Exploring the wonders of creation through a 50mm lens...and other lenses too.

In Spring 2022 I took this close-up shot of my son’s eye with my macro lens, fascinated at the amount of detail I could capture while also playing around with the lighting a bit. We were outside and there wasn’t a lot I could do to actually control the light, since the sun kind of does its thing regardless of what we here on earth might prefer. Nonetheless he and I still found some creative ways to adjust a few parameters like where he was standing, what he was looking at, and the angle at which I took the picture and in the end I quite like how it turned out. A fun first attempt, at least, and it has stuck with me ever since.

Enter (what else?) my Pavotubes 😀 I thought it would be fun to revisit the original eye close-up with a bit more control over the lighting just to see what I could come up with. Both of my sons were kind enough to oblige their photo-obsessed father as I played around with the position, color, saturation, and intensity of three lights, each attached to the top of a separate tripod, arranged in a triangle shape in front of their faces. My first attempts involved setting each light to a different color, but like my brother Phil said it ended up looking like a weird sci-fi scanner effect from a movie and not the creative style I was really attempting to capture. Also, it was really difficult to get a close-up shot with both my camera and my sons’ heads moving around–even the slightest micro-movement threw the focus all out of whack.

Eventually we just paused the whole operation and went to go eat lunch with my wife, and in between bits of our grilled-cheese sandwiches it hit me: use one color of light instead of three, and find a way to stabilize my sons’ heads. The former was a matter of a couple simple adjustments on the light settings, and for the latter I just put a backward-facing chair in front of the lights so they could sit on it and rest their chin on the wooden chair back. Bingo.

The result you see here, then, is pretty much what I was aiming for though I’m not really sure what I was aiming for. You can see the reflection of the three lights around my youngest son’s eye, and I guess it’s kind of…different? I’m not really sure. Is it interesting? Maybe…I guess. I dunno. It was a fun experiment to try, and who knows, maybe it’ll give me some new ideas to consider at some point too.

This is it! This is the lens that started it all: my humble little Nikon 50mm f/1.8G that I purchased more than ten years ago so my wife and I could take better pictures of our nine-month-old son. The lens that, along with our old Nikon D200, got me going on this whole photographic journey that continues to this day and that I hope will continue as long as I’m capable of holding a camera in my hands. This lens inspired me to create Weekly Fifty, and even though I don’t use it for daily shooting nearly as often these days, it still has a valuable place in my gear bag and I still don’t think you can beat its unique combination of price and features. For anyone looking to level up their photography, a 50mm lens like this is, in my opinion, the single best purchase you can make.

So when I was thinking about some creative ways to use my Pavotube lights, it occurred to me that I could try to take a unique of my meek but mighty Nifty Fifty lens. I tried a couple things that didn’t work, then had a bit of an epiphany, and after more tweaking and experimentation I got the shot that you see here which, in my opinion, is pretty solid.

I started by taking the same approach as I have been doing on many of my recent pictures, but soon realized that setting this lens on our washing machine and lighting it from the side wasn’t going to work. It just wasn’t creating a compelling composition, and I didn’t really know why. Things weren’t clicking, and if you have been taking pictures for any length of time you can probably understand the feeling of not quite being able to make the shot work. I moved lights around, readjusted the position of my camera, changed the angle of view…nothing. No luck. It wasn’t happening.

Then something occurred to me: why not try an entirely different approach and take a shot of only the front of the lens. It could work, but how? The I put the lens on its side (still on the washing machine) and lowered my camera to face it head-on, but no dice. Like Luke said to Han when they were putting handcuffs on Chewie to pretend they were doing a prisoner transfer, “This is not going to work.”

That’s when I realized I was going about this all wrong. I needed to change everything about the shot in order to get something good. I put the lens on the floor, put my camera above it, adjusted my angle of view to be straight down, and placed the lights at 120-degree increments. Bingo. Now I had something I could work with.

