Taken at the recent “Tribe” event I shot.
Snap
Reply
Category Archives: Picture of the day
Yellow and blue
We have seasons in Ontario. Grey (now), then brown, then white, then grey, then brown, followed by green, and then grey again. White, unfortunately, with brown , is the longest.
But in between, you get some nice pictures.
I always look for contrast: brightness and colour. This was this morning, outside in a car park.
Taken with the 7D with the 35mm f/1.4L prime lens. My general walkabout lens.
Street
Today’s post is a picture of the day. Recent, in Toronto. 24mm on a 1Ds MkIII full frame camera. 1/60, f/5.6, 400 ISO.
In photos, it is important to think about foreground and background, and the interaction between them and between them and the viewer. Normally, background people should not look into the camera. But I think it worked for me here!
One more club shot
Whew, what difficult light.
And what a pleasure when you get it right in near-impossible conditions..
Self portrait
How do I take one of these with my new 7D?
I set the camera on a tripod and use pocketwizards to fire one flash into an umbrella. One flash gives me that severe look, but to slightly lessen that, I have a reflector on the other side (camera left). I used a 35mm f/1.4L lens on the 7D, meaning an effective lens length of about 50mm. The “Nifty fifty”!
I set my camera to 100 ISO – best quality, and background light does not upset the shot. And I am in manual mode, at f/8 (enough DOF) and 1/125th second. I use autofocus where the camera selects a focus point, This time. I will – because as the subject I cannot see what I am doing.
Finally, I use the timer of course. So I can press the shutter while I hold my hand out; then sit down as the camera beeps.
And then I check: sharp enough? Nice graduated tones from dark to light? Catchlights in the eyes? Check!
Book snap.
Filling the frame!
Black and white
…and grey. Underrated, as said before, Here’s a recent snap of the day.
Port Credit, September 2009
My advice to all of you is to do more black and white photography. Ideally, shoot in RAW (but preview in B&W on your camera) and use Lightroom (or if you must, Photoshop) to intelligently convert the images. Some will work; others will not; and you will learn from this process. As I do, every day.
Haze? No problem.
Here is a simple but effective technique: if your background is hazy, blurry: put something sharp against it in the foreground. Like in this picture:
You get benefits that include:
- Better foreground subject definition
- No-one minds that the background is hazy – it is a benefot, not a drawback, so everyone’s happy.
- 3D into your picture.
It’s all good!
Bummer summer
The summer that never was.
The yellow against the blue a few weeks back, late in the afternoon, caught my attention: yellow vs blue is a catching colour contrast. Wide angle lens (16mm) from the car, with exposure set to emphasise the sky.
And when I say that, I mean I have underexposed a bit compared to the way the camera would normally expose this scene. Can you see how beautifully that brings out the colours in this great late afternoon light?
Colour
Yesterday’s snap of the day was about b/w. Today’s is about colour. Colour can be subtle:
Toronto, September 2009