After last week’s blog post about my daughter’s Digital Pinhole Camera science project, I received numerous requests to see the actual camera she built. So we did a quick photo-shoot this morning to show you her creation.

The design is very simple and straightforward, a box with a pinhole in it. She began with a leftover Christmas gift box. The next step was to paint the interior flat black and attach a piece of white paper in the back to act as a screen to display the pinhole image. After doing this, she covered the whole box in aluminum foil tape to ensure that it didn’t have any light leaks.

The next step was to create the lens. For this, I cut out a piece of an aluminum soda can with scissors and she carefully punched a hole in it with a needle. This small piece of metal (approx 2×2″) was then placed over a hole that she cut in the front of the box and sealed with more foil tape.

After putting the lens in place, I helped her cut a hole next to the pinhole to be able to attach a digital camera body and lens. After cutting the hole, she lined it with a rubber gasket that we made out of an old bicycle tube. The camera was placed at a slight angle to be able to capture the pinhole image projected on the back of the box. After mounting the DSLR to the box, she put foil tape around the opening to seal off any light leaks.

Once the camera was complete, she then went to work testing it out. I helped her by providing an exposure starting point, which was 30 seconds at ISO 3200 with the DSLR lens wide open at f/4. Working with a classmate, they worked on bracketing their exposure times to find out which would give the best result.

One thing she learned in testing the camera was that the viewfinder of the DSLR had to be covered. Light was entering the box through the viewfinder during the beginning of the exposure and causing problems. One other recommendation that I would add is that a sharper image could be obtained by using a smaller aperture on the DSLR, but she liked having the relatively shorter exposure times with the digital camera set wide-open.

I have to admit that I had a lot of fun helping with this project. The final results were much better than I expected when she started.

One final thing that needs to be noted is the website that she found when researching the project. The page located at ScienceBuddies.org helped her with her design of the project:
http://www.sciencebuddies.org/science-fair-projects/project_ideas/Photo_p005.shtml

My #1 stock model (with nearly 400 images in my portfolio) got married yesterday. Congratulations Alyssa, you’re a beautiful bride!

Canon 5D Mark II, Canon 70-200 f/4L lens – 1/1000 second, f/4, ISO 200

UPDATE: I’ve added some images of the pinhole camera on a new blog post here.

My eighth grade daughter chose to make a pinhole camera for the science fair and asked me to help out. With this being the 21st Century and all, we opted to make a digital version.

It was actually fairly simple to create. She, along with a schoolmate, took a cardboard box and covered it in foil tape to guarantee that it was lightproof. For the lens, a piece of aluminum soda can was used with a needle hole punched in the center. In place of film on the inside of the box, she put a sheet of white paper.

To add the digital part, a hole was cut in the front of the box beside the pinhole lens. It was through this hole that the digital SLR was used to record the pinhole image being displayed on the rear of the box’s inside. To eliminate any light leaks around the SLR lens, a combination of a rubber gasket made from a bicycle tube and foil tape was used. The lens was set on manual focus at its closest setting.

For exposure, she did a bunch of trial-and-error test shots (pretty much just bracketed her times). She was eventually able to produce some fairly good images. In hindsight, I would have suggested that she used a smaller aperture on the SLR to increase the depth-of-field to overcome the blurred left side of the frame.

All in all, I like what she came up with. It was pretty cool to see the image the was captured through a pinhole in a soda can.

Canon 5D, Canon 24-105 f4/L lens – 40 seconds, f/4, ISO 3200

When it comes to making a quality photograph, focus is near the top of the list for requirements. Like any rule, there are always exceptions but the general reaction for the human mind when looking at an out of focus image is that something is not right and it feels uncomfortable.

In stock photography, sharp focus is even more important and is an absolute necessity. While a portrait can get by being a bit “soft”, in the ultra-competitive world of stock images this just won’t fliy.

With this being said, I have to say that I have been blown away at the sharpness results I am receiving with my current camera/lens combo. The 5D Mark II paired with the 24-105 f/4L IS lens have proved to be a great duo. I was pleased with the focus I was able to achieve with the lens on the original 5D, but the results I get now are even better.

I have read on the Internet and heard from some photographers that the 24-105 is not a great lens as far as sharpness is concerned. No less than the self-proclaimed “World’s Top Selling Microstock Photographer” Yuri Arcurs stated recently on his blog that this lens is not sharp enough below f/9 for stock photography. This has not been my experience.

Today’s sample image is from a recent stock shoot I did in my studio. The enlarged portion of the shot is a 100% crop of Emily’s right eye. Since I needed a narrow depth-of-field to sufficiently blur the text on the book, I used a near wide-open aperture of 4.5. Note the detail in the eyelashes and the skin below the eye. Also notice that this was not an extreme close-up image, but a fairly wide head/shoulders capture. This eye is definitely sharp enough for my needs.

