Timography

Just when you thought it was safe...

2011-11-02T18:54:00.000-07:00

Well hey there everyone – how have you all been?

I have to admit that right off the bat – this blog post has beensitting on my desktop for about three months. See, I’ve been waiting for aspare evening or two to put some thoughts together and try and write somethingmeaningful to accompany these images (which incidentally I posted on ourFacebook page over a month ago) but alas time has well and truly gotten awayfrom us.

As some of you may know, we recently ran a promotion on Scoopon.comthat ended up just going crazy and I have been shooting literally every day, 7days a week for... um, about the last four months. That, in addition to ouralready scheduled wedding and commercial shoots has really taken it's toll on myspare time lately. So sorry about that. But what I’ll do now is a quick sum upof the images in this blog post – for those that might be interested.

Ok, the first image. This was taken for a local fashion importer. We took a bunch of shots for their web and advertising needs but theywere ultimately looking for an image to go into an upcoming edition ofAustralian Vogue magazine, and this was one of my favourite images from theshoot. The first half of the shoot took place in our studio, with the clienthaving us photograph a couple of dozen outfits just against a plain greybackdrop with the model being lit with an 8ft parabolic umbrella as the keylight, and a small 40cm beauty dish with a grid and sock directly above the model just toaccent her facial features a little bit.

We then headed just down the road here in Kelmscott to a vacant lotadjacent to a new housing estate. The sun was getting quite low, which is justwhere we wanted it in order to backlight our model. Lighting for this shot wasprovided by a Bowens GM500 monoblock flash, which in turn was being powered by the BowensTravelPak battery pack, and from memory it was pretty much on full power as we had to place the light a little bit from the model so it wouldn't be seen in the final image. I had placed a big 3ft x 4ft softbox on the front ofthe flash to make sure that we would get a nicely diffused and soft light onthe model. That’s it. Taken with my Nikon D3s, 1/250^th second, f/16,ISO200 with the Nikon AF-S 70-200mm f/2.8G ED VRII lens at about 190mm tocompress perspective and draw the background closer in on the model.

This next image is one of Serena again. This shot was taken for anotherfashion importer for their new upcoming website. As for the lighting – it wasactually pretty simple and very similar to that described in the last image. Thatbeing; I put up the parabolic umbrella to camera left as the key light, poweredby a Bowens GM200. The parabolic umbrella is so efficient that it really doesn’trequire much power to produce a nice big and soft spread of light. The secondand last light source for this image was my larger 70cm beauty dish, this timewithout a grid or a sock. But it was powered however simply by a Nikon SB-900speedlight. The beauty dish is just above the models head and just outside ofthe frame in this image. Point being, it really didn’t need much power at allbecause it was only about 2ft from Serena’s head. I did end up putting thediffusion dome on the SB-900 however and I wanted to get a little bit more of aspread of light than I was otherwise getting without it.

The beauty dish also caused a happy little accident in this image. Letme explain! Because of where the beauty dish was placed, in combination with itbeing lit but the SB-900 (which sits differently within the dish than a normalmonoblock flash would) and I wasn’t using a grid or a sock, the arc shapedshadow you see going across the top of the background is actually the shadowproduced by the rim of the dish. After the first couple of test shots I took I pointedit out to the client and was set to put on the sock to get rid of the shadow,but the client liked the look of the shadow so we left it right where it was. Takenwith a Nikon D3x, 1/160^th second, f/9, ISO100 with my Nikon AF-S70-200mm f/2.8G ED VRII lens at about 70mm.

The final image I’ll talk about for today was taken at the 2011 ISDEConference which was held at the Perth Convention and Exhibition Centre. By theway, ISDE stands for International Symposium for the Digital Earth. Sounds reallynerdy but it is actually really interesting. I have been fortunate enough to havewon the tender to photograph this event for the last few years and it is alwaysa challenge and also really hard work. It also presents some pretty difficultphotographic conditions. The bulk of the shooting I was required to do wasgoing to take place in the big 6000 seat auditorium with only the bare minimumof stage lighting and only one (stationary) spotlight on the speakers as they weredelivering their presentations. What does this mean? Well basically it meansthat I would be standing a long way away in near darkness without a tripod(they are deemed a health risk in the event of a building evacuation). Fun huh.So for this I enlisted my Nikon D3s, a camera known for being a fantasticperformer in said dark lighting conditions, coupled to a Nikon AF-S 300mmf/2.8G ED VRII lens. This lens is enormous and really heavy, so hand-holdingfor long periods of time was really out of the question. Fortunately using amonopod was allowed and that ended up being my saviour. Taken with my Nikon D3s,1/80^th second, f/2.8, ISO3200, and obviously the Nikon AF-S 300mmf/2.8G ED VRII was at 300mm, because it’s a prime lens. :) FYI - this is a testament to how well the Vibration Reduction mechanism works in the new line of Nikon Pro lenses. Try getting a sharp image with a non-VR lens at 300mm with a shutter speed about three stops lower than you should be using to handhold the shot. I think thats pretty cool. Just sayin...

Well, that’s as much spare time as I can wrangle at the moment, sotake care, keep shooting what you love and I’ll talk to you all... soon!

Small lights in a big studio... and more underpants...

2011-07-31T06:02:00.000-07:00

Hey there all and thanks for tuning in for another blog post. Today we have a little bit of a continuation from the last blog post, insomuch that the images accompanying this blog were taken during the same shoot with Serena.

So why share these images, you ask? Well the thing I liked about these is that I did this entire series of images using only speedlights, triggered by PocketWizard TT1 and TT5’s. From memory I have only ever done this once before, but as that was some time ago (a few years in fact) so I was keen to try this out again.

The diagram on the right shows the lighting set-up itself. Pretty simple really. I mounted the softboxes and beauty dish to my SB-900’s by using a bunch of these great little flash brackets that you can get on eBay. They are so much sturdier than some of the other rubbish out there and they really do take a beating and are capable of supporting quite a bit of weight.

I don’t quite remember the exact light ratios – sorry – but I can tell you that the key light (the beauty dish) was metering on Serena’s face at f/4 and I’m pretty sure that the softboxes were about 2/3^rd’s of a stop below that; which makes them register the light meter at f/3.2. Shooting at this aperture allowed me to capture some of that gorgeous depth-of-field that you can see. Yummy. Well, I like it at least…

The image on the left above was actually a test shot, wherein I turned the beauty dish light off all-together “just to see what it looked like”. I have to say that I don’t mind it but all in all I thought there was just a little too much contrast for my liking, for what I had envisaged in my head to what was appearing on the back of my Nikon D3s. Not to worry, a flick of a switch on the PocketWizard AC3 zone controller sitting atop the camera and the beauty dish was turned back on again. That sure as heck beats getting up and down and having to fiddle around on the back of the flash itself to adjust stuff. Enough said.

Although speaking of not saying quite enough, I should point out that all the lights, even though they were TTL capable SB-900’s being triggered by TTL capable PocketWizard radio’s; everything was set to manual. Again, although I didn’t write it down; but from memory I think the beauty dish was at about 1/8^th power, making the softboxes dialled into 1/8^th minus 2/3 of a stop. This translated into almost instantaneous power recycling and allows 8 shots in one quick burst without having to stop and let the flashes recharge. Cool.

Getting back to the lighting diagram just for a moment, you may also notice that all the lights were gridded. I really love the control this gives for reducing the amount of light that spills all over the place. The beauty dish also had a “sock” on it in addition to the grid to soften the light just a little bit more. So the white backdrop roll that I was using turned that nice pleasant neutral grey.

Well that’s about all I can think to write for now. It’s been a really long week and a flat-out weekend so I’m going to call it a night. Thanks for reading, keep shooting what you love and I’ll talk to you soon.

One light shenanigans... and lens flare...

2011-07-14T18:57:00.000-07:00

Well hey there everyone and welcome to yet another blog post. I must find out how long this blog has been running now, but I think it’s somewhere in the neighbourhood of 2 years. Who said I didn’t have any staying power? Shame on you!

The purpose of today’s blog post is to share some images that I did recently for a long-time friend, Serena. She has been a great help over the past four or so years, and is always eager to help out when I need a model at short notice for a shoot. I had just finished watching the wonderful “One Light Workshop” DVD’s by the uber talented Zack Arias. As the name of the DVD’s implies, there’s about 3 ½ hours of lighting instruction using only one light source – but in multiple applications. Studio lighting. Location lighting. Day or night. Zack is da man!

Anyway, one of the examples he showed in the latter part of the first DVD was the technique that produced the images I shot for this blog post. It involves creating a high-key look using only one light source. Those of you who know me know that I love to use high-key lighting. I love the way it makes the subject leap out of the image. I love the crispness and the contrast it creates. I just love everything about it. But, like anything it can get a little bit too much after a while. So I was pretty stoked when I saw Zack demonstrate this technique. The end result is that it still, obviously, creates a high-key image, but because of the positioning of the light you can create some really cool lens flare and also it makes the subjects skin go all creamy and delicious.

It basically involves placing a single studio light directly behind your subject. The catch is however is that the flash tube must be exposed, and not hidden by any kind of light modifier. This also means that you really can’t use a speedlight to create this effect, as it isn’t going to throw enough light in enough directions all at once to pull it off successfully. If you haven’t already, have a look at the video below which shows the whole set-up from go-to-woah. Sorry that the audio isn't all that great - my eBay special video camera doesn't have any audio-in jack meaning that I just have to use the built-in microphone and speak in a loud voice. This works well when I'm right next to the camera, but as soon as a walk away from it things go a little pear shaped. Anyway, enough excuses from me, take a look at the video...

One more thing – and one that I touched on in the video. You really have to be careful with your lens selection with this. Let me qualify what I mean. You really have to use the best lens that you have. This is because better quality lenses utilize all manner of glass witchcraftery to aid in the reduction of lens flare. And this is one lighting set-up that produces a lot of flare. A lot of cheaper lenses really don’t deal well with back-lighting. The biggest degradation occurs when the entire image looks washed out and pale. The tell-tale “rainbow spots” are another sure-fire sign of lens flare, but these can sometimes look quite cool.

But there ain’t nothing nice about a pale, washed out image. You can recover a lot of contrast in post production, but if the image is too far gone to begin with, there isn’t going to be a lot to gain by trying to fix it. A bad image is a bad image. I was using my Nikon AF-S 70-200mm f/2.8G ED VRII and I was still struggling with a few images having too much flare. Point made...

So there you go. Nice and simple set-up that creates really cool images. This one is going to be on my play light for a little while to come. That’s it for now. Keep shooting what you love and I’ll talk to you soon.

A rushed visit... and almost no noise...

2011-06-26T04:29:00.000-07:00

Hey there everyone and welcome to another brief blog posting by yours truly. This week saw the Brownes Every Woman Expo back at the Perth Convention and Exhibition Centre.

I had hoped to get along to a few different parades that were on show during the Expo but alas my schedule had other ideas. So as it ended up I was only able to attend on Friday evening for an hour or so before having to head off again.

It was great to see the girls and guys from Metro Modelling Academy back again, and I was able to re-connect with a few old friends and models that I hadn’t seen for ages; so that was cool. It was also great to see that this year the organisers had finally got their acts together and they set up lighting for the shows that actually made the models look good.

In previous years the lighting had been everything from inadequate to down-right unflattering. One year I even resided to bringing my own studio lighting with me just so I wouldn’t be stuck with the awful ambient light “show”. This year however, they had set up flood lights pointing right down the barrel of the runway. And they had also thankfully gotten rid of those awful and large LED multi-colored floods along the length of the runway. But anyway, enough of that for now.

Now I realize that these images are by no means ground breaking. They’re pretty average actually. Let me qualify that. They are an accurate representation of the evening by the way the models have been captured. And I am proud to admit that I have not altered these images at all from how they came out of my Nikon D3s. Another qualification is required here for obvious reasons. Yeah I have resized them for this blog and applied my watermark – but that’s it – hand on heart.

Thankfully, because the organisers had got the lighting spot on, I was able to shoot the whole show in manual mode, 1/250^th second shutter speed, f/4.0 @ ISO1600. Oh, I had my Nikon AF-S 70-200mm G ED VRII lens, with the VR turn on, of course. In previous years I had to switch between manual and aperture priority depending on the particular show I was shooting and how the stage lighting was behaving. It really was like trying to shoot a rock concert with all the flashing lights and the stage going light – dim – light – dim; well you get the idea. But yeah, take a look at the images; they're pretty squeaky clean considering they were shot at ISO 1600.

