249. Candy - March 18-24, 2018
Don-
I shot the peeps on the board at the studio using the studio strobes.
My assignment for school was food so I decided to combine both it
with WPOTM. I had a good backdrop from the studio but I liked the
Photoshop Graduated Layer instead.
focal was 24 to 70mm lens set at 34mm
exposure was 1/200 sec; f/22; ISO 400
The peeps around the edge where shot in my garage using a 14 to 24mm lens set at 24 mm.
Exposure was 1/60 sec; f/5; and an ISO of 100. A bunch of cropping and duplicating layers
and of course some good old fashion Free Transform and ta-da......a picture to make any
sugar freak happy.
I shot the peeps on the board at the studio using the studio strobes.
My assignment for school was food so I decided to combine both it
with WPOTM. I had a good backdrop from the studio but I liked the
Photoshop Graduated Layer instead.
focal was 24 to 70mm lens set at 34mm
exposure was 1/200 sec; f/22; ISO 400
The peeps around the edge where shot in my garage using a 14 to 24mm lens set at 24 mm.
Exposure was 1/60 sec; f/5; and an ISO of 100. A bunch of cropping and duplicating layers
and of course some good old fashion Free Transform and ta-da......a picture to make any
sugar freak happy.
Elroy-
Gummy Frogs catching Gummy Penguins.
I took this photo with a Canon Rebel T3I with a EF-5 18-55m f3.5-5.6 Lens. It was set on ISO400, 45mm f5.6 and 1/60th White balance was set on auto. I used the built in flash.
Gummy Frogs catching Gummy Penguins.
I took this photo with a Canon Rebel T3I with a EF-5 18-55m f3.5-5.6 Lens. It was set on ISO400, 45mm f5.6 and 1/60th White balance was set on auto. I used the built in flash.
Byron-
A red gumball machine on a Black & White floor gives me a feeling of fun. You can't feel down when you are in that environment. There must be a pinball machine and a bottle of grape Nehi nearby. This photo was shot with the oldest of my cameras, The Nikon D3200. I attached the 18-55mm kit lens and set it to 32mm. The light comes from an SD-700 with with a Byro-Snoot mounted on the front.
ISO 200, 32 mm, f 6.3, 1/80th sec.
A red gumball machine on a Black & White floor gives me a feeling of fun. You can't feel down when you are in that environment. There must be a pinball machine and a bottle of grape Nehi nearby. This photo was shot with the oldest of my cameras, The Nikon D3200. I attached the 18-55mm kit lens and set it to 32mm. The light comes from an SD-700 with with a Byro-Snoot mounted on the front.
ISO 200, 32 mm, f 6.3, 1/80th sec.
Darin-
I went with the international interpretation of 'Candy'.
Riding up San Dimas Canyon today, I saw this little fella on the road. It was lunchtime and I was hungry. This would be a treasured piece of candy in some countries. You know what they say, "When in Indonesia..."
I went with the international interpretation of 'Candy'.
Riding up San Dimas Canyon today, I saw this little fella on the road. It was lunchtime and I was hungry. This would be a treasured piece of candy in some countries. You know what they say, "When in Indonesia..."
Kevin-
When Don named the “Candy” theme for this week it clearly felt as if he had the Easter holiday on his mind. So I stopped by a candy store and examined the delightful, colorful candies that I am usually attracted to. (Things like Chewy Gobstoppers, Tropical Dots, SweetTarts and Spree). But none of them felt like Easter. Somehow Easter means chocolate. As a child I remember loving the tiny foil-wrapped chocolate eggs and of course the chocolate bunny rabbits that the Easter Bunny would leave behind.
So those are what I grabbed.There was a specific background I had in mind, which was the wall behind the tub/shower area in the master bath. Not a large, convenient place to shoot, but I dragged in sawhorses to support the platform, positioned the bunny in a boring front and center spot, positioned some smaller foil-wrapped chocolate rabbits, and scattered many wrapped chocolate eggs. Then set up to test the light levels one flash unit at a time. Three Nikon SB-900 series strobes were used. First, one, with a blue gel, and set to 1/4 power aimed at the wall behind to create nice contrast with the chocolate. Second, one back/rim light was positioned to come from behind the bunny but shooting through a very tight grid, so it had to be set to full power. Finally, the key light coming from above and in front of the bunny set to 1/4 power. As noted the space was really tight, and light stands were balancing precariously on the edges of the bathtub. But I finally got everything dialed in. Momentarily I walked away from the set, only to return and find that someone had started chomping an ear off of the bunny. Byron!!! Couldn't you have let me grab an exposure first?
Nikon D850, mounted on an Manfrotto CarbonOne440 tripod with an Acratech ballhead, 105mm f/2.8 Micro-Nikkor lens, ISO 400, f/8, 1/250th of a second (flash sync).
When Don named the “Candy” theme for this week it clearly felt as if he had the Easter holiday on his mind. So I stopped by a candy store and examined the delightful, colorful candies that I am usually attracted to. (Things like Chewy Gobstoppers, Tropical Dots, SweetTarts and Spree). But none of them felt like Easter. Somehow Easter means chocolate. As a child I remember loving the tiny foil-wrapped chocolate eggs and of course the chocolate bunny rabbits that the Easter Bunny would leave behind.
