Beyond Time's Photo Randoms

My Volks USA Feb Collection stuff arrived on Saturday, and Makoto grabbed a shirt meant for Lady Oscar.

Now she's walking around saying that becuase of the shelter-in-place she never has to wear pants again. I should tell her to stop, I really should... And maybe someday I will.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited June 1, 2020 by BeyondTime

3 hours ago, BeyondTime said:

Now she's walking around saying that becuase of the shelter-in-place she never has to wear pants again.

Nooooo you’re making me want a Makoto

11 minutes ago, Subaru said:

Nooooo you’re making me want a Makoto

<enabling> She's relatively inexpensive! </enabling>

22 hours ago, BeyondTime said:

 

Of course Ami made the masks after consulting relevant medical information from the CDC. To me they look suspiciously like the ones sold by Nine9Style, but who am I to doubt the word of Sailor Mercury.

 

 

 

 

In all seriousness though, the photos here are absolutely gorgeous and originally I wasn't too interested in Mercury's sculpt but now I'm double thinking that for further down the line lol 

5 hours ago, Subaru said:

Nooooo you’re making me want a Makoto

You have good taste.

I think she's is a terribly underrated doll. Her sculpt is cute, and her face-up is a bit mischievous. She looks great in boyish outfits, and some girl stuff, but true to form - loli-clothing really doesn't look good on her.

 

5 hours ago, Conuresans said:

In all seriousness though, the photos here are absolutely gorgeous and originally I wasn't too interested in Mercury's sculpt but now I'm double thinking that for further down the line lol 

I'll take some closeups. Fortunately, she's not too hard to find for a good price.

Edited June 2, 2020 by BeyondTime

1 hour ago, Subaru said:

Nooooo you’re making me want a Makoto

I've seen @Silverwing's Makoto in person.  She's awesome.  I kind of want one, too.  

Here is the setup I was using. I convert my kitchen and dining room to a photo studio on the weekends. I'm fortunate I'm not married or I'd probably need to see about having a dining room table surgically removed from my skull. XD

Up front I am sure a more skilled photographer could do a lot more with what I have, but I'm having fun with it.

All three of the lights are Dracast LED500 light panels. Not too expensive, and overall they are pretty decent for the money. You can get three of them with light stands, barn doors, and a hard case, for the price of a single 1000 watt Fresnel spot. There are better lights, but these are fine for me. They can run off of V-mount batteries if needed.

I'm using various types of diffusion because I don't have softboxes for all of them yet, and the one I do have I don't really like. It's made for a 12 x 12 panel, and although B&H sells it as compatible with these lights the fit is so so.

For this setup I use a hand held light meter and a remote shutter trigger both of which are sitting on the table to the left of Makoto. An incident meter is absolutely the best way to meter a scene, and you'll get the same results with an inexpensive one as you will with a fancy one as long as you don't need to trigger strobes to get your reading.

The lights on the side are being used as rim lights just to add highlights to her hair, and you can't see it but they have modifiers - barn doors in this case - to prevent light from spilling onto things I don't want them to light.

Since I'm using my reflector for diffusion at the moment I took the silver reflective sleeve that fits over it, and propped it up in front of her to add light to her eyes.

The camera is tethered to the computer so I can see the images full sized in the Nikon RAW format in Adobe Lightroom as I take them, and that lets me get a good idea of how things look. The preview on the back of a DSLR is basically a processed jpeg file, and is not an accurate reflection of the RAW file. Using things like rim lights really requires you to know what you are getting from the rim light before you light the scene with the key light, so that preview is useless. It's a lot easier to see if her eyes are in focus on a laptop too.

Lastly, the Speedlight sitting to her right is attached to a remote slave and I hand hold it above her when I trip the shutter in order to add light to the backdrop, which helps enhance the separation between the subject and the background.

A backdrop and reflector can be gotten pretty cheaply. I think the backdrop I have here was about $90, the reflector was about $60. Both fold down to the about a third the size when you want stow them away, and you could slide both of them under a bed without any trouble.

There is a rule that you photograph light subjects on a dark background and dark subjects on a light background, but you can do some neat things in portraiture by breaking that rule. You can do a lot with a single backdrop, but I do want one that looks more like a stage backdrop for all my little idols.

Having extra lights is a luxury, and you can do a lot of dramatic stuff with just a single light.

I guess I did forget the camera and tripod. The camera is a Nikon D800, and it's got a Nikon 85mm f1.4 lens attached to it. The tripod is a carbon fiber Manfrotto that I bought for a trip to Europe, and it should last me a lifetime. The head on it is an RRS BH-55 LR, which cost more than the tripod. I hauled that tripod all over Europe, and the lightweight nature of it is great, but for indoor stuff you could do just as well with a less expensive heavy tripod. I have much older Manfrotto which must weight close to 30 pounds and is inappropriate for travel. It would be perfectly fine for this. I think I bought it about 25 years ago, and it's still in great shape.

