Nativity scene from a Strobist point of view

Nativity scene from a Strobist point of view, a photo by Nicola Zingarelli on Flickr.

When I saw this nativity scene in a small church in Spain I thought it could be a nice subject to light with a couple of speedlights. The church was empty; we were the only visitors so I decided to give it a try. After a bunch of non successful attempts I switched a bit the concept and went for a harsh backlighting and the whole mood of the scene changed.

I placed an SB800 on its small stand on the extreme left corner of the image gelled with a full CTO, wanted to recreate a sunset light as it could be seen in the region. The other SB800 was on my left side too with a Lastolite Softbox III in order to open the shadows on the figures and trying to illuminate a bit the inside of the shack. Couldn’t achieve that hence I asked my daughter to hold my led lamp and point at the Child Jesus, reduced the shutter speed to 1/20sec at f11 and took few shots until I managed to get some light on the main scene.

F11 might seem a bit too much but I guessed this would give me quite a decent depth of field, which is what eventually happened. Thus I had to push my ISO to 500. One extra flash would have given me a better control on the shadows of the figures closer to the lens but that’s what I had with me and I tried to get the best out of it

Windmills in Consuegras, Toledo, Spain.

Windmills in Consuegras, Toledo, Spain., a photo by Nicola Zingarelli on Flickr.

This is quite a cool place in the hearth of Spain, Castilla la Mancha, the land of Don Quijote. In Consuegras there are 12 pretty well preserved windmill dating back to the half end of the XVI century. One of them can also be visited inside, I have images of that too, I might post them soon.

As usual the sun in the image is a must go for me, I love to play with such strong contrast that adds a dramatic touch to the whole image. I think that the little girl standing in the middle of the two windmills is quite a fortunate coincidence. I had to lift the foreground a bit in Lightroom, in fact even though I used a +2 exposure compensation still it was a bit underexposed.

This time I had with me the 10.5mm f2.8 Nikon fisheye, what a good chance to use it. It served me well during the day; in fact I left it on for the most part of the visit, I kind of missed it having not used it for a long time. Is a fun lens, nobody can deny it, can it be tiring? Yes, absolutely, but used with moderation still kicks some ass. ISO 200 f11 1/250sec on a Nikon D90

Molix WTD 110. Studio shot in a fish tank

Molix WTD 110. Studio shot in a fish tank, a photo by Nicola Zingarelli on Flickr.

These aquarium or fish tank shots are becoming a sort of trademark of my work within the fishing tackle industry. I learnt how to make them through Flickr, in fact one day I found the photos of a guy that was shooting old wooden lures in a plastic bowl and the result impressed me.

I had a small fish tank built for me and started playing with the lights and the lures splashing. I did my first attempts with a white background, way easier to handle, and then switched to a black background, more tricky yet with a better outcome. The problem is not the shot itself but the post production work that it takes to achieve a clean result, in fact, as you can imagine, bubbles and reflections – desired or not – are the by catch of such shots.

For this kind of photos I use quite a simple set up. Here we have two lights, one is on camera right higher than the lure at a 45º angle and the other one is on camera left more or less at the same height as the lure. The higher speedlight goes through a Honlphoto Grid, for a better control of the light, while the other flash as bare or sometimes with a small softbox, like Lumiquest Softbox III.

Dozens of boats with two strokes engines on the beach in Oman

Dozens of boats with two strokes engines on the beach in Oman, a photo by Nicola Zingarelli on Flickr.

Talk about perspective and depth of field...I was quite lucky, I could shoot at 1/250 at f10 with a 18-70 Nikon zoom at 63mm, hence keep a decent DOF.

These are dozens of boats with Yamaha enduro, two strokes engines, forbidden in many western countries, on the beach in Oman. This was quite an impressive view to be honest, in the morning you would see none while in the afternoon they would all be sitting under the sun.

I think is quite nicer in B&W, the color version was dull with that bleached sky.