Photo Jottings

Nothing much that’s newsworthy, so another file photo from the A700.

Here’s another sample image using the old and crummy Sony A700, now with a broken mirror.  The lens used for this architectural shot was the (also old and crummy) Sigma 10-20mm lens, which I still use and love.

This image was taken using five off-camera flashes, which wasn’t really enough, but that’s all I had at the time.  I placed one flash overhead, close to the camera side, and aimed it over the foliage towards the curved soffit above.  The next flash was placed on the lower patio area, fairly close to the ground by the wall, and pointed towards the foliage to bring out the tile texture and plants.  Also in this same general spot, but farther back (still out of view by the wall) is another flash that’s placed higher up, and pointed up to the curved soffit. On the next level down there’s another flash close to the wall by the spa, and pointed at the house wall with the stairs, you can see the shadows created by this in the larger version, click the image to check it out.  The final flash unit is to the right of the patio table on the lower level, out of view, and pointed at a tree and some foliage, but I ended up cropping this out as the wind was very strong causing too much blur, and I ended up not liking the composition, so that flash was wasted.  I darkened the area from the flash to match the light value of the rest of the right side.

I could’ve used a couple more flashes, or some powerful strobes.  I almost missed this shot as I was running back and forth trying to adjust the lighting placement and intensity while the best light was quickly going away, that’s the problem with doing a shoot without an assistant.

For the interior, I re-shot the living room area, firing a flash though the windows to light the backs of the chairs etc, and using two more inside the house, you can see the shadows from this set-up.

To finalize the image, I replaced the windows in the living room with the properly lit set and did the usual shadows, highlights, rotation and perspective (key-stoning) adjustments and some heavy noise reduction (the original image was a little underexposed, so raising the exposure in post processing increased the noise level). That issue isn’t the fault of the camera because it doesn’t have good high ISO ability, it’s because the camera operator didn’t
do his job.  The full image is a little soft, but shows well in my opinion.

Specs for the shot are; F/7.1, ISO 200 1/1 sec, about 14mm (21mm equiv) focal length after crop, and I think all flashes were at half or full power.