Shot with Canon 5D, 100mm f/2.8 Macro, MR-14EX flash
@ 100mm, f/2.8, ISO 50, 1/200s

This photo came about late one night when nobody else was awake. I decided to experiment with some water photos that I’d been considering for quite some time. Of course, I had recently purchased Canon’s MR-14EX Macro Ring Lite and 100mm f/2.8 Macro lens, so I was itching to play with those anyways. I wanted to get really close to the water droplets in order to have a very shallow depth of field.

The pattern seen in the water droplets and the colors in the background (which is very out of focus) are the result of a red plaid apron which I draped over the opposing sink basin. This photo was a little bit tricky because I was hand-holding the camera and rather than shooting the flash from the lens mount I decided to hold it to camera left firing perpendicular to the direction the lens was pointing. To make the lighting a little more dynamic I also adjusted the flash ratio (the MR-14EX has two flashes which you can adjust the flash ratios for) – though I don’t recall the exact ratio it was 1:2 or less.

All edits were done in Adobe RAW. In Adobe RAW I left the white balance set to “as shot”, set exposure to +1.50, shadows to 25, brightness to +50, contrast to +100, and saturation to +10. I cropped to remove some extra space on the bottom and sides but left it centered as I had originally framed it.

Shot with Canon 5D, 300mm f/4L IS
@ 300mm, f/4, ISO 3200, 1/25s, IS Mode 1

I took this with my new Canon EF 300mm f4 L IS (image stabilization) lens hand-held and with available light only. All I can say is… this lens rocks and the IS is amazingly effective. I wouldn’t normally get a sharp image at 1/25 even with a very light lens like my 50mm f/1.4. It’s a bit cramped shooting a 300mm indoors, but I was able to get a couple of shots I’m happy with just messing around for 10 minutes while Isabella was playing — and that’s no easy task as much as she moves around when tracking with a 300mm lens!

While I was shooting I had my Canon 5D’s picture style set to Monochrome so preview images would look similar to my desired final results. All edits were done in Adobe RAW except for some very minor touch-up (a couple of crumbs around her mouth). In Adobe RAW I changed the color temperature to 2500, tint to +10, exposure to +1.35, shadows to +20, brightness to default, contrast to +58, and saturation to -95. I did not crop at all.