Light Me!

It has been a quick holiday, and I really need some more of it; to sleep, and to work with my camera a bit. Nonetheless, I managed to work a bit with my camera and specifically fixing an image that I've posted in my previous post, after getting some notes from my brother about it. As for the rest of the time, I've been either dozing off or working with selfies and filters, but with a twist!

Re-Make

As I've mentioned, I had to try out and fix an image that I've posted here previously since I got some notes about it. Without going into details, but the main aspect of change in the shoot is to change the light source, using the candle alone instead of speedlites as was previously done.

وفوق كل ذي علم عليم (1)
"and over every lord of knowledge He is knowing" (12:76)
Done with speedlites in HSS.

وفوق كل ذي علم عليم (2)
"and over every lord of knowledge He is knowing" (12:76) - II
Change in perspective and using candle light alone.

I have to say that I really like the second version; Not only for its dramatic appearance and the play of light, but the perspective (as per my brother's suggestion) did add to the difference, which I think is quite interesting. In fact, in my chase after landscapes and architecture I've realized the importance of shooting with non-ordinary angles of view to keep the image being interesting (somewhat excluding panoramas since it doesn't work all the time with this art). However, it seems I've totally forgot about this concept when it came down to still life images like this. I'll try to remember that next time (and I'll try to remember to remember next time); go figure! Being satisfied about this shot did not stop me from doing some other experiments with the same set as well.

وفوق كل ذي علم عليم (3)
"and over every lord of knowledge He is knowing" (12:76) - III
B+W 403 UV filter with hot mirror.

Since I didn't use the Ultraviolet 403 filter in a long time now, I've decided to put it in action here despite the fact that, after checking the typical spectra for candles, it seems that candles do not issue much of UV radiation (if any at all), but anyway, I've decided to try. To add some charisma here, I've decided to do some HDR bracketing which required me to raise the ISO a bit (to 400). Focusing the set was a tricky business since the filter was opaque. Anyway, I've managed to make the third shot above by bracketing 3 shots and merging them into HDR. The flare was quite hideous and even controlling the parameters in tone-mapping the HDR couldn't help in suppressing these artifacts. However, there are these blue lines which emerge from the candle (not really emerging here), and that is an artifact I've noticed its presence when using UV or H-Alpha filters, with or without hot mirror, when working in LiveView mode specifically. They disappear when I work in a regular way. Not sure what is the mechanism that works behind such artifact but in this instance it was quite desirable to add a bit of magic to the scene. The high ISO played a great role in increasing the noise which was hard to clean (but reduced a bit).

وفوق كل ذي علم عليم (4)
"and over every lord of knowledge He is knowing" (12:76) - IV.
B+W 403 UV filter with hot mirror.

In the third shot, the white balance was not calibrated in-camera but was left on Auto. In the fourth shot, however, I've managed to calibrate the white balance with such hard filter (even though I'm working with a fully converted camera here), and also put down the ISO back to 100. To eliminate those lines emerging above the candle, I had to work in a regular way without LiveView. With that sprung the idea of doing HDR bracketing but using long exposures like I used to do some years back during my regular visit to the seaside through winter nights. So I did, and started at around 8 minutes and halving the value with each exposure until reaching 30 seconds. The more exposures, the merrier, since that will provide a smoother "histogram" of data for the light levels. The result in the 4^th seems more pleasing than the 3^rd with the absence of these distraction lines above the candle, but nevertheless, I still had to crop a big portion out to remove the flare. The matter of flares was there in all attempts, but having a filter and a hot mirror on top of it increased the internal reflection which made the matter worse. Let's hope I would not have to shoot directly at a light source again!

Candle Selfies

It all started with testing the H-Alpha filter, and the easiest subject to think of when testing is, actually, my face. Things, however, evolved later on.

Hl-Alpha filter + hot mirror.
430EX II speedlite on camera left with oval diffuser.
Voigtländer 20mm.

Ovel (Globe) diffuser from Impact.
Source: B&H

My first experiment with the speedlite was fruitful if I can call it so, because it provided some insight into this simple light modifier, the oval diffuser from Impact. Anyway, this is not the core of this text right now, but shooting a selfie with speedlite is surely an easy task, because I got to speed up the shutter speed and kill the ambient light significantly (and hide the messy background effectively!). I think I just needed a reflector to the left of my face to bounce back some light and light the shadows a bit, but well, this is dramatic enough as it is and nicely sharp (later, while processing, I've sharpened the front eye specifically in Photoshop). But since I was going on with ِAugust project about books (which for I've taken the shots posted above), I've decided here to try and use the candle light only to light my face and check the general outlook. I have to say, I'm quite impressed despite the simplicity and the technical limitations for such light.

