Author: mshettysubbaiah

Product Photography – A Baby’s Step

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I was always surprised at the awesome product photo taken by pros and wonder how they could do that. After reviewing few articles and reading some online material I thought of trying for fun. I am doing this only because I love photography and want to learn, enjoy putting something cool. Well, I was debating and postponing this activity for few months now, but this weekend rather today I did find some time to play around my first product photography. First of all I should thank my wife for reminding to throw this microwave box and secondly the mother nature for having cold weather which helped me not to throw that box which eventually turned out to be the experimental box.

It all started with a microwave box which is about dimension 21 (w) x 17 (l) x 13 (h). Seamless white paper in the length of 25 to 30 in. I happen to find the papers that came with one of the packaging. Finally without glue and Salophen tape nothing can be possible. The white paper is glued to the internal surface of the box. I did extended the white paper to the open/closing portion of the box to give additional space for light bounce.

Used a small stand to place this box. Setup the flash 580 EX II for off camera lighting which is in the manual mode with flash output set between 1/2 to 1/8. Tried these flash output settings just to make sure I do not over expose or under expose the shot. I played around with the flash placement as well. I tried firing from top, and side ways. Try as per your convenience and do not restrict to only two choices.
I used a plastic sheet to get reflection of the product but I was unsuccessful. Better luck next time!. So you must be curious to know the product that I shoot, it was Sigma 10-20 mm Lens. Finally I was able to capture some decent pro looking photos. Hope you enjoyed this! Your comments are valuable. Thank you!
Recipe to capture this photo
ISO 200
50mm
F/11
1/45
Flash Output was 1/2
Handheld (Did not use Tripod)
Click here to find more photos on this learning curve

Day 3/365 Glass Yellow/Greenish Flower

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This flower was found in the entrance of the corning museum and it was complete with yellowish/green in color standing about 12 ft and above. This photo is cropped and tweaked to increase the sharpness. There was plenty of day light that was available through the side huge glass window which made the shot easy.

Below is the recipe for this shot
T1i
1/60
f/2.8
ISO 100
50mm/f1.8 lens

Day 2/365 – Cycling

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Cycling – 2/365, originally uploaded by mssphotos.

This photo captures my friend (middle) who is a pro cyclist and I was there to capture his action with my T1i DSLR. It was a challenge for me to shoot sports event and this was my first try. I did read and practice little bit with Tv mode shooting on the camera. This event was on time to help me learn on shooting Tv mode.

Recipe:
Handheld
Canon T1i
ISO 160
70mm ( 70 – 200mm f/4.0 IS lens)
f/4.5
1/320 sec

Post Processing
Increased the Sharpness

Binghamton Foliage – 2009

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The Fall/Autumn is a wonderful time of the year to see the colors of nature in and around the foliage areas such as north east US. We can witness several amazing colors among those trees changing day-by-day. As a fact these colors can be found only few weeks during October. To talk about the subject, everything that is colorful becomes a subject. A tree with its beautiful mixed colr unto itself is a subject. leaves are beautiful to see the details of the color. The landscape of the foliage is marvelous to find several brilliant colors.

RedLeaves

Red Leaves (55mm, 400 ISO, F/8, 1/30 sec)

Where?
Binghamton, New York, is surrounded by several mountains and valleys. It is one of the best place to enjoy the fall season with beautiful colored trees. There are several places one could visit such as Binghamton University Nature preserve, Susquehanna River, Cole Park and etc. I choose to visit the Binghamton University Nature Preserve because it has several trials to choose from. I happen to choose the pond’s trial because it had a beautiful pond overlooking a mountain full of colored trees.

IMG_3879

Pond Landscape (70mm, 400 ISO, F/8, 1/45 sec)

Concepts and Techniques to shoot Foliage

Lighting
I was there up in the morning between 7:00 to 9:00 am, unfortunately  it was a cloudy day. To my luck the clouds started to roll out for the last few minutes to give some good lighting. Because of no sunlight I was unable to try backlighting or side lighting but took the advantage of soft ambient and overcast light that was formed due to clouds. As per the advice from canon tips these forms of lighting are diffused, or non-directional, and will produce shadowless subjects and render colors in soft pastel shades.

IMG_3905
Standing with Pride Yellow Trees (18mm, 400 ISO, F/11, 1/45 sec)

Exposure
Some of the basic exposure techniques were employed to achieve the results here
1. Move Closer and fill the frame
2. Use longest focal length on the zoom lens (most of my photos here are shoot at f/9 or greater)
3. Used ISO between 200 – 400
4. Sometimes used longer shutter speed as I increased the focal length
5. 50mm f/1.8 used for closeup depth of field photos so that the background is completely out of focus

StandingGreenTree

Green-n-Red (93mm, 400 ISO, F/8, 1/20 sec)

Composition
I did not focus a lot on the composition except leading lines and little bit of landscape photography. Getting up low, point to the tall trees, frame a piece, getting up high. I used 50mm f/1.8, and 70-200 mm F/4 IS lens on my Canon T1i.
Fall is a great opportunity to shoot these colorful photos. I hope you like these photos. Visit my flickr to see more photos.

Pink DropletsPink Droplets (50mm, ISO 320, F/5.6, 1/60 sec)