After this it was simply a matter of fine-tuning everything. I needed to get closer to the lens, but couldn’t lower the camera so I raised the lens by putting it on my iPad that was enclosed in a black translucent case. I adjusted the colors of the lights. I played around with the aperture. And after much experimentation I got the final shot you see today. I also did some work in Lightroom to adjust colors and remove spots and imperfections, but the result is an image that I am extraordinarily proud to have taken that also tells a bit of a story–at least for me personally. It’s perhaps a bit of a metaphor too. This picture is a look at both past and future, at my beginnings as well as new horizons and new things to explore. This shot makes me thankful for the past, and excited for what is yet to come.

You might be looking at this picture and thinking that it bears a striking resemblance to the photos I’ve shared here the past few weeks, and you know what? You’re correct :) It’s all part of the learning process though, and while on the surface this shot of a classic video game controller does share much in common with its predecessors, there are some important differences that illustrate how I’m continuing to learn when it comes to manipulating off-camera colored lights. Like a lot of my pictures, this one builds on what I have already learned while introducing some important new elements as well, and the end result is an image that, at least to me, showcases yet another step in the never-ending journey of learning to be a better photographer.

First, the similarities. I lit the front of the controller with a single Nanlite Pavotube that was dialed in to a specific color temperature rather than a HSI (Hue/Saturation/Intensity) value. That was something I learned when photographing the Wii controller, and I wanted to apply it here too. I wanted to have the controller be lit primarily with a normal everyday kind of light source, and then have other colors serve as accents. Also, the bright red buttons and words just didn’t look right when lit primarily with any color other than white. This setup also helped create a sense of depth by adding shadows to the buttons and the top of the controller, which were only there because of the specific placement of the primary white light.

The other colors in the scene borrow quite liberally from earlier shots too, with one key difference. In this composition I intentionally placed the orange and purple lights so they would also be reflecting off the surface of the washing machine–something I specifically worked to avoid in earlier photos. It didn’t even occur to me, to be perfectly frank, but once I saw the dynamic elements that the light reflections added to the image (a discovery I made purely by accident as I was waving the lights around) I thought it would be a great way to complement the controller. And, as far as I can see, I think I was right :)

I’m really curious to see where all of this goes. Will I just keep taking pictures of retro-themed objects on top of my washing machine, or will I find something new to explore with the lights? I’m really not sure, but I’m eager to find out.

“Dad, get your camera!” my youngest son shouted from the back yard. I was inside cleaning up in the kitchen and he was out with my wife planting some strawberries he had brought home from his after-school gardening club, and I couldn’t imagine what on earth would need my attention, and my camera, so urgently. The tone of my son’s voice was all the justification I needed though, and I immediately dropped what I was doing, grabbed my D750 (with 105mm macro lens already attached, thankfully) and ran out to see what was going on. Much to my surprise, my son and my wife were standing just a few feet from what looked like hummingbirds floating from flower to flower in the corner of our yard. My son looked at them, looked at me, gave me a massive grin, and said “See if you can get a picture!”

There wasn’t much time to plan, but I knew I needed a fast shutter speed. And I mean fast. I set my auto-ISO to 1/1500 second, dialed in a pretty wide aperture of f/4, got down on the ground, and set to work. These little creatures were pretty skittish and didn’t stay in one place for more than a few seconds, so I kind of scooted around in a prone position and waited for one of them to come near to me rather than vice-versa. I fired off lots of shots but they were all from a pretty far distance, and I was sure that even if the subject looked interesting the shots would require a pretty fair amount of cropping. That’s how it goes sometimes, but I held out hope that one would eventually get close enough for a better shot.

It took about a minute, but eventually one of them did hover over to some purple blossoms near my camera at which point I stopped down the aperture to keep the depth of field under control, held my breath, and kept taking dozens of pictures. Soon this one positioned itself right in front of my lens. I could hardly believe my luck, and with my son practically squealing with excitement I was able to take the picture you see here.

It is not cropped.

