Anyway, I was going to post a bit about some photos I've shot from the Geology department, in my workplace, and I've edited these photos later on my PC. However, I think I'll skip that. It's just one photo which I've uploaded to the stocks already (you can click the stream at the end of this post to check my stock), and another one which I've turned into a 3D anaglyph. Not sure if I'm going to upload or do anything with the latter though. Anyway, Let's jump right into the experiment I talked about in my previous post.
Speed Gamble
In my previous post I've talked about some idea, using all my speedlites in a high speed photography set, like in the sketch on the left. Well, things weren't easy at first because, as usual and typical, I ran into a battery crisis and I had to give up on most of my rechargeable batteries that I've stocked for such work and got myself a new set of alkaline batteries, which are not rechargeable but hopefully more reliable. Another trouble was to set the table and stack the speedlites side by side and pointing at a specific point. It's a minor problem but it was quite vexing specially with connecting 3 out 7 speedlites with external power-pack (I have three 430EXII and one 420EX and these models do not accept external power sources unfortunately). All along the work process, I've changed the height of the tripod, the angle and few other settings; Most importantly from all these settings, maybe, would be the shutter speed, the ISO, flash zoom, and the flash power.Now, flash power (for all speedlites of course) was set to manual and was controlled via the main speedlite which acts as a trigger as well (the one on the camera). I have to do this, since this is the only way to work with HSS mode AND control the rest of the speedlites wirelessly. I don't have a special trigger for that purpose. I lowered the power down, in hope that I can shoot in burst mode continuously (as this would reduce the recharging time). However, I was wrong. It didn't work that way and technically, I was limited to one shot. Anyway, I was also limited in raising the power too high up for the speedlites, because it might make my work with post-processing harder than it should be (by eliminating unnecessary parts from the metallic black tray I was using for my set).
Slow motion during a session.
For some reason I'm not sure of, the image turns black
when the flashes burst out.
For some reason I'm not sure of, the image turns black
when the flashes burst out.
As you can see from the video above, I had to work manually as usual. I've tried to set up my laser gate later on in fact but till this moment, it didn't work quite well. I'll explain the reasons below but first let's see some of the results that I've got in this way (and remember, all was manual, nothing was automated). The following images were, of course, edited and adjusted like a regular photos and they are not right out of the camera. So, there are adjustments and cropping involved; This is beside changing the lens from 100mm macro to 50mm:
This is a sample for some shots. Some of them had reflections on the water surface clearly and some (well, most) did not. I've used my polarizer to enhance such reflections (and also to protect the lens front). If I remember correctly, there were around 347 taken (the majority were dark frames) and been sorted down to 91 or so, and the process out is still ongoing. At the moment of typing this, the editing is still ongoing and I didn't check all images. Out of the camera, many of the images were dark in fact and did need a push in exposure while editing in RAW; Sometimes +1 and sometimes +2. Not much editing was done in RAW beside setting the exposure and controlling the highlights and shadows in various manners, including Fill, Black Point, and Contrast. As can be seen also, the shutter speed was fluctuating between 4000-1 and down to 8000-1 of a second, trying to freeze the water motion as much as possible. I've also changed the flash head zooming for most of the speedlites here, and in the final stages of shooting, I've settled down with 14mm (by pulling down the diffusing panel over the speedlite head) in order to spread light as much as possible on the tray, as it was hard to point the heads down at the water surface.
Now composition-wise, I was not very happy, and probably using the 100mm Macro lens was the perfect solution, but still then I do think using 50mm was a good choice to add some elements around the action and fill the space with something; But my arrangement was a bird absurd! I did indeed try to fix that in some shots but recomposing, cloning, and cropping. At this moment, I think using 1/8000s is the perfect speed (and it is the maximum allowed by the camera).
