Back from a long hiatus… with a cupcake!

Well everyone, it has been a long time since I updated my blog, I know.  I also know I still you owe that review of the 28″ Westcott Apollo softbox from way back when.  Don’t worry, it’ll come, along with some more updates.  Just because I haven’t been posting anything doesn’t mean I haven’t been busy.  I’ve done some side projects for my work, some personal stuff, and then a wedding which, with the permission of the couple, I’ll have posted here in a gallery in the near future.  Thanks to everyone who has still been stopping by.  Literally thousands of you have checked out the articles on the umbrellas and softboxes, so it appears there’s a real desire out there for more information, which hopefully I can provide.  Keep checking back and I’ll some more stuff to whet your appetite.

But along with the other things I’ve been working on, occasionally I just find a reason to pull out my camera.  One such instance was a month of two ago when my wife, Sarah, came home from a cake decorating class she decided to join.  She loves to bake things and make fun desserts so this was right up her alley (plus I was glad to see her take interest in a hobby- she’s always so busy with teaching).  So Sarah comes home with some cupcakes she made and I was definitely impressed.  However, one stood out (for me) among all the others.

It must have taken her a long time to make this, what with all of the little individual swirls she had to have made.  I loved it (and immediately claimed it as my own).  I loved it so much that, before devouring it, I decided it needed the proper treatment of photograph, and not the point-and-shoot-document-it-existed kind of photograph, but one that made it standout.  So I broke out the flash and umbrella.

This was a quick, easy shot, and I made it even easier by using TTL (sorry David Hobby!).  I’d been practicing with TTL prior to this in readiness for the wedding I was going to do so I’d figured out some of the kinks.  With TTL, a shot like this was cake (no pun intended).  I placed the cupcake down on our dining room table that offered a little reflectivity and I took the table runner we use and flipped it in half.  On the underside is a red color that I thought would work good as a background with the DOF I was using.  Remember, if you’re at shallow depths of the field and focusing close, your background is going to be a blur of the colors behind your object.  I positioned the table runner so that that the fold that met the table would be nearly even with the end of the cupcake wrapper.

I took an SB800, set to Remote so that it would pick up the TTL preflashes from the Commander flash on my D80, put a 1/4 CTO gel on it, and I stuck it in a white shoot through umbrella on a stand.  I then put the umbrella almost directly on top of the cupcake (it’s slightly camera left).  I set my aperture to 2.8, my WB to tungsten, my shutter to 1/200s, commander to TTL, clicked the shutter and we were done (actually I took like three or four shots just in case my LCD was lying to me).  Very simple, very quick.  I spent more time setting up the flash and umbrella than I did doing anything else.

In the hectic, fast paced life we all live, I think it’s important to find a few minutes here or there to take picture like this.  I’ll remember it, my wife will remember it, and it took all of five to ten minutes including setup and break down.  A good investment of my time I think.

This entry was posted on Monday, June 22nd, 2009 at 7:47 am. It is filed under Flash, My life, Photography, Photos and tagged with CTO, cupcake, easy shot, Flash, jacob vorpahl, Nikon, quick, SB800, umbrella. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.