Show your most difficult shot. - DPChallenge Forums

Canon EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS

08/14/2004 09:22:28 AM · #1

Thought this would be fun. Looking back at my entries, I have a favorite just because of the problems I had to overcome to get the picture.
If you could post your shot and give some information about what problems you had and how you overcame them, someone else might learn from it.
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Mine is

I wanted to get the reflections in the glasses. I used a diffusion box to keep all the other light away from the glass and give a nice even lighting to the black coat and gloves while still keeping the texture. Lights were placed on both sides, one closer and low, the other high and a little futher away. I ended up using safety pins to pin the pictures at the proper place in the box and then I cloned them out. The pictures were an ad I scanned and cleaned up(took out the print), then printed out. Not so involved as some other people's pictures, but it was one that I envisioned before I took it and it turned out fairly ok.
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SO, go get those pictures you're proud of and let us know how you did it.

Konador

Canon EOS-500D Rebel T1i

08/14/2004 09:30:31 AM · #2

This was one of my hardest. It's difficult to get the lighting right cos any change in angle or distance changed the shapes of the shadows, which I wanted to be symmetrical. Also, 2 shadows in exact opposite directions is hard cos each light source washes out the other shadow. Here is how I did it:

I taped paper on my lamp to so that only half the book was lit, then I clipped a flashlight onto my zipper so that I could kneel taking the photo and light the other heart at the same time, controling the direction of the flashlight with some dodgy looking hip movements. Quite a clumsy setup but I think it worked pretty well :)

This was also a difficult one. I wrote a 'How'd They Do That' tutorial for it which you can read here: //www.dpchallenge.com/how.php?HOW_ID=31

The lighting on this one was also quite complicated, and it was the first time I used anything other than just a lamp. to get the outline of the bottle and glass, and nothing else, I put a very big sheet of card to the right, and shone a lamp onto that. This reflected on the bottle and glass. I then used a match and waved it in front of the label on the bottle to give it a nice red glow.

I wanted to give the illusion of drowning my camera, without actually getting it wet, cos I didnt want to break it. I placed it on a table, and put a big jug of water in front of it. I then plunged my hand into the water and pulled out out really quick to create the streams of bubbles. It took a lot of attempts to get the timing right and to make it look like the camera was inside, not just behind :)

I have many other shots which were big learning experiences for me, and that were really hard to do. I can't really list them all here, but if you want to know how any of them were done, just ask :)

Message edited by author 2004-08-14 09:37:25.

aussie

Canon EF 90-300mm f/4.5-5.6 USM

08/14/2004 09:43:03 AM · #3

I found this particular shot difficult to shoot, because of the fact that it was taken in my shower. I couldn't use a tripod as the area I wanted to capture didn't allow for the room. The reflection was from the outside window and the colours are from the folage outside. I wanted it all to come between the lines of the tiles. Many shots were taken untill I was satisfied with this result.

graphicfunk

Canon EOS-20D

Canon EF 28-135mm f/3.5-5.6 IS USM

08/14/2004 09:44:42 AM · #4

You certainly did a very good here in finding solutions. I have done so many complicated shots that I am at a current loss as to the worst. I will give this a thought. However, your end result is very satisfying. This game of problem solving I find most fun and with so many things to worry about, it sometimes raises the anxiety level. Congratulations on this very nice effort.

BooZon

Canon EOS-20D

Canon EF 17-40mm f/4.0L USM

08/14/2004 09:53:00 AM · #5

My most difficult shot was my mother-in-law. I can't show you because it was difficult but very accurate... boom ;)

Jacko

Canon EOS-20D

Canon EF 17-40mm f/4.0L USM

08/14/2004 09:58:10 AM · #6

My most difficult shot has to be this one; my first of many green ribbons:

I had to position all the shards of miror just right.

Tranquil

Sigma 105mm f/2.8 EX DG Macro for Canon

08/14/2004 10:11:17 AM · #7

Howdy!

This would have to be the most diffucult set-up for a shot of mine. It was my first real attempt at studio photography and I had no idea what I was doing. I had a concept, but no idea how to accomplish it. I needed to make it seem as though there was still a lot of work to be done so I did my best to do this using trial and error with AF on my Olympus (the manual focus is way too hard to use). The second problem I encountered was trying to fit a lot of the scantron sheet in the frame. I came out with many flat and boring images where there was no depth. Lastly, the pencil kept on getting horribly out of focus. I was my own hand model and I didn't have a tripod so I had to manage to model and photograph at the same time keeping everything else in minds. All in all, it came out as a good shot and I am expecting studio photography to be a lot easier with my easily manually focused rebel and my new Manfrotto tripod (teehee!)

Lee

kirbic

Canon EOS R5

Canon RF 24-70mm f/2.8 L IS

08/14/2004 10:51:09 AM · #8

This shot...

