March 29, 2009; Day 331.
You Call This Closeup Photography?
I don’t either! But what I thought was going to be a trivial final piece of the Week 3 assignment in my closeup photography course turned into a head-scratcher. The assignment was to create a shot of something through a field of “dew.” If you’ve taken shots of dew on grass or water droplets and if you’re close enough to the drops, you can see what’s reflected by the water: it’s a mini-fisheye lens.
Course instructor Bryan Peterson discovered that he could create a fake dew effect with thick transparent liquids. He specifically asked us to use a hair product called “Smooth ’n Shine.” We put drops of it on a horizontal glass surface and then photographed something beneath it. The focus is on the drops. If you set your aperture correctly, you should see the actual object in soft focus beneath the table and several small, crisp versions (facing the other way) in the droplets. In his example shot, he’s shooting an image of a red umbrella flying in the clouds. Umbrella in the rain, get it?
The problem is, whereas he normally divulges everything in his lessons (even the camera settings), he left almost all of the details of this effect as an exercise for us to figure out. I found the setup you see here to be the most effective way to maximize the amount of the object you can see in the drops. The glass surface is on the table in the gap where you'd normally add the leaf. The object is perched on the black bag on the floor. It's a Wal-Mart gift card. Putting the camera closer than this causes the drops to turn into little telescopes.
Unfortunately, at this distance the macro lens is much too wide and a horrendous crop is required. I did try my 70-210mm lens at 210mm, but the telescoping effect comes into play again. Alas, I will see if I can get Bryan to divulge how he took his umbrella shots.
If you examine this photo at original size, you can see the drops on the glass surface, and the gift card, and the hair product. You can also see how much noise the D80 generates at ISO 800. Wow!
Click here to see the shot I submitted to the class. It is so small that Smart Sharpening was too much for it; I had to go back to Unsharp Mask.
Raw: Color Temperature: 2850K; Tint: 3
Raw: Recovery: 100
Raw: Fill Light: 25
Raw: Saturation: 8
PS: Curves: Medium Contrast preset
PS: Lab a channel adjustment: “Soft light” at 50% opacity
PS: Smart Sharpening: 180-1-Lens Blur
You Call This Closeup Photography?
I don’t either! But what I thought was going to be a trivial final piece of the Week 3 assignment in my closeup photography course turned into a head-scratcher. The assignment was to create a shot of something through a field of “dew.” If you’ve taken shots of dew on grass or water droplets and if you’re close enough to the drops, you can see what’s reflected by the water: it’s a mini-fisheye lens.
Course instructor Bryan Peterson discovered that he could create a fake dew effect with thick transparent liquids. He specifically asked us to use a hair product called “Smooth ’n Shine.” We put drops of it on a horizontal glass surface and then photographed something beneath it. The focus is on the drops. If you set your aperture correctly, you should see the actual object in soft focus beneath the table and several small, crisp versions (facing the other way) in the droplets. In his example shot, he’s shooting an image of a red umbrella flying in the clouds. Umbrella in the rain, get it?
The problem is, whereas he normally divulges everything in his lessons (even the camera settings), he left almost all of the details of this effect as an exercise for us to figure out. I found the setup you see here to be the most effective way to maximize the amount of the object you can see in the drops. The glass surface is on the table in the gap where you'd normally add the leaf. The object is perched on the black bag on the floor. It's a Wal-Mart gift card. Putting the camera closer than this causes the drops to turn into little telescopes.
Unfortunately, at this distance the macro lens is much too wide and a horrendous crop is required. I did try my 70-210mm lens at 210mm, but the telescoping effect comes into play again. Alas, I will see if I can get Bryan to divulge how he took his umbrella shots.
If you examine this photo at original size, you can see the drops on the glass surface, and the gift card, and the hair product. You can also see how much noise the D80 generates at ISO 800. Wow!
Click here to see the shot I submitted to the class. It is so small that Smart Sharpening was too much for it; I had to go back to Unsharp Mask.
Raw: Color Temperature: 2850K; Tint: 3
Raw: Recovery: 100
Raw: Fill Light: 25
Raw: Saturation: 8
PS: Curves: Medium Contrast preset
PS: Lab a channel adjustment: “Soft light” at 50% opacity
PS: Smart Sharpening: 180-1-Lens Blur
March 29, 2009; Day 331.