Anyway, it was a great (albeit short) night and I’m sorry that I didn’t get to see more shows. But hopefully my schedule won’t be quite as busy next year huh. Take care everyone, keep shooting what you love and I’ll talk to you all soon.

Are you feelin' it...

2011-06-04T07:40:00.000-07:00

Well hey there everyone and welcome to another thrilling blog post. Tonights installment comes to you via my iPad and a really big cup of coffee. Who said this little device was only good for watching movies? Shame on you!

Ok, to tonights topic. I have been thinking about a bunch of topics to share with you all; I even went as far as to make out a list so I wouldn't forget them (yeah, I made the list on my iPad also lol) but this topic wasn't one of them.

You see, as some of you may know we recently ran an online promotion that ended up getting a pretty good response. We were targeting Mr & Mrs Joe Public and their family to come on down to our little studio and have some portraits taken. Now, this usually creates all sorts of reactions from those participating in the shoot, from feeling a little nervous to being downright terrified. We've all seen it from our side of the lens or experienced it first hand as the subject of said portraits.

Now, as a quick questionnaire, who here has heard the saying "the camera doesn't lie"? One of my favorite quotes comes from the uber successful commercial photographer Chase Jarvis who says (and I'll paraphrase a little bit here for the sake of time) that as photographers, all we are - when it's all said and done - are button pushing monkeys. Sure, we can be lighting geniuses', creative guru's and technical experts, but it all comes back to that one thing - we push that little shutter button and we make a picture. But a picture of what? Just think about that for minute...

This applies whether it was a day like mine today which was full of portraits with people that (some of them) would rather be sitting in a dentists chair or if you are photographing some famous model to go into [insert glamorous label here] magazine spread. If your subject isn't "feeling it", it is never going to happen. You can take a picture, sure, but is it one that is representing your subject in the best possible manner?

So, how can we make our subjects relax, or make them get into a frame of mind that will produce a great looking image? For me, I have found that communication is the key. And by that I mean communication on all levels. If someone is feeling really nervous, it's pretty easy to tell huh, in fact most people will just come right out and say it to your face. Let me tell you, thats not really a great way to start a shoot!

It's right about then that I go into my talking mode. I'll spend the first half an hour of the shoot just chatting with them. Asking where there from, what they do, how their day has been and so on. Then we go through, in detail, exactly what I'm going to be doing, showing them how the lights are going to flash and so on. And I'll be really enthusiastic about it. Remember, we are selling the sizzle, not the sausage here. If you are really psyched to be doing the shoot for them and excited about getting some nice shots, 99.99% of the time your subjects will get in on the act. Be enthusiastic, even over the top (without being obnoxious about it) and you will be amazed with the results.

I'll finish with this little story of what happened to me. About 15 years ago I won a photoshoot at a studio in Brisbane where I was living at the time. I was nervous as all hell I can tell you. Anyway, I took my girlfriend along and off we went. I was actually hoping that most of the photos would be of her so I didn't have to participate. So we get into the guys studio. There were lights and soft boxes everywhere. It's all second nature to me now, but back then, not so much. He sat us down in the middle of the studio and turned the lights on and we sat there with the preverbal "deer in the headlights" blank looks on our faces. Then the lights went off, he took a photo and we survived it. Wow, who would have thought! And then he took another, and another. We started to really get into it and have some fun. After about 15 minutes of this he stopped and said "ok, I'm just gonna put some film in the camera now, and we'll get started..." That guy knew what he was doing.

Wow, that was quite a ramble. I'm done for now. Take care, keep shooting what you love and I'll talk to you soon.

A little "heads up"...

2011-05-30T07:44:00.001-07:00

Hey everyone

Remember how I said that I had finally reached a gap in my schedule that would allow me a little time off and give me the opportunity to blog a bit more, make some more videos and share a bunch of stuff? Well, um… d’oh…

Don’t get me wrong. I’m really loving the fact that my photography business has blossomed so much. I’m even more loving that fact that we have morphed our business from one very specific genre to become the one-stop-shop for photography. Call us “generalists” if you will. I love the diversity, the challenge and the rewards when I produce some really nice images for my clients.

The downside is that my spare time at the end of the wedding season has gone by the wayside. I find myself looking for alternative means to catch up on stuff, to keep up with the game. Which is a lame kind of segway into this blog post…

I just wanted to let you all know about a really cool weekly webcast by Scott Kelby and crew at Kelby Media called The Grid. It’s a live weekly webcast as I mentioned, so it actually airs at midnight here in Australia. Don’t fret however, you can download it free on iTunes and watch it later, which is what I do. It’s a really cool show, with lots of interesting topics and some great giveaways. Have a look.

Ok, that’s it for now. Keep shooting what you love and I’ll talk to you soon.

How well can you drive?

2011-04-08T08:29:00.000-07:00

Well well well – just when you thought it was safe – I’m baaaack! So how have you all been? Man it’s been a while huh?

I’m finally getting the chance to come up for air for the first time in almost four months; and what a four months it’s been. A dozen weddings, a couple of dozen commercial shoots (where we were hired to photograph anything and everything from multi-million dollar properties to swimwear models on the beach to wood panel flooring) all topped off with a liberal serving of portrait and portfolio shoots. Never a dull moment.

In fact if I had to sum up this last four months with a single word, it would be “diversity”. This word is one that a lot of photographers are trying to avoid recently, and some at great length. There is good theory behind this aversion. That being, your clients need to know that you specialise in a particular genre of photography. This is all well and good, but it can be limiting at the same time.

Yeah sure, let your clients know that you will only pick up your camera if there is a newborn baby involved, or you will only make yourself available to shoot weddings. But is this really the kind of message you want to be pushing – to everyone? I mean at the end of the day, it’s all just photography right? Yes, there are different nuances that only work in one situation or another, but as best as I can figure these nuances come down to the way you interact with the client or subject. But as for the photography; the exact rules apply from one situation to another. Unless you are a superhero the laws of light and physics do not really differentiate between a plank of wood or a blushing bride.

“So what’s the key then huh?” I can hear you asking. Again, as best as I can figure it – the key to the whole shebang is knowing how to get the end result before you take the first shot. Otherwise known as know your gear inside-out, especially your camera. And know your technique even better.

I’ve had the benefit of seeing this first hand recently by way of the fact that I have had more new assistants working with me, all with varying degrees of confidence and ability. The most important thing I tell them is that when they are thinking about the shot they are trying to get, you need to know, well, how to get there. This directly translates to knowing how to drive your camera to steer the image in the direction that you want it to go.

Take a look at your camera. Do you know what all, I mean all the buttons, dials, knobs and control wheels do? And even if you do, how often do you use them? Know how to drive your camera and you will be ok. But if you don’t know how to, how will you be able to respond to a clients wishes or artistic direction?

Ok, that’s enough of a rant for me for now. Gotta ease back into these things you know... The more open minded of you out there will realise that I am being slightly facetious and maybe just a little bit general here but in essence I stand by my thoughts.

Keep shooting what you love and keep your eye out for more blog posts coming to a computer monitor near you.

A quick video...

2011-01-16T04:57:00.000-08:00

Hiya everyone. I hope you are all off to a flying 2011 and having lots of fun along the way. This is just a quick little blog post tonight for the purposes of sharing a video I created the other week about how to use the new PocketWizard Mini TT1 and Flex TT5 ControlTL (i-TTL) triggers with your Nikon cameras and flashes. Without further ado, have a look at the video...

So there you go. It's all pretty straight forward in principle, and the triggers are accompanied by the most concise, straight forward and logical instruction manuals that I have had the pleasure of reading. Nice one PocketWizard.

All in all, there's some pretty cool technology here. In fact, it is a little easy to use the triggers in i-TTL mode all of the time, albeit at the expense of potentially frying your flashes if they are working hard to overcome bright sunlight for long periods of time. It is for this reason that I am hanging out for the AC3 Zone controller to be released.

I probably should preface that a little bit first. You see, what I meant to say is that instead of leaving the flashes in i-TTL mode all the time on a bright sunny day, the more efficient and friendly thing to do would be to set the flashes to manual mode, meaning that they do not have to work nearly as hard during the shoot due to the fact they no longer have to emit all those power sapping, flash-tube heating pre-flashes all the time.

This would usually entail walking over to the flashes, setting them to Manual output and then play a little dance up and down the power scale of the flash until you get the output correct for your camera's exposure settings, all the while walking backward and forwards from flash to camera position to keep re-checking the images before you are satisfied. The AC3 allows you to do all that right from your camera position. Cool.

But this is supposed to be a quick blog post so I think I'll leave it there for now. We got a few interesting projects coming down the pipeline so I'll keep you all posted about them as they occur - I don't wanna jinx myself!

Take care for now, keep shooting what you love and I'll talk to you soon.

Images revisited... and forgetting stuff...

2010-12-26T17:22:00.000-08:00

Well hello boys and girls and welcome to another quick little blog post. I have to be honest and say that this blog would have been up several hours ago if it weren’t for a little mishap on my behalf…

You see, I have been posting these blogs from my favourite café for a little while now. I usually prep all the image files on my workstation PC at home; upload all the images to Blogger and copy all of the HTML code to a notepad file for re-arranging later. I then dump the lot onto a thumb drive and head to aforementioned café to relax, drink some coffee and arrange all the stuff into a (hopefully) meaningful format for this blog.

So there I was, sitting in my comfy seat at the café, laptop booting up ready for action, I reached into my laptop bag to retrieve the thumb drive only to realise it was still in my PC at home. Bugger. Oh well, at least I got to sit in the cool air-conditioning and watch the world go by for half an hour or so and just chill. So, not a total waste of time after all.

Anyway, to the images accompanying this post. I have been meaning to get around to posting some of the images I took at the various shows for this year’s Perth Fashion Festival, but time and clients always managed to get in the way of my good intentions. Well, seeing as I have had literally a couple of days off I took the initiative and prepped some images from the Re-Style show. I thought a lot of them looked a little familiar so I had a look on my Facebook Page and I realised that I had actually posted a few already from this show over there.

Not to worry – the images on FB were quickly thrown on to the net not long after the show, so you can think of these as a bit of a remaster of sorts. I guess I just like the portraiture aspect of these images, rather than them being just the standard full length head-to-toe fashion cliché shot of a model on a runway. Oh, the reason the show was called "Re-Style" is because all of the clothing was purchased at recycled clothing stores; you know, Vinnes, the Salvo's and so on. That’s it.

I’ll be posting a few more shows online soon, as well as sharing a few images from some great weddings we have done recently, and finally I am being hounded to put some new videos onto our YouTube channel; so keep an eye out for them. Of course I’ll post the videos on here too.

Which brings up a good point actually. If you want to see anything, have a technique explained or you have any questions at all, please keep sending us email to timography@iinet.net.au. Until I see you next time, keep shooting what you love and I’ll talk to you soon. Oh, and happy new year!

Oh, and just to check to see if you made it all the way to the end of this blog post... I tried something a little different with the color toning of these images. I'm interest to know what you think... or if you even noticed... Please let me know!

Merry Christmas... and a few bikini's to boot...

2010-12-24T05:34:00.000-08:00

Well hey there everyone, and Merry Christmas!

There’s no surer way to know the festive season is upon us – the weather is steamy and hot, the shops are sold out and the roads are full of people trying to get somewhere in a hurry. I can honestly say that tonight I have never been more grateful for refrigerated air-conditioning. Its 9.30pm, outside its still 30.2 degrees and 65% humidity. Here in my office, it’s a super comfy 23.6 and 30% humidity. Oooh yeah.

Anyway, to tonight’s quick pre-Christmas blog. I thought I’d quickly share a few forgotten images from the STM Swimwear Parade from this year’s Perth Fashion Festival. I had been given media accreditation for a few events at this year’s Festival but this wasn’t one of them. So a good mate and I were forced to buy tickets to the show and we just turned up with our cameras.

Now I have to admit that I may have stuffed up the seating allocation when I bought the tickets, and instead of being right at the end of the runway, we were in fact right at the beginning of it. This means that we were looking down the runway toward the photographers pit, with all the spotlights aimed to light the models perfectly as they walked… away from where we were sitting. D’oh. So those of you with an agile mind will then summarise that as the models were walking back toward where we were sitting, they were backlit and didn’t have any real usable light on their faces. Well that sucked.

So, I went in thinking that although we weren’t in the photographer’s pit, at least I might get some decent shots like the previous year at the Morrision Show. But instead we were faced with what looked to be totally unusable.

