334/365 - Pan Patina
Another late arrival from a busy day at work, another panic to figure out what to shoot. A few of my kitchen pans were out, so I tried to see what I could do with them, and I'm actually fairly pleased with the end result. This set of pans gets the most use of any non-cast-iron cookware I own: a Calphalon nonstick pan on the top (which gets omelet, fried egg, and crêpe duty), a ChefMate stainless skillet in the middle, and a Calphalon grill pan on the bottom.
Because of the handle shapes, and the fact that I had to light with a strobe, it was impossible to avoid a few hot highlights, and because I was shooting on my stovetop, there were some deep shadows. I decided to try HDR both to even out the shadows and highlights some and enhance the texture of the patina on the pans. Since I was using strobes, I couldn't vary shutter speed, so I varied flash power instead. I contemplated going black & white, but it thought losing the brownish color of the patina (the pans are steel) hurt, rather than helped, so I toned vibrance down instead.
Nikon D7000 w/Nikkor 18-200mm @ 95mm, 1/250s @ ƒ/8, ISO100. Single SB-700 camera left firing through white umbrella, full, 1/2, 1/4 and 1/8 power. All our exposures merged to HDR in Photomatix Pro, with additional color finishing and a wee bit of dodging and burning in Aperture.
334/365 - Pan Patina
Another late arrival from a busy day at work, another panic to figure out what to shoot. A few of my kitchen pans were out, so I tried to see what I could do with them, and I'm actually fairly pleased with the end result. This set of pans gets the most use of any non-cast-iron cookware I own: a Calphalon nonstick pan on the top (which gets omelet, fried egg, and crêpe duty), a ChefMate stainless skillet in the middle, and a Calphalon grill pan on the bottom.
Because of the handle shapes, and the fact that I had to light with a strobe, it was impossible to avoid a few hot highlights, and because I was shooting on my stovetop, there were some deep shadows. I decided to try HDR both to even out the shadows and highlights some and enhance the texture of the patina on the pans. Since I was using strobes, I couldn't vary shutter speed, so I varied flash power instead. I contemplated going black & white, but it thought losing the brownish color of the patina (the pans are steel) hurt, rather than helped, so I toned vibrance down instead.
Nikon D7000 w/Nikkor 18-200mm @ 95mm, 1/250s @ ƒ/8, ISO100. Single SB-700 camera left firing through white umbrella, full, 1/2, 1/4 and 1/8 power. All our exposures merged to HDR in Photomatix Pro, with additional color finishing and a wee bit of dodging and burning in Aperture.