M&M

Last Sunday I did M&Ms in my photography project. The result was so-so and I had made a notation to re-shoot M&Ms when I had the opportunity. I was doing my grocery shopping at Giant yesterday and as I was queuing to pay, there by the counter were these two cute M&M figurines. It gave me an idea immediately. I bought them at RM9.90 each and also another bag of M&Ms for the shoot.

The storyboard... In my mind I wanted to capture the two figurines with a background of lights bokeh. Simple... except the lights for the bokeh. If I had a christmas tree at home with christmas lights then it wouldn't be an issue at all, alas I didn't. Then I looked out my balcony and there were all the lights that I needed.  Then came the next problem... elevating the 'scene' to the level of the lights. The scene had to be about 5 feet high. Nothing in my apartment was that high. So I improvised. I used my ironing board as the base and elevated it further with two chairs.

It was not an easy shoot. If I stood I would be too high. If I sat I would be too low. So it was very uncomfortable. I took a total of 52 shots in this project.

This was taken at f/3.5, 1/60, ISO800, flash fired. This came out the sharpest due to the fast shutter speed and smaller aperture assisted with the flash. However, the downside was that the background was darker.

This was taken at f/2.8, 1/30, ISO1600. I like this better but it is not as sharp as I would have liked thanks to my shaky hands and the slower shutter speed and even that, I had to boost the ISO to 1600 to get it at 1/30. I really need to get myself a tripod....

This was taken at f/1.8, 1/50, ISO800. This ended up slightly underexposed so I had to compensate in the editing process. I like the bokeh produced by the larger aperture... round. Again... the tripod would have helped.

So... next item to buy is the tripod... and it ain't cheap. The one that I have my eyes on is approximately RM1k... and that is why I still haven't got it yet... sigh...