So call me a slow learner, overzealous or just plain keen to get some shots but I got my camera out regardless and set up ready to shoot. The house lights dimmed, the music started to crank and the catwalk was lit up like runway 27 at Perth International Airport. I ended up with my Nikon D700 at ISO-3200, f/2.8 @ 1/100^th second shutter speed, using my Sigma 70-200mm f/2.8 EX DG HSM Macro II lens. As that lens doesn’t have any form of Image Stabilisation and I hadn’t yet purchased my Nikon AF-S 70-200mm f/2.8G ED VR II I was wary of dropping the shutter too much slower, for a couple of reasons.

Of course number one was that I was conscious of the focal length -v- shutter speed rule of thumb. That being, if you are using a 200mm lens, if you want to get sharp images, don’t let your shutter speed drop below the longest local length; which is 200mm which translates to 1/200^th of a second. The second reason is that the models were charging up and down the runway at a fairly decent rate of knots, so if I had gone any slower the images would be blurred regardless of how steady I was holding the camera. As you can see, a couple of the images are a little blurry around the models feet and hands anyway, any slower than 1/100^th on the shutter speed and this would have only gotten worse.

So there you go. The images, while not perfect, are still a fairly good representation of the outfits that the models were wearing. And while it is still really hot weather I thought these images seemed to fit rather well. That’s it.

I hope you all have a blessed and happy Christmas, get spoiled rotten and take some time to think of those around you that have made your year so special. Take care, keep shooting what you love and I’ll talk to you soon.

Still hanging in there... and a bunch of paper...

2010-12-12T05:27:00.000-08:00

Hey there everyone.

Wow, two months since my last blog post huh. Seems like that long too actually, been so much happening. So much so that I almost forget all that has been happening. The highlights?

Well, we now have hired two new assistants, so welcome to Beck and Alanna. It was a much bigger process than I imagined trying to hire an assistant. We were literally inundated with applicants to our little advertisement. I interviewed over 20 applicants in the end. There was such a wealth of talented photographers applying to work with us, it was all a little humbling. But the tough decision had to be made and these guys kinda shone over the rest. Awesome to have you guys!

We also have a brand new website - finally. Check it out at www.timography.com.au. My wife, Dee who runs the office and does all the accounting, liasing, back-office stuff that I really can't stand to do organised it through Oliver and the guys and gals at Perth Web Design, and I think they have done a great job. It took us a little longer than expected to get it online as we were so busy with clients that it sort of took a back seat for a while but we finally managed to get all of the content uploaded and ready to go. I hope you like it.

Um, what else? There’s been lots of new gear that I will probably get around to talking about at some point in the near future. There’s been a few mishaps mid-shoot that really put me on the spot, but we came out on top in the end. Speaking of new gear, the topic of tonight’s blog post has come about by some of that new gear, or moreso the need to get rid of some old gear...

Last week saw the arrival of the long awaited PocketWizard Flex and Mini TTL radio triggers for Nikon products. These puppies are amazing! I got the opportunity to use them on a wedding shoot just yesterday and oh my God – they are brilliant. It is so nice to be able to get consistent flash exposure, wireless, in TTL. Have I said how fantastic it is? Turn up on a location, turn on the flashes and triggers, take a bunch of shots and move on. No more having to set everything on manual anymore (although it still definitely has its merits, more on that later too!).

Anyways, the new triggers meant that it was time to finally offload my old Pixel TTL radio triggers. These things never really worked that well anyways so they have been collecting dust in my office. I needed to get some images in a hurry for eBay but I couldn’t be bothered setting up my light tent and portable tabletop lighting rig. It was late in the evening and the wedding shoot earlier that day really took it out of me!

So I thought... I have a bunch of flashes that will work on wireless CLS mode. I thought some more. I remember reading on the Strobist blog where David had found himself in a similar situation and managed to fashion himself a temporary light box out of a bunch of A4 sheets of plain old white office paper. So I gave it a go.

As you can tell from the image above, there isn’t a lot to it – other than a bunch of flashes sitting on the floor! They were all set to the same channel and group so they would all put out equal power and distribute their light fairly evenly. So that’s three Nikon SB-900’s and one SB-600, all in remote mode. The whole lot was being triggered by using a SB-800 in commander mode sitting on top of my D700. I ended up dialling in -0.7EV for group A (the flashes on the floor) and I had the SB-800 set so that it was turned on to TTL and contributing to the exposure. It took a little bit of playing around but I ended up setting the SB-800 so that the flash head itself was upside down but parallel to the floor, with the flash head turned around so that I could use the built-in bounce card to push the light up to the roof and bounce back down on the subject. Oh, and I dialled in the SB-800 to be +0.3EV.

So yeah, as you can see, the end result turned out pretty well. I was really happy with how the images of the Pixel triggers and the PocketWizard triggers turned out. Look for yourself. If I hadn’t spend the last 5 minutes explaining the whole process you would be hard pressed to tell that the images had been taken on the floor with a bunch of A4 paper and 5 flashes.

So why did I do it this way? Because I could. Do I need another reason? Take care, keep shooting what you love and I’ll talk to you soon.

Honey, I shrunk the images...

2010-10-18T23:19:00.000-07:00

Well hey there everyone. What I wanted to share today are just a few of my favourite images from the "A Touch of Wool III" catwalk show from this year’s Perth Fashion festival. Yeah I know I am a little late getting these online but I have managed to finally catch up with all my backlog of post-processing work and I found myself with a little, yes that’s right, just a little bit of time to spare before things start to get crazy again... man, I love my job. Really, I do!

Ok, so to the images. On this particular shoot, I learned a very important lesson. You see, nine times out of ten I will shoot full resolution, fine detail JPEG’s. On rare occasions when the client specifically requests or I am in the mood then I will shoot in RAW. Why? Because I can. Because I can get four times as many images on a memory card. Because I, and I am being truthful here, have never really found a need to rescue an image that was "that" bad out of camera that it needed to be a RAW file in order to fix it. But mostly, because it saves me a bit of time in post production as even though I now have a brand new super dooper kick-butt light speed PC, working with JPEG’s is just, well... quicker compared to RAW files. Ok enough of that.

Anyway, for this particular catwalk show I decided that I would turn the resolution of my Nikon D700 right down, for a couple of reasons. Firstly, these shows are usually over before you know it and the action is non-stop so I didn’t want to be wasting time changing memory cards and potentially missing some of the show. But the main reason is that I knew I would not be printing any of these images larger than postcard size, and the majority would only be used for putting on the internet for promotional purposes. So I set my D700 to shoot 2120 x 3184px images, which is just over 6 megapixels, ISO2000, f/2.8 and a shutter speed that varied from 1/320th to 1/500th second depending on the amount of light falling on the catwalk at the time. But the kicker was that I turned the compression up so that the camera was spitting out "Basic" JPEG's. Oh dear.

Here’s the kicker though. Compressing the image size compresses the dynamic range of the image too. You know, in all my time doing photography I had never known this because until now, every image I took was at full resolution and fine detail. The end result I found is that my exposure had to be spot on for the entire show (with its changing lighting scenarios and all) otherwise I was getting blown out highlights all over the place. It took me a few minutes to figure it out but I decided to stick with it for the remainder of the show; what better way to test ones skill while shooting a fast moving show, with the camera in manual mode and keeping the exposure within 1/3 of a stop the whole time. It was interesting.

That’s all for now. Take care and keep shooting what you love.

Taking some time out...

2010-10-07T06:43:00.001-07:00

Hi guys. Just a really quick post tonight. I haven't really got any images to share, other than the iPhone snap that you see to the right. I haven't got any new gear to talk about (but give it a couple of days for that one lol). No lighting tips or words of pseudo wisdom for you all.

Nope, tonight's post is just a little something insignificant that I wanted to share. Something that has really been lacking for me lately is the luxury of taking a little time for... me.

Between photography, family, day jobs and everything else in between it has been hard to sit back, take an outside view and think about our next step. Reflect on where we are thus far. Plan where we are taking the business next. So, what the [bleep] am I doing sitting in a coffee shop in the departure lounge you ask? Good question actually.

You see I came here to the Perth International Terminal a month or so ago with a good mate to shoot some time-lapse movies of the planes loading and unloading on the tarmac. That’s nothing special I know but I have been back now several times on my own and I have to say that I am addicted to the vibe of this place. Everyone is so relaxed. They're all going on holidays or have just come back and are rested and refreshed and relaxed. If I had to sum up this place in a word, it would be relaxing. Weird I know huh, but that’s exactly how I feel after sitting here for an hour or so. It’s really addictive I gotta tell you. I really wish I could explain it, but this place just keeps drawing me back.

The next couple of weeks are going to be really busy for me and Timography. We have a bunch of shoots booked and we are launching something really special. A whole new look. I think it’s going to be pretty special. The new proverbial leaf.

So I’m enjoying the break for now. I’m going to revel in sitting back, sipping my coffee and just bathing in the atmosphere of this place. I love it.

Take care, keep shooting what you love and I’ll talk to you soon.

An afternoon in the sun...

2010-09-26T08:32:00.000-07:00

See, I am slowly trying to get back on track and post a new blog a little more regularly than I have been of late. Today I wanted to quickly share a couple of images from a shoot I did on the weekend for a young family.

The brief for the shoot was fairly straight forward. We would be shooting in the mid afternoon sun, about 3.30pm to be precise, and we would be on a privately owned fruit orchard. Cool! As it was private property I didn’t really get the opportunity to do any scouting ahead of time (as I often like to do) but none the matter; I’d have to put into practice all that “thinking on your toes” wedding stuff I have been raving about recently.

I did know two things that I wanted to do before I got to the shoot. Firstly, I wanted to use off camera lighting. Secondly, it was a gorgeous afternoon and the light falling through the valley that we were going to be shooting in was amazing so I knew that I wanted to use the daylight to backlight my subjects as much as practicable. I have been getting more and more frustrated with my Pixel i-TTL radio triggers to the point that I refuse to use them any longer, as the results I get from them vary so wildly that it makes them pretty much impractical to use. This meant that I would obviously have to use a different method to trigger my Nikon SB-900 which was firing through a 24” collapsible softbox. I could have utilized Nikon’s wonderful CLS to trigger the flash, but with the ambient light so strong it would have proven to be a little unreliable also unless I was within a few feet of the remote flash.

So, enter stage left a newly purchased but until now untried 10m flash extension cord. Yup that’s right, 10 meters. And I got say, right off the bat this thing saved my hide. It worked brilliantly. Yeah I know it’s not a fancy radio trigger “Radio Popper” but for now it suits me just fine. I know that Pocket Wizard are now in beta testing with their “Flex” and “Mini” TTL radio triggers for Nikon but there is still no firm release date for them. So 10m extension cord it is.

As for the camera settings for the images, it’s pretty simple. Manual mode. Matrix metering. ISO200. Use the camera meter to establish what correct exposure would be for the entire scene, no flash. Take a shot. Check your LCD to ensure that you are getting enough highlights around your subjects. If you aren’t, move your shutter speed back and forth until you do. Remember not to try using your exposure compensation dials here as we are in manual mode, and although the camera will let you make the adjustment to the dials it will have NO effect on your image. Only use exposure compensation when in Aperture Priority, Shutter Priority or Program mode.

For me, correct exposure ended up being 1/2000th second shutter speed @ f/2.8, ISO200. I then turned on the flash and left it in TTL mode and set the camera to high speed sync mode so I could still use the flash at this high shutter speed. Of course the trade off with high-speed sync is that you lose a little power. But this was ok as I had the flash positioned nice and close anyway, at only about 1 ½ meters away. That’s it. Take a shot. Wait a couple of seconds for the flash to recharge. Take another shot. Repeat this process. Job done!

We took a bunch of shots in some different locations around the orchard that afternoon, but these ones sitting in the grass were my favourites from the day.

Keep shooting what you love and I’ll talk to you soon.

The best thing that happened to me...

2010-09-21T17:15:00.000-07:00

Well hello everyone. I wonder if any of you thought that I had dropped off the face of the earth or something? Not quite, but over the last couple of months it has been really hard to try and find the time to write a blog post. But enough excuses, it’s time to write something meaningful.

So, what’s been happening you ask? A whole bunch of stuff actually. Shooting, meeting clients, post production, more shoots, more meeting clients and on and on it goes. You get the picture. It’s starting to get back into wedding season so to be honest they have been taking up most of my time. But that’s a good thing right? Hell yeah!

You see, I used to loathe weddings. Not because I am some sort of sour puss who doesn’t like to see people be happy; but because I was quite frankly terrified of photographing the things. When I am in my studio I can set things up just the way I like them. I know how the lighting will respond and I also know how to set the lights to give gorgeous flattering shadows and highlights. Everything is very controlled. Safe. Once the lights are set my exposure will not change from shot to shot.