 

Edited June 1, 2020 by BeyondTime

 

 

 

Edited June 8, 2020 by BeyondTime

 

Edited June 8, 2020 by BeyondTime

Not happy with the lighting here, I kind of waited till it was late and was too tired to do a good job with the setup. Past due for some Jeanne pics though. She really is quite stunning, but I'm afraid I don't have much clothing for L bust girls.

 

 

Edit: Just realized her wig is a bit lopsided too.

Edited June 10, 2020 by BeyondTime

 

Just a note about this outfit. She's been wearing it since April 26th when I took the photos. No body stocking and no stains in spite of a week of very hot and humid days we had recently.

Edited June 10, 2020 by BeyondTime

On 6/8/2020 at 3:46 AM, BeyondTime said:

 

I really really like this picture.

1 hour ago, lardroom said:

I really really like this picture.

I used a cheap strand of Fairy Lights that I strung up in the front of the backdrop on a lightstand with a boom arm attached, and then I used a fast lens with a wide open aperture.

Sadly the lights are oblong, so instead of globes I got footballs.

Edited June 10, 2020 by BeyondTime

Ahhh, Jeanne looks great!  I love her outfit, it's very nicely done and fits her well too.   

 

 

Billy

1 minute ago, baldylox said:

Ahhh, Jeanne looks great!  I love her outfit, it's very nicely done and fits her well too. 

It's an SD16 outfit from a fall clothing release a few years back. It works pretty well on DD, but the collar is pretty loose.

23 hours ago, BeyondTime said:

Not happy with the lighting here, I kind of waited till it was late and was too tired to do a good job with the setup. Past due for some Jeanne pics though. She really is quite stunning, but I'm afraid I don't have much clothing for L bust girls.

 

 

Edit: Just realized her wig is a bit lopsided too.

This outfit is beautiful!! Is it from volks?

4 hours ago, Pit said:

This outfit is beautiful!! Is it from volks?

Yes it's the Autumn Classical / Café Mocha outfit from the October 2016 Collection.

Here it is on an SD16, but the hat and cape aren't included.

 

Edited June 11, 2020 by BeyondTime

4 hours ago, BeyondTime said:

Yes it's the Autumn Classical / Café Mocha outfit from the October 2016 Collection.

Here is is on an SD16, but the hat and cape aren't included.

 

 I only found the cape and some other autumn outfits. No cafe mocha though. Neither in US nor japan. Maybe in the future volks will do a re-release. I really hope so. 

27 minutes ago, Pit said:

 I only found the cape and some other autumn outfits. No cafe mocha though. Neither in US nor japan. Maybe in the future volks will do a re-release. I really hope so. 

You could try camping Mandrake or posting a WTB here or at Den of Angels. 

In stock at Mandarake:

https://order.mandarake.co.jp/order/detailPage/item?itemCode=1112162778&categoryCode=020114&lang=en

I tried looking at mandarake as "autumn classical dollfie dream" but zero results so i gave up too soon haha. Never thought about the "volks" word. As always, thank you both @cfx @BeyondTime for your concern and help.

Edited June 11, 2020 by Pit

On 6/1/2020 at 4:10 PM, BeyondTime said:

The preview on the back of a DSLR is basically a processed jpeg file, and is not an accurate reflection of the RAW file.

Not true! It's not an accurate reflection of Adobe Camera RAW processing, which is of course because Adobe's algorithms aren't in the camera. It's an accurate reflection of Nikon RAW processing, which is what you get when you use Nikon Capture. For example, this set of variations of a single photo of Rin using straight Nikon Capture RAW conversion with just varying the Active D-Lighting option. Note that the second panel is what the JPEG processing looks like in terms of colour & shadow. For reference, I dug up the photo and did a straight conversion of the NEF using Adobe Camera RAW. Frankly it's ugly and it's a good example of why I don't bother using ACR. It takes too much work to get a decent photo. Nikon's algorithms are designed for their hardware; ACR just produces a very generic, flat rendering of the data, leaving it up to you to figure out how to bring out the camera's colour and contrast capabilities.

Nikon cameras let you set a bunch of image parameters like contrast, saturation, Active D-Lighting, etc which are applied to the JPEG and recorded in the NEF, but ignored by ACR. Nikon Capture lets you control the exact same parameters during RAW conversion in the app. If you find a balance you like (I often like to use the Portrait picture control which is subdued, and then increase saturation and contrast) you can set those same settings in the camera and automatically get the same results. You can also export the picture control (and make custom ones) and load those into the camera.

Nikon also improves the algorithms with newer cameras, and lets you use them in Nikon Capture (if you choose to use them it's no longer "camera compatible" and you can't load those settings into the camera). Like the D810 introduced Clarity in addition to Sharpness. The Z series/2019 generation expanded that into Sharpening, Mid-range sharpening, and Clarity. These are native controls on the latest DSLRs and Z series, and lets me manipulate my Z 6 and D810 RAWs using the same controls. The improvements over time can be really stunning, NEF files from the ancient D2H (circa 2003) look wonderful when output via Nikon Capture.

