The Doctor

I've been having some health issues lately. So I went to see my doctor about a week ago and she gave me some pills. And she told me if they don't help I should come and see her again. And those pills didn't help at all. So they did some tests on me. And last time I was there we were chatting and she told me to bring my camera with me the next time I come to see her about the test results. So I took a few shots in her office today. This is one of them.

She's such a nice lady. She even brought her own comb with her and did her hair real fast. And I took a few shots where she was writting and then I told her to look at me and what you see above is a result of that.

About the shot:

EXIF:
- Camera: Canon EOS 400D
- Exposure: 0.017 sec (1/60)
- Aperture: f/5
- Focal length: 41mm
- ISO: 400
- Flash: Flash Fired (I used Canon Speedlite 550EX)
- Post-processing software: Adobe Photoshop CS2
- Date taken: 30.11.2007

But the real reason why I've put this picture on my photoblog is to show you the difference between the original and post-processed picture. Again I did quite a lot of post-processing on this one. It took me about an hour and a half to complete it. But I think that the final result is way better than the original one. I won't tell you about my manipulation process just yet. I just wanted you to see what can be done in post-processing software such as Photoshop to enhance pictures. So here is a picture that shows the original on the left and the post-processed one on the right.

Do you prefer the original one or the post-processed one? I know that some of you might find the "Dragan" effect a little bit to harsh on the image. But what this effect does is bring out the texture of the skin and its color.

Žiga

I had a lecture about my work in USA today. And Žiga went with me to take some pictures of me while lecturing. But before I started lecturing I took this shot.

Žiga actually wasn't posing for this shot. He just kinda turned his head towards me and looked at the camera. And at that moment I pressed the button.

About the shot:

EXIF:
- Camera: Canon EOS 400D
- Exposure: 0.017 sec (1/60)
- Aperture: f/5.6
- Focal length: 55mm
- ISO: 200
- Flash: Flash Fired (I used Canon Speedlite 550EX)
- Post-processing software: Adobe Photoshop CS2
- Date taken: 27.11.2007

So I did quite a lot of post-processing on this one. I tried to achieve the so called Dragan effect. It's named after world class photographer Andrzej Dragan who uses this kind of effect on his photos. It took me a while to figure out how to do it. Maybe I'll even post a before and after shot or write a tutorial about how I do it. Who knows... But one thing's for sure. Thousands of people are trying to find out how to do it. And let me tell you... it's not that hard and complicated, but you need to master the technique. It takes quite a bit of time and patience. And the effect looks different with each picture and I already see some areas where I could further improve my technique. Stay tuned for more.

Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II

Today I got a hand on the Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II lens. I'll have it for a couple of days for testing purposes and then I'll return it to its rightful owner. So I decided to go for a short walk and take some pictures of the beautiful scenery nearby. And here are two examples:


EXIF:
- Camera: Canon EOS 400D
- Exposure: 0.013 sec (1/80)
- Aperture: f/11
- Focal length: 50mm
- ISO: 100
- Flash: Not fired
- Post-processing software: Adobe Photoshop CS2
- Date taken: 26.11.2007


EXIF:
- Camera: Canon EOS 400D
- Exposure: 0.003 sec (1/400)
- Aperture: f/11
- Focal length: 50mm
- ISO: 100
- Flash: Not fired
- Post-processing software: Adobe Photoshop CS2
- Date taken: 26.11.2007

I did some post-processing on these two pictures. Usual things like contrast adjustments and stuff. But overall this lens is not bad at all. One thing's for sure. The captured colors and sharpness are better than with my two lenses. Man, I gotta get myself a new lens.

It's a low cost lens and therefore the quality of the lens can't be compared to the high-end Canon lenses. The body is plastic and it's actually one of the lightest Canon lenses out there. But you get a decent lens for this kind of money, considering it has an aperture of f/1.8 and it enables you to take pictures in poor light conditions. Also sharpness is exceptionaly good for it's price (especially at f/2.8 and beyond). Maybe I'll even get one myself.

Scary Exhibition

This piece was done for Digital Photography School weekly assignment. The title was "Movies" so I decided to borrow the mask from my close friend Žiga. I reckon you know what movies this mask is from. Well, just in case you don't, it's from the movies Scream and Scary Movie. I don't know if it was used in any other movie but if it was let me know. I know it was used in many commercials though.

I named this piece "Scary Exhibition". It was taken in a hallway in my house and I had to remove one picture in order to put the mask on the wall. It was so much fun taking this photo. I wasn't sure what I wanted to achieve with this picture though. So it actually contains no messages or story like my other shots do. It's just an association with the movies.

