I thought it might be appropriate to do a snow picture tonight, maybe even try and re-create that amazing macro picture of melted snow I managed to get last year. Noooo idea how I actually got that, must have been luck because tonight it just wasn't happening.
At least in the same way as last year. Shooting straight down wasn't getting good results at all, so I needed something different. Plus, the snow kept melting into mush and I couldn't get a good pic of a snow flake! Lame.
I felt that the only thing to do was to go into the great outdoors. Which meant going outside. In the cold....
Skipping forward a bit, I'm crouched in the dark, cold, but snowy backyard trying to protect my camera from falling snow.
My set up for light was a follows. I had a little stool that served as my set, and my Maglite illuminated the snow so that I could focus. A single strobe with a soft box set very close to the stool was my light source, set to a very high power, 1/1 I think. I was shooting at f/16, so that needed a decent amount of light, but with all the glass and mega focal length of my lens, there needed to be a lot of light. The closer you focus, the more light you need. It's a bit complicated to explain, but trust me, it's a law of physics.
My strategy was to wait until snow flakes pilled up on the stool, then just scope around with my mega lens for an interesting composition. I had to move the camera forward and back to focus, it was somewhat easier than moving a duck taped lens.
Eventually, I found this really interesting little formation. The snow flakes aren't really that big yet, but they clump together in really interesting ways, and these little flakes had made a wave! It's a very little wave, yes, but if you look at it right it definitely looks like a wave about to break.
With my exceptionally ghetto rigged lens, it's not the sharpest image in the world, but it definitely gets the job done I'd say. There's actually some pretty cool little halos going on. Aberrations are pretty awesome sometimes. The vignette around the edge, and the focus fall off are simply amazing. I actually cropped them out in the final image, but just take a look!
For the final image, I wanted things to be a little bit tighter. Actually, scratch that...I like the wider frame!
I'm an indecisive person.
I suppose I should talk about editing a bit. First, I converted to b/w, because this is day 3 in the b/w challenge. Plus, I thought it looked pretty good in b/w. I shot it with that in mind, and it worked out. Learning to take photos that will look interesting in b/w v. color can be a challenge. Colors that pop against each other may look great in color, but in b/w they may all be flat, boring grey. Luminosity is all that matters.
I then upped the exposure just a tad, and the contrast a tad more. I've been liking the contrast slider lately... Then I decided that I wanted for detail in the highlights, so toned those down, but then raised the whites a bit to get the bright whites back. Finally, I upped the clarity a bit to get more mid tone contrast, because that's really what can make a photo pop.
See you tomorrow!
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