After finishing a session or two with the manual work, I've decided to try and use the laser gate (from Ubertronix), which I got long time ago and I've seldom used it sucessfuly; In fact, never used it successfully! And this time, was no exception. I've tried at this point though, and according to some old advice from a professional, to connect the trigger to the speedlites instead of the camera because this will reduce the lag time significantly and would yield better results. This method, though, requires opening the shutter for second and allowing the speedlites to be triggered and then close the shutter (either by using timed shutter or using Bulb mode and a remote, which I kind of prefer in fact). That means, working in a dark environment. The location I was in gets considerably dark actually, but I'd have to wait till evening to have a darker atmosphere. Anyway, a quick glimpse at it (after hard work trying to align the laser beam to the receiver to form the laser gate) - told me that it's not going to work; Not the way I like it at least, for a number of reasons:
 |
| The Falling One Canon EF 100mm Macro, f/3.2, 5000-1s, ISO200 |
 |
| Fallen Luck Canon EF 100mm Macro, f/2.8, 4000-1s, ISO160 |
 | |||
| Левитация (Levitation) Canon EF 50mm, f/6.3, 8000-1s, ISO200 |
 |
| Let It Go Canon EF 50mm, f/6.3, 8000-1s, ISO200 |
This is a sample for some shots. Some of them had reflections on the water surface clearly and some (well, most) did not. I've used my polarizer to enhance such reflections (and also to protect the lens front). If I remember correctly, there were around 347 taken (the majority were dark frames) and been sorted down to 91 or so, and the process out is still ongoing. At the moment of typing this, the editing is still ongoing and I didn't check all images. Out of the camera, many of the images were dark in fact and did need a push in exposure while editing in RAW; Sometimes +1 and sometimes +2. Not much editing was done in RAW beside setting the exposure and controlling the highlights and shadows in various manners, including Fill, Black Point, and Contrast. As can be seen also, the shutter speed was fluctuating between 4000-1 and down to 8000-1 of a second, trying to freeze the water motion as much as possible. I've also changed the flash head zooming for most of the speedlites here, and in the final stages of shooting, I've settled down with 14mm (by pulling down the diffusing panel over the speedlite head) in order to spread light as much as possible on the tray, as it was hard to point the heads down at the water surface.
 |
| Not Enough Speed |
After finishing a session or two with the manual work, I've decided to try and use the laser gate (from Ubertronix), which I got long time ago and I've seldom used it sucessfuly; In fact, never used it successfully! And this time, was no exception. I've tried at this point though, and according to some old advice from a professional, to connect the trigger to the speedlites instead of the camera because this will reduce the lag time significantly and would yield better results. This method, though, requires opening the shutter for second and allowing the speedlites to be triggered and then close the shutter (either by using timed shutter or using Bulb mode and a remote, which I kind of prefer in fact). That means, working in a dark environment. The location I was in gets considerably dark actually, but I'd have to wait till evening to have a darker atmosphere. Anyway, a quick glimpse at it (after hard work trying to align the laser beam to the receiver to form the laser gate) - told me that it's not going to work; Not the way I like it at least, for a number of reasons:
- The distance between the laser and the gate is wide across the tray (even after changing the orientation of the tray), making it almost impossible to precisely drop the dice across the beam. Thus, the gap must be narrower to drop precisely.
- The height to which I was able to set up the laser gate was relatively higher than required, as I guess. We are talking about microseconds here if not nanoseconds, thus things should be properly close to the water surface as much as possible without showing in the lens's field of view.
- Without finding a mechanism to adjust the level of the gate, it might be a quite troublesome way to use such a gate to capture the moment. If for instance the dice is captured in motion before touching the water surface, then adjusting the height of the gate is required to capture the perfect moment; Otherwise, all shots will be similar.
- Part of fore mentioned points, I think this keeps us at the level of macro shooting.
- Try to merge my workflow with stereoscopic flashing, if possible.
- Use variety of lenses if possible other than 100mm Macro and 50mm.
- Try different angles as much as possible.
- Increase the power of the speedlites and use single shot method since the burst mode doesn't work here.
- Maybe change the container or the set to something smaller to give out a better composition and background, and have better control.
Finale
Now, this is it for now. Let's if I can post more about the new trials that I'm going to do with this experiment of high speed photography. Let's hope I get the time and the mood to work! This week has its toll on me already and I'm trying to hard to slow down and simplify my life.
Lately, and after closing down some settings on Duolingo website which makes me theoretically out of the "leaderboard" or whatever they call it, which is about contesting and doing more exercises for more points - after closing that down, I think I'm having more time to myself to do more useful things, specially in the Arabic section of that website. Beside that, I'm thinking of typing a blog post for my Arabic blog about this high speed photography experiment. So, my next week will definitely be busy, but I'll try to manage my time here and there - Let's hope!
Is it weird that I'm fascinated about astrology these days? Well, I had my interest in that but it's been a bit more than before nowadays. It's all just some trials to re-discover and understand myself further. Maybe forgive myself for some things as well? Well, absolutely not wasting much of time with this though (otherwise, I wouldn't be typing this blog post right?). I think all of this condensed work and thought is part of my efforts to forget about my pains and disappointments. Nevertheless, it leaves me just exhausted… Now, if only I can jot down these words that roam my heart into some poem hmm…
 |
| Touch Down Canon EF 50mm, f/6.3, 8000-1s, ISO200 |
No comments:
Post a Comment