DIY Lightbox

I have about 5 minutes to write this post. Here goes!

Last night, Jay obligingly helped me to make my own lightbox. A lightbox diffuses and distributes/reflects soft light all around a contained object. In other words, it helps to provide good consistent lighting and eliminate shadows. I have been wanting one to photograph, in particular, my smaller knitting projects. We used a tutorial online and supplies from Joann's and Michael's, along with a hand-me-down box from my Dad, to make the lightbox.

So far I am very happy with it. The light that I bought is not strong enough, however, so I will need to buy a higher wattage light. I might also add lights to the sides of the box. I keep the lightbox stored high in my office (to keep it away from grimy destructive kid hands). My ultimate goal is to have a 2-minute setup that I can easily use at any time of day, regardless of the light, to take pictures of my knitting.

Here is a picture of the lightbox:

Here are some pictures using the lightbox (with the weaker light -- I have yet to buy a better light -- so there are still shadows ... I could also try foil as a cheapo-reflector):

ready, set, publish! (that was 4 minutes, fyi)

Baby "GRR" sweater

2011 G3 GRR sweater, a set on Flickr.

This post is really more about knitting, than photography, but all the same I am pretty happy with these pictures... so I will post it on the photo blog.

I just finished my first baby-baby sweater, and I just LOVE this thing.  This is a French sweater, called a "Gilet à Rangs Raccourcis" or GRR.  It's for my new baby, utero name of "G3"  I have been eyeing this pattern for awhile. It's written in French, so I had a friend translate it for me. I am often frustrated with buttons, so I took extra pictures of that area of the cardigan -- mostly so I can document stuff and learn.

I love the stitch pattern of this sweater -- just a normal garter stitch, but sideways. I love the colors of this yarn -- the overall rusty color, but if you look at some of the closeups, you can see everything from pale pink to a hazy grey/purple.

I had an extra foam board lying around, so I laid it flat on an armchair in front of my sliding glass door. The board was plenty big enough that I could get the whole sweater in frame with enough white margin to provide a fully neutral background. My only complaint is that the shadows are more obvious than I would like. "Sometime" soon (next week, if I am still pregnant), then I plan to build a DIY lightbox using one of the many tutorials that you can find these days. Then I'll be able to eliminate shadows, and will have no excuse for anything less than perfect knitting pictures. :)

I used mostly an f-stop of f/5.6.  I have been finding that anything smaller (in number, bigger in aperture) introduces more blur than I would like in my knitting photos.  In areas where I specifically want to highlight just a certain detail (like a button) or a stitch pattern, I switch to an f-stop of about f/2.0.  I shot in manual mode this time.  Normally, I would shoot in Aperture ("A") mode here, and just let the camera figure out the speed.  I found, though, that the color of the sweater taking up such a large portion of the picture threw off the results of the meter.  So I switched to manual mode, focused on a close area of the white board to figure out my shutter settings to go with my aperture, then shifted my camera to point at the area of the sweater that I really wanted to focus on and took the picture.  This worked well.

I edited all but one photo in Picasa, using auto-correct functions, starting from the jpg files.  It's a little too highlighted/saturated for my taste, however, it's sufficient for the time that I have.  One photo (the one that is completely square-on of the whole sweater), I edited using the RAW processor in Elements.  I feel like that one is the most accurate in terms of color.  I think the best compromise with these photos, to get the most accurate color, would be to edit the jpgs in Elements.  This would save the RAW processing step, and provide more editing range than Picasa (which can lighten but not darken easily???).  Or, I could actually do the RAW edits as a batch instead of one file at a time.  I'm not used to the process flows of either of the last two, though, so I fall back on old habits when my time is limited.

OHSU Tram shoot

I went out on a photo practice shoot with Christie yesterday, and we chose to go to the top of the OHSU tram for some panoramas with tripods at night.  The timing wasn't great, though.  We timed it to get both dusk pictures and night pictures, however, the OHSU tram had other ideas.  The last tram down the hill was at 9:30p, and though sunset was officially at 9:02p, true darkness didn't really settle in until we were descending on the last tram.

That said, I do have a handful of shots that I am happy with:

Mt Hood in dusk light (I took about 12 pics of Mt Hood at various points in the night, and only this and one other have this color -- so I guess I got lucky with the light).
200m focal length, 0.5s, f/32, 320 iso

Marquam Bridge with OMSI in background
200m focal length, 3s, f/36, 400 iso
cropped to change from landscape to portrait orientation

Hawthorne and Morrison Bridges over the Willamette River with Portland city lights

112m focal length, 10s, f/32, 400 iso

cropped to remove lots of foliage

Of the three, the last is my favorite.  I am drawn to the myriad of city lights and the water reflections.

For full size pics, you can see them on flickr.

Renting a cool lens: 85mm f/1.4

Earlier this week, I rented a lens from Pro Photo here in town.  I did it almost on a whim.  Elise and Nolan started their summer gymnastics this past Tuesday, and for Elise's class, parents are only allowed inside the gym to watch the first and last classes (otherwise you can watch through a viewing window).  It occurred to me that for their last class, I would have a new baby, and not be able to take pictures too easily.  So I decided this one-time opportunity to take pictures of the summer gymnastics class had to be properly respected, by renting a good lens.

