It's all about the Jaw from Peter Hurley on Vimeo.

Make sure to check out Peter Hurley's website as well. 

(self critique: The head on the beer was weak by the time I had the shot right. I could have repoured the drink, or fixed this in post but it was simply overlooked. I realized it when the owner of the restaraunt told me that the Sapporo rep LOVED these photos and told him they would want to use it, if only the head of the beer looked better... #FACEPALM) 

moving on...

This is a photo i took on my first food shoot. This was also fairly early in my endeavors as a photographer. I may have actually owned a DSLR for about 8 months at this point. I shot This with 1 AlienBees b1600 and a big octobox, 40" across aprox. The other light was a bare speedlight. You could shoot this with just about any 2 flashes.

Here is the lighting diagram:

                                 (skilled artist as well?!)

Anyhow, you can see i lit at about a 45 degree angle from the front, and the exact opposite from the rear. I really didnt know anything about lighting at this point and the real reason i backlit this picture was to make the beer have a "glow" against the dark background. This is something i figured out while shooting drinks for an up and coming Tequila Company. I figured out afterwards was that, more importantly, i was rim lighting both the beer glass and the can of delicious beer. This is super important to give your subject matter separation from the background. (especially when the background is pitch black.) 

Try this out and remember the first 10 or so shots will be unbalanced and ugly. I messed with this setup for at least 20 minutes before i started making useable photos. mess with the levels of light coming out of both flashes until you find something that works for the subject. 

I think its safe to say these are usually used for landscapes. Not really my strong point, but something i like to try for fun every now and then. 

I bought a couple cheapies to try out from Digital Goja

You can buy filters that screw on to the front of your lens. There is one problem with the screw on filters. You cant move the filter around to get the effect right where you want it. I prefer the square ones, and for now i am just holding them over the lens with my hand. 

 You put a grad filter over the front of your lens (usually with a filter holder) in an attempt to balance the exposure of the sky with the objects in the foreground.  Typically, You want the fade from dark to light to occur somewhere around the horizon. 

The first thing you will notice in the picture above is some serious magenta color cast. I will probably only use these filters for sunset landscapes and black and white, so the color probably wont bother me too much. 

So what does a grad filter do to an image? 

This image was shot without the filter. 

The grass, building and trucks are pretty well exposed but the sky looks pretty washed out. It isn't too bad and there is enough data present to tweak the sky in photoshop, but i am slowly trying to get more things done in camera. The result always seems to be better that way. 

Lets hold that $5 piece of plastic over the lens and see what happens...

(i ended up stacking 2 filters on top of each other to get it dark enough)

(you can see where the filter fades from dark to light right around where the palm tree is)

Now i didnt spend much time at this. i probably could have slid the filter down to get that bit of sky on the horizon a little bit darker. These were just my initial test shots with the filters, standing in front of the office. However, you can see the effect the filter has on the sky. It is much more dramamtic (and a little magenta). 

Are these worth the 10 bucks to try out before you go spend $300+ on a filter holder and a set of Lee filters? SURE! In fact i would recommend it. 

I bought 2 of the same filter because Digital Goja does not mention how many stops of light these filters actually block. For these shots i ended up stacking them, effectively doubling the amount of light they were blocking.

Before I go, here is a quick black and white conversion to help you forget about that magenta color cast.  

FILTER

NO FILTER

Sometime in the near future i will have a much more in depth post regarding ND filters. I am going to buy the Cokin Z Pro filter holder and a few nice Grad filters. I will try and shoot some more interesting subject matter as well. As always, i will take you along for the ride and try to include as much failure as success in my first attempts at using these filters. Maybe this will save you some time down the road! 

-K

I figure my first post can be a tribute to my favorite source of both information and inspiration. David Hobby may not make the most dramatic photos, but he always makes good photos. My favorite part about his work is that he pulls it off practically, efficiently, and he always provides an excellent portrayal of whatever story he is covering. He uses a fairly modest quiver of cameras and gear too! (we wont mention his new camera). 

His site also features a complete lighting 101 section that pretty much led me where i am now. 

So thats basically it for my first post. If I were to lose potential visitors to Strobist.com for posting this, I wouldn't be offended. 

In my next post i am going to take a regular ol everyday picture and go through the basic editing i apply 90% of the time

-K