Using Exposure Compensation

I typically shoot in manual mode, so I never appreciated the usefulness of the exposure compensation button. But shooting photos of my sister at her first triathlon opened my eyes. When she ran across the finish line, the sun was high and beat down on everything. This caused dark shadows to fall across my sister's face. She was running very fast, so I had to give up shooting manually and turned instead to shutter priority mode. Her face was too dark, because the ambient light was so bright. Since I was in shutter priority mode, I couldn't directly open up the aperture and I didn't want to increase the ISO, when I realized, why not increase the exposure by one stop using the exposure compensation button? This of course caused everything in the scene not in shadows to become overexposed. But my main goal was to illuminate her face, in order for the photos to convey what she felt after 3+ hours of complete exertion in 98 degree heat. So the exposure compensation button, though small and obscure, can still serve a purpose! Photo info: Shutter priority, 52.5mm focal length, f/4 (with +1 exp comp), 1/1000 sec, ISO 200, no flash, 12:18pm. So why not use a flash to light her face? 1. I didn't want to distract her. 2. I don't like on-axis flash, so I would have had to hold the flash in my right hand, which is difficult to aim while sprinting alongside her. Here's proof that I suck at this.

Accidental Reflector

I went to Rancho Seco Park this past Sunday to cheer on my sister as she competed in her first triathlon. In one post-race picture while the sun was blasting from above, I noticed that her face was nicely lit from below. My flash was tucked away in my bag, so what was the source of the fill light? It was the large white cardboard sign that she was looking at. Neat stuff.

Lesson Learned: Get Out of the Way!

Out of all my mistakes, this is the most egregious yet easiest to avoid: unintentionally including myself in a photo. This is composition at its worst! In the following photo I can't crop away my leg without sacrificing either her feet or her right arm. The reason I commit this cardinal sin is that often I get on the ground to take photos and sometimes my legs are splayed out in front of me. I'm so focused on the subject that I don't pay attention to my own body parts!

Lesson Learned: Hats Are Bad!

Hats, particularly baseball caps, are bad bad bad. Most hats are designed to shield a person's eyes from the sun. Unfortunately this casts a shadow on the wearer whether they are outdoors or indoors (since most lights are near the ceiling). If your friends are like mine, asking them to take off their hats is like asking for their first-born. If that's the case, there's always flash!

Lesson Learned: Use Flash During High Noon

I haven't posted in awhile, but thankfully I've been shooting. A mix of work, friends, and family events converged to give my camera quite a workout. Photo info: 52.5mm focal length, f/14, 1/160 sec, ISO 200, no flash, 2:22 pm. I learned a lot from the past few days. The first lesson is that flash is absolutely necessary when shooting during high noon. In the picture above you can see that my buddy's face is dark. If I expose for his face then the sky and other well-lit portions of the photograph will get blown out. The solution is to add a little flash to his face. Unfortunately I didn't feel like pulling out the flash and setting it up, so I don't have a good picture of him with everything properly exposed. What can I say, I'm lazy. :-) A few days later my friends and I tossed around the frisbee in Golden Gate Park. It was an overcast day, but I wanted to try to practice holding a flash with my right hand while walking around. As you can see, I need a lot more practice. When I looked at the LCD, it looked like the flash didn't go off even though my buddy said he saw the light. After transferring the photo to my computer, I saw that the flash did go off. The problem is my aim was poor, but his right forearm looks great! Photo info: 52.5mm focal length, f/5, 1/1600 sec, ISO 200, full flash power, 28mm flash zoom, 3:43 pm. Someday (hopefully soon) I'll be able to properly expose people in harsh sunlight.

DIY Dome Diffuser

My friend Basile hooked me up with a plastic takeout noodle soup container. Score! I saved $40 by making my own "dome" diffuser. This was a simple project: 1. Cut an X in the lid just big enough to squeeze the flash head through. 2. Sand the inside of the lid and the inside of the entire container. 3. That's it! Stick in the flash and give it a spin. Here's what my dome diffuser looked like inside my completely darkened house: Photo info: 52.5mm focal length, f/7.1, 1/125 sec, ISO 200, 1/4 flash power, 24mm flash zoom, 12:31 am. I look forward to going head-to-head with my buddy's name brand dome diffuser.

More Miniatures

I showed off my first attempt at tilt-shift miniature photography to some friends. I was proud of my work and then one of them showed me their miniature photos and I was humbled. He gave me a hint: increase the saturation. In this second set of miniatures, I've taken his advice and it really makes the colors pop. Everything has a more painted look which makes it look more toy-like. Photos of the cube farm where I work: Here are more pictures of downtown San Francisco from the seventh floor of my office: The larger version looks better. Click the photo to see it. This is just too fun!