I have taken lots of shots of bugs and insects over the years, and even some bees as they float from flower to flower, but this is far and away the best such photo I have ever been able to capture. The only part of the moth that’s in focus is exactly the part that should be, and its wings have just enough motion blur to let you know how fast they are moving. Its proboscis is about to uncurl to take a sip of nectar from the nearby plant, and everything that’s not the moth or the flower is completely blurred out but still gives a sense of context. Even the brown streak on the left side serves to complement the colors of the moth.

This is one of those shots that I just can’t quite believe I was able to capture, and I’m so glad I listened to my son and didn’t ask questions. I just grabbed my camera and made a run for it, and the result is one of my favorite pictures I have ever taken.

Once again, another shot of a fairly simple object enhanced by the presence of some colored lights. This is clearly becoming a pattern for me, and I’m having so much fun experimenting with the new possibilities afforded by my new Pavotubes (Note: I get no commission or anything from B&H, I’m just linking in case anyone is curious what these are and where I got mine.) Thanks for hanging in there with me, readers, because right now I don’t know that I’ll be stopping any time soon. Then again, who knows…maybe this will be the last one of these kinds of shots for a while because I’ll move on to something else. I dunno. As my dad said when I was a kid, and still quips to this day, we’ll have to see once.

This image bears a striking resemblance to my earlier picture of a SNES controller, but there’s some subtle, but very important, differences that showcase what I have been learning about the use of off-camera lighting to create these pics. First, and most importantly, I increased my number of lights by 50% over the SNES controller. While the original was lit with two Pavotubes, I have since acquired a third and my goodness, what a difference is is making. I experimented with several lighting ideas when setting up this picture and eventually settled on the following:

Light A: Set to 2700K placed horizontally just to the right of the frame.

Light B: Set to blue (I forget the exact HSL value) placed horizontally just to the left of the frame.

Light C: Set to orange (again, I forget the exact color scheme) which I held in my hand above the controller.

As in previous shots, the subject was resting on top of our washing machine partly to get a cool reflection but also because the laundry room gets super dark when all the doors are closed, which is great when you want to control the lighting.

I decided to take a bit of a different approach when lighting this controller compared to the others. First, I used Light A for the face of the controller because I wanted it to look, more or less, like a normal Wii remote. I tried using Light B and C for the face, but what I realized is that the colored lights worked best for accents, not the main light. When I lit the front so as to be orange, purple, etc., it just didn’t look right at all.

I also was very intentional about using Light C for a specific effect: the bright highlight running from top-right to bottom-left on the smooth surface of the controller. I held Light C in my hand and waved it around like a magic wand until I found just the right position to make that surface shine, and it ended up giving the whole composition a bright, punchy, almost three-dimensional feel.

Beyond that about the only editing I did in Lightroom was the removal of spots, dust, and scratches. No cropping, no major color changes, and certainly no fundamental altering of the image. What you’re seeing here isn’t the result of CGI trickery or advanced photoshopping, just lights, my camera, and a washing machine :)

If this picture gives you a sense of Déjà vu, you might be on to something. Ever since I got my macro lens I have found myself revisiting pictures I shot years ago when I got a set of close-up filters—building on what I have learned, trying to take my photography farther, and adding to my own personal toolbox of photography techniques. This week’s picture is one of the first that I can recall that is designed to be a direct copy of an earlier composition, but better. And while I’m not entirely certain that I pulled off exactly what I was aiming for, I can say for certain that this shot shows evidence of learning and growth. And that, as you probably know, is what really matters to me.

For reference, here is my post from seven years ago with the original image of my pocket watch. I shot it with my 50mm lens and one or more close-up filters attached to the front, and all things considered it’s not a bad image. Not at all. It does pretty much about what I wanted it to do, which is show a close-up view of the watch face with hands set to roughly 10:10. Now that I have a true macro lens and a decent set of basic lights, I thought I could take a similar shot but do it much better, and with more intentionality, than the original. I think it worked, but again, the emphasis here is not on the final output but on the journey it took to get there. Hopefully if I revisit this same composition again years down the line the result will be improved even more.