But I also love doing location modelling shoots. I love to use flash to overpower the ambient sunlight to create dramatic contrast and saturation. I am also learning more about using natural light to my advantage. It’s a challenge, but not a scary one. We only have one or two models at a time. I pick the locations. Even though we are out in the elements I am very much still in control if things start to go a little pear shaped. We can stop, change things around, try something a little different and it isn’t a really big deal.

Now as for weddings, not so much of this applies. Any of you out there that have done any wedding shoots will immediately understand what I am talking about. These are a different kettle of fish altogether. If things aren’t going well you have to... well, deal with it. No real second chances. Sure you may get a little time to try and change one thing if it really isn’t working but if you start to do this too much during the wedding the bride and groom are gonna start to get (understandably) a little cranky. Plus, it doesn’t really look great if you keep stopping and changing things around. In the worst case scenario I guess the bride and groom could completely lose confidence in your ability. And I am guessing once this happens it would be pretty much impossible to regain any kind of rapport with the couple that is of any meaning. Not good at all, would you agree?

So have I sold you on wedding photography yet? Gimme a couple of minutes and it will all start to come together. You see, what do you think will happen to your own ability and confidence if you are placed in this otherwise uncomfortable situation on a regular basis? How do you think it will affect your photography? Will you crumble into a sloppy heap in the corner, or will you start to (very quickly) learn what works and what doesn’t. I’m hoping that you are thinking option “b” is applicable here. And you know what, it is.

Now I am not for one moment suggesting that I am some kind of phenomenal photographer that is about to turn the world on its ear. Far from it. But when I sit back and think about things, about different scenarios I’ve been forced in to, different locations that have gone sour and times when my equipment isn’t producing magical images just like those in the advertisements that made me want the thing in the first place, I am truly pleasantly surprised. I realise that being thrust into these situations has made me a better photographer than I was before I started.

Now this is true of any situation that you find yourself in, photographically speaking. But what I am trying to say here is that I have noticed a visible, tangible improvement in my own abilities that has been fast-tracked since I started photographing weddings. I used to loathe them. Now I love them. I love the challenges, the people you meet and the locations that you get to go to on a regular basis.

I used to think that there were famous photographers living the high life and doing wonderful things, and then there were the rest of the poor slobs stuck photographing weddings. The guys who really couldn’t make it in the real world so they settled for second best. Oh how my mindset has changed. There is something about being put in a situation that does not offer second chances. You arrive on location, assess the situation, the lighting and the environment. And then you have to make it happen, in the best way you know how. Sure it does not go according to plan all the time. But the times when it does fall in a heap are less and less. We are human, we make mistakes. The trick is to actually learn from them and move on, knowing how to recognise them in the future and not make the same ones over and over again.

I’m getting off my soap box now. I have a bunch of images to post from this week’s Perth Fashion Festival, so stay tuned for those. Take care everyone and keep shooting what you love.

Blinded by the light... a "how-to" marathon...

2010-07-18T00:02:00.001-07:00

Well hey there everybody and welcome to a gargantuan blog post. Yes, you had best get settled in, make a fresh cup of coffee and get comfortable because this is gonna be a long one! We might actually get to see if my new little laptops batteries really do last 8 hours as I am sitting here at my local Dome Cafe writing this and I didn’t bring the power supply... ok hopefully it won’t take quite that long...

So, to business. As some of you may know Sandy and I recently posted a couple of videos on YouTube which demonstrated how to shoot images using high-key lighting. These videos were a direct result of emails that you guys, yeah that’s right – you – had sent in and requested that you wanted to see. The image at the top of this blog is one of the resulting shots. They are all done in our little studio down here in Kelmscott.

“Well that’s fine for you Tim, but I don’t have a studio” I can hear you say. Fair enough; but in the words of Scott Kelby - if you have four walls and a roof no matter where you are – you have a studio!

Ok before we get too much into this blog, it’s probably best that you go and watch the first video... so here it is!

Ok so we covered quite a bit there in a short space of time but I thought that was best rather than going into information overload on you poor viewers. Rather, we covered the bare essentials and left it up to your own creativity to push the envelope a little further and get really creative. What I will do now however is run through each lighting set-up in a little more detail than we did in the video. I'm doing this so you can choose the images you really like best and just read that bit, or if you are a real glutton for punishment then just read this whole post! Up to you...

Example 1a – Softboxes as key lights on a white background

So this is one of the images from the first lighting scenario. As you can see it gives pretty good coverage on the backdrop and also, depending on how you set the key lights, shadowless lighting on your subject. This example is probably the closest that you are going to get to achieving full shadowless lighting without the use of the foam core panels that we discuss a little further down the page.

Example 1a – Softboxes as key lights on a white background

With this example, the hardest thing is to adequately light the floor so that it does not get too dull and grey which will of course detract from the whole high-key effect. It works best if the softboxes (which are on either side of the model) are at the same power; or in a 1:1 lighting ratio. This is also probably a good time to explain a little about the lighting ratios used in these examples.

In all the images you will see in this post, the background does not change. It’s a 9ft wide white paper seamless roll being lit by two strobes with bounce umbrellas – one on each side of the backdrop. The whole idea of high key is to blow the background out, or basically put so much light on it that it turns pure white; in much the same way if you have ever taken a photograph outside in the midday sun and metered the exposure for the subjects face and the sky gets completely blown out too and turns white.

So, the key to obtaining really good high key lighting is to make the background about two f-stops brighter than the key lights on the subject. Now, you might be thinking how on earth are you gonna be able to take a photo with such a difference in light levels between the background and foreground – but it really is quite easy. Let’s continue and explain. Ok, so with your light meter you want to aim for about f/13 to be read on the middle of the backdrop. You will find that the edges of the backdrop will be much brighter than this (as much as f/16 or even f/18) but that is ok. Please ensure that you do not have the key lights (Softboxes) turned on during this because they will add to the light hitting the backdrop and you will ultimately struggle to get enough separation or brightness into the background. Trust me on this one.

Once you have the background set you can now turn your key lights on. This is where the whole thing starts to come together. To keep the two f-stops of separation, and assuming that our background is set to f/13, meter the key lights so they are no brighter than say; f/7.1 on your subject. All you need to do now is set your camera to f/7.1 and 1/125th second shutter speed and you are set! Easy.

Example 1b – Beauty Dish as key light on a white background

This one is probably my favourite as it is possible to get a little contrast and shadow on the subject whilst still having a high key background. It is however the hardest to clean up in post production as the floor will not be a bright white colour. This is because the beauty dish is positioned only about 2 feet from our models head; and to achieve the same exposure on our model of f/7.1 on her face, if we use the light fall-off rule of thumb "the intensity of illumination is proportional to the inverse square of the distance from the light source" by the time the light hits the floor it is only going to be registering about f/4 or so, possibly even around f/2.8.

Example 1b – Beauty Dish as key light on a white background

This is a small price to pay however as I really do love this light and the contrast and shadow it creates. And furthermore as you will see by the time you reach the end of this blog post, it is not too difficult to fix up these little shadow inconsistencies on the floor anyway with a swift little edit in Photoshop. Problem solved!

In the video we kept the grid spot grill on the beauty dish to really accentuate this light fall-off, but there is of course nothing to stop you from experimenting with different placement of the beauty dish by moving it farther away or taking off the grid spot. It really is up to you and whatever type of effect you are trying to achieve.

Example 1c – Parabolic Umbrella as key light on a white background

Ok, are you still hanging in there? Now we are introducing a much larger light source for the key light. And it doesn’t come much larger than our huge 7ft parabolic umbrella. As Sandy states in the video, because it is a much larger light source than the beauty dish it is also a lot softer than the last example. And because it is directional (only on one side of the model) we are still able to achieve the full length shadow down the models left side.

Example 1c – Parabolic Umbrella as key light on a white background

One thing that will become immediately apparent as you start taking photos using this lighting set-up is how well the floor is lit compared to the beauty dish, but it is still not quite as good as using the two Softboxes as we did in example 1a. I really do like how the key light spans the height of the model, and in this example our model Tanayah is pushing the 6ft mark with those heels on!

So if you need to concentrate on full length fashion shots this light would work a little better than that shown with the beauty dish in example 1b. But as with all things photography related, it is entirely up to you and the final look you are trying to achieve.

By the way - I have placed lighting diagrams for the above-mentioned studio set-ups on my website here. Please feel welcome to download them for future reference!

Congratulations – you have made it past the half way mark! Must be time to watch another video. This time you are going to see the second video we shot wherein we demonstrate how to set up the studio for true high key lighting by taking advantage of the 4ft x 8ft foam core panels.

Easy huh! So now you have seen how to get truly shadowless lighting in the studio.

Example 2 – Lit foam core panels as key lights on a white background

From the image above you can see that you can still achieve a little contrast on the model depending on how she is positioned but there aren’t any real shadows in sight. The key to pulling off the lighting set-up is the positioning of the key lights.

As you saw from the video, the key lights are only about 3 feet behind the foam core panels. The stands the lights are on are positioned on the floor so that they are parallel to the outside edge of the foam core, but angled in at a 45 degree angle so that they will bounce off the middle of the foam core and back into the model. This is the same on both sides of the set for both left and right-hand lights.

Example 2 – Lit foam core panels as key lights on a white background

Make sure that you pay close attention to Sandy’s tip here and stay outside of the “V” shadow that has been created on the floor by the key lights. As I had mentioned in the video, the key lights are in fact pointing directly towards your camera shooting position and the foam core’s actually serve double purpose here. Not only are they reflecting the key lights back at the subject and basically making the area between the foam cores and the backdrop one giant light-tent, but they are also serving as two rather large but effective flags which stop the light being reflected right down the barrel of the lens... provided you stay on your side of the “V” shadow that is...

As for the metering in this set-up, well it is pretty much the same as in the first video. The background still has a strobe head at either end being lit by bouncing the light off a reflective umbrella. You still aim for f/13 in the middle of the backdrop and you still meter the backdrop with the key lights turned off.

But because we are now in this aforementioned light tent as it were, the metering on the subject isn’t quite the two f-stops of difference as was the case for the first three examples. Again, you season to taste but I have found that about 1 to 1 ½ stops of difference between the backdrop and key lights works pretty well here, which means that you can start with metering for f/9 on your subject and see how you like it from there. If you aim for the two f-stops difference I have found that sometimes the light reflecting off the background is a little too hot and starts to create blown out rim-lighting on your subject. This is trial and error and up to you as to how you want the image to turn out. Because we are in a pretty small studio space the distance between the backdrop and foam core panels is only about 8 or 9 feet. Ideally you would want to have about 10 to 15 feet of separation between the two, but you really can just tailor this to your particular situation.

Finally, I have also placed the lighting diagram for this studio set-up on my website here. As before, feel welcome to download it for future reference.

So there you go – you made it! Good for you. One final thing though – there’s one more video to watch. In this last video I show you a quick and easy way to post process the images in Photoshop.

Easy huh. Once you get the hang of that technique, you really can do the edit in a minute or two – flat. Yeah there are 100 different ways to achieve the same effect in Photoshop but after trying many of them, I have found this way to be the most painless.

Ok, so that about does it for now. I’ll be posting a few more images in the next couple of days from a modelling shoot we did in the city yesterday with an old mate that we had not worked with for a while. It was a fun afternoon...

But until then; keep shooting what you love and Sandy and I’ll talk to you soon. Take care.

PS - we need to give a huge thank you to JB @ ViWest Video Instruction for all his help in producing these videos. Without his help these videos would not be possible. You're a champ mate!

Underpants and VR lenses...

2010-07-05T06:17:00.000-07:00

Well it's a gorgeous Saturday afternoon here in Perth. Must be time to write a blog post. Last weekend #1 and I headed into the City to the Perth Exhibition and Convention Centre for the purpose of shooting the fashion shows at the 2010 Brownes Every Woman Expo. It is at this juncture that I should welcome back Sandy to the blog. After a very busy few weeks she is back on deck. For the first time reader out there, my text looks like this, Sandy’s looks like this.

I have been a regular at this event, having photographed the shows for the past four years. The guys and girls from Metro Modelling Academy do a great, albeit hectic, job on the catwalks. It has been fantastic to see the models progress from year to year. Well done guys!

When Tim first mentioned that the Expo was coming up I was apprehensive but excited at the same time. This would be such a different situation to what I am used to shooting. Well not so different in the fact that I am used to trying to capture fast moving children, but I could see this was a whole different ball game. There are no second chances with photographing a fashion show. You get it right the first time or you miss out! No pressure though...