All this functionality is lost if you don't use Nikon Capture (ｰｰ') Losing out on Active D-Lighting is a really big deal, it reduces the exposure to maximize dynamic range for post processing.

Also Makoto is really pretty, I fell in love with her when I saw owners' DDs at the Kyoto Dolpa in 2015,

7 hours ago, foo said:

Not true! It's not an accurate reflection of Adobe Camera RAW processing, which is of course because Adobe's algorithms aren't in the camera. It's an accurate reflection of Nikon RAW processing, which is what you get when you use Nikon Capture.

I think I may not have expressed something clearly.

Your RAW file is a record of everything your camera sensor recorded from the moment the shutter opens to the moment it closes. There are some exceptions to that, like if the camera is set to use long exposure noise reduction your RAW file may get permanently changed by that process at the time the image is exposed.

The preview of the image that we see on the LCD is a processed image that has been corrected by the camera's built in darkroom. It's the same exact image we get if we tell the camera to save jpeg files and not RAW. That's what I mean by saying that preview is basically a processed jpeg file.

When I say it's not an accurate reflection of the RAW file, what I mean is your RAW file could be 2 stops underexposed and the preview on the LCD will show a well exposed image, because the camera’s built in darkroom has adjusted it +2 stops before displaying it on the preview.

If I shoot tethered with Lightroom or Nikon's Camera Control Pro 2, what I see on my computer is my unprocessed RAW file, and if I am two stops underexposed that will be very apparent.

If you don't shoot tethered your only way to confirm exposure in camera is the histogram, or by downloading the image to a computer and looking at it in a RAW processor like ACR, Lightroom, or Capture. I wasn't trying to extol the benefits of Lightroom itself as a RAW processor; what I was saying is tethering is a better way to judge the exposure and for me a much easier way to see focus.

If I'm not shooting tethered the only thing I count on the preview image for is checking that my image is properly in focus and composed the way I want it.

 

7 hours ago, foo said:

Also Makoto is really pretty, I fell in love with her when I saw owners' DDs at the Kyoto Dolpa in 2015,

She is an awesome DD.

Edited June 11, 2020 by BeyondTime

1 hour ago, BeyondTime said:

The preview of the image that we see on the LCD is a processed image that has been corrected by the camera's built in darkroom. It's the same exact image we get if we tell the camera to save jpeg files and not RAW. That's what I mean by saying that preview is basically a processed jpeg file.

No, it is what the RAW looks like when processed by the proper algorithms.  The camera's built in darkroom is the same darkroom that Nikon Capture implements. I shoot everything RAW+JPEG so I can sort through my images faster, since the D810 NEFs take a while to render. If I see a JPEG I like, I process the corresponding RAW in Nikon Capture to adjust to my tastes. 

A RAW file is the numbers read from the sensor and written to a file. Those numbers are completely meaningless unless you interpret them. For example, a red pixel can be completely off (0%) or fully bright (100%). What shade of red is 100%? What shade of red is 50%? As is, there is no "correct" interpretation of those numbers. But the camera's preview and its JPEG is a correct representation of the RAW file when processed with a certain set of algorithms, which includes the algorithms in the camera and the algorithms implemented by Nikon Capture.

As I said, I use the camera's preview to determine if I took a good photo or not, if it has the right shadows or my lighting is producing the colours I want. If I like it and want to adjust it, I process the NEF in Nikon Capture. The image produced by Nikon Capture will always be higher quality because it uses more computationally expensive algorithms than the camera, especially in regard to resolving individual pixel detail.

1 hour ago, BeyondTime said:

If you don't shoot tethered your only way to confirm exposure in camera is the histogram

This histogram is made from the JPEG. Again, the numbers don't mean anything unless you run it through a set of algorithms (the height position of each column in the histogram represents a value from 0% to 100%).

That said, the biggest problem with the back LCD is brightness and gamma. Your eyes are going to see it differently if you're in dim indoor lighting or outside in the field in the sun, and the quality of the display just isn't as good as calibrated monitor. The most important thing the LCD is going to tell you is your white balance, but again ACR won't process the image using the same algorithms so the colours are going to be different anyway.

Edit: The histogram thing may have been confusing. 0% does (probably) mean the pixel received no light, but 25% doesn't mean the pixel received 25% light, it means that the shade of red it computed is 25% of the red axis in the sRGB colour space (or Adobe RGB if you have the camera set to record Adobe RGB JPEGs). For example, this is a 16-bit Pro Photo RGB image with the histogram plotting colours in the sRGB space and Adobe RGB,

As you can see, the histograms are quite different. When the Pro Photo RGB colours are transformed to the Adobe RGB space, Adobe RGB supports more shadow detail than sRGB so the darkest areas of the image (far left) have more empty columns compared to the sRGB histogram. The Pro Photo RGB colour space is freaking giant so you're going to loose information when you render the image in an output colour space like Adobe RGB or sRGB. The RAW file's colour space is also really large compared to sRGB and Adobe RGB, so it has the same issues. What the histogram on the camera shows is from the JPEG's rendering and colour space of the RAW data.

Edited June 11, 2020 by foo