Tofuriffic!

I feel like tofu tonight!

If you don't already know, I'm a vegetarian and have been for about 10 years now. This means that we do a lot of cooking at home and I *love* to cook.

Tonight was southern-fried tofu sandwiches on thick sliced fresh whole wheat bread, veggie bacon, edam, red onion, spring mix and roasted garlic and chili aioli.



Yes the sandwich was as thick as it looks. Yes it was as tasty.

I'm finding this photo setup so handy - once again this is the 60mm macro with the flash on-camera with an omnibounce. I could have used a reflector below and in front of the sandwich in hindsight, but I really like the results from this setup.

Shot at ISO 200, 1/100th shutter and f/5.6 handheld. The flash was set to E-TTL at -1 stop since it can drastically washout the image when you are shooting this close.

Wet nose, warm heart.

We are dog sitting for friends, and today Shamrock the Shih Tzu was my model. I was still set up from the conservatory, so I went semi-macro with him once he sat still.

Once I started looking at him, I realized that the little guys face is all about texture so that's what I wanted to capture. I went monochrome to highlight that. I also like his pouty little lip.



Take with my 7D and 60mm Macro at ISO 100, f/4, 1/100th shutter. It was sharpened, desaturated and the contrast adjusted in post-processing.

As promised!

So, in order to get myself going again I went somewhere with ample photographic opportunities, the Assiniboine Park Conservatory. Sure, I've been there before, but the kids like it and I needed a shot in the arm.

I took a bunch of shots but I'm only sharing two today. Not that the others were bad, but I'm trying to keep this simple and doable given the limited time investment that I have available.

Anyhow, the orchids are about the only things still blooming at the APC, but I'm okay with that!





Both were shot with my 7D, 60mm Macro and 580EX2 on-camera with the Omnibounce. The Omnibounce seems to really work well with Macro shots, it was certainly one of my better purchases. ISO 200, f/8, 1/80th shutter with the flashi providing fill light in TTL mode at +2/3 stops. The additional stops help with the light lost to the diffuser.

Thanks to my readers for sticking with me through the rather dry last several months. I'll get my groove back soon.

Sweet red...

This weekend, my wife and I broke out one of our new Xmas gifts, a nice little fondue set from my parents.

We had a few leftovers, and as such, the camera came out.



This was just a simple shot; macro lens, on-camera flash with an omnibounce diffuser.

My day job meets my wannabe night job...

In my day job, I'm an IT monkey for a branch of the provincial healthcare organization here in Winnipeg. A lot of my co-workers know about my hobby/wannabe other job so I've done a lot of shooting around for them here and there.

Today, I actually had a commission of sorts from a friend and co-worker who is the lead web developer for our organization. He needed a shot of a keyboard and stethoscope and had already blown their photo rights budget for the fiscal year. So, perhaps this isn't a paid job, but maybe when the budgets refresh in the new year, they'll consider some in-house photography services.



The backdrop was left off-white since the shot is going to be overlaid on a as-of-yet-unselected backdrop colour. There is a clear difference in lighting between the rear 'wall' and 'floor' of the lightbox, but perfection there wasn't really required in this instance. In addition, popping the lights at even brighter settings blew out the chrome on the stethoscope and presented a whole new range of problems.

Lighting on the right side is an LP160 through the Lumiquest SBIII at 1/16th power. On the left is another LP160 at 1/16th power through the side of the lightbox. The left light is at a higher intensity to really make the chrome pop and to get a nice drop shadow. Both were optically triggered by the 580EX II on-camera at 1/32nd power, pointing up with the Omnibounce for a nice soft fill light from above.

Shot with the 7D, EF-S 60mm Macro at f/5.6, ISO 100 and 1/200th shutter.

Woof! Pt 2!

A while back I went to take a few quick shots of a friends' new Sheltie, Rascal. They have two Shelties and wanted some more pictures taken, and a pic of both together for submission to a fundraising calendar. Hopefully it gets selected :)

I shot with the 70-200 and a single flash on-camera, the 580EX II using a Sto-Fen Omnibounce to diffuse. The lighting is simple but for a fast moving critter, setting up lighting would be an exercise in futility. All in all they worked out well!

First, they wanted a similar shot to the once linked above of their other dog, Roxy:



Roxy wouldn't lay down, but the look is similar enough that the two would look cohesive if seen together.

Roxy was happier to pose on the couch, and gave me this shot:



The couch was also where I tried to get both together. This was by far the hardest shot to get since they were trying to play together and any noise made to draw their attention pulled them off the couch to investigate.

Still, I got one that was half-decent :)



Not direct eye contact, but at least they have their ears up and look interested. The point to learn here is that whoever is making the distracting noise should be *directly* behind the camera!