Week 8 (February 19th - 25th) | Picture 17

Well "Week 8" because I'm sharing it in Week 8. It was taken in Week 7 and I never got around to blogging it.

Reverse Macro + OCF = Creepy Eye Shots!

I am a member of a super awesome photography group and there was a discussion last week about how one would go about taking extreme macro shots of the human eye. Closer than you can get with a macro lens and extension tubes. To accomplish this, you attach your macro lens and then shoot through another lens held up to the end of your macro. And, if that doesn't sound weird enough, you hold the free lens backward. (They actually do sell attachments to hold a lens on your camera backward for this very purpose.)

So hold 2.5 pounds of camera + lens with one hand, hold up another lens at the end of the camera and hold it wide open at the same time, and autofocus on your own eye because your husband has an eye phobia and won't let you come near him. (Oh, and set up your OCF, because your focusing distance is so insignificant that the camera is almost in your eye. You need your flash to be off to the side to get in between the camera and your eye.)

Easy? Not so much! It would have been much easier if my husband had let me try on him, but that was definitely not even up for discussion. But I did manage to juggle the entire setup and get a picture of my own eye.

The result:



Camera: Nikon D700
Lens: 105mm f/2.8 macro (with 50mm f/1.4 in reverse)
Aperture: f/20
Shutter Speed: 1/160
ISO: 200
Flash: SB-800 off camera, manual, 1/4th power
Exposure: manual

Want to see some amazing (and creepy) eye macros that were executed to perfection? Check out the work here.

Week 8 (February 19th - 25th) | Picture 16

This week, I've got nothin'. Okay, well that isn't exactly true, but it's nothing special. No OCF projects, no photography get-togethers, just a boring week in my photographic journey. It happens. So I'll share a parenting moment with you.

My child is learning to use a spoon. It is a very slow and very messy process. For your viewing pleasure, the spoon:



Camera: Nikon D700
Lens: 105mm f/2.8 macro
Aperture: f/3.2
Shutter Speed: 1/200
ISO: 4000
Flash: none
Exposure: manual

I'm sure you can imagine what a mess he was!

(And, um, how awesome is my new camera at ISO 4000???)

Week 7 (February 12th - 18th) | Pictures 13, 14, & 15

Pictures first! Setup information after . . .







All 3 images:
Camera: Nikon D700
Lens: 105mm f/2.8 macro
Aperture: f/8.0
Shutter Speed: 1/200
ISO: 200
Flash: SB-800 off camera, manual, 1/32th power
Exposure: manual

This has definitely been my favorite week yet! First off, let me give credit where credit is due. This was not my idea. I saw this on flickr and found a link to a youtube video explaining how to do this. In previous weeks I have tried to take concepts and make them into something of my own. But this week, I did not do that and I won't pretend that I devised this clever idea on my own. Here is the video.

I would show you the setup picture here, but I have such a lovely blog of pretty pictures that showing you my crappy basement floor and beyond cheap setup would just put a big ugly picture here. If you want to see it (you definitely should check it out) - it's here. Just to be clear, what you see in that picture is a candle sitting on our basement floor. A speedlight on the right set up on a cut up diaper box (for a future OCF project). A white piece of foam-core behind the flash to keep the flash from spilling onto my black background. And a black piece of poster board propped up on another piece of white foam-core. Another super cheap, super easy project. Although, I must admit the large glowing box on the left is one of my softboxes. According to the youtube video you just need enough light on the smoke to help your camera get focus. So the softbox was probably overkill. But I happen to have it, so I used it. Definitely not necessary for the project.

This was so easy and so cool!

Just one more "disclaimer" - I mentioned in an earlier post that I was going to try not to use any Photoshop for processing these images, but the images above were processed with Photoshop to invert the black background/white smoke and then to add color.

Here is an example of what the first image looks like directly out of Lightroom:



Cool stuff! I have no idea how I'm going to keep this up for another 45 weeks! :)

Week 6 (February 5th - 11th) | Pictures 10, 11, & 12

Well my week slipped away from me and I didn't get my personal blog updated or share much on this one. Weeks seem to be that way lately. But before it's time for me to do week 7 of this project, I did want to share 3 more of my favorites from last weekend.



Camera: Canon 5D Mark II
Lens: 100mm f/2.8L macro
Aperture: f/2.8
Shutter Speed: 1/125
ISO: 400
Flash: none
Exposure: manual



Camera: Nikon D700
Lens: 105mm f/2.8 macro
Aperture: f/3.5
Shutter Speed: 1/250
ISO: 800
Flash: none
Exposure: manual



Camera: Nikon D700
Lens: 105mm f/2.8 macro
Aperture: f/7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/250
ISO: 1600
Flash: none
Exposure: manual

Week 6 (February 5th - 11th) | Picture 9

This past weekend I had the awesome opportunity to attend a photography get-together at Longwood Gardens just outside Philadelphia. I have a lot of photography friends who I e-know, but to actually get to meet many of them for a day of picture taking was something I just couldn't pass up.

My super awesome friend Amy rode with me and made the almost 3 hour drive fly by! (If you don't know Amy - aside from being one of the nicest women I've ever met - her blog is fantastic! She proves over and over again that you can talk about very technical photography "stuff" in a really entertaining and witty way. Be sure to check it out here.)

To say that it was fun would be a HUGE understatement. Take a group of fun energetic women who all have the same passion for photography and it was an absolute blast.

I took quite a few pictures I am happy with on Saturday and I might show more later this week if I can find some time. (I have tons of Super Bowl pictures to upload to my private blog since the Packers won the Super Bowl and my husband's entire family is from Wisconsin and bleed green and gold. I want to share all the pictures of our little man decked out in his gear - so that blog will take priority this week.)

For now I will share my favorite picture:



Camera: Nikon D700
Lens: 105mm f/2.8 macro
Aperture: f/3.5
Shutter Speed: 1/200
ISO: 800
Flash: none
Exposure: manual

I also had the opportunity to do a camera swap with Michele (my macro idol) and I'll probably share one of those later in the week as well. That was a lot of fun too! I am already looking forward to getting back together with these ladies again soon!

Week 5 (January 29th - February 4th) | Picture 8

Hi. My name is Jodi. And I have an OCF problem. I'm obsessed. And I must buy some black cardboard to do some things I'm wanting to try. This week I decided that I wanted to play with a white background this week and really blow it out. I don't particularly care for that look for portraits (nor do I have the lighting to achieve it on that scale), so I tried it with a glass bottle - specifically a red wine bottle.

Super easy (and cheesy) setup again. Foam core propped up by my paper shredder, speedlight sitting on a tuppeware box full of crayons, reflector propped up against the crayon box, and wine bottle sitting on the floor. (Yeah, I should probably consider better setups if this is going to continue to be a hobby of mine.)

The shot:



Camera: Nikon D700
Lens: 105mm f/2.8 macro
Aperture: f/8.0
Shutter Speed: 1/400
ISO: 400
Flash: SB-800 off camera, manual, 1/16th power
Exposure: manual

Here's a picture of the fancy setup. I really need to do more research on snoots to direct and control the flash a little bit more.

Stay tuned, I have a big photography day planned for February 5th and if things go well, there will be more than a couple pictures to share! :)