Candle Selfie 1
H-Alpha filter + Hot mirror.

Through out these selfies, I've always used Voigtländer 20mm lens, which is my favorite right now for many tasks, be it macro (on reverse) or other styles, even selfies. Despite being a wide-angle lens and, usually, such lenses are not used for proper portraiture shots. But the fact that I was so close to the settings and its capability of focusing at minimum distance of 20cm made it a plausible option; adding to that the fact that my camera is a cropped-frame camera and it eliminates much of the periphery (20mm on 1.6x cropped frame is equivalent to 32mm). However, my first trial was with the Night Sky filter, H-Alpha, and a hot mirror (Tiffen's) placed on top.
Using an external LCD monitor connected via the HD input of the camera, I was able to manage the focusing issue pretty easily with this filter. Needless to say, I had to do a white balance calibration before shooting the selfie (and it should be calibrated with a candle in front of the lens because this is the variety of light I will be using to shoot). The result? Mesmerizing. I really loved the looks. The candle light, despite being simple and kind of hard to deal with somehow (I had to work in completely dark room and find my way through the mess), but the light itself is not "pointed," that is, it is not concentrated into a beam as it is the case with speedlites, thus it can be considered as a diffused light on its own, even though it is a weak source. Placing the candle typically under my chin level produced the so-called "horror light" but in some diffused manner which it made it, let's say, less horrific.

Candle Selfie 2
B+W 092 infrared filter.

One observation about the usage of H-Alpha filter with a hot mirror is that images are slightly like infrared when processed but with darker tones and I've found out later, from checking various transmission charts for such filter, that using a hot mirror on top of it is actually not a good practice because this filter operates around the range of Reds and above (in sense of wavelengths) which extends to the infrared range. Anyway, The first shot inspired me to use the infrared filter, namely the B+W 092 infrared filter.
I picked this filter specifically because it has a low threshold (at around 650nm) which gives some colorful results at times, unlike the Kodak infrared filter which has a high threshold (about 1000nm); The higher the threshold, the closer the image to B&W it would look. In Candle Selfie 2, I had to get even closer to the lens and with some cropping I was able to hide the flame. Probably this selfie is the best, but this was not the end of the story.

Top Row: H-Alpha + hot mirror.
Low Row: B+W 092 infrared.
Left column: originals.
Right column: Red-Blue channel swaps.

I couldn't pass the chance of all this work with these filters without trying at least one swap; the most common being Red-Blue channel swap. That produced some interesting results as well as seen above. All images here (and those before) were processed to reduce some of the flare. As I've stated before, flares are quite common and natural when the light source is in front of the lens, and that's why my beard specifically in the infrared shot looks colored; this actually had been caused by a light spot which I've tried to reduce its presence in the process (it was more saturated and lighter). I've tried to take some selfies using the B+W 403 Ultraviolet filter plus hot mirror but this is another story, maybe for another post.
Conclusion: despite its weakness as a light source, candle light is a pretty interesting and a dramatic source of light. It provides a somewhat diffused light look, but not necessarily light shadows as it is with properly diffused light (from flash or others). I'm definitely going to consider candles in other projects when I get the chance to. One set back though, it would mostly need a dark room (unless the photo idea is not about using the candle light and its dramatic look).

Finale

My experiments are going on still and there is a lot going on at the back of my head. I'm keeping some material for the next posts in the weeks to come as I don't want to put all eggs in one basket here.
I think old age is creeping to me indeed as my body is not what it used to be and I'm getting tired easily; The light time I can find to work with my camera would be a hard time resisting a nap! Is it a lack of motivation or it is indeed my body which is hitting a low. Anyway, I'll have some quiet to myself in the next 3 days with the family going out to some resort, and hopefully I can manage to work more with my camera.
All this work with my camera, which is really some experimenting after all and not a trial to make a fine art, seems to be my way to escape my anxiety and my panic attacks. It doesn't work all the time but it is after all some productive. Things at work, despite being quiet at the moment, it is yet loathsome and sometimes I get a darkened vision about the future of this place, and again I try to get my mind back to the tracks and avoid believing in things that did not happen yet. I'm clinging more, as days pass by, to the past and the sweet memories of the old times. The present, and future, are quite repulsive to me right now. Many people I like and love are disappearing or simply leaving and I can't do much about it, except to watch it. It is the law of life, I know, but these things were, and are, the only lovely things as I remember.  I miss me, so much…