to sync that flash with my release of the shutter. We sometimes even used a second and a third flash as well.
So this is the first photo I took of Mor, the lovely model who was with us in the studio:
At a high ISO (800) and a (relatively) small aperture (f/5), the shutter was still 1/13 seconds, hence the softness and slight blurriness (if that’s even a word). Nothing I haven’t done in the past. Shortly after, I mounted a small flash transmitting unit on my camera, which controlled a couple of external flashes. After several attempts of complaining why my camera isn’t as good as the other cameras people in the course, of Raphael’s, I managed to come up with the following result:
Now that’s more like it!
Technical note: all the flash photos were taken in manual (M) mode: fixed shutter speed (to allow all flashes to go off and be captured in the exposure) and a slightly varying aperture, based on the desired result. It is possible to control the brightness of the external flashes, so that’s how you basically control the correct exposure for the scene.
And another nice shot from this evening:
It’s pretty clear that we only had a single flash from the left (through a softener I believe, helping the light spread in an even way, rather than creating harsh shadows on the right).
I’ll admit, I can’t see myself buying all of this equipment just yet (can’t afford it because of the course ). And besides, there are more urgent things for me to spend my money on after my recent apartment move. What I do know that this is a side of photography I’m very pleased to have experienced. I just hope I’ll implement what I’ve learned here…
I’ll finish off with a quick set of how much I love having an LCD screen on the back of the camera, reminding me that I’m just taking photos without thinking of the camera settings. So this is what happened when I took a photo without a flash, and then 3 more after mounting the flash, while adjusting the camera parameters, one by one…
 No flash |
 Oh yeah, the ISO is too high |
 Oh yeah, the white balance is off |
 Back to normal |
Two weeks later…
Well, these last couple of weeks were hectic. Moving an apartment wasn’t simple, but it’s almost over (except for some final loose ends) and it’s proving to be a very enjoyable move.
So I didn’t have much photography time, except for a short trip up north. Most of the photos there have much more sentimental value in them than artistic value. But still, I would like to share these with you:
The first photo reminds me that I still need to acquire an external flash and/or large aperture lens. But stuff for the new apartment are in a higher priority. Well, I mean, for now at least… Again, sorry about the harsh flash
The second photo is a complete contrast to the first one. This is one of many of this amazing girl, but the only one where baby Ayala looked right at me. Most kids who see a camera know to look up and smile. She’s still not at that stage, and that makes this picture very special for me:
