Night Catalog

Last November I helped a friend make a catalog for a line of LED products for pubs and clubs.


I took this as an opportunity to learn more about product photography, although this project was very different than most product catalogs.


Since the whole point was to show the self-lit products, I wanted to make everything in a nocturnal environment. This made some things very easy (the backgrounds were easy to black out) but it also presented some problems. The main difficulty was that the LED lights are much weaker than my flash, and I had to go to very small apertures and very long exposures to get them at the same power.


So I had to resort to other lighting sources. Making sure the colors match and that the background stayed as dark as possible were also concerns that kept this shoot interesting.

The second part of the shoot was a month later at a pub, showing off the products at their intended surroundings.

Exposure part II: Know Your Limits

Today I will talk a little about unsharp pictures. Most people are happy with their camera and seem to get sharp, colorful images every time, even with a cheap point-and-shoot or a cell phone camera. At least, until they try to take a picture at a low light situation. This is usually when the blurriness starts.

Of course, buying a better (more expensive) camera might help. It might not (sometimes it's too dark). Maybe, just maybe, you just didn't make the right choice of aperture, shutter speed and ISO.

I don't intend to specify what the "correct exposure" for every situation is. For that we have a built in light meter, and a little screen on the back of the camera.


I do want to show some examples of what kinds of blurriness or noise we get from badly chosen exposure settings. Once you know what they look like, you might be able to get sharper images in the same situation, or at least know when too dark is just too dark.

Exposure part I: Proper Exposure

Today I will try to answer the following questions:

What is 'exposure'?

How to determine what a proper exposure is?

What does my camera's light meter do and why should I care about it?

What is the difference between SLR and pocket cameras when it comes to determining exposure?

and why do I need P,S,A and M modes, really?

For expert photographers these questions are trivial, but for people trying to get into the field these concepts always seem to be scary. I aim this post at people who want to know more, and I will try to explain the how-to's for SLR owners that are just starting up, and to pocket camera enthusiasts who want to get more out of pictures.

AQUARIUM

This one I am really excited about...

Not only did I work on this for two weeks but I really had people's support on this little project, and that makes it all worth while.

So first of all thanks to all my good friends at the aquarium for dressing up, shooting bubbles and holding stuff up while I took these. And for not telling me its a stupid idea (which crossed my mind several times).

I don't want to go into too many technical details, though I will say a few words on the color scheme for this shoot (after the jump).


It is a bit silly, I admit.

Silly, and Epic.


AQUARIUM!