Flash umbrellas are really cool. Except from making you look like a full-time pro, they spread and soften light, which makes them ideal for portrait photography. They are also very portable, just like regular umbrellas. But there is very little magic involved, and there are not too many differences between a flash umbrella and a regular one. So why not try to use your umbrella for something more interesting than rain?
Theme of this week was "Lit", and my submission is shown to the left. I simply put the plastic penguin on top of the light bulb and shot it using fill flash. At first, I was not particularly satisfied with the results, but after some playing around with the colors in GIMP using layer masks, it looked much more appealing. Read on for some tips on how to use layer masks to make dark areas brighter, and bright areas darker - a sort of HDR, you could say.
I've thinking about doing this for some time, and this week I finally had an excuse for it. I filled the balloon with water and placed it on a black blanket in a water-tolerant place. With the camera on a tripod and using an external flash, I set the shutter speed to 1/200th of a second. I then dropped the knife on the balloon and tried to capture the decisive moment. It took a few tries to get it right. Using a small aperture like f/11 turned out to be important to get both the water and the knife in focus.
Theme of last week was "Film noir", which got me really excited. High contrast black and white basically makes everything look cool and stylish so nothing can go wrong. A hat-owning friend of mine was helpful enough to model for me, so we went to a dark back alley at the evening to get some shots. The large shadow was created by placing my external flash - a Nissin Di622 - on the ground a few meters away from the subject and firing it remotely.
With christmas coming up, you might be looking for a gift for that hooked-on-photography brother of yours, or maybe you just want to treat yourself to something. Either way, if you are looking for photo related stuff but don't want want to break the bank (too much), let me suggest three items that might interest you.
Been taking a break from participating lately, but decided to give it a go this weekend. I was out walking when I saw this Korean Air Airbus A380 shortly after takeoff. With my Tamron at 270mm, it filled up the frame nicely. Desaturated, bumped up the contrast and added some vignetting.
Just came back from a trip to Menorca, Spain. The island is situated close to Mallorca, but is significantly more quiet. We had a relaxing week with lots of sunshine. For some pictures, go to the Image Gallery.
The old design was getting old, so I changed it a bit. Hope you like it. :)
This week's theme being "Illusion", I decided to retry something I did a few years ago - building an impossible 3D triangle. I found instructions here and got busy. Once done, the thing looked nothing like a triangle; the trick is to look at it from just the right angle, preferably with one eye. The camera makes it almost look real.
This week's Photo Sunday theme was "Chaos", which made me think of the great game Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory. Green LED light, a window, some water and a flashlight and it looks just like Sam Fisher paid me a visit. You can also find the picture on my Flickr photostream.
