Tag: photo

Scavenger Hunt #33 – Reaction

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While I used the previous Hunt to experiment with composites and story-telling, I wanted to go “back to basics” for this Hunt, and try to get maybe closer from my comfort zone, but also closer to pictures that feel like “me”. But, for the personal challenge, I shot everything with my 100mm macro lens!

Words that relate to an abstract concept or to movement, like “Reaction”, are the ones I fear most; but for this one the idea of a chemical reaction came to me very early on. One of the most straightforward (and safe!) chemical reactions that can be done with household items is to mix baking soda with vinegar: it bubbles! I took a significant amount of takes and I went through a lot of baking soda, but when I saw the crop of this image, I exclaimed “That’s the one!”. I find the bubble details exquisite and I really like the composition with the curve in the right corner.

A white powder on the left side of the picture reacting to a bunch of bubbles on the right side of the picture.
CameraPentax K-1 II
Lenssmc PENTAX-D FA MACRO 100mm F2.8 WR
Focal length100 mm
F-NumberF/8
Exposure time1/250 s
ISO200

I had to think hard on whether to leave a bit of the baking soda in the picture. On the one hand, it made the image slightly more obviously “on theme”; on the other hand, the picture was better without it. So I went for the pretty picture rather than for the clearer theme – to me, it was definitely the right choice.

The complete Scavenger album is available here: the Reaction album.

Scavenger Hunt #33 – Tin

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Top of three tin cans, well aligned in a row. The left and right ones are identical, the third one is of a different model.

While I used the previous Hunt to experiment with composites and story-telling, I wanted to go “back to basics” for this Hunt, and try to get maybe closer from my comfort zone, but also closer to pictures that feel like “me”. But, for the personal challenge, I shot everything with my 100mm macro lens!

My first idea on “Tin” had to do with soldering; but taking pictures while handling tools heating at 300°C sounded like a particularly bad idea – especially since, as we all know, you already need three hands when soldering. And suddenly I remembered that cans were also called tins or tin cans, and I had an idea for the first image I shot for this Hunt!

I setup the cans on my faithful piece of black fabric and started getting pictures. It took a few back and forths between the camera and the setup, to align the cans just so and to align them with the light just so. But I eventually got my shot.

Top of three tin cans, well aligned in a row, over a black background. The left and right ones are identical, the third one is of a different model.
CameraPentax K-1 II
Lenssmc PENTAX-D FA MACRO 100mm F2.8 WR
Focal length100 mm
F-NumberF/5
Exposure time1/30 s
ISO1600

As you can guess, the edits were fairly straightforward on this one – apart from fixing a few details/blemishes.

The complete Scavenger album is available here: the Tin album.

Scavenger Hunt #33 – Party

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A bunch of colorful star confetti, with a few still landing in the mass that's already set.

While I used the previous Hunt to experiment with composites and story-telling, I wanted to go “back to basics” for this Hunt, and try to get maybe closer from my comfort zone, but also closer to pictures that feel like “me”. But, for the personal challenge, I shot everything with my 100mm macro lens!

“Party” is not exactly an easy word to photograph these days – most restrictions are lifted, but it’s still going to be a while before I will consider going to a proper party 🙂 And I did want something in the close-up/macro direction… My first thought was to take pictures of bubbly wine, but it felt uninspiring. Confetti seemed more fun! I ordered two sets of confetti, and that was a good thing, because I hesitated ordering the star ones, and they ended up being a much better fit than the other ones I had first chosen.

I setup the confetti on an oven sheet pan, and started making pictures as I was throwing them. At the beginning, I was trying to hold the camera in one hand and throw the confetti with the other; I eventually gave in and setup a tripod, a remote, and multiple shots on trigger… as I was continuing to throw confetti in my pan. I settled on this picture, which was both reasonably sharp and still had some movement to it:

A bunch of colorful star confetti gathered on a black surface; some more confetti are falling.
CameraPentax K-1 II
Lenssmc PENTAX-D FA MACRO 100mm F2.8 WR
Focal length100 mm
F-NumberF/9
Exposure time1/20 s
ISO1600

I’m not suuuper convinced by my edit there, but I think the major problem was the light, which feels… I don’t know, flat. But, it is what it is, and I have a Party shot!

