Its Raining Outside! Time For Some Still-Life's....

Still-Life's, or pictures of inanimate objects, have been a fine tradition in painting since before the Renaissance, so why not give an old style a 21st Century technique with HDR and Tone Mapping!

You don't need any special lighting, just your camera, a tripod, some ideas, Photomatix (or any other HDR / Tone Mapping Software), and some patience. Oh, and a piece of white paper so you can do custom white-ballances to get the colours correct.

Still lifes can be about anything you want, from domestic scenes to treatments of traditional ideas. Use them as an opportunity to practice composition, lighting and themes. Now there's no excuse not to photograph if it's raining outside, just get on the net or borrow an art book from your local library, get inspired, and shoot!

All these images are HDR's - that is they are created from multiple exposures, then combined in Photomatix, and finished off in Photoshop. When I'm out in the wild I'll use Auto-Exposure Bracketing on my Fujifilm S5700, but as these shots are all taken in an environment where the light was constant (and no chance of the subject moving), I do a few more exposures. What I do is go to manual mode, reduce my ISO to 64 (to keep noise to a minimum), set a custom white-balance using a sheet of paper, pick an aperture relevant to what sort of Depth of Field I want, then start off with a shutter speed that will over-expose the photo by about one stop.

I then start increasing the shutter speed, making the photograph under-exposed, and take several shots (reviewing them on the LCD screen) until the image is almost black. Then its ready for Photomatix and Photoshop.

Here's a pic of my simple setup:

On with the pictures!

The Five Senses Taken With Fujifilm S5700, Manual Mode, Macro, Processed To HDR With Multiple Exposures. F4.5, Various Shutter Speeds, ISO 64, Focal Length 9.3mm, Tripod

This image is inspired by the classic painting subject of the five senses: hearing, seeing, tasting, smelling and touching, with a modern twist. If I had used more light I could have used a smaller aperture, for a wider depth of field. Looking at the fruit at the back of the image it has a definite softness.


The Clock, The Candle, The Stones and the Shadow Taken With Fujifilm S5700, Manual Mode, Macro, Processed To HDR With Multiple Exposures. F5, Various Shutter Speeds, ISO 64, Focal Length 6.7mm, Tripod

Another "art shot"! I liked the way the table-lamp (to the right, out of frame) cast nice strong shadows and made some interesting catch-lights. The stones, when photographed normally, don't look special, but with the HDR method they take on an amazing luminescence.

Wet Chopping Board Taken With Fujifilm S5700, Manual Mode, Macro, Processed To HDR With Multiple Exposures. F5, Various Shutter Speeds, ISO 64, Focal Length 12.3mm, Tripod

We're now into a set of domestic kitchen still-life's, I was trying to explore texture and detail, which the HDR process brings out in abundance. This one has a bit of an abstract feel too.


Dish Washer Taken With Fujifilm S5700, Manual Mode, Macro, Processed To HDR With Multiple Exposures. F3.5, Various Shutter Speeds, ISO 64, Focal Length 9mm, Tripod

Another "banal" shot. Could have done with more DOF, so I would have needed more light to tighten down the aperture. Again, with all these shots, a custom white balance was crucial, because i was using ordinary household lights.


Cooking On Gas Taken With Fujifilm S5700, Manual Mode, Macro, Processed To HDR With Multiple Exposures. F3.5, Various Shutter Speeds, ISO 64, Focal Length 21.7mm, Tripod

Maybe I should polish the Steel Hob and Pan next time...


Ironing Taken With Fujifilm S5700, Manual Mode, Macro, Processed To HDR With Multiple Exposures. F3.5, Various Shutter Speeds, ISO 64, Focal Length 17.8mm, Tripod

No, my hands aren't that dirty, I just had to push the post processing a lot to get an "interesting" image, and now it looks like I've got Coal-Miners fingers! (Not that there's anything wrong with that).

Conclusion

I was very, very happy with the "Five Senses" shot as a first go at a "Fine Art" reproduction with a modern twist - I can't wait to have a go at some similar subjects. A tricky thing is finding the right coloured backgrounds, and I'll remember to use a little more light so that I can use smaller apertures for wider depths-of-field.

Thanks! Rob.

ps, A note on camera exif data. Being a bridge camera, my S5700 has a crop factor because the sensor is a lot smaller than on a dSLR, so when you're looking at the focal lengths bear in mind that the S5700 has a focal length range of 6-63mm, which is the equivelent of 38-380mm in a 35mm dSLR. Also the aperture and shutter speeds given are approximate, as for some reason sometimes they're different in the PC exif data than what I actually took, but its usually just the next step up or down.

Comments

[FH]

Liked the 5 senses pic. Nice twist on a old theme.Was searching for a painting but found your photo instead. Think I'll stick to painting tho.