In years gone by the fashion shows were a 60 - 40 mix of clothing and underwear, but this year it was mostly lingerie. Not that I am complaining mind you, it was just a surprise thats all. But then again, I guess the organizers must have had more requests from underwear exhibitors. How times change.

This weekend I decided I would try out the much praised and publicised best lens in the world (sorry Canon guys, even you have to concede to this one!) so I hired a Nikon 70-200mm f/2.8G ED VRII telephoto lens. Wow, what a piece of glass! I usually shoot with my Sigma 70-200mm f/2.8 EX DG HSM II telephoto. This is a great lens for its price at about $1800 cheaper than the Nikon, but even the Sigma is well over the $1200 mark. One thing that it is sorely missing is some sort of Vibration Reduction system; although Sigma have recently released an OS (Optical Stabilization) version of the lens. No such worries with the Nikon lens though – the VRII system built into this lens is awesome. It is possible to get pin sharp images, hand held, at 200mm with as little as 1/16th second shutter speed. I kid you not. Sorry I need a moment...

Ok, back to the blog. So, armed with my Nikon D700 and 70-200 Nikon lens we started shooting. I left the VR turned on, even though I was using a monopod as I still had some vibration and camera shake due to the fact the the monopod does not completely stabilise the camera but just slows it down a little and also keeps your arm from falling off! The weight of the camera body, battery grip and lens was pushing 5.5kg! Doesn't sound like a lot but try holding that weight steady at eye level for more than 10 minutes and it feels like a ton.

So as Tim was using that funky Nikon lens it meant that I could use the Sigma. Like the Nikon lens, it is quite heavy to hold for long periods but not totally unmanageable. I chose to shoot the parades from the side of the catwalk, about 45 degrees off to one side. This gave me a good vantage point to capture the models as they came up and down the runway. I had seen fashion shows before, but the Metro Modelling guys were moving around quite fast and doing pretty complex routines which all means that it was hard to predict where they were going and who was going to do what!

In previous years I had all sorts of difficulties shooting this particular event. You see, most fashion shows are set up so that the lighting is purely for the show itself and the models wearing the garments on show. Not this event however. They usually place brightly colored lights down the edge of the stage pointing back to the audience and therefore my camera position. Everything is set up (lighting wise) to make the catwalk look colourful and the models seem to be an afterthought.

For the first couple of years I brought my own lighting along with me; but this in itself has its own inherent issues. I had used a technique where I had metered the lights for a point on the end of the catwalk, which is fine if the models are coming out one at a time, walking down to the end of the catwalk and then turning around and heading back again. No problems – right? Wrong. Although the routines that the Metro Modelling guys were doing looked cool from an audience perspective, from a photography standpoint it was like trying to photograph a footy match – people going every which way at once at great speed! Not really a desirable situation when using studio strobes as you spend the entire show with your thumb on the control dial dancing up and down the aperture scale hoping that you are getting the exposure right as the models are doing their thing. Stressful.

Anyway this year I thought I’d go back to the basics. Manual mode. ISO 1600. No fill-flash. Cross my fingers and hope for the best. And what do you know – it worked! Last year I had shot the whole show using aperture priority to try and maintain some kind of consistent exposure latitude and even that didn’t work. But time is a great teacher and I learned a while ago that the only way to shoot these events is in manual. I ended up shooting the entire show at 1/200th second shutter speed, f/3.5 @ ISO1600.

Not having done one of these shows before I was an open book when it came to technique. I followed Tim’s lead, set my Nikon to manual mode too, ISO 1250 and 1/200th second shutter speed at f/2.8. I also set the white balance in the camera to tungsten as the majority of the stage lights were tungsten bulbs with the exception of a few LED floods along the edges of the catwalk. Because these LED floods were so bright and colourful you could not really notice any pronounced color shift in the image captured by the camera which was cool, and made my life a lot easier too.

So anyway, we had a great time and took lots of images. Quickly on that, my Nikon D700 has a native frame rate of 5FPS. This is not too bad for a full-frame, full-resolution image. But I have added the Nikon MB-D10 battery grip to my camera body. This battery grip comes with two battery trays. One for the standard Lithium-Ion EN-el3a (who comes up with these model names?) battery and an additional tray that takes 8x AA size batteries. If you fill this tray with Sanyo’s eneloop lith-ion rechargeable batteries it jumps the cameras frame rate up to a whopping 8FPS. Very cool. After only 2 hours of shooting it is amazing how many images you can capture. I was being conservative and I still ended up with almost 3000 shots. Wow.

I think thats enough from us for now and I’ll finish the blog with a few images. I hope you like them. Keep shooting what you love and Sandy and I will talk to you soon. Take care.

Quick update - a simple headshot...

2010-06-24T08:40:00.000-07:00

Good evening everyone.

This is another quick on the fly update just for the purpose of sharing an image from a shoot we did yesterday for a local hairdresser. The owner of the business wanted to approach one of her suppliers for the purpose of showcasing her hairdressing and styling skills. That’s cool.

So the lighting for this shot was just a single Nikon SB-900 shooting through a portable Lastolite collapsible Ezybox 60cm softbox. The flash was being triggered using another SB-900 on top of my Nikon D700 using CLS.

The lens however was one that I don’t use very often, but it’s a great bit of glass and an awesome portrait lens. It was my Sigma 105mm f/2.8 EX DG Macro. I’d use this lens more often but it is too long to use in our studio as we cannot get full length shots with this focal length; 70mm is the longest focal length for that. Oh yeah, to clarify, this shot was taken on location at the hairdressers premises. We simply used one of the walls as the backdrop.

The lighting style is just a simple Rembrandt set-up. One light. No fuss. Just make sure that you get the model to turn their head slightly to the direction of the light. No, wait – thats not entirely correct. Where the model positions their head is entirely up to you and the particular effect that you are going for. I have done some awesomely attractive shots in the past where the model is looking down and away from the light and the end result has been really yummy. So – its up to you. But... you can see how the end result looks when the model does turn their head to the light.

So this shot is wide open at f/2.8. Click on the image at the top of this post to see it a bit larger - it does it better justice. I like it. Just wanted to share that. Good night.

Quick update - guide numbers and grey skies...

2010-06-22T08:02:00.000-07:00

Hi guys.

Just a quickie to show you all an image from today’s Bridal shoot all the way down south in Yarloop. I’ll keep this one short as we will be posting some more images soon – once I have had the opportunity to actually have a good look through and pick out some of my favourites from the 400+ images we took today.

So the image you can see was taken in a paddock that was vacant and had a “For Sale” sign on it – a good candidate we thought as it was unlikely that anyone would worry about us being there.

As I said this is only a quick post – but I wanted to briefly share one thing. Today I took out with us my newly acquired Bowens GM250 monoblock studio strobe heads. I picked up a couple of these as part of a whole packaged kit by Bowens from a colleague and fellow photographer of mine. They had very little use and I got them for a very reasonable price. Awesome.

The main reason I got these heads however was to give me something smaller and more portable (and also a helluva lot cheaper) to use on location, rather than the Bowens GM500 monoblock heads that I also have. The GM500 heads are awesome but I am always very wary of taking them out of the studio – mainly because these puppies are so expensive and I really do rely on them for our everyday studio shooting requirements. What I am trying to say here is that I can’t live without them! But would the GM250 heads be able to put out enough light in a location photography environment?

But anyway, getting to the point... I was really impressed with the power output of the GM250 heads. They have an output, or “guide number” of 54. It’s a pretty exact science but it roughly translates that at 1 metre distance from your subject they will put out f/54 @ ISO100. For comparison, the GM500 heads have a guide number of 80. For the geeks out there, the next two paragraphs may interest you...

“The guide number for an electronic flash measures its ability to illuminate the subject to be photographed at a specific film or sensor sensitivity and angle of view. A higher guide number indicates a more powerful flash.

For example, doubling the guide number means the flash can illuminate an object at twice the distance, or for an object at the same distance can be used at one quarter the sensitivity. Doubling the guide number requires a quadrupling of the flash's power, as the area to be illuminated increases as the square of the distance. (cf. inverse-square law).”

Easy right? So far as to say the GM250 heads didn’t skip a beat. Yes it was overcast and most of the time we weren't shooting over about f/9, but we also kept the flash about 5-6 meters away from Tanya (our model) the whole time. And the really best bit – I was using the Bowens Travel-Pak battery to power the heads. This thing is rated to give you 200 full power “pops” of flash when using a 500 watt/second flash head at full power. We took 400+ shots today, mostly at around ½ to ¾ power on the GM250 heads. At the end of the day, the battery indicator on the Travel-Pak was reading >75% power remaining. Fantastic.

Gotta go. Keep shooting what you love and we’ll catch you soon.

Good things come in small packages...

2010-06-20T09:06:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone and welcome to another enthralling diatribe from us here at Timography.

I know I say it every post but this really is a quick one tonight! I have been putting in some late nights recently in order to get some post production out of the way and it is starting to take its toll on me. I must be getting old huh... wait, don’t answer that. Gone are the days when I could stay up past 2am on consecutive evenings without trouble. These days, not quite the case. I’m rambling again huh.

Ok, so to tonight’s post. I have had a mobile broadband thumb-drive modem with a certain phone carrier for a while now, and this week saw it was ready for renewal. I often use the thumb-drive if I am out and about seeing clients and I need internet access, or if I am just out and feeling bored and happen to have my (albeit large 18” Toshiba) laptop with me I’ll kill some time and surf the web. I’m sure that a lot of you have similar devices with other mobile phone carriers and they are a cool peripheral to have at your disposal.

The plot thickens. For a while now I have wanted to get myself a netbook. Why you ask? Why not an iPad? Well that is a whole other blog post in itself. Back to the netbook. I have always loved the idea of taking my laptop with me. Yes, I love to embrace my inner geek. But as I mentioned, the Toshiba is large and heavy; but it is very powerful and capable of any task or program that I throw at it. The downside of all this computing power and that huge 18” screen is that the battery life is 2 hours tops, 2.15 if I turn everything (including the screen brightness) down. You would be amazed how quickly that passes once you get into it.

So I thought the netbook would be perfect for allowing me to do simple things like browse the web, watch a movie or two on iTunes and maybe act as a backup photo storage device on larger shoots. The super long battery life of a netbook certainly appealed to me. I started looking around and did quite a bit of research and it turns out that a netbook wasn’t really going to cut the mustard as far as my needs were concerned. Then I discovered that one mobile phone carrier was bundling their mobile broadband plans with some funky little netbook computers. I looked a little further and I discovered that they also were offering the very cool and certainly very capable Acer Aspire 1410 laptop. Yes that’s right, laptop. Although this thing is only tiny with an 11.6” screen (although larger than a netbook’s 10.1” screen) this puppy certainly packs a punch, and it’s running a full version of Windows 7 Home Premium, not Windows 7 Starter or ~gasp~ Windows XP SP3 like on some current netbooks on the market. I have loaded on Lightroom 2.7 and Photoshop CS4, both of which run just fine thanks very much. It even plays 1080p HD movies – smoothly – without dropping frames. And the best bit; the 3G modem is built in so no more thumb-drive to get in the way and the battery life on this thing is 10+ hours. Oh my God. I’m a happy camper.

To the images accompanying this blog post. Katie is a model that contacted me through our website. She had done some modelling in the past but was looking to get back into more regular work. For this shoot we headed back to the old timber mill at Jarrahdale that we used a while back with Tanayah at sunset; the images from that shoot turned our really well indeed.

The image at the top of the page was amongst the last few shots that we took after the sun had set. I was using my Fujifilm S5 Pro and Nikon 85mm f/1.8 combo. The light for this image was being supplied from a single bare headed Nikon SB-900 mounted to camera right, and was being triggered by using another SB-900 on top of my camera in i-TTL mode using Nikon CLS. I wanted to keep the image, or more specifically the background, fairly light so the camera was in [A] Aperture Priority mode, 1/60^th second shutter speed, f/2.8 @ ISO200. Unlike our last blog post where the saturation was pumped up to 11, everything was zeroed as far as the in-camera processing was concerned.

The next image shows Katie being lit again by my beauty dish. The S5 Pro was this time locked in manual mode, 1/250^th second shutter speed, f/7.1 @ ISO200. I like the subtleness of the lighting here. This image was one of the first of the shoot and Katie has done really well I think with this pose. She was feeling very nervous (which is natural, of course) and it did take a while for her to loosen up. But by the end of the shoot we were getting some great shots. Thanks Katie.

