Pat MacInnes' photostream  

I used to loathe those black bands that people put on their images to give a filmic, widescreen feel. But things have changed and I'm coming round to them.

This is just a shot i did on a feature, nothing special in terms of going in the magazine (the backs of people's heads aren't that desirable) but I liked the backlighting that I knew would process well in Lightroom.

*Nikon D2x
*Nikon 70-200mm f/2.8 VR
*ISO 400
*1/800th @ f/3.5
*Heavily processed in Lightroom 3 (blacks, contrast, WB) with borders added in CS3

So, I like walking round supermarket booze aisles looking for new beers to try and this baby caught my eye. I like regular Asahi in the silver bottles but this I'd never seen, a bit like the forefather of this project, the can of Sapporo that is still unopened as promised at the start of the project.

Anyway, the Asahi was lovely; a rich, dark beer a bit like original Guinness, but not as tangy. But it's two quid a bottle, so I think (if it's in stock) only a few of these will be savoured at that price!! Then it'll be back to ALDI stuff....

This shot was a bit of a quick test for my new toy, the lovely Nikon SU-800 commander unit. It works well, although a mini-studio indoors it's bound to. Outdoors is where it'll get its real test…..

As for a set-up shot, I'm being lazy today because I've been on a shoot in the freezing cold (and my mobile doesn't do good shots) so basically I had the SB-700 coming in from above, facing a white book that was just out of shot to act as a big reflector. I didn't worry about light hitting the silver can, as I felt a little spill would fill on the shadows on the left hand side of the image.

*Nikon D2x
*Nikon 35mm f/1.8 DX
*ISO 100
*1/6th second @ f/2
*SB-700 fired by on-camera SU-800 commander in TTL mode.
*Processed in Lightroom
*Photoshop used to create widescreen-style bars top and bottom

Read more about me and my photography at theviewingangle.blogspot.com/

Really into my light painting of late. These binoculars were given to me to shoot for a magazine. They wanted something different to a standard studio shot so out came the mobile phone and on went a 30-second exposure.

I couldn't get the whole thing done in one shot so decided to do the main casing and then the glass and front rims separately.

These were outputted from Lightroom 3 and layered in Photoshop using masks.

*Nikon D2x
*Nikon 35mm f/1.8 DX
*ISO 100
*30-seconds at f/5
*Manual focus

Read more about me and my photography at theviewingangle.blogspot.com/

Shots to show how the shot 'Binoculars' was created using light painting.

Read more about me and my photography at theviewingangle.blogspot.com/

A quick portrait of a guy I was out doing a feature with last week.

It was blowing a gale and sea spray was all over the place, so i decided to keep a 50mm lens on my D2x and have it under my coat at the ready, instead of delving in and out of my camera bag. I had to get a headshot anyway but thought I'd do a shallow DoF version for myself - and here it is.

Converted to mono in ACR (my laptop running LR3 is out of action at the moment) with a fair bit of fill adjustment, plus black point and contrast adjustments.

*Nikon D2x
*Nikon 50mm f/1.8 AF-D
*ISO 200
*1/640th @ f/2

Read more about me and my photography at theviewingangle.blogspot.com/