The complete Scavenger album is available here: the Party album.

52Frames – 2021-44 – Shot with a Phone

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A Fujifilm XT-30 mirrorless camera and a Pentax K-1 II DSRL, side by side on a blue mat.

You know what’s the worst timing? Getting a brand new camera, and having the same week “Shot with a Phone” as the weekly theme for 52Frames.

On the other hand, I get to show off my new camera, and the size difference with my lovely, lovely Pentax Monster. The new camera is the Fuji on the left; it’s an XT-30 II with a 18-135 lens attached to it. That whole setup is lighter than the Pentax body, and the lens of the Pentax is again as heavy, so…

I got the Fuji as a more compact, more transportable “travel camera”, and today was the first day I properly tested it. I’m happy to report that it is, so far, meeting my expectations: I like the interface (and the two control dials ❤️, and all the proper mechanical controls ❤️) except for a couple of minor things that feel more like a question of habit than anything else. It also has some neat features such as a panorama mode, that works pretty well (but seems to take a toll on the battery). I have a first set of pictures here: Fuji XT30 Test Walk in Zürich – 2021-10.

Oh, and regarding the picture for this week’s 52Frames – it was also an opportunity for me to test the new masking features of the latest version of Lightroom. ‘Cuz the initial picture was this:

And, honestly, it’s pretty good – may avoid a few roundtrips through Photoshop in the future, which I’m quite happy about.

52Frames – 2021-40 – Dreamscape

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The theme for this week’s 52Frames was “Dreamscape”, with an extra credit for “Nightmare”. I was fairly uninspired, until I saw on the window Pierre’s DOOM plush toys, and went “mmmmh.”

The idea I went with was to try and get these two evil blobs in some kind of corridor, and I was thinking initially of slapping a green filter on it and be done, mostly. I fetched a box in the basement (we happened to have a box of a very good size for my purposes!), and opening the back felt like it was giving me the feeling of DOOM walls, so I kept it that way. I lit the image with a green lume cube, and used one of the other sides of the box as a barn door to get a shadow, again reminiscing of how I remember the lights in DOOM (not necessarily the color, but the angles). For the record, this was the SOOC picture:

I did a few fixes to make the box sliiightly less obvious; I also played with the “wave” filter in Photoshop, because that felt appropriate for the theme. And, while I’ve been grumbling a lot about the theme this week, I actually like that picture a lot – it makes me smile! 🙂

52Frames – 2021-39 – Daily Habit

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The theme for this week’s 52Frames was “Daily Habit” with an extra credit for “First Person View”. I’m not very good at daily habits these days, but the one thing I manage to do consistently is taking my thyroid hormone supplement first thing in the morning, and more than half an hour before breakfast. And the best way I found to manage to do that is to put it on top of my phone when I plug it in for the night – so one of my daily habits is doing exactly that!

I kept the picture simple: this is literally how it looks in the evening on my desk, with the light coming from the light suspension in the office. I kept the exposure on the lower side because it’s late, and I emphasized that with a bit of vignetting.

52Frames – 2021-38 – Curves

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The theme for 52Frames this week was “Curves”. I coincidentally received a bunch of small ovoid polished stones this week (props for another project!); after playing with them for a little while I got the idea of organizing them along a sinusoidal curve.

I had first printed said curve ; I then realized I could use my tablet as a background to set them up and shut down the tablet, which would avoid a significant amount of postprocessing clean-up. Assembling the stones over the tablet ended up being fiddlier than expected (these things apparently CAN be detected as fingers when moving them around… annoying!), which means the setup is not perfect (and I was too lazy to fix in post) – but that’s one more week in the box 🙂