I wanted to finish this post with a quick look at a new iPhone app that was released in the last couple of weeks, Camera +. I have to admit that I am a bit of a sucker too when it comes to apps for my iPhone. At last count I have downloaded about 150 from iTunes and have at any one time about 80 or so on my phone. I was a great fan of Chase Jarvis’ “Best Camera” app as it allowed you to do everything you needed to from within the app. That is, you can take the photo, edit it and upload it without leaving the application.

Camera + adopts this theme but takes it to the next level. You see, Best Camera has about 13 presets that you can play with to manipulate your image, and you can stack multiple effects multiple times on the one image to give you literally billions of combinations; but sometimes it was hard work to push your image in the direction that you wanted to – creatively speaking.

This app however makes things very easy. You select the image you wish to edit, or take a fresh one. You can then select “scenes” which mimic flash patterns or other in-camera presets such as “portrait”, “landscape” , “sunset” and so on. You can then go on to apply a number of different one touch color tonings, crops or photo borders. The cool thing is that it will give you a small thumbnail preview of how each effect will look on your particular image which makes the whole process very quick and easy. And when you are doing this kind of thing on your phone, isn’t that the whole point? Finally, if you enter your Facebook or Twitter information into the app it will upload the end result for you as well. Job well done!

Ok, time for us to go. Take care and keep shooting what you love. Oh, speaking of good things coming in small packages – this entire post and everything in it – the images, Photoshop work, watermarking, the lot – was done on my new little laptop. I love it so much!

I’m going to get a life now... :o)

Photoshop CS5 and over-saturation...

2010-06-06T09:40:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone

Yeah yeah I know it’s been a few weeks since my last blog post but that doesn’t mean that we haven’t been busy – quite the opposite actually. So, let’s have a quick recap. Hmmm, you know what? There are a few images to talk about in this blog post so I recon I’m gonna give the summarization a miss… kinda.

The one thing that I do want to talk about is the new version of Adobe’s Photoshop – CS5. Otherwise known as the photographer’s right hand. Or left hand if you are a gifted left handed individual like me! Well my mum always told me I was gifted – that was a compliment she was giving me, right?

I’m waffling already. Geez. Photoshop CS4 was/is already pretty good. It was/is fast, clever and once you get the hang of it, relatively easy to do all manner of creative edits to your images. I have never really been a big fan of manipulating one’s images to the hilt, but I did appreciate what CS4 could do.

Enter stage left CS5. It installed no problems at all (of course, nice one Adobe) and once I opened this new version I spent the obligatory 15 minutes or so arranging my workspace and re-doing a few of my favorite keyboard shortcuts. Then I opened up a random image to have a little play. Wow. Gasps and giggles of wonderment ensued. Content-aware fill, superior HDR processing, automatic lens correction, down-right awesome RAW image processing, Bridge integration (which I have mixed feelings about), the list goes on. I could continue to go on about how cool this puppy is, but this blog is not a CS5 review.

The screenshot to the right shows how I have set-up the palettes on my workstation. Clearly, I have dual monitors. I only say that to accentuate how beneficial having two monitors on your desktop workstation can be. As the view shows, it allows me to have one screen just for the working space to manipulate the image while the second monitor has all of the palettes easily accessible, but out of the way. You really can pick-up big-ish LCD monitors really cheaply these days, but like all things related to our passion of photography, make sure you get the best ones that your budget will allow. Anyway I’m digressing once again. Can you tell that it’s already 2am and I’m having trouble staying on point?

So, to the images accompanying this blog post. I have for a while now been regularly buying fashion magazines. Oyster, Black, Karen, Lulu and Fallen are some of the titles I really like. No, I don’t get them for the free perfume samples; but rather for the photography. These are such a great resource for photographers. The images in these magazines are sublime and a great inspiration.

Anyway I had seen a couple of shoots where the models were out in the middle of nowhere and everything was bright and very colorful. Really over the top colorful. Saturation turned up to 11. Cool.

Serena once again was happy to fill the modeling shoes for me for this short notice shoot. I had spent the morning prior to the shoot scouting around for a suitable location or two and as it turned out we ended up in Cardup, which is just next door to Byford. I couldn’t find any public spaces but I did however manage to find a couple of big open paddocks with wide open gates and no-one or livestock in sight. That’ll do I thought.

The images in the magazine that I really liked all had flash filling in shadows and bringing the background right down, almost as though the models were superimposed into a fake background. So I set out to replicate that look. I think I got it. I also wanted to try and play around a bit with natural light too, you know, to get two different sets of images that were polar opposites apart. One set with deep blue skies, bright green grass and lots of contrast on the model from the flash that I would bathe on her. The other set of images would have washed out skies and really shallow depth of field, but still the accentuated colors that I was going for.

It was a little bit windy that afternoon so that kind of killed any hopes I had of bringing out my enormous parabolic umbrella, as I was doing the shoot on my own and even the sandbags I have would not have held it down. So it was beauty dish to the rescue again.

Ok, the image at the top of the blog is a bit of a favorite image from the afternoon. I like the composition and the way the clouds are not directly behind Serena’s head. The sun was actually coming in over my left shoulder which was creating some weird shadows on Serena’s face. But not to worry, I just made sure that I over-powered the sun with the beauty dish. In fact, if my memory serves me correctly the ambient light was reading about 1/250^th second shutter speed @ f/8, ISO100. So I dialed in the beauty dish at 1/250^th second shutter speed @ f/16, ISO100. That’s two full stops of colorful goodness higher than the ambient. Cool. I love the blue of the sky in this one.

The next image was from the second location that we chose for the afternoon. I liked the way that the two parallel fence lines had a bit of a converging lines “runway” feel about them. So the D700 was set to about the same shutter speed and aperture as the first image. You may have noticed that the sky is a lot paler in this image. Remember how I said that the sun was over my shoulder for the last image? Well this time we were facing the other direction and looking right into the sun which in turn means that it is not nearly as deep blue as the last image. But, there is always a but, the advantage of this of course is that now we have a wonderful rim-light on Serena.

There’s another lesson to be had there actually. Don’t forget that my Bowens powered beauty dish is putting out four times (two f-stops) as much light as the ambient light falling on Serena. Yet you can still clearly see the accent or rim light falling on Serena’s right shoulder and across her chest. Now of course it all comes down to “artistic interpretation” and how much rim light you wish to place on your subject. But it doesn’t take all that much light to create a nice effect huh.

Ok it’s now obscenely late so I need to wrap this up quickly. At the risk of stating the obvious, the last three images are all taken using only the natural ambient light. I actually was using one of my Fujifilm S5 Pro D-SLR camera bodies and my Nikon 50mm f/1.8 lens for these shots. All of the images are taken with the camera locked in manual mode, f/1.8 and the shutter speed was set to over-expose the scene by at least one f-stop. I had also set the in-camera processing to Fuji’s cool F2 mode, or in other words, the Fuji-chrome or slide film setting.

The first two images in the blog had the saturation pumped up a reasonable amount to make them pop, but for these natural light images I have hardly touched the saturation in post production at all – what you are seeing is coming pretty much right from the camera. Sure they look a bit muted in the thumbnail size that they are on this page, but click on them and you will see what I mean. I also love how soft the images are because I was shooting at f/1.8. It’s such a contrast to the top two images. Cool stuff. I hope you like the shots. I really do.

Well that’s it for me. Oh, for those of you who are wondering what happened to Sandy, fret not. She too has been a busy little puppy and has been out and about taking some great shots lately. You can have a look here at her Facebook Album, and then look here at another album. Nice work Sandy! Hopefully for our next blog post she will be back in the swing of things and making a contribution once again to the blog. Can’t wait.

Ok everyone, take care and keep shooting what you love. Bye for now.

A magical sunset in the middle of nowhere... and Codral flu tablets...

2010-05-16T06:48:00.000-07:00

Hi again everyone.

I know I know – two blog posts in two days… what’s going on? Well despite #1 still gallivanting overseas and my body fast falling under the grips of a wicked dose of the flu, I managed to fill my day with some photography which was great.

This morning was spent down in Fremantle with my good mates @JBcamera and @jonathanpmh on a photo walk / excuse to drink lots of coffee / wander the streets with a camera. These are really fun outings and I wish we had the time to get out and do them more often. I did feel rather guilty about leaving my wife at home with two screaming kids but she has always encouraged me to pursue photography.

As it turned out we spent most of the morning frequenting a couple of well known coffee shops interspersed with a stroll down the Fremantle port photographing the old buildings and the ships that were coming and going from the port. Happy times.

Ok, to the images accompanying today’s blog. Today’s shoot saw me out in Jarrahdale, a little town about 40 minutes drive south of where I live in Kelmscott. It’s a really quiet place, surrounded by forests, both natural and forestry planted. Needless to say, logging had been a big part of the town’s history, but all of the timber milling has been moved to another location. That left behind some really cool, heritage listed ruins of the old timber mill. There isn’t a lot left, just a couple of undercover structures and a big open space full of, well, nothing but gravel really. The place has a fair bit of character but it can be a little hard to find “the spot”.

Anyway, this afternoon’s model was Tanayah. Like Dani, Tanayah has been a friend for a few years now and is also always eager to come along on a photo shoot where she can. Tanayah also brought a friend along; Cynthia, who is an upcoming fashion designer. The black dress that Tanayah is wearing is one of Cynthia’s creations. Cool.

Once we got to the location and set-up ready to shoot, we only had about an hour and a half until the sun was due to set. We started out under one of the undercover sheds, using its length and parallel converging lines as a runway of sorts. Because it was quite dark already and we weren’t in any sort of direct sunlight, I had to slow the shutter down quite a bit in order to bring in some of the background. It was actually a similar situation to that I found myself in a few weeks back when we shot Serena in the empty warehouse. Looking at the EXIF data from those shots, the Nikon D700 was set to manual mode, spot metering, shady white balance, 1/10^th second shutter speed, f/11 @ ISO800. Needless to say the camera was mounted down quite low on my Manfrotto tripod.

But anyway that doesn’t really matter as I want to talk about these images. It’s funny, we were in this pretty cool location and I end up setting up out in the open in the middle of the gravel; which for all intents and purposes could have been done anywhere, and not 40 minutes away in Jarrahdale. Not to worry. I had always intended to use this setting (out in the gravel, that is) as a fallback if it got too dark under the buildings on the site.

So there we were, out in the open and the sky started to turn that gorgeous golden color. These series of shots were taken in the space of about 5 minutes. The light is being supplied by; you guessed it, my beloved beauty dish. I did end up using the parabolic umbrella too when we were undercover and sheltered a little from the wind, but the beauty dish suited these images better, with the light being more controlled and not spilling too much into the foreground. Once again too I had my Bowens Gemini heads and TravelPak battery supplying the light, and the whole lot was being triggered with the ever reliable Bowens Pulsar radio triggers.

The Nikon D700 – Sigma 70-200mm f/2.8 EX DG HSM II combo was still mounted low on the tripod, at about Tanayah’s knee height, but I was quite a way back this time, about 15 meters away in fact. This really compressed perspective and kept the background nice and tight. Everything was still locked down in manual mode, but this time the shutter speed was at a much more comfortable 1/200^th second, f/7.1 @ISO 800. Love it. Just love the shots.

So there you go, a successful afternoon up in the hills. I really do enjoy location shooting, especially with everything locked in manual and with the Bowens equipment putting out lots of juicy, but manageable light.

Ok, past my bedtime again. Flu setting in badly. I, along with #1 who is back in a few days, will talk to you soon. Take care everyone.

PS - if anyone out there knows of a good watermarking program that doesn't turn all of your images a wonderful yet sickening shade of cyan, please let me know. Ta.

Still here... just...

2010-05-15T02:41:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone

Just a quick blog post to let you all know that I am still alive and kicking, but just taking a bit of a break after my wife and I had our second child a couple of weeks ago. Oh yeah, #1 is on an overseas holiday (the lucky thing) so it’s just me for now.

So what I thought I’d share is a couple of images I took a couple of weeks ago for Dani, a local model. Dani has been a friend for a few years now and has been a great support to us here at Timography. Whenever I want to try something new or simply have a spot in my calendar and wish to fill it with a shoot of some description, Dani is always willing to help out.

This particular shoot was organized with the intention of showing another photographer and friend how to use studio lighting, as my friend had not had the opportunity to shoot in a studio environment before.

