Canon 7D, Canon 50mm ƒ/1.4 lens, 1/250 sec at ƒ/2.8, ISO 100

Last week I did my first “ice cream” photo shoot. Everything you see in the above photo is edible, however it’s not real ice cream (just a LOT of sugar with a cherry on top). I used a recipe found in the “Food Styling for Photographers” book. It’s basically just a tub of cherry frosting with powdered sugar mixed together in a mixer. If you’re interested in creating photos like these I would highly recommend that book … there are a lot of other great tips for styling ice cream and other types of food as well.

After I got the “ice cream” mixed and placed in the bowl I used a can of “Pillsbury Easy Frost” to top the ice cream and look like whipped cream (this way it didn’t melt or ooze down the side of the frosting before I was done with the shoot). I also stuck a toothpick into the bottom of the cherry so it would stay in place and not topple over.

I’m really happy how this one turned out and plan on shooting different flavors in the near future. :)

Canon 7D, Lensbaby Composer lens, Double-Glass optic, 1/160 sec at ƒ/5.6, ISO 100

This photo was taken at the iStock event a few weeks ago here in Salt Lake City. It has very little editing done to it, although I do admit to a little bit of tooth lengthening to make it look like she has fangs. :) We had an amazing makeup artist that day, Chris Hanson, who also did the makeup for the models in a few of last week’s blog posts (Monkey and Mime).

I used a Lensbaby for this shot, along with many other images throughout the day, and was able to get really amazing focus on a lot of them. Anyone who says that you can’t get a sharp image with a Lensbaby hasn’t used one long enough to get it right. I’ve been trying to use my Lensbaby Composer as much as possible and I’m learning it’s one of those pieces of equipment that really takes practice to get the hang of it.

So if you have a Lensbaby and are frustrated—don’t give up! It is possible to get great focus with it. My one tip would be to compose, focus, take the shot … then re-focus and do it again and again with the same setup. Even if I think I nailed focus I usually refocus and take the same shot a few more times just to make sure (especially if I like the composition). I still miss focus, but the more I use the lens the fewer “bad” shots I end up taking. I really enjoy using my Lensbaby and find that it changes the way I see my images and compose the shots … doing it in the editing process just wouldn’t create the same experience for me.

Canon 7D, Canon 50mm ƒ/1.4 lens, 1/60 sec at ƒ/2.8, ISO 160

Here’s a short video tutorial on removing chromatic aberration (a.k.a. “purple fringing”) using Photoshop. Big thanks to Renee and Doug for sharing this technique with me. :)

Click here to view this video on YouTube.

Canon 7D, Canon 50mm ƒ/1.4 lens, 1/250 sec at ƒ/2.8, ISO 100

Today is my blog’s fifth birthday! Over the years I’ve jumped around from one blog interface to the next … I started out on Blogspot.com and then moved to Vox, but now I’m in my own home on my own server. My early posts have all been imported here, so I have a full archive of my journey (although I can’t guarantee you’d find anything worthwhile if you were to browse my earlier entries, other than a look into my no-longer-relevant past!). They still have some touching-up to do, photos and styling and such, so please pardon the mess if you happen to make your way through the old stuff. :)

Over the past year I’ve picked up my blogging and done my best to create valuable content. I really appreciate all of you who read my blog and hope that you learn a thing or two from it. There’s much more to come, too … tutorials, videos, tips/tricks, etc., so stay tuned!

Canon 7D, Canon 50mm ƒ/1.4 lens, 1/250 sec at ƒ/2.0, ISO 400

If you read Monday’s blog post you know that I really like sharp images. Well, I recently purchased the Canon 50mm f/1.4 (an upgrade from my 50mm f/1.8) and tried it out all-day at a recent stock photo shoot. I’ve done a few other tests since then and have to say that I’m really satisfied with the focusing on this lens. It’s pretty sharp when set to f/2.0 or f/2.8 … anything below that gets kinda soft but isn’t too bad.

The one bad thing about this is that it introduces quite a bit of chromatic aberration in the images, but that’s something I can easily remove in post processing (if you’d like to see a great way to remove CA in Photoshop check back here over the next few days … I’ve got a good video tutorial on the way).

Canon 7D, Lensbaby Composer, Double-Glass Optic, 1/125 sec at f/8, ISO 100

I spent some time yesterday editing a few of the photos from a recent iStock mini’lypse event here in Salt Lake City. This one was from the “Carnival” themed location where I used my Lensbaby for all but one of the sets. I though the background needed a little bit more so I added some textured and a bit of blur (to keep it consistent with the Lensbaby effect) and am pretty happy with how it turned out.

I still have a LOT of images in my back-log to edit, and keep planning more shoots and taking more photos. Plus I still have a bunch of writing I’m trying to keep up with. It’s such a good feeling to stay busy … normally I would cringe at having some much photo back-log to get to but for some reason it’s making me smile. :)