One more thing to add is the technique I use to achieve focus. Since the majority of my photography involves pre-set models and not rapid-fire shooting, I don’t need an ultra-fast focus system. I have my 5D bodies set for a “center only” focus point. When shooting, I put this point on the line between color and white on the model’s near eye and lock in focus. Once I have this focus, I recompose and release the shutter. I have also taken to using a monopod in nearly all my shooting to further minimize the effect of camera-shake on the image.

The combination of this technique, a 5D Mark II and the 24-105 f/4L serve me well. What about you? What techniques/equipment do you find works best?

Today’s image by Photowalking Utah co-founder Bryan Jones

Are you a photographer in Northern Utah? Then grab your calendar and circle the date of Saturday January 24th. The Photowalking Utah group will be doing an indoor photowalk at Cactus and Tropicals in Draper. This will give the participants a chance to do some up-close-and-personal macro photography of the various plant life featured in the location. Here’s the info from the announcement at PhotowalkingUtah.com:

Reserve the date: The afternoon of Saturday, January 24th will be the next photowalk, this time up at Cactus and Tropicals, the Draper location. We are planning on starting at 1:00pm and going up to 3:00pm.

Cactus and Tropicals is a garden center with plenty of indoor space that we can meet in to avoid the cold while having the opportunity to photograph plants, exotic and common. We are planning on having at least one macro studio setup for people to explore the wonders of macro photography as well as having studio lights set up to photograph flowers and plants from the everyday ficus to your more exotic Venus fly traps and orchids.

Location: 12252 S Draper Gate Dr (1325 E) Draper, UT 84020
Meet up at 1:00pm. We’ll have a brief introduction followed by wandering the greenhouse to photograph with at least a table or two set up for studio work.

As always, these events are free of charge and open to photographers of any skill level. This is a great way to get to meet like-minded people in your area.

For more information, visit the official website at photowalkingutah.com and the Flickr group at flickr.com/groups/photowalkslc.

Canon 1D Mark III, Canon 100 f/2.8 macro lens – 1/160 second, f/4, ISO 400

Here’s an idea: Drop a comment below with a link or two (or three or four…) to some of your favorite photography related websites. This is a great chance to advertise your own site or other photo sites you frequent.

Like many of us, I’m always on the lookout for a new site to add to my RSS Reader.

Since I’ve been busy editing images this week and have only done one photo shoot, I thought I’d step “back-in-time” for today’s blog post with a previously unedited image. This photograph was captured in Salt Lake City’s Cathedral of the Madeleine two years ago on a non-commercial Saturday afternoon outing with my friends Harley and Diane. The majesty of the Cathedral’s interior is almost beyond words.

Canon 30D, Canon 18-55 f/3.5-5.6 – 13 seconds, f/22, ISO 100

Canon 5D Mark II, Canon 24-105 f/4L lens – 1/125 second, f/7.1, ISO 100

I have arguably photographed Alyssa more than any other person in my photographic career. Images featuring her as a model make up close to 10% of my stock portfolio and include several of my top selling shots. With this being said, I was very excited to be asked to photograph her upcoming wedding. It will be great to work with a bride that I have already shot thousands of images of. Suffice it to say, we both are comfortable working together.

In preparation for the wedding, I recently did a bridal portrait session in the studio with her. The funny thing is that during the shoot we both commented that it felt like one of our stock shoots. Today’s image is one of the close-ups from that session.

Canon 5D Mark II, Canon 24-105 f/4L lens – 1/125 second, f/7.1, ISO 100

My neighbor Lee tipped me off yesterday afternoon to one of my stock images being used in an ad on KSL.com, the website of Utah’s NBC television affiliate. I’m sharing this today as another example of how designers will change or modify a stock image to fit their specific design needs.

In this instance, the design called for an ad with the text links on the right side. To make this work with my image, they did a horizontal flip of the shot. This change is virtually unnoticeable to everyone except me and Kylee (the model). I frequently see images flipped to fit design needs. Another example of this happened last year when USPS.com used my image of a graduate (link).

Additionally, for this ad the background was removed and the model isolated. This works very well in my opinion. I particularly like how they matched the ad’s color scheme with the green tone in Kylee’s shirt.

I’ve frequently said that I find roughly 1 in 1,000 of my sold images in “The Wild” (spotted in print, web or television). For me, the most interesting part of these finds is to see the context how the image is used. This is valuable information that I can put to use when shooting future stock imagery.