splish splash

famas · 30 Dec 2008 at 01:14

I was going to go out and do some photography today, but its so bloody cold and i got distracted by other things i decided to try something different at home.

All shots were taken with d90 and the tokina 100mm macro, which im extreamly pleased with. i was torn between this lens and the sigma 105mm, As it turns out a friend came with me when i bought the tokina and bought the sigma for himself. Now im a bit bias when it comes to the tokina as i think its a great lens, but there were a few things that we both agreed on. The build quality of the tokina was just as good if not better than the sigma, it felt heavier than the sigma, it auto focused quicker and to our eyes the image quality was just as good. not bad for £250
Another thing we noticed with the sigma was when manually focusing you need to pull the focus ring backwards on the lens (same as the tokina) but with the sigma you also need to set the switch on the camera body to manual focus, You didnt need to do this with the tokina.
its only a minor issue but it was enough to annoy me having to fumble around for the switch while trying to keep the shot composed.

any ways!

the pictures.
for most of the fruit shots i used the flash gun with a shutter speed of 1/200 this is the maximum shutter speed when using the onboard flash, which i need to use to set off my flash gun. this was ok for the fruit as it fell slower than the coins.
the coins were harder to catch tho, i tried using lamps for light and upping the shutter speed to 1/4000 it caught the coin better but the lamps i had wern't really bright enough.

is there a way to use a faster shutter speed than 1/200 when using the onboard flash on the d90?

im going to have another go tomorrow in day light.

C+C welcome.

this was the set up i had.

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Heres some others i've taken with the tokina that i was pleased with. C+C welcome again

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thanks for looking
Dan

Bennie-Mac · 30 Dec 2008 at 01:48

Absolutely love the lemon and lime ones, looks like a cracking lens

Interesting idea may be to try using soda water or lemonade to add some fizz and more bubbles, but that might ruin the crisp and clean look.

Banish · 30 Dec 2008 at 01:51

more great pics

famas · 30 Dec 2008 at 02:02

Bennie-Mac said:
Interesting idea may be to try using soda water or lemonade to add some fizz and more bubbles,.

now thats an idea! +1 to you, i was going to try some food dyes tomorrow as well.

benjo · 30 Dec 2008 at 02:15

They are amazing! Extremely sharp and clear

/jelous

Irish_Tom · 30 Dec 2008 at 02:18

The fruit ones are the best. #1 is soft, #2 Has really bad CA.

#3-6 could be part of a Gordon's + Tonic advert so kudos for getting that kind of production shot if that's what you were after. #6 appears to have a hair either in the glass or on your sensor at the bottom left-of-centre.

Part 2 #1 has a really noisy background - I've not got EXIF reader running so I can't tell what ISO you were shooting at. I assume it's the Tokina F2.8 (correct me if I'm wrong) but I would be a bit disappointed by the bokeh on that shot if it were me and it was shot at a reasonable ISO (sub 400).

The two spider shots don't really have a definitive focal point. A bit more DOF and you might get the whole spider in focus which would help.

Still, considering it's a new lens it's a good start.

Keep up the good work.

Panzer

SteveOBHave · 30 Dec 2008 at 08:29

A really nice effort - I've always been pretty keen to give this sort of thing a go but never thought about the setup - nice work!

pabloB · 30 Dec 2008 at 09:04

Really good mate - Like how there's some unusual colour on the 20p piece!

uv · 30 Dec 2008 at 10:00

Panzerbjorn said:
#2 Has really bad CA.

It doesn't look like abberation to me - you can see a similar colouring on the lime image (#6) - look at the water.

I expect it's either a local light, or a reflection from something purple nearby. Push up the vibrancy when PP, and the coloring becomes more.. well, vibrant.
I guess it looks a little like fringing due to it being purple, but it's also too sharp and uniform to be CA

Irish_Tom · 30 Dec 2008 at 10:28

Good point well made.

I would still try and get rid of it with a bit of desaturation or similar.

Panzer

famas · 30 Dec 2008 at 10:46

thanks for the comments guys!

yeah its the tokina 100mm f2.8

the purple colour is from my other monitor that i left on. i did remove it from the 20p shot at first but i thought it looked better with it there?

the seagul shot has been heavily croped and was shot at ISO400 which might explain the grain?

uv · 30 Dec 2008 at 10:48

famas said:
the purple colour is from my other monitor that i left on. i did remove it from the 20p shot at first but i thought it looked better with it there?

tbh, I'd say #2 is my favourite shot from the set, so imo I'd leave it alone

Amp34 · 30 Dec 2008 at 13:26

Some excellent shots there, I keep meaning to do something like this but don't have the stuff.

Would a lightbox and a couple of strong lights be an alternative for the flash?

pabloB · 30 Dec 2008 at 13:33

Famas,

Did you use a remote to take the piccies or the viewfinder on the camera itself?

famas · 30 Dec 2008 at 13:50

Amp34 said:
Would a lightbox and a couple of strong lights be an alternative for the flash?

yes, and i think you would get better results as well, but you would need some very very strong lights.

Famas,

Did you use a remote to take the piccies or the viewfinder on the camera itself?

once i had set every thing in place i held the lime in position and used liveview and auto focus to get the focus right, once that was set i changed the focus to manual and tried to drop the lime were i had set the focus.
the objects drop so fast you couldn't use the view finder any way. i just half press the shutter release then drop the object then quickly press the shutter release all the way. it takes a bit of time to learn when to press the shutter release after you've droped the object, but you soon start getting it right.
then its just a case of taking loads of shots and saving the good ones.
i took over 170 pics and only had about 7or8 that i liked.

hope that made sense.
ive just been doing some more, i'll update in a bit

thanks again.

Namistai · 30 Dec 2008 at 13:57

Great idea, very creative!

You mentioned food dyes - why not try releasing droplets of food dye into a fresh glass of water and trying to take a few snaps as fast as possible? You might get some really nice diffusion images

famas · 30 Dec 2008 at 14:04

i had a look for food dyes earlyer, but no luck. i'll fetch the ketchup

Namistai · 30 Dec 2008 at 14:12

Lol, I'm not sure it'll have quite the effect that I had a mental image of!

Go to your local supermarket and check out the baking section

famas · 30 Dec 2008 at 17:09

had another go at it today. tried setting up near a window to get as much light as possible, but it didnt really help. So i went back to using the flash but this time with a black backround.
i think as said above this would work really well in a light box with some strong lights, this will be my next project

C+C welcome again.

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thanks for looking
Dan

tsinc80697 · 30 Dec 2008 at 18:11

Like the black background photographs

Look nice and the water seems clearer!
What flash are you using for these?