Ok, to the lighting in these shots. It was really simple, just one light and a foam core panel. The lighting diagram template that I use to represent the studio set-ups does not have a foam core preset so I have used a circular reflector to represent it but I’m sure that you get the idea. The umbrella was actually by beloved Paul C. Buff 86” Parabolic umbrella. I love this thing. Like my other favorite; the beauty dish, it provides a nice soft(ish) light that is really easy to control. But unlike the beauty dish, it lights your model from head to toe – literally. These umbrellas are not available in Australia as yet, but I rang the company in the USA and placed my order, their customer service was great and I had my umbrella in my hands five days later! Oh yeah, the whole thing + shipping only cost $168AUD to get it to my front door. Sweet.

So there you go. A simple set-up that gives pretty cool results. Sure, it’s not the most complex lighting set-up that you have ever seen, but that’s not the point. In my opinion, photography is about presenting the subject in the best possible light (pun intended). If the viewer starts to decompose your set-up and spends 2o minutes trying to figure it out, have you really done your job? Shouldn’t they be more interested in the subject? Lighting is the tool that we as photographers use to our advantage, but it’s not the star of the show; the subject is – right? Subtly is the key; it’s not a contest to see who can set up the most lights and make the image look like one big and expensive drivers license photo. That’s what I think anyway. It’s all about the subject – the end.

Speaking of the parabolic umbrella, I have been wanting to try it out on location ever since I got it, but being such a huge “sail” in a strong breeze I have been reluctant to do so. Have a look at the image on the right, which I posted shortly after I received the umbrella, as an indication of its size. The top of the umbrella is about 4 inches from the roof and the bottom of the umbrella is only about 12 inches from the floor. I have recently purchased a couple of hefty sandbags but I still am unsure that they would be of much use. I usually work alone for these random modelling shoots like the one I have tomorrow afternoon otherwise an assistant or two holding it in place would do the trick. Tomorrow’s location however is up in the hills in a bit of a valley so hopefully there won’t be much breeze around. I will take it and the beauty dish but the weather will determine which one gets used for the shoot. I’ll post some images of that shoot in the next couple of days. Wish me luck!

Keep shooting what you love and I’ll talk to you soon. Hopefully #1 will be back by then too…

Sun, sand and beauty dishes...

2010-04-28T06:58:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone and welcome to another enthralling edition of our Timography Blog. To get you guys in the swing of things, my text looks like this and Sandy's text is in italics... just so you know... :o)

So, what’s happened since our last post? Well, we have received an overwhelming amount of positive comments and support for the series of images that we took down in Albany, so thank you for all who contributed. Warm fuzzies all round! Sandy is getting more and more amazing behind the camera with each new assignment. She is doing such a wonderful job and soon I fear it will be her teaching me a thing or two!

I must admit... that I do ‘come to life’ whilst working with children. I love the challenge of capturing something unique about a child. Jade, my daughter and probably THE most photographed child I know, is most of the time a very willing participant and although I photograph her all the time... I still manage to capture something that’s a little different and unique which just melts my heart.

So, to business. This weekend saw Sandy and I out in the sunshine with her daughter with the intention of taking some outdoor portraits in full sun, using the flash to overpower the ambient light and create a pleasing light on the subject. We wanted to stay pretty close to home for this shoot so we ended up choosing Champion Lakes Rowing Arena here in Kelmscott. This is a nice quiet area with (obviously!) a nice big lake that we could use in the background but it also has a new housing estate going up, which we thought would make for an interesting backdrop for Sandy’s daughter. I also wanted to keep things simple from an equipment standpoint, so we took only one camera body, a couple of lenses, a light meter, radio triggers and the lighting gear comprising of one head and a beauty dish.

When I first started setting up Timography and building our inventory of equipment I wanted to make sure that the lighting gear we purchased would be reliable, versatile, powerful and most importantly, portable. I have been so happy with the Bowens lighting equipment that we now have. It isn’t as cheap as some, but geez it is good. And they make an awesome little battery pack which means that I can power the strobe heads on location; and I have mentioned this many times in the past. Fantastic.

This is the first time Tim has let me drive the beauty dish on location. I must say I have become quite fond of using a strobe head on location for it’s simplicity and exposure stability. I have currently been using my built-in speedlight to trigger a remote flash with TTL metering and I’m very happy with my results. However, with a strobe head, I do like the fact that I can create a desired exposure and know it’s not going to change much which then gives me more time to focus on working with and getting to know the subject better. It still takes me a while for the cogs to start turning on setting it all up and establishing a flash to ambient light ratio... but step by step I slowly get there. I might also add that my son, who is only 18 months old, was also with us on this shoot and this made concentrating a little more difficult so big thanks to Tim for being so understanding and patient :o)

And now, to the images accompanying this post. As I said in the intro, the purpose of this shoot was to practice overpowering the strong morning sun. We started out at about 10am, and already the ambient was reading at ISO100, 1/250th second shutter speed @ f/11! So we ended up trying a few different variations with light ratios. The images with Jade at the water’s edge were all shot with the flash output at about ½ a f/stop above the ambient, whereas the images of Jade in the pink hat were all shot with the flash output almost two stops greater, or about f/16-f/18. The reason for this fluctuation is that for the pink hat shots, Jade was much closer to the light source at only about 1 ½ meters away. She was moving about a little bit (as kids do!) but mostly kept creeping closer to the flash, meaning stronger light was hitting her.

I really didn’t think we would end up with many good shots this morning. Usually Jade is very willing and the better shots are normally some from the beginning of a shoot. It was the other way today. Jade was hungry, and thirsty and wanted her lollipop that I had brought along as a bribe. She was fidgety and acting a little silly, even getting a tad grumpy. But hey, she is only 5 and it was very ‘stop start’ for her due to her brother continuously running in the opposite direction. You will not capture a child’s true personality if you force them or make them feel uncomfortable. You can only work with what you’ve got and if what you’ve got isn’t working... you move on and try something else. So we packed up and headed for the water.

So yeah, we were certainly overpowering the sun with the pink hat images. I really love how the beauty dish has again lived up to its name. It is such a versatile light modifier. It gives out more light than a soft box but is gentler than just a high-efficiency bowl reflector. The trade-off however with Jade standing so close to the light source is that her legs and feet were not quite getting the coverage they deserved. Still makes for a gorgeous shot though I think and helps to accentuate the light falling on her upper body.

The last couple of images here show Jade by the water’s edge. As mentioned we pulled the flash output back to be just over that of the bright sky, that being about 1/250th second shutter speed @ f/13 or thereabouts. The reason for this is that we wanted to make sure the highlights on the top of the water caused by the suns reflections were clearly visible. Both Sandy and I really love this last image. Jades pose is spot on; although she was not being directed at this point, from memory Sandy has just asked her to grab the bottom of her dress and swing her arms from side-to-side.

It was here that little Jade shone :o) You can see it in her face and body language that she was now comfortable and enjoying herself. And what a difference it makes. Jade did a great job, I learnt a little more and we all had a great morning. Oh, and the little man … well, he at this point was soaking wet and muddy so I can assure you he had a wonderful time too :o)

For the record, the "little man" is Sandy's son ok!

So that about wraps up another blog post from us. Thanks for watching. We’ll be continuing to use the beauty dish out on location in the coming weeks, so I hope to share some more images with you all soon. Keep shooting what you love and take care. Bye from us!

Road trippin' and wedding dresses...

2010-04-12T07:29:00.000-07:00

Hey everybody.

Wow! What a weekend. What a great time was had by all. Happy times. Ok, let me rewind a little for the sake of those of you who think I have lost the plot a little (more).

For a while now I have wanted to get away for the weekend – for a couple of reasons. Firstly, I have wanted to head to a really nice beach location to capture some wedding images that I could use for promotional purposes. Now these beach locations that I had in mind just do not exist here in Perth. Sorry but they just don’t. Secondly I have been meaning to take Sandy out on a full on location shoot to give her a feel for how things go down and how to deal with situations that a location can throw at you at a moment’s notice. We have now done lots of weddings together but I really don’t get the opportunity to explain what I’m doing and why I’m doing it this way instead of that. So why not kill the proverbial two birds and all that?

It’s also at this juncture that I need to officially introduce Sandy; a.k.a. #1, to you all. She’ll be making some contributions to this blog post and many more to come – so, welcome buddy!

Well, okay ... my first addition. Where do I start and what do I need? Firstly, my life’s most important necessities ... super comfy tracky pants and chocolate! But equally as important I would like to thank my inspirational friend Tim for this opportunity.

So ... Road trippin’ & wedding dresses hey ... I consider myself an average person with average looks, opinions and life experience. I love photography and aspire to be amongst Perth’s best. When Tim and I started to plan this trip I was so excited. What a great adventure and what a great opportunity to share a location shoot with my fantastic mentor. I would model for him, no problem .. how hard could it be!

Thanks Sandy. Ok, back to the road trip. We had picked out a couple of likely destinations using only Google Earth as a reference, but as it turned out they were awesome locations. Important note here though; I usually without exception scout a location in person before heading there for the shoot itself, as local knowledge is invaluable in knowing the lay of the land, how many people are likely to be there at a given time, where the sun rises and sets and so on. Sadly, because we were heading all the way to Albany this was not an option this time around, and if we had our time again we would have swapped the morning and evening locations. But hindsight is a wonderful thing huh…

As it turned out, we were blessed with some really moody weather on Saturday afternoon at Shelly Beach, West Cape Howe and Sunday morning at Little Beach, Two Peoples Bay was simply gorgeous. I had gone on the trip with a shot list of images I wanted to try and capture; right down to the pose, the composition and the lighting. It turns out that we didn’t get to try all of the shots I had in mind as time, lack of daylight and excess goose bumps got in the way. But all in all it was a fantastic trip and one that I will not forget for a really, really long time. So, to the images…

The image at the top of this post is my favorite so far of the 1000+ images that we took. Mind you though, I have only thus far had the opportunity to scratch the surface and I am sure that there are lots more fantastic images to be found. It’s funny, but when you really get into it on a shoot you lose track of what shots you have taken and ideas that you had. It’s only reviewing them later that you think – oh yeah, I remember that – cool! But, I digress. This image was taken close to the end of our afternoon at Shelley Beach. Poor Sandy was freezing her you-know-whatsits off. You can see the rainbow in the distance. Although Sandy’s veil looks motionless here there was actually a cool stiff breeze blowing. The light source for this image was my tri-flash holder with 2x Nikon SB-900’s and a Nikon SB-800, fired by using the Pixel TTL triggers. My D700 was in aperture priority mode with my Nikon 50mm f/1.8 prime lens, 1/3200^th second shutter speed, f/2.8 @ ISO100. Exposure compensation was set to -1.7EV to really darken the sky and the flash compensation was set to +0.7EV to make Sandy glow in the image. It worked. Oh yeah, as usual I want you to know that all of the images in this blog post are shown as they were taken. The only post production applied was to fix a couple of crooked horizions. Thats it.

One more thing to point out here while I remember it. For the trip I had packed two different light sources, or generators if you like. The first was a bag full of Nikon speedlights. The other was my Bowens studio heads and accompanying battery pack that allows me to use them on location without the need for mains power. One light generator is small, light weight and a sealed unit. The other is large, heavy and full of moisture penetrating holes and cooling vents. So for the sake of convenience I kept the Bowens gear in the car for the beach shoots but I was hoping to get the opportunity to use it at some point on the trip.

The next image was the second last one we took for the afternoon. The sun had well and truly set behind the escarpment to Sandy’s left and it was starting to get really really cold now. Even with all my running up and down the beach grabbing this lens and that and then jockeying for position to get the shot I was feeling it. Sandy was turning a lovely shade of light blue - poor thing! So this image is still the D700/50mm f/1.8 combo, and still in aperture priority mode, 1/60^th second shutter speed, f/7.1 @ ISO400. As it was getting quite dark now I had set the exposure compensation to +1.3EV but pulled the flash compensation back to +/-0.0 to balance the ambient being brighter. I love Sandy’s expression here. From memory I had asked her to try looking directly at me but because of the cold breeze her eyes had started to water and she couldn’t do it. D’oh – sorry about that buddy!

I have, and I’m sure most of you have too, always thought that a model has a pretty easy job. It probably becomes easier with time, I don’t know but it really opened my eyes on what it’s like to be in front of the camera as opposed to behind it which is where I prefer to be; by far! I am the first to admit that I can’t multi task ... never been able to and have made more hassles for myself by trying to. Smile or not, just stand there, posed for a while and look gorgeous. Um, reality check big time. Guided by a great photographer, poses are neither motionless nor comfortable. Trying to walk whilst gazing in the photographers suggested direction was a real challenge. Not only because I normally like to watch where I’m walking or at least look at where I’m heading but I also had to remember my facial expressions. For me, bearing in mind my lack of multi tasking skills, a glamorous expression is not that goofy look where I’ve lost balance, stepped on my dress or felt the freezing cold water rush over my feet.