So those are what I grabbed.There was a specific background I had in mind, which was the wall behind the tub/shower area in the master bath. Not a large, convenient place to shoot, but I dragged in sawhorses to support the platform, positioned the bunny in a boring front and center spot, positioned some smaller foil-wrapped chocolate rabbits, and scattered many wrapped chocolate eggs. Then set up to test the light levels one flash unit at a time. Three Nikon SB-900 series strobes were used. First, one, with a blue gel, and set to 1/4 power aimed at the wall behind to create nice contrast with the chocolate. Second, one back/rim light was positioned to come from behind the bunny but shooting through a very tight grid, so it had to be set to full power. Finally, the key light coming from above and in front of the bunny set to 1/4 power. As noted the space was really tight, and light stands were balancing precariously on the edges of the bathtub. But I finally got everything dialed in. Momentarily I walked away from the set, only to return and find that someone had started chomping an ear off of the bunny. Byron!!! Couldn't you have let me grab an exposure first?
Nikon D850, mounted on an Manfrotto CarbonOne440 tripod with an Acratech ballhead, 105mm f/2.8 Micro-Nikkor lens, ISO 400, f/8, 1/250th of a second (flash sync).
Paul-
I spent a lot of time at my workbench as well as in my nano-studio this week trying to get a wide-open topic to cooperate with a couple of ideas. The first two times in the nano-studio resulted in very creative and awful to look at shoots. On early Thursday morning I shuffled bleary-eyed past my work bench, looked at the tools hanging there, and tried something different.
I had several candy canes left over from my shot on Week 235 (“Sweet”) and decided to file the end of one down to make it appear like a Philips head on a screwdriver bit. This is neither easy nor fun. Candy canes don’t want to be filed with a fine rasp, scraped down with an X-ACTO knife, or shaped with fine grade sandpaper. And it’s the talented tongue that can suck one of these things into the aforementioned shape. (We’ll leave how deft I am with my tongue out of this discussion.)
After breaking a lot of candy canes—my workbench looked like that aftermath of an employee riot at Santa’s workshop—I got a reasonably close approximation to what I wanted and fitted it into one of my favorite tools: an old crank handle hand drill. I tightened the chuck gently and started shooting.
Looking for the sweet spot: Nikon D5200; aperture priority; 18-55mm lens focused at 55mm; ISO 2500; 0.6 seconds at f/36 (yes, f/36); -1 1/3EV; center-weighted metering; on-camera flash compensation was set at -0.3, Auto WB. Trying to go high-tech this week, I tore of a piece of tissue, and placed one-ply of it over the flash to try and get a small amount of diffusion. I also angled some foam core at the bottom to see what that might do. Answer: I have no idea. The camera was mounted on a tripod.
Finally, I threw away the candy cane and ate the hand drill instead. Kind of crunchy, but not bad.
I spent a lot of time at my workbench as well as in my nano-studio this week trying to get a wide-open topic to cooperate with a couple of ideas. The first two times in the nano-studio resulted in very creative and awful to look at shoots. On early Thursday morning I shuffled bleary-eyed past my work bench, looked at the tools hanging there, and tried something different.
I had several candy canes left over from my shot on Week 235 (“Sweet”) and decided to file the end of one down to make it appear like a Philips head on a screwdriver bit. This is neither easy nor fun. Candy canes don’t want to be filed with a fine rasp, scraped down with an X-ACTO knife, or shaped with fine grade sandpaper. And it’s the talented tongue that can suck one of these things into the aforementioned shape. (We’ll leave how deft I am with my tongue out of this discussion.)
After breaking a lot of candy canes—my workbench looked like that aftermath of an employee riot at Santa’s workshop—I got a reasonably close approximation to what I wanted and fitted it into one of my favorite tools: an old crank handle hand drill. I tightened the chuck gently and started shooting.
Looking for the sweet spot: Nikon D5200; aperture priority; 18-55mm lens focused at 55mm; ISO 2500; 0.6 seconds at f/36 (yes, f/36); -1 1/3EV; center-weighted metering; on-camera flash compensation was set at -0.3, Auto WB. Trying to go high-tech this week, I tore of a piece of tissue, and placed one-ply of it over the flash to try and get a small amount of diffusion. I also angled some foam core at the bottom to see what that might do. Answer: I have no idea. The camera was mounted on a tripod.
Finally, I threw away the candy cane and ate the hand drill instead. Kind of crunchy, but not bad.
Jerry-
I had big plans for my chocolate bunnies, both before and after photos. My original hope was that the bunnies would all gently melt in the double boiler and I would capture the process as they turned into a chocolate mess. But they just would not really melt. Around the backsides they started to go but then they just basically quit, even after about 20 minutes. These were $4 Ghirardelli rabbits! They were probably full of some additive to make them more shelf stable, suitable for a prepper’s stash.
So I resorted to stirring them with a spoon and yes, they did finally melt so I took my photo while they were still recognizable. Camera was the Sony A6300 with 16-70 mm at 68 mm, 1/60 @ f11, ISO 3200. Light was from the afternoon sun coming in the north facing kitchen window. The curved surfaces of the double boiler made a nice vignette. Later I took the chocolate and poured it over some sliced almonds – they became like almond bark and were pretty good.
I had big plans for my chocolate bunnies, both before and after photos. My original hope was that the bunnies would all gently melt in the double boiler and I would capture the process as they turned into a chocolate mess. But they just would not really melt. Around the backsides they started to go but then they just basically quit, even after about 20 minutes. These were $4 Ghirardelli rabbits! They were probably full of some additive to make them more shelf stable, suitable for a prepper’s stash.
So I resorted to stirring them with a spoon and yes, they did finally melt so I took my photo while they were still recognizable. Camera was the Sony A6300 with 16-70 mm at 68 mm, 1/60 @ f11, ISO 3200. Light was from the afternoon sun coming in the north facing kitchen window. The curved surfaces of the double boiler made a nice vignette. Later I took the chocolate and poured it over some sliced almonds – they became like almond bark and were pretty good.