About the shot:

EXIF:
- Camera: Canon EOS 400D
- Exposure: 1.3 sec (13/10)
- Aperture: f/5.6
- Focal length: 18mm
- ISO: 100
- Flash: Not fired
- Tripod
- Post-processing software: Adobe Photoshop CS2
- Date taken: 23.11.2007

For this picture I certainly needed a tripod. It wasn't a bright scene and I didn't wanna use artificial light as I prefer natural light in my shots. Don't get me wrong. I use artificial lighting quite a lot but if I can choose between natural and artificial and get a good result with both, I'd go with natural light. So I set up the scene and camera. Then I took a few shots from different angle to see if I like the composition of the scene. When I was happy with it and decided which angle I wanna shoot at I took the shot you see above. I shot it at ISO 100 because I didn't want any noise to show up in the picture. But now it seems that maybe it wouldn't look that bad if the shot was grainy. But it's harder to remove the noise than add an artificial one.

Again I post-processed it in Photoshop. In this case the vignette on the left was natural. So I had to compensate that by adding a vignette on the right side of the picture as well. I also did a small contrast boost, desaturated it by 50% and cropped it at the bottom and the top. I must say that I'm actually very pleased with the way it turned out. What do you think?

Playing Guitar

I took this picture about two weeks ago. I was playing guitar and thought of taking a picture.

About the shot:

EXIF:
- Camera: Canon EOS 400D
- Exposure: 0.033 sec (1/30)
- Aperture: f/4.5
- Focal length: 34mm
- ISO: 400
- Flash: Not fired
- Tripod
- Post-processing software: Adobe Photoshop CS2
- Date taken: 08.11.2007

For this shot I put my camera on the strings on the guitar body with lens facing the neck. It took me a few tries as it was impossible to see the composition through the viewfinder because even I am not that flexible. I mean, I was able to look through the viewfinder but if you look through it at an angle there's a big chance that camera will not be aligned properly. It was basicaly a trial and error kind of shooting. But I managed to take a good shot. I also pointed guitar towards the floor because of the background. I didn't do a lot of post-processing on this picture. Slight crop and black & white conversion with contrast adjustments.

Heart & Poetry

This piece is a light study done for my personal purposes. I've been exploring natural light lately. So this here is a natural diffused light shining through my window. The object was to get a heart shaped shadow. And the book I used is a collection of poetry by famous Slovenian poet France Prešeren. The poem on this picture is about one man's broken heart and I think that lot's of people can relate to that. Unfortunately it cannot be translated in English as it would loose its meaning.

About the shot:

EXIF:
- Camera: Canon EOS 400D
- Exposure: 0.5 sec (1/2)
- Aperture: f/8
- Focal length: 42mm
- ISO: 100
- Flash: Not fired
- Tripod
- Post-processing software: Adobe Photoshop CS2
- Date taken: 22.11.2007

I put the ring and the book right next to my room window. When I felt confident with the scene setup and composition I would set up white balance on my camera to aprox. 7000K. And I deliberately used aperture of f/8 because I wanted a larger part of the image to be sharp and that enabled me to have more freedom in post-processing. So once the shot was taken in RAW I post-processed it in Photoshop. I optimised the contrast, colors, shadows and sharpness of the image. Then I applied lens blur and a vignette. Almost no cropping was done except for few pixels on the right side of the picture.

Fragility of love

I took this picture for Digital Photography School's Weekly Assignment. It's a small competition where people post their pictures related to that week's topic in the forum and at the end of the week they announce the best three pictures. This week's topic was fragility. I wanted to emphasise the fragility of love and relationship.

It's also a chance for me to further enhance my photography skills by participating in those assignments.


About the shot:

EXIF:
- Camera: Canon EOS 400D
- Exposure: 0.4 sec (2/5)
- Aperture: f/8
- Focal length: 18mm
- ISO: 100
- Flash: Not fired
- Tripod
- Post-processing software: Adobe Photoshop CS2
- Date taken: 20.11.2007

I used natural light in this photo. It was a cloudy day and diffused light was perfect for the shot. I also used my DIY reflector screen to emphasise the shadows which resulted in more emotional look. I put the candy heart on a red piece of fabric which gave me a greater contrast between the subject and background. Then I post-processed the picture in Photoshop. I usually take pictures in RAW format because it allows me to process the image without any loss of quality. I enhanced the contrast, colors and general composition of the image by cropping it. In the end I added the vignette to make it look even more emotional.

A new blog is born

Finaly got some spare time to make a photoblog. Here, I'll be publishing the pictures I take along with some interesting info. I'll write about the lighting setup, composition, camera EXIF data and much more.

First picture comming very soon.