Lensbaby

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]Here's a little demo video using all the new creative aps, plus the soft focus aps, plus some of my personal custom aps.
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Here's all the aps I used, plus the "studio" set-up overview...(Reb Xti, DG, net lights, old blanket, Alien Bee rim modeling light...) just something to think about as the holiday lights season approaches :)

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[url=http://www.amazon.com/Practical-HDRI-2nd-Dynamic-Photoshop/dp/1933952636/ref=dp_ob_title_bk]Check out my new book! (2nd Edition now Available!)[/url]

Hi Jack

Sorry to PM you 'out of the blue' but I've just bought my first Lensbaby Composer and had posted a question on the forum yesterday, asking advice about the best technique to obtain the most clearly defined custom shaped highlights using custom apertures.

Having seen your "What the Duck" video :-) I figured you were the sort of expert whose advice I would value!

Before I waste a lot of time and effort reinventing the wheel shaped aperture, I hope I won't offend if I ask your thoughts regarding the "How do you do that" post entitled "Cutting a creative aperture - go large or keep it small.

With thanks - and season's greetings of course...

Tim Ansell
(In sunny Dubai)

Ooops!! I posted a public reply instead of PMing you.

Apologies to all!

That'll teach me to learn the layout of the 'buttons' on a forum I'm new to.

Ah well - season's greetings to everyone then...... :-)

Hi Tim! Thanks for the feedback and the public PM ;)

Here's some advice and tips I've learned along the way with creative aps:

--You need good subject/ground separation for crisply defined shapes. As you can see in my example, most of the specular highlights are uniform in size, due to the net lighting being parallel to the focal plane. If I were to make a bigger "light sweep" with the duck in the midground, you'd see big f/g specular shapes, getting smaller and more point-light like at focal distance, then increasing in size and getting more circular as the background ramp reached vertical and maximum distance.

--With Assymetical Creative Aps, pay attention to the orientation of the disk and note that depending on focal distance, f/g or b/g specular highlights may be inverted. Chimp, and adjust as necessary!

--Look at the total cut-out section versus disk area to determine if an ap is a "small aperture" or "wide aperture." You can also set a baseline exposure for your scene with your f/8 round ap and see how your creative aps change your metered manual reading to establish a creative ap's approximate f/stop rating.

--Depth of field increases and shutter speed must be slowed for creative aps that only let a small percentage of light pass through the total disk area, obviously.

Hope this helps. Have fun experimenting and share your results!

Jack

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Check out my new book! (2nd Edition now Available!)