...was prolly my most difficult set-up. Unfortunately it's performance was lackluster, mainly because I don't think most folks realized the camera in the pic actually took the pic, but also because of some rather visible spot editing. Nonetheless, it was a fun set-up, involving two mirrors, one directly in front of the camera and at an angle, the other the (the round-framed one you see in the photo) pointed back at the camera from the upper right. The first mirror needed to be "first surface", that is, metallized on the front, not the back. A second-surface mirror placed at an angle will always have a second, slightly offset "ghost" image, something I needed to avoid.
The double-reflection eliminated the image reversal, so in an ideal world, little editing would have been required. In fact, time pressure and the constraints of the mirrors available resulted in more editing than I wanted, but I still thought the image came out OK.

Sigma 50-500mm f/4.0-6.3 EX APO RF HSM for Canon

08/14/2004 12:05:16 PM · #9

Thanks for everyone posting here.
It's so wonderful how everyone goes to so much effort for their shots.
Any more?

gusto

Canon EOS-7D

08/14/2004 12:07:37 PM · #10

this was one of my most difficult shots for a couple reasons... number 1 was that the fly was so small i had difficulty even focusing on him ... number two is that he was so fast that in the time it took to snap the shot he could fly from the face of the leaf circle about and then return back to the leaf and land all in 250th of a second... took me about 20 or so shots in order to capture this one.

Another one is shown below displaying the guages of my Honda 600RR Track Bike, taken in total darkness and the only lighting provided was from the guages themselve

Canon EF 17-40mm f/4.0L USM

08/14/2004 12:11:51 PM · #11

this one, it was really hard to get part of the pole to stay still while blurring the rest.

soup

Canon EOS-30D

08/14/2004 12:14:16 PM · #12

this one wasn't easy - for a couple of reasons.
1) i knew i had over filled the zippo, and that it would explode like this only a couple times. so test shots were not an option. i had to guess at the exposure.

2) i hoped that the flint from the 2nd lighter would show up, and leave the trails as they did.

a lucky one i guess, that didn't fair so well.

this one took a ton of takes to get something i liked. i had a lack of light so the shutter speed was less than i had hoped. at the time i didnt have a polarizer so minimizing the reflections on the glass was tricky. it was also outside in about 30deg weather and my fingers were getting cold, and numb ;}

jab119

08/14/2004 12:14:45 PM · #13

This was my most difficult shot.

I had bought 8 glasses at the dollar store.

the set up was a little hard since I had to get the camera angle correct according to the position I was going to shoot the glass from with my bb gun. This was limited due to the short length of my remote shutter release. I had limited light but I needed a fast shutter speed to capture the glass breaking and catch the broken pieces in the air.

I had to shoot the gun and fire the camera at the same time. Since I was so close to the glass most of the shots went through the glass with out breaking it. The glass was glued down to keep the stem stationary during the break. I had 1 glass left over after this little project.

James

08/14/2004 12:16:08 PM · #14

hsteg and gusto. Did you envision the results first? How did you finally solve whatever problems you had. Well, the fly would be patience, but what about the odometer and rod&reel?

08/14/2004 12:27:20 PM · #15

Originally posted by pcody:

hsteg and gusto. Did you envision the results first? How did you finally solve whatever problems you had. Well, the fly would be patience, but what about the odometer and rod&reel?

i did envision it, so i kinda knew what i was going for, and i knew itd have to be black and white.it took about an hour or so and 2 other people helping me hold black paper to block stray light on my background. i ended up sticking the rod in a drawer, so the rod part didnt move. i then started to reel swiftly and smoothly. once i figured out how to not get the rod to move, it took about 3 or 4 shots reeling it. hope that helps.

08/14/2004 12:33:37 PM · #16

I was thinking you were at the other end pulling the line with the reel unlocked. Good to know how you did it. Thanks.

Sigma 50-500mm f/4.0-6.3 EX APO RF HSM for Canon

08/14/2004 12:43:16 PM · #17

Originally posted by pcody:

I was thinking you were at the other end pulling the line with the reel unlocked. Good to know how you did it. Thanks.

i tried that, but it didnt work.

gusto

Canon EOS-7D

08/14/2004 12:54:13 PM · #18

My goal in regards to the fly was to simply get an in focus shot of the fly on the leaf, it being in flight was an added bonus, each time I snapped off a shot he would take off as a result of the mirror noise then land back on the leaf... the guages was just a matter of playing with exposure until I got it the way I wanted it to appear...

Olympus 40-150mm f/2.8 PRO M.Zuiko

08/14/2004 12:56:13 PM · #19

ya shoulda found a dead one and then just dropped him onto the leaf. take a picture as he fell to the leaf.

Brad

Olympus OM-D E-M1

08/14/2004 01:04:16 PM · #20

Wish this had been an advanced editing challenge
so I could have removed the white specks:

Difficult?
With a live Black Widow?
YOU BET!

Konador

Canon EOS-500D Rebel T1i

Canon EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS

08/14/2004 01:05:34 PM · #21

Eugh, that's gross. Glad they don't live in England!

sher

Tamron AF 28-300mm f/3.5-6.3 XR Di LD Aspherical IF for Canon

08/14/2004 01:06:39 PM · #22

for post-processing, my most difficult would be this one

for setup and shooting, this one

TooCool