El Dave Photography

New camera! New toy! An all new, all different El Dave Photography!
Ok, so maybe not that last one. But my new Canon Rebel XTi arrived and I'm happy to say that I'm thrilled with it. It's about half the size of my Fuji S2 Pro, and if it weren't for the lenses, it might even fit in my pocket. Powerful, compact, and finally affordable? How can you go wrong?

Now for the toy. The Poacher is made by McFarlane Toys and is part of Spawn Series 34. While I don't remember him from the 50 or so issues of Spawn I've read, I am able to read the back of the package!

Ok, I was wrong. The back of the package was no help. After digging through the McFarlane Toys website, all I can gather is that he's a resculpt of an old figure from their Total Chaos line. OH! Found a description from a random online store selling the original figure.

In a far-off sector of the galaxy there is a battle of good vs. evil. The conflict is not decided by armies but by a handful of warriors picked from throughout time. Chosen for their distinctive skills they are adapted to fight in the war known as...TOTAL CHAOS.

A hunter known throughout the world for his savage style of killing the poacher is one of the Domains fiercest warriors. Armed with a small arsenal he travels the world in search of new species of life that don't yet adorn his trophy rack. The Poacher is in fact so ruthless that he has even killed other members of the Domain just to fill a void in his collection. Sold as eaches.

Sold as eaches. Tee hee.

Set up for the Poacher was on the stovetop, with the oven light up top and a smaller lamp lighting him from below. The background texture is a box fan. Open up the F-Stop to F11 to make sure that most of him is in focus, then click.

Cleanup in Photoshop was a color shift from the orangey-yellow of my lamps to the blueish green of the sci fi look I was going for. I had to really bump up the contrast on the Poacher, then, to make him look a little more real, I added a slight gaussian blur to bring him all together. All he needed then was a color dodged eye glow.

Hunting to deadiest of prey...EXIF:

Camera:	Canon EOS Digital Rebel XTi
Exposure:	30 sec (30)
Aperture:	f/11
Focal Length:	50 mm
ISO Speed:	100
Exposure Bias:	0/3 EV
Flash:	Flash did not fire

Orientation:	Horizontal (normal)
X-Resolution:	72 dpi
Y-Resolution:	72 dpi
Software:	Adobe Photoshop CS3 Windows
Date and Time:	2008:08:30 09:38:07
YCbCr Positioning:	Co-Sited
Exposure Program:	Aperture priority
Date and Time (Original):	2008:08:29 20:58:39
Date and Time (Digitized):	2008:08:29 20:58:39
Shutter Speed:	-321577/65536
Metering Mode:	Pattern
Color Space:	sRGB
Focal Plane X-Resolution:	4433.295 dpi
Focal Plane Y-Resolution:	4453.608 dpi
Compression:	JPEG
Image Width:	3888 pixels
Image Height:	2592 pixels

Be good,
-Dave

|