When I took this shot I really wanted to pay attention to a few things that never even occurred to me on the original. First and foremost was lighting: I wanted to use my new Pavotubes to make the watch really shine in a way that the first picture lacked. First I tried making the composition using wild colors of light like purple, orange, red, etc. The results were bad. Really bad. Instead of causing the watch to shine, it just looked dingy and weird. Or maybe post-futuristic, like something out of Blade Runner. Either way, it was not, as they say in The Mandalorian, the way. I had to find a better option.

Then I realized that the Pavotubes have a pretty nifty option which I had heretofore entirely overlooked: you can set a custom white balance. Rather than experimenting with colors, I set the value of all three Pavotubes to basic white light with a temperature of 2700K. That transformed the shooting process entirely. I found myself going to a mental state where I was using the lights to highlight and accentuate the color of the watch rather than using lights to change or otherwise alter the color, as I had previously done with so many similar images.

My task, then, became an exploration of how to use the lights to best showcase the watch. I ended up with the setup that you can see below:

Each of the three lights was placed intentionally: the two on the sides created a rich glow on the outer bezel of the watch, and the light I am holding up with my hand made the face glow while also adding a spark to the tick marks at 1 and 7. It took a ton of experimentation to get the lighting just right, and I really just ended up taking dozens of shots until I found one that just worked. Editing was super simple too: I set the white balance of the RAW file in Lightroom to 2700K to match the lighting precisely, and all I did after that was use the Heal took to remove some spots and other imperfections.

Yeah, these lights are awesome :)

I was recently interviewed by Frederick Van Johnson for This Week in Photo, and since our conversation was entirely focused on Weekly Fifty I wanted to share it with all of you here on the blog. You can read more (or listen to the audio podcast version of the interview) by visiting This Week in Photo, and I’d love to hear any thoughts or comments you might have.

Thank you!

Simon

If you have been following Weekly Fifty recently, you have probably seen some shots I have taken with my new color-changing LED lights. Today’s picture, then, will probably not surprise you as yet another in this series as I learn to use this new style of lighting in my photography. However, this shot contains a few key differences from the ones I have shared in previous weeks. First of all, even though I took all the pictures thus far with my 105mm macro lens this is the first one that is a true macro shot. Second, the subject here is almost entirely monochromatic: hard white plastic, rubberized black accents, and only the faintest bit of color with the button icons which are a shade of light bluish-purple. That means the coloring is coming not from the subject, but from the lights, which is something I’d like to explore more in the coming weeks and months.

I employed a rather unusual setup to take this picture, which presented some interesting challenges that were fun to attempt to overcome. First of all, I had a concept in mind for this picture which helped a great deal when I set out to actually take it. I knew I wanted a top-down view of the buttons on the controller, and I knew that I wanted a shallow depth of field as well. That meant I had to shoot with my camera pointed straight down, which meant I needed to use a tripod and angle my camera down. Fortunately my trusty Manfrotto tripod I have had for nearly 15 years did the trick quite nicely, but then I also had to use some boxes and even my wallet to bring the controller close enough to the lens, and positioned at just the right angle, for this shot.

After that I had to play around with the lighting. A lot. I tried different colors and different positions of the lights, including far away and close up as well as holding them in the air with my hands. I took several dozen shots but this one ended up as my favorite for a few reasons. First, the bright glow on the right side of the frame felt like just the right amount: not too much, but not too little. I also liked how there were little spots of orange light on the left side of the buttons that were created from the same light source. I am also really happy with the depth of field: the X is tack sharp while the rest fades away, which gives a sense of three-dimensional depth to the shot. Finally, the white plastic being cast in a soft purple thanks to the other light tube ended up working out really well too.

