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Contemplation – How to get this shot

Contemplation by Tukay Canuck
Contemplation, a photo by Tukay Canuck on Flickr.
Here’s how I got this shot.
I took an Elinchrom D-Lite 4 with a big beauty dish and gold reflector, put it on a boom arm on a C-stand, and had it camera right. It was quite a distance from the model, so I cranked it to full power (400w/s).
I put a Nikon SB900, put it on a light stand with Honl grid, and zoomed it to 200mm. It was quite close, so I powered it on manual to low power (1/64 or 1/128). The SB900 was set to SU-4 mode, so it would fire when it saw the Elinchrom fire.
The camera was set to ISO 100, 1/200sec, f11. I think the Elinchrom metered at f8, but if I had listened to my light meter I would have overexposed the background and the punchiness of the light I think is just right.
There was minimal editing of the photo, just a horizontal crop and a slight change to the white balance.
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How to get this shot: close up of your own eye


90/365

Originally uploaded by Tukay Canuck

Here’s a picture of my eye.

It probably wouldn’t be anything special, except that I took it myself, which may make it a bit challenging (or lucky, if you shoot blindly).

Here’s how I did it.

  1. I mounted my camera on my tripod.
  2. I used my 24-70 mm lens, with a close-up (Cokin) attachment
  3. I had a flash on the camera (SB-900), with a ring flash attachment
  4. I sat in front of my TV, and hooked up my camera to the TV.
  5. With the camera on LiveView mode (what the camera sees is projected upon the television), I positioned myself and the camera to focus on my eye.
  6. I set the camera on remote control mode, so I could fire it by my remote.
  7. I aimed an LED flashlight at my face to better see my eye on the television, and to aide the camera in focusing correctly.
  8. Since I was using a flash, I could use a narrower aperture setting, creating a wider depth of field (in case I moved too much).

Clearly, from this picture, I need more sleep.

That’s it for today’s tip.