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Saturday 4 January 2014

Practising close-ups/portraits....

My husband Brian bought me a lovely new camera for Christmas, it's a Canon EOS 600D and came with two lenses, one of which is a long range zoom one....I hope to get some good scenery photos soon!  I'll be putting my Canon EOS 1000D on ebay soon.

In the meantime, I'm practising getting some close-ups and portraits using my Macro lens which was one of my presents last year.  I haven't used it as much as I should so am rectifying that now!

Here are some photos I took today.  I took them inside with flash, but to eliminate the glare, I wrapped the flash in white tissue paper....I like the effect! 

The only thing with the Macro lens is it shows up every spec of dust and every stray hair that I can't see with the naked eye!

Fiona, Little Fee Ante by Fairyland - Yosd sized, 27cm resin ball jointed



Sunny Song,  Bong Sun Hwa by Elfdoll - 14cm resin ball jointed

Sunny Song is very hard to photograph as she is so tiny and her eyes are very small.  She wears 4mm or 6mm eyes and still you can only see a small part of the iris.

The three Monnaemi Sisters, back row left Minx and right, Twig, both Min del Re sculpts by Elfdoll, but made in different years. Minx has a custom faceup by Raven, Twig is default.  Front row, Sunny Song.  All three girls are 14cm tall with very skinny bodies!



Samantha, Hana Angel by Elfdoll - 20cm resin, ball jointed
For these photos of Samantha, I used ordinary bubblewrap for the background, I love the effect, the 'bubbles' make great 'bokeh' as they are hit by the difused flash.

Finally for today, I took these three photos of Bailey.  I wanted close-ups without the flash making her eyes look flat, plus I wanted to show how sweet she is in her pink fleecey hat and scarf by Dee!

Bailey, 1971 wide faced brunette Sasha wigged with Prince Gregor wig



 




15 comments:

  1. Well done - you've got some pretty good results, especially of Bailey's eyes. I avoid using flash when I photograph the dolls (if possible), on the camera I borrow (a Nikon DSLR) I put ISO to 800 for indoor shots and keep to manual settings without flash. I don't have a macro lens (on my wishlist, ahead of any dolls, especially now I have my special new sewing machine), so sometimes my own compact Nikon is better for close shots than the borrowed DSLR.

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    1. Thanks Anna! You are very technically inclined, I haven't a clue what ISO I had on my camera when I took these...I just set to manual focus and lived in hope. Perhaps it really is time to read a manual?!!!
      Ooooh you have a new sewing machine? What one did you get? I love sewing machines too!!!

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    2. I got a Brother Innovis-600 (NV 600) with 429 stitches (including 3 alphabets) and the capacity to programme my own simple stitches (haven't tried that yet). I plan to blog about it soon.

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  2. lovely pics Sharon....ive got a canon 450D , tried taking indoor photos yesterday and it was a disaster, blurred with no flash, ok ish on a cloudy setting but im intrigued at this tissue paper over the flash, do you just wait for the flash to pop up then wrap a layer of tissue round ?....also im liking the bubble wrap....I may have to steal that idea (lol) xxxxx

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    1. Thanks very much Sarah! Glad you liked them. I often get blurring if I'm just standing taking a photo but with these, I steadied my elbows on my sewing table, so I was quite steady....I was surprised that they came out quite unblurred! As for the tissue paper, I just pressed the shutter down half way, the flash popped up and I put just one layer of white tissue paper around the flash, then took the photos in the normal way! The bubblewrap did work quite well but today I didn't have a big piece with the small bubbles so tried the one with the big bubbles...that didn't work, the bubbles were so obvious, so small works best. I think putting something white or pale behind the bubblewrap works well too. And naturally you are more than welcome to 'steal' the idea, I hope that it works well for you!

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  3. I love seeing all these dolls close up, the new camera is working a treat and a macro lens sounds very technical It took me three goes to spell it correctly!!!
    I may have to ask Paul if he can get one of those for his camera , I'm still a point and click person, if I have to go all high tech I'd never get the stories posted on the blog!! If I win the lottery I'll hire a photographer to take the photo's then probably use mine!!! lol
    Love the photo's of Bailey her skin tone looks so good and nice detail in her eyes , the pink really suits her.

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    1. Thanks on the photos Dee, glad you liked them. I did take some more but forgot all about them! The Macro lens is great but it is taking me a bit of getting used to, however, it does show up dust and stuff as you can see.....bit of a nuisance as I definitely couldn't see it with my glasses on!!!
      No, you wouldn't hire a photographer because you'd miss the fun of photographing your cute dolls for your super stories!!!

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  4. Fab photos of the girls S....now all we need now is some close up of your DOGS :) I love seeing them....

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    1. Thanks Ronny. I promise to take some photos of the dogs very soon!

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  5. Like your pics :)
    You can also have kind of a bubblewrapping background if using a teleobjective (fe 85mm for portaits)
    The prob is always. the cam shows ALL. It's so timeconsuming to watch every single detail... hair, spots, dust...

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    1. Thanks very much Digne! I agree, the lens just shows up everything. I was sure that there were no hairs over their faces....until I saw the photos!!!! And dust, I really need to take that into consideration next time!!!

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  6. These are lovely! I like the bubble wrap background for Samantha; it's a lovely effect! :)

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    1. Thanks so much Lynn! Glad you liked the effect, I was surprised at how it came out....I originally only used it to cover up the untidy background!!!

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  7. Hairs and dust! Well that's obviously NOT the camera for me as I do very well with those on my small pocket sized digital camera as it is!
    (Mind you I have tried some of these cameras and they are far too heavy for my now deformed hands to hold and use.)

    Love the bubble wrap background idea! I always try to pay particular attention to the backgrounds as it so often makes the doll's photo.

    I too enjoy taking my own photos although they will never be as good as a professional photograher but love the thrill of seeing how some turn out much better than I thought that they would.

    Thanks for this super and informative post.

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  8. Yes the bigger cameras are heavier, although thankfully I do not have a problem with my hands, but can imagine that it would be a challenge if I did. This camera weighs heavier than my last one too. The Macro lens is really quite heavy too, compared to the regular lens.
    I know what you mean about the backgrounds. So many times I've got dogs in my backgrounds and of course I don't notice until I've put everything away and am uploading to my laptop. I did a big bunch of dolly photos once only to find that I'd not noticed the green hosepipe snaking its way across the background.....it was a shame because the photos themselves were quite good!! If I were able to use Photoshop I might have been able to remove the hose but for the life of me I don't know how to do it!!!
    I enjoy taking my own photos too although sometimes I get frustrated when something doesn't show up as good as I'd like it to, but I guess we have to take the rough with the smooth!
    I'm glad you found the post interesting Kendal! Thank you!

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