Saltaire Inspired Artists 2016 - Canon 5D2

Day one shoot at Saltaire Inspired 2016, I used my Canon 5D2 with Canon 24 - 70mm L USM. 
I had with me all the other lenses just in case they were needed, it did make for a rather heavy bag to lug around though!

Images processed in Lr CC

Saltaire Inspired 2016 Artists - Fujifilm X-Pro1

I shot two days at Saltaire Inspired 2016.
Day one was with my full Canon kit, 5D2 body, lenses and speedlites. Day two I used my Fuji X-Pro1 with the XF18 - 55mm.

I set the X-Pro1 to shoot RAW+ jpeg and to BW film emulation, giving me a full colour RAW file with a BW jpeg.

Below are images from day two and the Fuji kit. 

Processed in Lr CC.

Saltaire Insipired 2016

I was asked by the organisers of Saltaire Inspired to take some photos of the exhibiting artists.
Before things got underway I went for a stroll around Saltaire with my X-Pro1 and the 35mm f1.4 lens.

Processed in Lr CC.

Macro Photo Stacking with Lightroom CC and Photoshop CC

The light was nice this afternoon so I quickly positioned a vase of flowers by a window and used my Canon 5DII and Canon 100mm f2.8 macro to grab some shots to try some photo stacking.

I set the 5DII up on a tripod and used a remote release to take eight shots at different focal points. Aperture remained constant at f11.

In Lr I selected the three best images and then right clicking on them chose: Edit In > Open as Layers in Photoshop

Once open in Ps I selected the layers and chose Edit > Auto Align Layers. One that was compete with the layers still selected I chose Edit > Auto Blend Layers. In the pop up window I selected the Stacking option and let Ps do its stuff.

The resulting image was then processed in Nik suite.

Canon G10 Powershot. Keep it in the glovebox.

We recently spent a week in South West Ireland.

I took my Fuji X-Pro1 as my main camera but for those occasions when I didn't want to carry around the Billingham bag full of kit I chucked my Canon G10 in the car glovebox.
I really rate this little camera.

Processed on Lr, Ps CC and Nix Effects

Old door in Kinsale Canon G10 Powershot

Detail of ships propellor, Mizen Head. Canon G10 Powershot

Snowdonia range from South /stack Holyhead. Canon G10 Powershot

Clamshell lighting with Neewer Eagle EG250 studio strobes

Another Sunday afternoon and another play around with the Neewer 3 head strobe kit I bought recently.

I tried out a "Clamshell" arrangement with the lights today. Two strobes fitted with softboxes one below and one above both angled to converge the light on the centre of the subject, hence the "Clamshell".
The power of the two strobes was initially set the same but I upped the lower strobe a couple of clicks to get a bit more light under the chin.

Canon 5D2, Canon 100mm f2.8 Macro USM, 1/125th sec f6.3 ISO100

Processed in Lr CC

I gave these two images a dramatic B+W treatment which I really like.

Finally I placed a circular diffuser behind the subject and lit it with the third strobe. Before the subject took their place in front of the camera I took some test shots of the background, turning up the strobe until it was white, ideally I'd have liked some more distance between the subject and the background as the background became another light source and very slightly overexposed the subject's face, however it was so slight it was easily corrected in Lr CC.

I like the quality of light this arrangement gives, however the catchlight makes the subject's pupils into a rectangle, which some might think looks a bit strange. 

It is a signature look though I suppose ...

DPReview challenge, top 10.

A top 10 finish, pleased with that.