I also shot this at ISO 100 to get a nice clean image, but then realized afterwards just how dirty the controller was. I had to clean up a lot of dust and other minute imperfections in Lightroom, but that’s kind of par for the course with close-up shots like this. In the end this is probably my favorite shot I have taken yet, and only makes me more excited for what else I can do with these lights :)

Much like the pictures I have shared the past two weeks, there’s a story to tell here and one that I feel is enhanced by the lighting choice. And once again, this image comes to you courtesy of my new Nanlite Pavotubes which I am thoroughly enjoying and continue to find new ways to use, along with my 105mm macro lens which, though perhaps unnecessary for this particular shot, did come in handy because of its excellent optical qualities and the fact that I did not have to think about how close or far to get from the subject. With a macro lens, nearly any distance will work which is a huge benefit when you want maximum photographic flexibility.

I bought this iPod Nano for my wife back in 2004 shortly before we both graduated from college. She enjoyed listening to music and I thought this would be a fun surprise for her, so not long after Steve Jobs introduced it on stage I cashed in my big jar of spare change and bought one for her. She used it for a few years until it suffered the same fate as so many of its peers: the tiny internal spinning hard drive simply ceased to function. Now it adorns my bookshelf at work, where I can show it to colleagues and visitors and think about how much technology has changed over the years.

Enter the Nanlite Pavotubes :)

I figured this iPod mini would be an ideal candidate for a fun experiment with off-camera colored lights, and looking at the results I think I was right. I used a blue light to accentuate the metallic blue color of the device itself, and placed the light carefully so as to create a bit of a reflection on the small black-and-white screen. then used an orange light to add some color to the left side of the subject, and deliberately positioned that light to cast a shadow off to the top-right. In fact, it was this picture when I really started to think carefully about the shadows and not just the light. I adjusted all three elements of the shot (subject, lighting, and angle) to create the dual shadows you see here, while once again using the surface of our washing machine as a pretty cool way to add some shine and reflection to the image.

This turned out to be a super fun photo to take, and has once again shown me just how much there is to explore with these lights. I can’t wait for what’s next.

I’m not the kind of person who hangs on to a lot of physical objects. Digital clutter is fine, because it’s easily searchable and doesn’t take up much space in my house, but physical clutter is another thing entirely. It’s not that I throw away everything from earlier in my life, but I (along with my wife) try to be selective about what we choose to keep around and what to toss. This old cell phone is, for some odd reason, one of those things that has been sitting in various drawers, boxes, and bins over the years but, much like Bob Wiley, has never actually left. It doesn’t charge and wouldn’t work if it did, since the cellular network it used has long since been shut down, but it’s still a fun relic to keep around and show my kids.

I’m getting a bit ahead of myself here; a bit of context is probably needed in order to better understand this week’s picture.

The cell phone you’re looking at is the first cell phone I ever got. I think I received it as a Christmas gift in maybe 1999 or 2000, as an upgrade to the pager I used to wear around my belt loop. (A pager! Man, kids today will never know…) It couldn’t do much other than make calls and the battery died if the conversation lasted more than 20 minutes, but the flip-out antenna was super cool and it was small enough to fit in my pocket–a big deal for phones back in those days. This phone now sits on my office shelf at work, a reminder of my digital roots, so to speak, and though it serves no practical purpose I do think it’s fun to pick up and show people.

So when I got my Nanlite Pavotubes I naturally thought this old phone would be a fun photography subject. And while I don’t think I was wrong, I will say that there are some definite areas of improvement here. As I have said time and time again, photography for me is all about the learning process and I can most certainly see that process at work in this photo.

For starters, the black phone appears to have a kind of blue/cyan tint to it, which is a direct result of the color of light I was using on the right-hand side of the composition. Whereas last week’s shot of a Super Nintendo controller used light and shadow to accentuate the buttons and contours, the blue light here doesn’t really do much other than to cast a visible pall over the phone. It’s not great, and I think a more neutral light would have worked better. I also used a yellow light behind the phone to add some highlights but again, it seemed better in theory than in practice.

If last week’s shot was me gleefully exploring the possibilities of colored off-camera lighting, this week’s picture is a reminder that I also need to reign it in a bit: plan my shots, consider my subject, think about what the purpose of the lighting is…but also experiment and have fun because it’s all part of the learning process :)