If, like me, you are constrained to your home and the immediate environs, then you are probably trying to find inspiration for some shots.
My daughter found this little character hiding under some of our garden chairs. It's the New Zealand Weta, which is a much evolved relative of the grasshopper. For example, it does not hop but crawles - they are incredibly heavy and some variants can outweigh a sparrow.
While it may look fiercesome, it is a fairly quiet, gentle creature and would prefer to find safety in the shade rather then be aggressive. Occasionally the females will be a bit feisty to protect their eggs. This one, about 100mm (4") long, was heating up after a cool night and after photographing it I guided it to a nice safe place in a trellis.
All shots taken hand-held.
Canon EOS 80D, EF-S 15-85 IS USM at 80mm, f/8, 1/100sec, ISO1600
Canon EOS 80D, EF-S 15-85 IS USM at 85mm, f/8, 1/125sec, ISO1600
Canon EOS 80D, EF-S 60mm f2.8 Macro USM f/8, 1/60sec, ISO1600
I'm using this opportunity to finally run through every single light modifer and collect not only the look, but light loss through the modifiers. Ultimately will create a personal app I can run on my iPhone/iPad to easily look up the values. I already have cataloged all speedlite gels with how much light is lost.
Later, I'll create a photo book with all the images to serve as a visual reference.
Here are just two of the results using extremes.
Equipment: EOS 5D IV with a 135mm f/2 L. 600EX-RT speedlites, ST-E3-RT.
Common values: f/4, 1/200s, ISO 100. Modifiers 5 feet away from the mannequin.
First image: 7' white-interior deep umbrella. Four speedlites each at 1/8 power.
Second image: Snoot with 10º grid. Single speedlight at full power.
Interesting and beautiful work Tron and Ray!
A month ago I expected to be using my new 1DX III and 400 F2.8 to photograph HS soccer but that certainly won't be the case for quite some time. I plan to spend some more time with macro during this time of distancing and isolation and will also use this time to get more experience with my Hensel studio strobes and modifiers probably experimenting with capturing better images of some of the vintage ham radio gear I have restored.
About the only action shots I am capturing is while I am helping my daughter stay in condition for soccer as she works on her form, shooting, and ball control drills. I also used this time to teach her how to safely handle, load, and fire a .22 rifle and I think she is going to soon be very good at target shooting. We are lucky to live in the country with a large house, outbuildings, and 5 acres so that we aren't getting cabin fever but like others I will certainly be glad when this is over. Next crisis is figuring out a haircut, something I will NOT be sharing photos of because I fear the results will be at best a barely mitigated disaster. But for the next several months I will be spending more time melting solder than pushing a shutter release along with fine tuning test equipment setup instead of post-processing images. But compared to what a lot of people are facing, I have it very easy and that is something I won't be forgetting.
Rodger
Impressed by the image of this lens under challenging situations.
This morning, on full lock-down, we were startled by the sounds of several police cars, sirens blaring, racing along the streets very close to our home. Soon the police Eagle helicopter was flying a circular pattern, virtually centred on our home. It was probably 150m up and about 100m at its closest point, so the image was not huge.
I nipped in and grabbed the first camera I had to hand - in this case the Canon EOS 80D with the EF 70-300 f4-5.6 IS USM MkII attached. I took a bunch of shots, and enclose both the unprocessed original SOOC JPG first, and second, the result of processing. At the time of shooting I did not have Servo Tracking turned on, so I was focusing as it moved, but the lens has blazing fast focusing and that meant pretty much all my images came out like this one.
To me it is a tribute to this lens that I could crop so much and still give me some good results. Not only can one see the hi-res/infra-red camera tracking the centre of its circuit, but if you look carefully at the front cockpit door you can see the arm badge of the officer inside.
Merging two fun things: photography and Lego!
All taken with an EOS 5D IV. With either a 50mm f/1.2L or 135mm f/2L. Lighting and any post-processing detailed below.
Two lights; portion of rim light that was in the shot removed in post.
Single light, but several images captured with different placements of that light. Composited in post to create the desired overall lighting effect.
Single source (7' umbrella with 4 speedlites).