By "good lens," I mean one that has a longer focal length (since I can't get too close to the action) as well as a big aperture (since I can't use a flash and the indoor gym has some really dim areas).  Here is my path to the lens I ended up with.

July 2010 -- Elise takes the parent-involved gym class.  I use my absolutely brand spankin' new DSLR camera with an 18mm-200mm zoom.  I am able to move around easily (since it's a parent class -- Jay being the parent involved) and get good angles.  The pics are, however, mediocre, especially relative to what I hoped for.  I shot in Auto mode with no flash.  My ISOs were way too high, resulting in grainy pics.  My shutter speeds were too slow, resulting in blurry, grainy pics:

28mm focal length, 1600 ISO, 1/60s, f/4.0

August 2010 -- for Elise's last gym class, with a little of "what not to do" under my belt, I rented a different lens - a 50mm prime lens (prime means a fixed length, as opposed to a zoom lens).  Retail cost of lens about $500 (rental about $20).  I shot in "P"rofessional mode, which gives you some (not a lot) more control over automatic.  The result was much better:

50mm fixed focal length, ISO 400, 1/125s, f/1.8

June 2011 - I realized that this would be my best photo oppty for gym class this summer, so I rented a super duper lens.  The hard part with the 50mm lens was that I couldn't get good shots at the middle or back of the gym -- it was just too far away.  So, this time I tried an 85mm.  It was almost too close.  Overall I'm much happier with the 85mm (retail cost $1700, rental cost $25) over the 50mm in this gym.  The problem this go round, however, is that I, for whatever reason, chose to use lower shutter speeds than I needed.  Well, I didn't choose them, but I *thought* I set my camera to the following: f/2.0, MIN shutter speed 1/250s, MAX iso 400, shooting overall in "A"perture mode.  This means that the camera would use an f/2.0 aperture, and select the best shutter speed and iso within the range I set, given the light.

I thought that if the light was too dim within my constraints, that the camera would bump the ISO first, then muck with the shutter speed second.  I was wrong.  The camera chose to drop the shutter speed first.  Boo on me.  A tough lesson learned (and further reinforcement that I really need to shoot in Manual in scenarios like this).

For the record, one of the reasons I don't shoot in manual is because the LCD on the back of my camera is pretty limited.  I simply can't see the difference between a sharply focused vs blurry picture, when viewed on my camera LCD.  So, if I shoot in manual, I feel like I don't have enough information to really view the resulting photo and then tweak my settings.  It just looks good on my camera -- then I get home and download it and see the blurry pics and realize I needed to adjust my shutter.

The other reason I avoid manual is because in a setting like this gym, with very different light in different areas, it's just a lot of work to change all these settings on the fly, in between shots.

Anyway, the end result is that while the pictures are not grainy, they are indeed blurry.  Some of them came out all right, though.

85mm fixed focal length, iso 400, f/2.5, 1/125s.

It is hard to tell from the single pictures I posted here, but looking over the set of the 50mm photos vs the set of the 85mm photos, it is EXCEEDINGLY clear to me that the 85mm is just a vastly superior lens for this setting.  I LOVED using this lens.  I wish I had more time to use it so that I could have experimented more with other scenarios, and had more practice in the gym setting.  I felt like getting a truly "great shot" was actually within my grasp.

In a subsequent email stream, Christie mentioned that she'd heard the 85mm was also just a great portrait lens.  So of course, I figured a small session of candid portraits was in order.  God I love this lens!  The background blur (bokeh) is gorgeous.  My kids were just riding bikes and/or walking, and I played with both "S"hutter and "A"perture modes for about 10-15 minutes while dinner was cooking.  The only complaint I have is that with the 85mm length, man those little kids pop in and out of frame so very very fast.  One small step to the side and poof, you've lost your entire subject.  Using the 85mm lens, you really have to be on the ball to predict their direction of movement and you have to fire your trigger QUICKLY when they get in frame.  This is another vote for Manual -- because the camera is calculating less (ie none), the trigger responds just a hair faster.  It was, however, actually noticeable to me using this lens.

I thought it was interesting how much the nature of the bokeh changes, depending on how close my subject was.

iso 200, f/3.5, 1/160s

iso 200, f/2.0, 1/800s
I am posting this one because it is so interesting to me that although the three people are at a considerable length from my camera, the depth of field is so narrow for f/2.0.  Nolan and Jay are mostly in focus.  Elise is entirely blurry.

iso 200, f/2.0, 1/400s

iso 200, f/2.0, 1/320s
The far side of Elise's face and some hair is in focus, most everything else is not.
check out that bokeh!
I kinda love this picture, though it's far from frame-able.

iso 400, f/2.0, 1/250s
My pics of Elise turned out better than Nolan in this session but I had to throw one of him in.
This picture should be crisper -- he wasn't moving that fast.  I think the slight blur is due to my unsteady hand -- the 1/250s shutter should have been sufficient.
I love that the hair at the back is blurry -- especially since his hair is a mess right now. :)
I wish it was easier to capture the magic and light of brown eyes.