46/52 - Smokin

Smokin

Here's this weeks entry for the project. I know I have photographed a Tennis ball before but opted to use one again for this shot. I wanted to use smoke to give the shot a feel of speed and movement. I'm nto sure if I succeeded but here are the results anyway.

Lighting setup shots inside.

Lighting Setup - Smokin

I used a two light setup for this one (I would have preferred to use three lights but I've got only two!).

A Canon 580 EX II was fired "on axis" at 1/128th and zoomed to 105mm to light the ball. The camera was set to a white balance of tungsten to give the smoke a blue colour. To correct this, I used CTO gels on the 580 EXII.

The second light was a Canon 430 EX II fired from camera right at 1/64th and zoomed to 105mm to light up the smoke. The light from this strobe was bounced back onto the ball with a white foam-core board form camera left.

A black foam-core board was used for the background.

45/52 - Ace

Ace

I was quite sure that the strings on a Tennis racquet could be used to produce bokeh if lit from the correct angle. I decided to test this out yesterday and produced a couple of photographs which doubled up as this week's entry for my project. The main problem which I had to contend with was working out an angle which produced bokeh as well as a half decent composition for the photograph itself.

Lighting setup shots inside.

Lighting Setup - Ace

This again was a two light setup.

The main light was a bare Canon 430 EX II fired at 1/64th from camera left. This light was used to light the closer edge of the racquet. I placed a white foam-core board at a slight angle under the racquet to bounce the light from the 430 EX II back onto the under side of the racquet and create some separation on the black bottom edge. The effect is subtle and can be seen on the bottom edge of the racquet on the right hand side of the "Wilson" sticker. If I hadn't placed the white foam-core board under the racquet, this section would have been black and would have merged into the background.

The bokeh was created by a Canon 580 EX II fired at 1/128th from in front of the camera and slightly to the left. This flash had a CTB gel on it. The light from this flash also created the highlights on the further edge of the racquet.

I used a black foam-core board as the background.

9/52 - Tennis

Tennis

With December coming to an end and the Australian open kicking off early next year, I figured I'd shoot something Tennis related. I had seen a similar photograph taken by David Hobby a while ago and had been waiting for an opportunity to try the lighting technique he used. This is the result.

Read on for lighting info and setup shots.

Tennis - The lighting setup

The photograph above was a single exposure lit by two strobes. A snooted Canon 430 EX II was fired at 1/64th through a 1/2 CTO gel to light up the ball. The light was bounced using a white foam-core board and a white A4 sheet from below the ball to light up the shadow areas.

A Canon 580 EX II was fired at 1/32 through a green gel at a black background (I didn't have a black foam-core board so I just "dressed" a white board in a black t-shirt).

The total exposure time was 6 seconds. The in-built wireless flash control on the 7D was used to fire the Canon 430 EX II. As soon as the Canon 430 EX II fired, I zoomed in a bit and manually fired the Canon 580 EX II with a cactus trigger. I then zoomed in again and triggered the 580 EX to create a ring around the ball. I repeated the process to create each of the rings around the ball.

The only post processing I did was cloning out the bottle which I had placed the ball on.