Jan/Feb Challenge - Morning Coffee/Night Shot

[Dbl]

Steve and I tossed it back and forth and have decide to go ahead with an every other month challenge. For now the guidelines will remain the same as previous. Here is a poll which we will keep up until Sunday Jan 11th at 10:00pm. This challenge will be slightly smaller in time frame but should be no problem with the extended challenge time frame. As always take a few minutes to review the guidelines if you haven't participated. Challenge Guidelines Here

[The_Duckslayer]

If morning people wins we may see the "other" side of some folks round here. ;-) Take care and N Joy the Hunt././Jimbo

[eyeguy 54]

uh oh! What we gonna do now?

[Dbl]

That is funny!!!!!!! Here is what we will do...both subjects will be included in the challenge. So you can choose to use "Morning Coffee" or use "Night Shots" or both if you want. The challenge is for a longer period of time so if you want to post both shots from each challenge feel free to do so.

So to review you can enter a Night shot or a Morning coffee shot or you can enter both a Night Shot and a Morning Coffee shot, but not two Morning coffee shots or two Night Shots. Clear as mud?

So start shooting, you have until the end of February for this challenge. Remember to please review the guidelines of the challenge posted above. Shot must be taken during Jan/Feb of 2009! Start posting your shots in this thread! Have fun as always and try something that will stretch your abilities somewhat!

[Dbl]

OK I will be the first to go this month. I am posting the coffee portion of the challenge. I've had this in mind since I did some water drop shots a year or two ago.

Shot during the day on my kitchen table. I draped a black fleece coat over a chair and out on to the table. I set the cup of coffee on top of the coat. This gave me the dark background. I set up an Alien Bee 800 strobe on a stand and about 1/8 power and the camera on manual ISO 250, 1/250s, f8 with a 70-200/2.8.

I didn't want to use a studio strobe but left one of my stands and flash chord on location the other day and need to retrieve it. The reason I wanted a flash over a strobe is the light duration (length of time the flash fires) with a strobe gets shorter with higher power. With a flash it is the opposite, lower power=faster flash duration. Faster flash duration means better job stopping the motion. So the best chance of stopping motion with a strobe is at full power, not something I wanted to do. The best chance of stopping motion with a flash is at its lowest power.

I used cream to start with as the drop, but it was so thick it didn't give me a good splash. I switched to milk and that helped somewhat.

So here is my "Morning Coffee" with a touch of cream.

[Jim Almquist]

Dan that is a really cool shot. When I look at it I see a little hand holding earth with a tsunami occurring. Sort off a rough start to someone's morning

[Deitz Dittrich]

Thats really cool dan... Reminds me of one of my fave T.V. shows called Time Warp, its on Discovery Chan.. its all about super slo motion stuff, they did an entire show of slow motion water droplets.. was the coolest thing ever!!!!!!!!!

[mrfish1991]

DD i agree that Time Warp is an awsome show...but myth busters is still better

awsome shot by the way...i love how there is a little bit of coffee in the milk splash

[Dbl]

Thanks guys for the comments! DD Time Warp is one of my favorites as well! They do photograph the coolest things!

[eyeguy 54]

Sweet. I like how the drop makes what looks to be a perfect sphere. A little hand holding the earth with a tsunami happening? Very cool thought! We may need to stare at flames together some time.

[dockothebay]

Neat shot Dan -

[DonBo]

Very cool, nice start!

[Paul]

Dan, Nice Fiestaware coffee cup. I would recognize that stuff anywere. My wife has filled our cupboards, drawers, shelfs and any other place I don't have pictures hanging with Fiestaware.

Oh BTW, cool pic.

[Dbl]

Thanks everyone for the comments! This was a fun little project that wasted an hour or so. The one thing that didn't show up was the steam from the coffee. It is visible in the original but by the time it got uploaded to a server and posted here it was mostly gone.

[dockothebay]

I saw the steam - I thought my monitor was smudged

[MN Shutterbug]

I see the steam too, even on my laptop. That is quite the photo.

[Dbl]

Thanks again for the comments folks, very kind. I hope it broke the ice so to speak, like to get some more folks posting some shots here! X this was a cake walk compared to the shoot I had to pull off this afternoon

[WifeKidsandDog]

Love this shot, could be an ad for Fiesta, although I'm pretty sure it's vintage Fiesta with the rounded handle.

Very well done.

Cheryl

[Jim Almquist]

Cheryl the handle needs to be a perfect circle then it would be pre 1969. That style of handle is post 1986 according to the wife's Fiesta book. We have our summer and winter plates depending on the color-bright for summer and dark for winter. A friend of ours always brings us pieces she finds at sales and gave us the collectors book. I always think its funny when people notice that its Fiesta.

[Dbl]

Thank you Cheryl. Jim is right about the age though, I am fairly certain it is no more than 10 years old. I say fairly certain because that is like asking my wife to identify how old my shotguns, depth finders, boat, fishing rods....etc. are Thanks

[WifeKidsandDog]

Yes, I shouldn't be talking at 3 a.m. as the handle isn't the circle. I had a vintage white cup which was my favorite coffee cup until Paris knocked it over.

I used to collect and still have a large stack of vintage Harlequin, which was the poor man's Fiesta. It was sold in Woolworth's in mostly the same colors but had angular finials.

This is an old photo, so isn't for the challenge.

[hondarider550]

That is a fantastic shot Dan... How many drops did it take to get the shot just right?...

Very well done...

[Birdsong]

That is really creative, and fun to look at. Wow!

[Paul]

Off the subject a little bit, but for someone looking for a great used fiesta collection, on the north shore, just south of silver bay there is a flea market type shop full of fiestaware. I may have to post a shot of this place elsewere in the forum.

[Dbl]

I am getting my shots out of the way fast this challenge period. Come on folks, lets see some shots! This was shot the other night in San Francisco. I am posting it a bit larger than our normal 800 pixels wide. I have a 24" wide screen monitor and it pops nicely on that but when downsized to fit here it loses a lot of detail!

50D, ISO 100, f7.1, 20 second exposure.