Workshop: Studio Lighting

Last July 21st, on a very soggy and soaking wet Saturday morning, through floods and unrelenting rain, with my stubborn insistence to push through with it, at the reluctance of my colleagues, with Mr. Dale Sta. Rosa‘s tutelage, we had our first studio workshop. And one which I do believe is something we all we’re in much need of.

Unfortunately, due to the inclement weather that day, only 5 of us made it that morning alongside Dale and our model for that day, Floe.  I owe both of them greatly for coming in spite of the weather.

Ayala Ave Intersection Time Lapse

Ayala Ave Intersection Time Lapse

Originally uploaded by coffeebugg

Via Flickr:
I’ve always been meaning to give time lapse photography a whirl. Was given the opportunity and all I can say is that it takes a of patience.

These were a sequence of tethered shots with my trusty Canon 400D; Sigma 18-50mm F2.8 + 2 CPL filters and 1 ND Filter.

All shots were set at : Exp 2sec |F20 | ISO 100 | -2/3 EV |AWB

72 shots: 2 second exposure every 15 seconds: 15fps.. results. 5 seconds of awesome!

So I showed this to the project head and turns out she wants to show time difference. Meaning, I have to shoot over a span of 2 – 3 hours for a sunrise and a sunset. Here’s hoping we get to acquire the permits to shoot it.

Photo: GakkenFlex 35mm TLR

Last January, I got to visit some friends in San Francisco and got to see the sights.  My designated tour guide through my stay, D-chan, to my giddy excitement, pulls out a 35mm TLR (Twin Lens Reflex) film Camera. HOOO-LY CRAP~! I thought it was an actual Rollei or a Yashica. Turns out it was a builders kit that came with issue #25 of “Otona no kagaku magazine” (Science of Adult), published by Gakken.^[1] So it’s not as fancy as Lomo’s Lubitel 166 or those really fancy TLR’s yet it STILL IS a basic but fully functional 35mm film camera.  When she told me it was a kit that came with a camera, I asked her to take me to where she got it. Mozied over to Kinokuniya in Japan town and picked one up. Of course I didn’t get to put it together while I was there.

Photo: Canon EF 85mm F1.8 USM

As I expand my photo hobby from landscape and travel to portraiture, I notice the great limitation of my current lens line up. Make no mistake that my Sigma 18-50 F2.8 is a very versatile and excellent piece of glass, it does however lack quite a bit on the far and narrow end. With its tightest end sitting at 50mm, it’s at the minimum focal length for portraiture. As I found out in the model photography workshop I joined over the past weekend (more of that on another post), 50mm is the widest you can use for portraits.  Anything wider would have you taking photos of your girlfriend looking bloated and distorted. 

Gear: Crumpler The Haven M

I consider myself a photo-hobbyist and I never leave home without a camera.  And lugging around a purpose built camera bag doesn’t really quite cover practicality since I usually either carry my office backpack or a messenger bag for my daily go-bag. As you’d imagine, I just stick my camera in there. Now for protection, I picked up a neutral grey colored beannie hat where I stick my camera, be it the GF1 or the 400D.  One other purpose of the Grey beannie hat is that I use it as a white-balance sheet. (trade secret right there). Thing is, it doesn’t really provide that much protection other than keep it warm like when I wear the beannie on my head.

Solution: Crumpler’s The Haven. It basically is a compartmentalized and padded sack for your camera. Comes in Small, Medium and Large. The Medium sized one comfortably fits my 400D with the Sigma 18-50mm F2.8 lens and then some other accessories in its main pouch. It’s also got pockets outside which can hold SD cards, lens caps and cable. It works more like a bag organizer with your camera in mind. Stuff it with what everyday camera needs you can, just stick it into your day bag and voila~! Your everyday bag is now also a camera bag. AND it comes in gray!!  But it also comes in different colors.

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Panasonic Lumix GF1: New Blogging weapon

Earlier this year, I figured that I could use a more portable camera that I can use for everyday snapping while still maintaining a fair degree of manual controls. Having a long zoom range would have been preferable, but interchangeable lenses were OK too. While there has been a healthy line up of advanced P&S and pro-sumer cameras that met my criteria, the Panasonic GF1 stood out above my short list.