Tag Archive for "photography" - ISLY

Posts Tagged ‘photography’

DIY: The Studio

July 16th, 2012

9 Comments

Over the weekend I worked my tail off painting the office/studio white. It was originally a buttercup yellow, which didn’t jive well with my plans for being the computer/photography studio. It was a ton of work, but I’m really happy with the room! I have yet to really organize it and make it look pretty, but I thought I would share with you what I did.

Maybe you can do something similar, too?

I just used a basic bright white (no pigments added) for the paint in a satin finish. Come to think of it, I probably could have gone for a semi-gloss, but what’s done is done. With the white paint already on the walls, it took all of two seconds and $10 to create a virtually seamless white studio.

I realized that the corner of the room was really going to be the best place I’ll have in the room (and the house) for lighting and space for a permanent photo backdrop, so I set out to buy some plywood and paint it white for a little platform. Lo and behold, while I was browsing Ikea’s As Is department, I came across their corner table top in white. It’s a much warmer white than I’ve used on the walls, but for $10, my work was done! I may recover this thing with a white vinyl in the future, but for now, it works.

Now I’m just struggling to get my dual monitors to have the same white balance. It’s incredibly hard to process my photos with the screens so different from one another. I’ve spent hours trying to calibrate them to be exactly the same, but my iMac’s screen is natively darker and warmer than the LED monitor. Chris doesn’t notice, but it’s a crazy difference to me. I need to get over it though.

I also had a heck of a time trying to get Felix to sit still for more than half a second so I could snap a couple shots of these adorable kiddos. Finally a little Mac plug kept him occupied enough. Penelope was accommodating, though.

I’ve been through so many different photography backgrounds in the last two years!! Let’s see what we’ve had:

Ugly closet doors.
White curtains on a rod.
Grey yardage sewn to a curtain rod.
White unprinted vinyl tethered to the ceiling.
White walls and a white faux floor.

I think that last one should do the trick. I hope.

Thrifty: Shoes & White Balance

May 25th, 2012

5 Comments

Yesterday I talked a bit about how I need to go out of my comfort zone a bit more when it comes to clothing. I do have some pretty awesome out-there clothes.

Like these shoes for example. Sarah thrifted them and gave them to me. They’re ridiculous and awesome at the same time. They’re also pretty dang comfortable, yet I’ve only dared to wear them once. I’m definitely going to wear them again and show you. Promise.

Also, have you noticed the all-over-the-place white balance around here? Maybe I’m the only one that’s bothered by it? Well, I lost the white insert to my Balens cap, so I’ve been winging it. Until today, when a nice package arrived on my doorstep. I ordered a really cheap white balance lens cap
from Amazon for $11. I highly recommend it.

The white balance on this sucker is a bit blue. But I think I’m okay with it (this is straight out of the camera). Thoughts?

Have you found any cheap tools that have changed your life? I’d love to hear about them.

White Balance Lens Cap Review

September 15th, 2011

11 Comments

I’ve got some exciting stuff to share with you soon: A ginormous giveaway & the big reveal of Penelope’s & Felix’s room. Their room is coming along quite nicely (well, that is if Penelope will ever stop destroying it long enough for me to clean it up & take pics of it). I’m also excited to share with you my new toy: White BAlens Lens Cap. This (besides my wireless remote), might be my favorite camera gadget so far.

I took 5 minutes to find this white balance in Kelvin. BAlens did it in 10 seconds.

I’ve never been happy with the white balance presets that any of my Nikons have had to offer & the auto can get so frustrating when in mid-shoot you have different color corrections. It’s especially annoying when batching photos to find the colors all over the map! Seriously, I’ve spent hours editing poorly exposed/balanced photos before. It’s misery.

Almost exactly two years ago I took Nicole’s table top class, where she emphasized heavily on shooting in manual & mentioned manual white balance. Since then, I’ve gone completely manual when shooting and I’ve been using my Kelvin setting for white balance. I’ve been using that for the last 1+ years and it’s MUCH more consistent than relying on presets. I’m sort of getting the hang of it, but I’m nowhere near consistent enough; especially when in dark situations with multiple light sources.

I forgot to adjust my white balance from earlier in the day. BAlens fixed that.

This little lens cap has seriously solved all of my problems. Not kidding. You can see a huge difference in these photos, right? I sure do. No matter what, the BAlens is going to be consistent. EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. Unlike a greycard. It’s also pretty seamless to use this while capturing fleeting moments.

The lens cap is always with you – as long as you have your lens that you bought the cap for, at least . You just turn on your camera, follow your white balance preset instructions & take a picture with your cap on. Then you take the cap off & shoot away. It’s genius.

This is close, but still too orange/red.

I love that I don’t have to worry or guess anymore to find the correct color balance in low/artificial light settings. No matter the light source, this thing helps my camera properly adjust for the lighting & gives me perfect skin tones every time. That’s huge. I hate it when my pictures make me look like Snooky.

Since using the BAlens cap, I’ve cut down on my photoshop time by 90%. No joke. SO worth the $45-65 price. This is the least amount of time I’ve spent in photoshop since I started blogging. I have better things to do with my time – like nap with my kids. Or actually do the laundry. What’s your favorite photography gadget?

BAlens provided by Photojojo – THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU!!!

I’m Back!

July 14th, 2011

12 Comments

The kiddos & I are back from our week with the grandparents. I’m feeling refreshed, Penelope is feeling pooped and Felix is feeling rather accomplished.

My brother-in-law just got back from a two year stint in Honduras, so most of us Esplins were in Phoenix to celebrate his safe return home. Chris couldn’t get time off work, so he held down the fort & let me galavant off to Phoenix on my own. Chris’s sister, Shelley, flew with the kiddos & me out to Phoenix, which was HUGE. It was the first time I’ve flown with two kiddos & everything went surprisingly well. I didn’t have a companion on the flight home, but we fared remarkably well considering our flight came in at 11pm.

While we were in Phoenix, we went swimming, killed a scorpion, went shopping, watched movies, ate lunch with friends, watched bob’s burgers and helped organize my youngest sister-in-law’s bedroom. Felix spent most of his time in the arms of an aunt, uncle or grandparent and Penelope spent most of her time bossing around Molly the dog. It was perfect.

We got back to a clean house (which we have now destroyed, sorry Chris!) and my new camera! I’ve spent most of the morning playing around & reading the instruction manual. Seriously, I suggest EVERYONE should read their camera’s instruction manual. It doesn’t matter what kind of camera you have, just learn all of its ins & outs. You’ll take much better photos once you do. Promise. I’m about 90 pages into the manual & have about 210 to go, but I feel like I’ve improved immensely since I started reading. I’ll definitely be reading it through a few times.

With all of my enthusiasm, I took this opportunity to shoot some pictures of the nearly 5 month old Felix. He’s getting so big & animated now, I just love it. During our vacation, he discovered his hands & started rolling over! It’s so exciting! Now I need to teach him to hold up that behemoth head of his.

The Feli-Monster

June 22nd, 2011

31 Comments

Last Friday, Felix turned 4 months old & had a well-checkup. Oh. My. I’m raising a monster. He weighed in at 17lbs 5oz with a gigantic 17.5″ head. That’s off-the-charts huge for a four month old. The doc said, “I know a lot of 9 month olds that would love to weigh that much!”

undefined

Look at those rolls! undefined

Since things are usually more than a little hectic around here, Felix doesn’t get very many photo ops. I thought I would take the time to have a little session with him while Penelope was napping. I was a little distracted because I was talking on the phone pretty much the whole time, though. Why do I always feel like I have to be multi-tasking? I’m crazy. undefined