Weekly Challenge #2 Black on Grey (Updated)

So my new challenge is lumps of coal with a grey background. This one was more difficult. It might be because I did not use coal, instead I used a charcoalized wood (we had a lot so I thought I would try that first). If I can get out to get it I might go buy coal and see if it is the same. I tried using natural light but since this seems to be very reflective it seems to look more grey on grey then black on grey. I had to go with more of a back/side lighting. My photos kept coming out blurry.After discussing with Alan I made some changes, I reduced the ISO, increased the aperture and decreased the shutter speed. Because of the decreased shutter speed I had to use a tripod to keep the camera steady. I think the shot came out good, so now to wait for the critique.

ISO 200 50mm f/14 1/15 sec

My critique from last week, White Egg on White Plate (critique from Alan)

White on white is a difficult task. Generally, the camera can capture a range of black to white with a total of 256 steps. You wisely chose a setup where the egg cast a shadow on the plate. The shadows are rightly shallow meaning the shadow is not too dark, we can see detail in shadow.

Our media (photography) is for the most part 2 dimensional so we shoot 2D pictures of three dimensional objects.  We use light and shadow to give an illusion of depth. You have captured the egg, white on white and the shadows give an illusion of depth.

By the way, work with light and shadow in the art world is called skiagraphy a Greek word for light and shadow, however it is better known by the Italian word Chiaroscuro which covers artist working with light and shadow


-Alan's Technical Tip of the Day-
f/1 is a giant lens diameter allowing lots of light to enter. The larger
diameters (aperture) have shallow depth-of-field. f/64 is a teeny tiny lens
diameter that gives great depth-of-field while restricting most of the light
from entering the camera. You camera will not have all of these values.
Likely your camera will have only the center values of this set. The
aperture of your camera is adjustable. It uses a series of overlapping metal
blades that open and close to make a variable size hole. The hole is the
counterpart of our pupil, the black center of the human eye. The adjustable
aperture is the counterpart of the iris of the human eye. Our iris is the
colored portion, some are blue, some brown, some gray, named for the Greek
god of the rainbow Iris.

Since the lens is a circle and the aperture opening is a circle, we must use
the math of circles to understand f/numbers. The f/number set is based on
the fact that each f/number going right cuts the light that enters the
camera in half. Each number going left doubles the amount of light entering
the camera. The f/number set allows for 2x changes in light, a doubling or
halving with each number change depending on which way we go. The key to the
set is the square root of 2 which is 1.414. We can round this to just 1.4.
Note each number going right is its neighbor on its left multiplied by 1.4.
Each number going left is its neighbor on the left divided by 1.4.


Join me for next weeks challenge and my review from this week and also (almost) daily for my daily challenge that begins in the next post! :-) Thanks again for reading and happy snapping!