Some of these are going to be easier to accomplish than others but hopefully it will give someone a spurt of ideas if they are feeling like they are burnt out!
OH man! This brings me back...about two years ago when I did every tutorial on this site haha. It really is a great list. Anyone who really wants to learn photography and all its aspects...follow me. I mean, erm, read these tuts.
@shadesofgrey@jasonbarnette hey, I am about to try water drop crowns as soon as I set it up. Any recommendations on settings for manual. I already tried about 50 shots and was not satisfied enough to even post them as epic fails
@brumbe For starters, the settings all depend on the equipment you want to use. If you want to try it with all natural lighting, which is highly not recommended, then you want your aperture wide open, about 400 ISO with a shutter speed of about 1/100.
However, if you have at least a pop-up flash, start out with 100 ISO, f/8 @ 1/250.
There are two important keys to camera settings for water crown shots: the first is to use a macro lens or telephoto. Water crowns are tiny! So you'll want to get close. The side-effect of a good macro is limited DOF: depth of field depends on aperture and distance to subject. The closer you are, the more shallow the DOF. That's why I recommend an f/8, although I usually pump up the light and shoot at f/11 or even f/16. The second key is light. You will need tons of it. For the penny water crown shot I posted a few days ago I used two strobes at 1/4 power, and just one of those is considerably more powerful than a pop up flash.
So, let me ask you: what equipment do you have? And how did you first 50 shots turn out?
@brumbe Here is one I did a few weeks ago. Check out the exif for settings. I just played around with the f-stop till my lighting looked right, that is why it is so low (I'm sure the background and flash had a lot to do with it). I was using some excess white matte board as a background and to help bounce my flash. The reasons the zoom is so high is I don't have a macro lens so I had to zoom in and use manual focus.
Thanks so much for sharing. As an absolute beginner I am always looking out for helpful tutorials, I have bookmarked this one for later. Much appreciated :)
@munchkin84 No problem. I need to do several if not all of these on here and I in no way consider myself more than an semi-informed amatuer. I figure most everybody could use the info!
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However, if you have at least a pop-up flash, start out with 100 ISO, f/8 @ 1/250.
There are two important keys to camera settings for water crown shots: the first is to use a macro lens or telephoto. Water crowns are tiny! So you'll want to get close. The side-effect of a good macro is limited DOF: depth of field depends on aperture and distance to subject. The closer you are, the more shallow the DOF. That's why I recommend an f/8, although I usually pump up the light and shoot at f/11 or even f/16. The second key is light. You will need tons of it. For the penny water crown shot I posted a few days ago I used two strobes at 1/4 power, and just one of those is considerably more powerful than a pop up flash.
So, let me ask you: what equipment do you have? And how did you first 50 shots turn out?
http://365project.org/shadesofgrey/365/2011-10-11
Here is a tutorial written by Michelle Young
http://365project.org/discuss/tips-n-tricks/7780/water-crowns-tips-and-tricks