Behind The Scenes tour-Product Photography

Hello All, here's another quick tour of my product photography shoot for a designer shoe brand, GlamRockChic. Video shot with Sony Xperia Pro. English subtitles available. Please press the CC (closed captions) button on the YouTube player bar for English subs. Enjoy!

Behind The Scenes of a Simple Food Photography Workshop

Hi All,

As I mentioned in my previous post, here's the Behind The Scenes video I put together of our recent Simple Food Photography Workshop on 23-JUN-2012. For those who couldn't make it, I hope this video will give you some idea of what's involved in the workshop and hopefully I'll see you all in the next workshop, ya? Enjoy!

Yesterday's Simple Food Photography Workshop outcome. Delicious!

I'm so ecstatic about the outcome my recent Simple Food Photography Workshop yesterday. Here's a quick post of the shots I took during the workshop to demonstrate to the participants on the fundamentals of simple food photography. The participants and I are very well satisfied with the new updated techniques we used in this session. I didn't take any stills of the participants at work, but even better, a video post of behind-the-scenes will follow soon! Meanwhile, enjoy the mouth-watering images :)

We started off with a clean white background technique using a DIY light tent with two speedlights. This is wholewheat spaghetti with prawns. Did my own styling this time. :)

I must say that I' love this shot to bits! This example is to demonstrate a different lighting technique to introduce mood into a food shot. I'm very proud of my student Zain Aziz and Mohd Zulhelmi Misran who did the styling of the wholewheat spaghetti and prawn in the bowl this time. In the background is a bowl of fried rice styled by Muhammad Alif Saufwan Abas and Muhammad Al Arqam Ismail.

The same setting as above. This is an overhead shot to demonstrate different camera angles. I'm very proud of my student Zain Aziz and  Mohd Zulhelmi Misran who did the styling of the wholewheat spaghetti and prawn in the bowl this time. The fried rice was styled by Muhammad Alif Saufwan Abas and Muhammad Al Arqam Ismail.

Finally, some small snacks! Did this simple styling to demonstrate a close-up shot. We shot this with a 50mm and a +3 close-up filter. No-macro lens involved, how's that for "simple"?

My Colour Profiling Tools

I just thought that I shared with you all my not-so latest white balance and colour profiling tools. Currently , I'm using the X-rite Color Checker Passport which is superb in making sure I get the colours right. I've moved on from the QP card to the Whibal, and finally to the Color Checker. I shoot a lot of products in the studio and also some colour sensitive subjects on-location and getting the right colour is very crucial for me. Adjusting the white balance and colour tint in the camera can be a tricky guesswork and I'd like to get my colours correct as much as possible. Here are some visuals for your reference. Enjoy!

I've moved up to the ColorChecker Passport from the 'ol QP card. :)

My Ol' skool colour targets. :)

My rugged & abused Whibal. Amazingly it's still standing strong after approximately 4 years! :)

Latest addition to my colour management workflow, the X-RITE ColorChecker Passport. :)

 

Published Work: Time Out KL

Please excuse the quality of the images. I shot these quickly with my mobile phone. :)
I'll try to update them with scanned ones soon. Cheers!

Time Out KL May 2012 Issue.

Shot this at KL Pac 

Some architectural shots (interior) for the Nightlife section.

Close-up of the spread. Low light shooting is challenging, but I love it to bits! 

The other side of the spread.

Here's the latest June 2012 issue.

Photographed this at our studio, the day after the big yellow Bersih 3.0 assembly in KL.

Lightroom 4 vs Capture One 6, simple comparison.

Lightroom 4 vs Capture One 6 comparison

Recently I shot an editorial assignment that I was not happy about. It was a point where my gear had reached its limit. This was shot at 1/125s, f5.6, ISO400 7D+24mm f1.4L and was lit with 600ws studio light. This is a 100% crop.

This image had compromised its clarity and noise. Nevertheless, I tried processing with Lightroom 4 and Capture One 6 to see if any one of these softwares shows any improvement in those two aspects.

During this investigation, I found out that Capture One 6 fixes chromatic aberration better than Lightoom 4. However, Lightroom 4 processes details & clarity better than Capture One 6.

On my last note, it appears that Capture One 6 produces more neutral colours than Lightroom 4.

I'm not happy with this output and now scratching my head to plan out for a medium format with a digital back. Wish me luck! :)

Adobe Lightroom 4

I was really stoked after collecting my package at the distributor in Sunway Damansara.

This might be old news, but it's been a month since I bought myself Adobe Lightroom 4. I've been testing out the beta version for a while and once the full version was released I couldn't believe how affordable it was. I got it for RM 505 through The Network Hub Sdn Bhd, who is one of Adobe's Gold Distributor as listed on Adobe's website.

What I like about Adobe Lightroom 4.
Although you can be content if you still have Lightroom 3 at hand, having Lightroom 4 does give you some edge in processing your images.

1. Better shadows & highlights rescue than LR3. I shoot a lot of high key portraits on a white cyc. It's easier to clean-up the highlights in LR4.
2. More options on the adjustment tools (gradient and brush tool). More control on highlights, colour, saturation, clarity and almost all of the basic editing variables are also available on the adjustment tools to be tweaked, hence more control.
3. Superb noise reduction. I shot an ISO 2500 image and it did wonders in cleaning up the noise.
4. More stable tethering than LR3.

If you're interested to learn more about Adobe Lightroom 4, why don't you attend "The Ultimate Lightroom Workflow" , a 3-day workshop by Jared Platt all the way, LIVE from Seattle via the internet, from 14-JUN till 16-JUN. It's FREE!

More info at:
http://www.creativelive.com/courses/ultimate-lightroom-4-workflow-jared-platt

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