Working with a polarizer

Today was the first day since I got back form Oregon that I didn't have plans (ie, work) so I went to downtown St Petersburg with the intention of getting some more practice using a circular polarizer. I loaded my 24-85mm lens on my D80 and walked around the downtown area for about 90 minutes.

After about 10 minutes, I got lucky - the sun peaked out from behind the overcast skies and gave me a good opportunity to put the polarizer through it's paces - including a pretty decent panorama of downtown St Pete:

The sun ducked back behind the clouds around 10AM and it was back home for me - yard work and laundry beckoned!

(Click on photo to see full size image on Flickr)

Studying the effects of light

So I've been following the Strobist bootcamp (aka Lighting 102) and this weeks assignment was to study the effect the position and angle of the light source had on the subject.

I took out my trusty Hulk Hogan doll and made two sweeps with my flash. The first photo in each row of pictures, the flash is about 90 degree left of camera. The flash is about 30 degree left of the camera in the second picture. The third photo I placed the flash nearly straight on - about 10 degrees to the right of the camera. For the fourth photo, the flash was about 45 degrees to the right of the camera. Finally, the fifth photo had the flash at about 90 degress to the right of the camera.

The first row of pictures, the Hogan miniature is nearly resting against the back foam core. For the second row of pictures, I moved the miniature about 12 inches from the foam core (closer to the camera). I kept the flash angles as similar as possible in rows one and two.

All photos the flash was approximately 3 feet from the subject. If you are a dork and like to know shooting info - the flash was on Manual, 1/32 power. I was shooting at 1/60 sec at f/4.5

I'm amazed at how different the shadows are based on the position of the flash as well as the position of the subject in reference to the foam core background.

More Lighting Fun

I saw this photo in Light: Science and Magic and was stunned. So, what better way to learn than to try to duplicate it! I wasn't on the right path but my friend Daniel gave me a great idea to try and my results were MUCH better. Thanks Daniel!