DD asked for a new, large pan for Christmas and Santa delivered: A stainless 14" mega saute pan that could probably contain enough paella for 10 hungry people. And tonight, she put it to use for the first time with some very nice almond crusted, center cut pork chops (apologies to our vegetarian friends).
This substantial piece of culinary equipment won't fit in the dishwasher and actually won't even fit all the way into our big sink--one of "gourmet" deals with a big, deep sink on one side, smaller and shallower on the other. In passing, DD noted that this baby would probably create a pretty sweet specular highlight. Of course that got me to thinking. And right she was, of course:
28mm, 1/60th of a second, f/11, ISO 200, key light (SB-800) set to iTTL mode and shot through a mini softbox and large diffusion panel from above.
It took a while to get the glowing specular like this. Here's what it looked like while initially getting the focus worked out with a bare flash to camera left, and halogen stove lights from above:
Yuck. First problem I had was that the autofocus locked on to the reflection of the handle in the lid rather than the lid or handle itself. Solution to that little issue was to manual focus. Yes friends, I'm finding that sometimes the autofocus just doesn't get the job done. At least on my camera with a measly 5 focus points. But don't get me started on why I want a fancy schmancy new camera.
Then I had to figure out how to create an apparently large, diffuse light source. My initial thought was to use the diffusion panel which is the core of my 5-in-1 reflector kit--just a big round ring with white translucent fabric. These shots were decent but left a pretty small, sharp, cross-shaped highlight that wasn't quite as creamy as I had hoped. The problem was that the ventilation hood kept me from moving the flash farther back from the diffusion panel. Moving the flash back from the panel will typically soften the light quite nicely.
Next I tried using the white reflector instead of the diffusion panel and bounced the light off of the reflector and onto the pan. Problem there was that the pan then reflected all of the wrinkles in the reflector. Not flattering for the pan.
I then tried shooting through my mini (4x8 inch) softbox and that through the diffusion panel. And that's our final shot. We still see a bit of a cross shape so this isn't the perfectly creamy specular but, on the other hand, it is subtle enough that it adds a touch of interest. I think. What's your take?
wow. what a transformation from the before to the after. it really highlights what the lighting and other stuff i don't understand ;-) does! and that's shot on top of your range? now that you mention it, i do see the bit of cross shape - and i do like it.
Posted by: r-dean | January 30, 2009 at 03:51 AM