So we're back again. Today I managed to drag my lazy hide from under the comfort of the doona well before "rush-time", and haul my backside to the Post-office before work. I was on late-shift for my second job, which means I start at 10:00am at a clinic that is 35 minutes drive from home, instead of my usual 8:30am start, 1 hour drive from home. I had to get to the post-office to grab a parcel I had been waiting on, that had arrived while I was away. Luckily for me the PO was not too upset that the 14 day period had been exceeded by 5 days.. I guess the silly season even makes the beurocrats a little more complacent for a few days.
Anyway, my parcel contained 2 DIYPhotography double flash brackets, which I hope to be able to use to mount between 2-4 flashes in my soft boxes. we will see how we go.These brackets are a simple way of attaching more than one flash to your stand/modifier without screws and unweildy looking brackets. They also get the head of the head of the flash close to middle of the softbox/umbrella etc. I am looking forward to seeing how these go.
Work was extremely busy, with some surgeries having to be carried over until tomorrow.
After work I had to deliver a DVD to some family friends, then head home. I had shot a (bad quality) video of a family friends Sangeet. I was disappointed in the shoot because 1 I am a still photographer, not a videographer (yet), and 2 I was caught unawares when the action started and only had 1 camera on a tripod, and that camera was unmanned. However the family seems to like the shoot, so now I have to make more copies and hand deliver them by tomorrow, so they can fly to India and display it at the Wedding.
I finally got home to let Jilly (Scruffy model from yesterday) and Gypsy cat out to wee. I then I dashed to a good mates place down the road for a few drinks. I had held him off while I was morbidly ill, but had to relent today. He had some nice plonk and cooked a nice simple rice/egg curry which went ok with my still sick guts. We had a few good laughs, but I had to push for my leave at 11:40pm as I still had not taken my pic for the day. I had decided I would do a cliche, but I needed to run home and get the gear set-up.
So the resulting image is what I call a cliche. These days you see so many of these on the net, however I have never done one :) I do love bokeh. Sort of cute isn't it?
Cliches... They are images that are done over and over, in the never ending pursuit of photographic nirvana.
I am going to do them. But not to show I can or cannot, but to learn from them. Why do some look cheesy, some look good? Why are they Cliches? Do they really look good?
So, today's image.. this elephant toy was bought for me by my wife. I have NO idea why she bought it for me and not for our (then) 3yo boy. But I LOVE it, and today it served the exact purpose I envisaged it serving. Being a model. It is such a baby toy. It clicks when you move the legs and trunk, and it is just oh so silly. But I LOVE it.
She needs a name.
Now, putting my serious cap back on... bokeh.... such a funny word. I dunno what it means. Well I do, but it's a funny word. It's a Japanese word apparently. It basically means the blurry, out of focus area of a photo. The perceived "niceness" of bokeh depends on how dreamy, large and smooth the out of focus (OOF) circles are. The bigger circles seem to generate the biggest ooohs and aaaahs.. I think that means nice bokeh....
How is "nice, big, smooth" bokeh achieved??? With nice, big, wide open apertures, which often equates to nice big dents in the budget.
Bokeh is dependent not only on the aperture (more open is bigger bokeh) but also on how close the subject is to the camera, and what the lens focal length is. Generally speaking a "fast" mid to long telephoto lens will render a pleasing bokeh quite easily, however a wide lens of the same aperture will not render the same bokeh at all. Then the qualities of the lens come into play (aperture/iris blades etc). Great stuff.
It all has to do with "circles of confusion", but that is getting too geeky and theoretical to be of any real interest to most people. I have a decent grasp of this, but it's yawn material for most of us.
To me, if it looks nice, it is nice.
I understand the factors that will make a larger and nicer bokeh. Others will detract from it. Those factors that make it, are often not entirely possible, thus a compromise is found - the best focal length and aperture to fit the subjects/scene, AND yield the best bokeh if desired. There's no strict rules, but there's often compromise.
Today's photo, squeezed in at 11:58pm, was shot at 85mm f/1.8 on a Canon 60D. 70x90cm softbox 5:00 slightly above subject, behind camera, It was a challenge to balance the lights with the flash - I think I had the YN460II at lowest setting (1/64??) about 6ft away in a softbox to allow enough light to hit the subject, yet to also allow me to get the exposure of the background without camera shake. The "bokeh" was formed by Christmas lights on a house about 50m away. I think this was shot at ISO 1000, 1/40s f/1.8. This shot is SOOC - Straight out of camera - from SD card to blogger, no photoshop or editing.. Just the way it should be :)
What I love about this shot is a few things... 1 it got me my pic for the day, 2 it has an ok bokeh :) 3 it really shows how shallow the depth of field (DOF) is on this lens, this close to the camera. You can see I focused on one eye, and the other parts of the photo that are more than a few millimetres closer or further from the focal plane are out of focus. To me the bokeh is soft, and smooth, and just.. hmmmmm
Sadly, one would rarely get such a bokeh with a portrait - the camera to subject istance would be larger, thus the bokeh smaller, and not as dreamy :( Any pic that has such large OOF circles and a decent portrait is likely a composite, though I guess there must be a "dream" lens that has the perfect combo of focal length and aperture to achieve awesome bokeh. I would think for portraits the 85mm f/1.8 or 135mm f/2 would be as good as one could get? There might be a project in that....
Thanks for dropping by.
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