You Call This Closeup Photography?
I don’t either! But what I thought was going to be a trivial final piece of the Week 3 assignment in my closeup photography course turned into a head-scratcher. The assignment was to create a shot of something through a field of “dew.” If you’ve taken shots of dew on grass or water droplets and if you’re close enough to the drops, you can see what’s reflected by the water: it’s a mini-fisheye lens.
Course instructor Bryan Peterson discovered that he could create a fake dew effect with thick transparent liquids. He specifically asked us to use a hair product called “Smooth ’n Shine.” We put drops of it on a horizontal glass surface and then photographed something beneath it. The focus is on the drops. If you set your aperture correctly, you should see the actual object in soft focus beneath the table and several small, crisp versions (facing the other way) in the droplets. In his example shot, he’s shooting an image of a red umbrella flying in the clouds. Umbrella in the rain, get it?
The problem is, whereas he normally divulges everything in his lessons (even the camera settings), he left almost all of the details of this effect as an exercise for us to figure out. I found the setup you see here to be the most effective way to maximize the amount of the object you can see in the drops. The glass surface is on the table in the gap where you'd normally add the leaf. The object is perched on the black bag on the floor. It's a Wal-Mart gift card. Putting the camera closer than this causes the drops to turn into little telescopes.
Unfortunately, at this distance the macro lens is much too wide and a horrendous crop is required. I did try my 70-210mm lens at 210mm, but the telescoping effect comes into play again. Alas, I will see if I can get Bryan to divulge how he took his umbrella shots.
If you examine this photo at original size, you can see the drops on the glass surface, and the gift card, and the hair product. You can also see how much noise the D80 generates at ISO 800. Wow!
Click here to see the shot I submitted to the class. It is so small that Smart Sharpening was too much for it; I had to go back to Unsharp Mask.
Raw: Color Temperature: 2850K; Tint: 3
Raw: Recovery: 100
Raw: Fill Light: 25
Raw: Saturation: 8
PS: Curves: Medium Contrast preset
PS: Lab a channel adjustment: “Soft light” at 50% opacity
PS: Smart Sharpening: 180-1-Lens Blur
You Call This Closeup Photography?
I don’t either! But what I thought was going to be a trivial final piece of the Week 3 assignment in my closeup photography course turned into a head-scratcher. The assignment was to create a shot of something through a field of “dew.” If you’ve taken shots of dew on grass or water droplets and if you’re close enough to the drops, you can see what’s reflected by the water: it’s a mini-fisheye lens.
Course instructor Bryan Peterson discovered that he could create a fake dew effect with thick transparent liquids. He specifically asked us to use a hair product called “Smooth ’n Shine.” We put drops of it on a horizontal glass surface and then photographed something beneath it. The focus is on the drops. If you set your aperture correctly, you should see the actual object in soft focus beneath the table and several small, crisp versions (facing the other way) in the droplets. In his example shot, he’s shooting an image of a red umbrella flying in the clouds. Umbrella in the rain, get it?
The problem is, whereas he normally divulges everything in his lessons (even the camera settings), he left almost all of the details of this effect as an exercise for us to figure out. I found the setup you see here to be the most effective way to maximize the amount of the object you can see in the drops. The glass surface is on the table in the gap where you'd normally add the leaf. The object is perched on the black bag on the floor. It's a Wal-Mart gift card. Putting the camera closer than this causes the drops to turn into little telescopes.
Unfortunately, at this distance the macro lens is much too wide and a horrendous crop is required. I did try my 70-210mm lens at 210mm, but the telescoping effect comes into play again. Alas, I will see if I can get Bryan to divulge how he took his umbrella shots.
If you examine this photo at original size, you can see the drops on the glass surface, and the gift card, and the hair product. You can also see how much noise the D80 generates at ISO 800. Wow!
Click here to see the shot I submitted to the class. It is so small that Smart Sharpening was too much for it; I had to go back to Unsharp Mask.
Raw: Color Temperature: 2850K; Tint: 3
Raw: Recovery: 100
Raw: Fill Light: 25
Raw: Saturation: 8
PS: Curves: Medium Contrast preset
PS: Lab a channel adjustment: “Soft light” at 50% opacity
PS: Smart Sharpening: 180-1-Lens Blur
See photo in gallery
