The Canon Collection
Canon EOS Kiss Digital X with a Sigma DX 17-70mm f/2.8-4.5 lens at 30mm EFL, tripod mounted. Exposure Trio: 0.3s, f/5.6 & ISO 100.
Next I thought I'd try some white background shots. All I needed was some wireless triggered flash units and something white to photograph on. The second part proved more difficult. White paper is best since it's smoother than cloth, but all I had to work with was a white blanket. This just meant that I had to fire the flash units much harder to burn out the texture of the cloth. Under my lenses, I used white paper which leaves an edge but it's relatively easy to fix in post using Lightroom.
For these next shots, I used two Speedlite 430ex II flashes to bounce light off the ceiling and create a huge soft box. A third off camera speedlite to shoot some interesting light into the lens, would have been handy but alas, I didn't have one. The speedlites were wirelessly triggered from my 7D using ETTL with +2 flash compensation. A little extra touch up in post to remove the colour cast (my roof isn't white) and adjust exposure. I also needed to burn out some of the remaining texture in a few places in my cloth background too.
Here's a shot of my pride and joy. One of Canon's best, all purpose lens ever made, the EF 70-200mm f/2.8 L IS USM. That lens with a 16-35mm and a nifty fifty and you've got almost every general purpose focal length covered. However it's a little heavy. Since I'm into hiking, having to carry it along with a tent, clothing and food for a week and those kilos start to add up. Thus I've traded it in for the recently released Canon EF 70-300mm f/4-5.6 L IS USM. I get a little more reach and a lighter lens at the cost of maximum aperture. Some sacrifices have to be made.
Pride and Joy
Canon EOS 7D with a Canon EF 28mm f/1.8 USM lens at 45mm EFL, tripod mounted. Exposure Trio: 1/250s, f8 & ISO 100.
Here's another angle. Look at that huge 200mm f/2.8 front element. Almost reminds me of a 300mm f/2.8 lens. Here I used a 28mm EFL lens with about 5 cm working distance. Depth of field was a challenge here too. Next time, I might try some focus stacking to keep it all in sharp focus.
Canon Glass
Canon EOS 7D with a Canon EF-S 10-22mm f/3.5-4.5 USM lens at 28mm EFL, tripod mounted. Exposure Trio: 1/250s, f8 & ISO 100.
And finally a family shot of my full frame prime lens collection, the EF 100mm f/2.8 USM Macro, EF 85mm f/1.8 USM, EF 50mm f/1.8 II and EF 28mm f/1.8 USM.
Full Frame Family
Canon EOS 7D with a Canon EF-S 60mm f/2.8 USM Macro lens at 96mm EFL, tripod mounted. Exposure Trio: 1/250s, f8 & ISO 100.
Next time I'm at a hardware or craft store, I'll try to get some fomecore boards for a base and some larger seamless white paper for a background to make the process easier. An extra off camera speedlite or two with some coloured gels would allow some more creativity too.
Hi Steve,
ReplyDeleteI haven't tried any product photography before but I've heard about using white paper for background. One question I have about it though is did you have to bend the white paper/blanket up against a wall or something so that you get more vertical white in your shot, or can you just lay it out flat and position your subjects near the front and control your angle and get the same effect. I'm wondering if laying it out flat will make the background go darker and not produce the result like you have where everything is bright and clean.
You mention focus stacking also. I'm interested to hear how your experiment with that goes and what approach you use. Ie. Do you need a focusing rail to do that or do you just dial your focus control and slowly step your focal plane through your image. (But you can answer that when you do your post about stacking :)
I notice you have a Canon Remote trigger in your picture at the top. Can this remote do a sequence of bracketed exposures or more than 3 steps. ie the inbuilt functionality is for 3 photos and you set the exposure steps. Can the remote do more than 3 steps for you automatically? That would be a handy feature if you wanted to try some HDR images. I believe Nikon have a feature where they can set the number of steps you want. I'm hoping that Canon put such a feature in their cameras in future.
Regards
Craig.
Hi Craig,
ReplyDeleteMy blanket was only about 1m x 1.5m so I had to stand it up. Cloth is easier to work with because it's more flexible but it's also more textured so getting it to burn out to pure white is a little harder. I attached it to an indoor close rack with a couple of close pegs. The lenses were sitting on a sheet of white A4 card so this was flat on the table. I used the paper under the lens because it's very hard to burn out the texture under the lens where it casts a shadow.
I imagine laying the paper flat would require a larger sheet of paper but the further away the background is from the subject, the more you can blast it with light. It this case, it doesn't backlight the subject and soften the edges with a white halo. I'd like a sheet of dark glass to use underneath so I can get some cool reflections.
The TC-80N3 is rather complex to use. It has 4 modes, self timer, interval timer, long exposure and exposure count. They can be combined to further extend it's ability. One thing it can't do is adjust exposure between frames. For that you have to rely on your camera's bracketing ability. So it doesn't provide any extra benefits for HDR photography.
steve