Dave Frost Photography - Canvey Island » cliche

Shiny and reflective.

Dave Frost — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 14:21:30 +0000

Not sure why, but seem to have become slightly obsessive about reflections recently. Haven’t touched the camera for over a week and cabin fever has not irreversibly set in. Been meaning to hve a crack at these things since the storm in a teacup shot (see my Flickr stream) to try and capture some clouds etc. reflected in the water. for the last two weeks the skies have been a monotonous grey, so as the sun attempted to shine this afternoon I felt obliged to have a go at this.
Regrettably, my cd tray only had this knackered old thing in (it’s got more scratches than a cat’s scratching post) and I didn’t get the tripod out, but went OK from a test perspective.

For those that care, this was taken hand-held, with the Canon 50mm f1.8 plus 36mm kenko extension tube.

Me, Myself and I

Dave Frost — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 15:06:38 +0000

It’s been a while since I posted any pictures of me, or indeed pictures with me in them. This is partly because I’m usually the other side of the camera, and partly because I’m such an ugly barsteward. I’ve been thinking about a shot like this for ages, and today, finally got round to having a play. The edit was a quick and dirty one as a proof of concept, but I’m quite pleased with the way it turned out under the circumstances.
Set up wise it’s fairly straightforward all you need really is a tripod, but in this case I also used a Speedlight 430EX.
Settings should be manual, this helps to ensure that the exposure is the same for each shot which in turn makes it easier to blend post production. (fortunately it’s a grey day so didn’t need to worry about changes in ambient light as the sun went in and out).
To take the pictures, I set the camera on timer, pressed the button and adopted my poses. OK, was a bit of running about, but hey, I need the excercise.
Once taken the three pictures were imported into Adobe RAW, and all given the same, desaturated treatment.
Then, I opened them all in photoshop, and copied two as new layers into the third one.
Thereafter, it was simply a matter of using the eraser tool to remove the bits I didn’t want and reveal the “me” underneath.
Job done.

Was all good fun, and I managed to convince the kids that my brothers had popped round while they were at school. Confused the hell out of them as they know that I have no brothers.

The Penny Drops

Dave Frost — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 16:06:47 +0000

Tried something else this afternoon. Wondered (thanks to an inspired post by someone else earlier on the Talk Photography forums) how difficult it would be to photograph a spinning coin, indoors. The answer was of course bloody difficult. Especially as the lens I was using just wouldn’t, or couldn’t maintain focus on the coin. Ended up focussing manually, in AV mode at a variety of shutter speeds. No flash used in this one, but like the water droplets, am quite keen to try this again with Flash and Without.

Another water droplet for your viewing pleasure.

Dave Frost — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 11:40:36 +0000

Decided there’s too much blue on this site already, so posting a photo taken with flash, but white balance set to tungsten doesn’t really help. Decided I needed to balance it ou with this one from the same shoot.

Water droplet shapes

Dave Frost — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 11:36:58 +0000

Had some fun at the weekend, playing with my new wireless flash triggers, a kitchen sink and some water.¬† Was a bit slapdash with the setup in that I didn’t clean the sink or worry too much about the choice of lens.¬† Basic setup was;

Camera – Canon 30D attached to a very very cheap sub ¬£10 tripod.

Flash – Canon 430ex, with cheapy wireless trigger/receivers

Sink – One scratched and dirty stainless steel kitchen sink

Breadboard – One scarred and scratched wooden one (propped against the taps and used as a reflector for the flash)

Water, around 2 pints of, sloshing around the bottom of the aforementioned sink.

Was going to use my remote shutter release as well (for the very first time since I bought it several months ago, but decided not to.¬† Setting wise, the flash was in manual mode, dialled down to 1/16th power.¬† The Camera was in Manual, with Aperture set at¬†f7.1/f8.0 and a shutter speed of 1/250, focal length was 50mm using the Tamron 17-50mm f2.8

So, with the tap dripping slowly, and the flash aimed squarely at the breadboard, I proceeded to attempt shutter murder by firing off a hundred or so shots. Most of them were rather uninpiring captures of an empty sink, but one or two were worth keeping. Next time I try this, I’ll be making sure the sink’s clean and I’m going to invest in sometheing a little more colourful as a reflector !!