Playing something new with my DSLR Part 2

Yup, that was just the part one, and that's regarding the flash. Now I wanna share something I just learn from my brother-in-law. Perhaps, it's not something new to the pros, but it's definitely something new and interesting to me XD.

My brother-in-law told me, there's a way to do some special effect to the light, where it can gives u a sense of motion. First, focus on your subject (of course, light~). Then set the focus to manual. Thirdly, set the shutter speed to slow, perhaps a few seconds, in my case, I set it to 6 secs. Next, zoom the lens to maximum focal length. Following by pressing the shutter button, while the shutter opens, slowly zoom the lens to widest focal length until the shutter close. And that's all.

Well, this is my first time trying, so the result might not be so interesting, anyway, there's first time for everything, right?

Results are shown as below.


Original


Test 1


Test 2


Original


Test 1


Test 2


Test 3

Playing something new with my DSLR

Since I have purchased my F56AM, I have went to many sites and forums to study regarding external flash, and I have tested on it today, below is what I wanna share, on what I have learned.

First of all, I switched on the yellow light in my room and I have tried the slow sync external flash with higher shutter speed, around 1 sec, and ISO at 400, with F5.6, which is the largest aperture for my zoom lens at 70mm. The flash is direct to the subject with a diffuser.


The result is natural, but I feel it's underexposed.

So the second try, I reduce the shutter speed to 2 secs, and other settings are the same.


So this time it looks better, with more natural yellow light and the main subject is nicely exposed.

Now lets look at using bounce flash with normal flash mode (just now is slow sync mode).

By using bounce flash, I had set the shutter speed to 1/10, with F5.6 and ISO 400. The focal length is the same. The first bounce flash, I was using a diffuser, and here's the result.


While the second one, I removed the diffuser but the settings remain the same.


Overall, the one with diffuser, the light is more balance and the subject has less shadow on it.

Well, that's all I have discovered so far, hope that I will be able to share more in the future. :)

Photos that I have left out

I have left out 2 photos taken at Chinese Swimming Club, and re-post it now. :P


I had used fast shutter speed, small aperture and low ISO to take this picture, in addition of my brother in law's CPL filter.

27/4/2009 My New Toy's New Toy

2 Weeks after my new toy, a new member has been added into the A200 family - HVL-F58AM.

I have been consider for 2 weeks for which flash to get, and seek for advice from more experienced friend, though he don't encourage me to take the Sony one as it's too pricey, instead, go for 3rd party one. Yet I had chosen the Sony external flash as a long term plan. (PS: sorry to my friend for not listening your advice Orz)

Anyway, talk less, I will let the picture do the talking.

26/4/2009 Chinese Swimming Club

It has been at least 10 years since I went to Chinese Swimming Club, I still can recall that while I used to go to Chinese Swimming Club to swim every Sunday.

It's a fine day yesterday, and my sister called up and asked us to go to the Chinese Swimming Club as she wanted to let my nephew to learn to swim, since it has been a long time I never been there, so I decided to go along with them.

In my memory, Chinese Swimming Club looks old and unattractive to me, it's like an old folks' club, but then it proved me wrong, after so many years, Chinese Swimming Club has been renovated, and it's quite nice now. Yet, my main objective to the club is not to swim nor to look at the renovated new look, but to snap photos since I have a nice model for me to shoot at.

Ta-Da, my model !









Guest Appearance :P



Let's back to our main model







That's all for our main model today, now to search for other subjects. Me and my brother-in-law went to the beach behind the club to continue our photo shooting session.

26/4/2009 Botanical Garden

Went to Botanical Garden with my brother-in-law and bunch of his friends to snap some photos.

The main theme of the day - FROG. They went to the river (except a few of us that look at the view and didn't look for frogs) and no luck, later on, all of us went to the Lilies Pond to continue the search of frogs.

At first, a few of them keep looking for frogs and can't find any, but later on they did saw two frogs were mating in the pond and one of them managed to snapped the shot (though I didn't see it).

Here are some photos taken by me at the Lilies Pond.


Shy


Outstanding


Red and Yellow


Shy Again


Fiery Red


Silky Water (was so excited to test on this using 8 secs of exposure time)


Light of Hope (so glad that the sunlight come in time)


Lilies Pond without Lilies (I wonder where did all the Lilies go)


Spread (I personally like this)


Unexpected (really unexpected, never realize even blur photos can be so nice)