Ok I’ll have to start moving quickly through these last few images now as it is really past my bedtime! We left Shelly Beach feeling (albeit pretty cold) good that we had managed to bag some cool shots – I didn’t know how many exactly but I knew there were a few. The following morning saw us at Little Beach. What a glorious stretch of beach! But it does however get me back to my point that I made at the beginning of this blog post wherein local knowledge and a little bit of forethought go a long way, especially when you have come a long way in the first place to visit a location and you want to get it right while you are there. You see, as beautiful as Little Beach was, we actually scored a sunrise here over the water as the beach faces an easterly direction. This is great but goes totally against what I had in mind with my shot list. Kudos to Sandy here though who encouraged me to keep going and just wing-it despite it not being 100% what I had wanted to achieve – thanks buddy! I have posted a few images on the Facebook album from that location if you want to have a look.

Anyway, on the way down to Albany we had spotted a few really cool looking rural spots that, if time permitted we were going to try on the way back. As it turned out we left Little Beach early and headed back to Albany which in turn meant that we could head back early. We passed a few good looking places on the way home but when we stopped for a closer inspection they weren’t all that good. So we jumped back into the car and kept going. This spot is one that I didn’t actually see on the way down but I am glad I saw it at the last minute on the way back. The highway was only about 50 meters away and we were faced with a constant barrage of trucks and cars going past beeping their horns and yelling um, I don't think I want to know!

So, as we were now away from the beach and the waves and the salt spray I also made a point of using the Bowens equipment and my beloved beauty dish for the lighting in these images. And oh what a difference. I won’t run through the EXIF data for all of the bush images, suffice to say that for these the camera was locked down in manual mode, ISO100, 1/250^th second shutter speed and an aperture that varied from f/9 to f/13 dependant on the clouds that were passing over the sun with great frequency. We took a meter reading of the ambient light and then another for the flash output for each pose, then balanced the flash power output accordingly and made sure we shot the images in close succession to the last meter reading as possible to ensure consistent exposure whilst avoiding over-exposure.

I love the light in these images. I love the way that the beauty dish has bathed Sandy in this even glow of light and it hasn’t spilled too much onto her surroundings, despite the fact that I was not using the grid spot attachment for these images. I also love the fact that the big studio flash was able to pump out enough light to enable me to bring down the ambient background light in the way that it has. I love it, just love it. Finally, I also loved the fact that we were now dealing with a hot afternoon and masses of flies which made me feel a little better as Sandy really doesn't like the cold :)

For me, trying to keep my cool while 100 flies crawled over my face and up my nose on a hot humid afternoon whilst trying to look gorgeous while the sun glaringly invaded my suggested line of sight was… an experience! It’s not pretty, it’s not fun, I used and strained muscles I never knew I had but I did walk away with a much bigger appreciation for what models do for us photographers. What a trip!

Ok, gotta go. Thanks for staying to the end of this post, and thanks again to Sandy for your contributions. Take care, keep shooting what you love and I'll, I mean we'll talk to you soon.

Silver linings and let loose in a warehouse...

2010-03-29T07:10:00.001-07:00

Hi everyone. So, what a week – as usual! My good friend and mentor @Jonathanpmh had encouraged me to enter the AIPP (Australian Institute of Professional Photographers) “Mini Merits” competition this last week. I have never entered any photo competitions in the past so this was a bit of an eye opener for me. I didn’t go in with high expectations, but rather I was keen to hear the thoughts of some very famous photographers and judges regarding my images. And wow, they didn’t hold back!

But this was a good thing. A really good thing. You see, as a photographer I have never been very good at the “artistic/conceptualizing” side of things; but I find the technical aspect very easy. So in turn whenever I look at the images after a shoot, my eye is drawn to the technical aspect of the photo; is it lit, how’s the exposure and so on. How the model actually looks, her facial expression, composure and so on is something that I have to make an effort to see. I’m getting better all the time but it is still sometimes a struggle as far as exactly what I should be looking at.

Back to the AIPP. Ok, so the images were placed in front of the judges one-by-one in an anonymous fashion, they were not aware of who’s images belonged to whom. And they gave an honest, off the cuff assessment of exactly what they though of the image in front of them.

After the first couple of comments really seemed a little harsh, I made a point of listening subjectively to their remarks. And you know what – they were right (for the most part!) with everything they said. You see, I was only looking at the technical qualities of the image and I thought I did a good job.

The first thing they said when my first image came up was “well technically this is a good effort, but…” and then the barrage began. Oh, for the record I entered a couple of images from the Rockingham Beach shoot I did a couple of weeks ago as they were fresh in my mind and I really liked them.

Anyway they went on to say things like the model isn’t looking in the right direction, there is too much seaweed, they could not get the story behind the image, why is there a seagull in the sky (on the beach, are you kidding me?) and how the print quality of the images could be done 15 different and better ways. Wow.

So these were all things that I didn’t really pay that much attention to in the past. I would take the shot, look at the camera and instantly decide whether I liked it or not, but I would not go much further than that. But I really appreciate the feedback I got from these judges now as it has shown me what others think about when they look at an image. There is no right or wrong answers when it comes to interpreting someone else’s (or your own for that matter) work, but next time really try to step back and see the big picture so to speak. Ask yourself all those way-out questions. Don’t hold back – it might be the silver lining you have been searching for!

Anyway, to the title of tonights blog post. As you may have noticed the shots shown here are of a similar theme. That being open space, lots of open airy space.

My awesome friend and #1 assistant/upcoming kick-ass photographer Sandy and her family own a large retail store down here in Kelmscott. It’s huge, a massive industrial unit. But I was surprised to hear Sandy say that the current space is not the one they started in. "Oh?", I said. She then pointed out the (now empty) tenancy two doors down in the same complex. Hello!!! We had the keys and the power was still on - groovy...

I have always wanted to shoot in a space like this, so I pounced upon the generous offer to use the space for a shoot. I didn’t have any clients that day so I arranged for Serena to join us again at short notice and she was happy to join in.

Everything I had learned about lighting in my studio pretty much went out the window here. Let me explain. In the studio I always shoot at 1/250^th second shutter speed, and usually around f/8 or thereabouts at ISO 100. So, I unpacked my gear, set up the lights and metered for just that, 1/250^th @ f/8. Woah. Overkill. There was absolutely no background bleeding into the image, she was just standing in a pool of light in the middle of a black hole. Now this isn’t necessarily a bad thing, it did look kind of cool. But the whole point of using a 1000+ sq/ft empty space is that I wanted the viewer to see that we were in an empty warehouse. I wanted some of the background to be visible, to see junk on the floor and fixtures on the wall.

So, guess what exposure settings we settled on? A very scary and slow 1/10^th second shutter speed, f/7.1 @ ISO400. As you can see from the images, this allowed just a little of the ambient to bleed in to the background, just enough to make out some details. It also meant that I had to mount my Nikon D700 – Sigma 70-200mm f/2.8 rig on my Manfrotto tripod and set it all down quite low so I could achieve the perspective I wanted. I actually spent the entire time shooting sitting on the floor with the camera mounted just above Serena’s knee height.

I alternated the primary light source between my two loves, the 18” beauty dish (wide open this time, no grid attachment) or my 8ft parabolic umbrella from Paul C. Buff. The top image of Serena in pink is lit by the beauty dish to her left, and clearly the umbrella is providing a gorgeously soft edge light and creating those super soft shadows leading toward my camera position.

The next image down I didn’t really like to begin with, but it is growing on me. The main light is the parabolic umbrella, set up quite high to Serena’s left on a hefty boom stand so it was about 12 ft high and 45 degrees from Serena. You can clearly see one of the kicker lights here as that was the effect I was going for, with lots of lens flare to create the mood, but there is actually another kicker light just to the left of the frame to which you can see some of the flare from it, but also the three sets of shadows leading away from Serena allude to that third light source.

The next image was just a quick set-up, using the beauty dish again to Serena’s left and the single kicker light immediately behind her creating that flare coming over her shoulder.

Moving right along we have my second favorite image from the shoot (the pink dress being my favorite). It is a very similar set-up to the pink dress image with the exception that the umbrella is moved to the right of frame and angled more toward me. It is turned up a little bit more too in this image. We were actually metering the main light (beauty dish) at f/7.1 and the umbrella was hitting Serena’s back at f/8. Once again that beautiful edge light is just… well it’s amazing as far as I’m concerned, and the beauty dish compliments as the main light to create the overall look. I like it a lot.

And the final image – oh dear! This was a test image taken by #1 to test the levels for the previous image set. She said, “do a pose…” So I did. Ah, what the hell, we were having fun. I recon it’s a cool image too… Well done Sandy :)

Ok, it’s so far past my bedtime it’s not funny so this is another characteristically short wrap up. Have a great week shooting – whatever it is that you photograph. Please keep your comments coming, I value all of your thoughts and ideas. Take it easy.

On the fly update...

2010-03-20T06:43:00.000-07:00

Hi guys

Just a quick update today, so I could share a couple of images I took this evening of Sonia from Xtreem Agency.

Sonia is a brand new model and had not done any shoots before – so she did extremely well. Oh, Sonia has three young children too – wow.

Whenever we get a new model into the studio I make sure that I give them my little spiel about how “Modeling is like acting but without having to remember any lines…” and my personal favourite, “Out in the studio, I’m (the photographer) just a button pressing monkey really, how the shot turns out is pretty much up to the model and how he/she carries themselves…”. Right off the bat however, Sonia was confident and put in a real effort – despite telling me how nervous she was – and just got right into it. Good for her!

If only all the models we shoot were this enthusiastic…

Hopefully I’ll have a complete new blog post for you all by tomorrow evening; if I have the energy after tomorrow afternoons artistic shoot. I tend to feel pretty drained after those as so much time is spent concentrating, getting the set right and generally just trying to get everything perfect… wish me luck!

At the beach... and loving the light...

2010-03-14T07:50:00.001-07:00

Hey everybody.

Well this was a weekend of firsts. Today saw me down on the beach at Point Peron, Rockingham. I had a couple of models lined up to shoot some images for my catalogue that I have been wanting to finish for a while now.

I have been down to Point Peron before – but that was a while ago. So I took my new #1 assistant (and great photographer in her own right) Sandy down there yesterday just to have a look around and suss out a few locations, and we finished the day with a photography lesson on the beach. It was a great arvo. But I am really glad we went down to have a look around…

You see, the last time I was there the beaches were great. Nice rocky outcrops and (mostly) clear blue water. But not yesterday. Noooo. Instead there was seaweed. Lots of stinky smelly seaweed. Seaweed everywhere. Ok, you get the point. So my perfect little spot was ruined. Sandy and I looked at a few alternate locations but I was not really happy with any of them.

It was only by chance that whilst waiting for one of the models to turn up this afternoon I spotted a little teeny bit of clean(ish) beach just a little bit off the beaten track that was surrounded by dead trees. It looked pretty cool from the access way so we all hiked across the sand until we reached the spot. And it was worth it.

Ok, so that’s not really revolutionary right? We’ve all seen photos of nice models on the beach. But you see, I was never really game to tackle this kind of photography without bringing a barrage of flash equipment with me. Triggers, softboxes, beauty dishes, the whole nine yards. But for this shoot I was determined (and with some encouragement from #1) to try and utilize the natural light and step right out of my comfort zone.

I have long been envious of guys like Chase Jarvis, Louis and Jonathan Pang who seem to be able to work with natural light like it’s no big deal. They just seem to be able to make the most amazing pictures with just their camera’s and a bit of white cardboard. Jonathan has become a dear friend and mentor to me of late so I was kinda determined that I would give it a go this time, embrace the natural light.

Ok, so for now that’s enough ramblings of a sleepy photographer. Time for a quick run-down of the images. The shot at the top of the post is my favorite from the afternoon. This wasn’t a posed shot. I had merely asked Serena to walk up the beach to a pre-determined spot so I could photograph her on the way back down the beach toward me – backlit all the way by the now heavily setting sun. So this is actually one of a series of test shots. I had set the camera to manual exposure, f/4.5 @ 1/400^th second shutter speed and spot metered off Serena’s back. I had locked the camera in manual as I knew that as she walked back down the beach toward me as planned the setting sun would be somewhere in the frame, but it would move about a little bit as I took the shots depending on how I rotated the camera as she walked toward me. So this just ensured that the exposure would remain consistent as I took the images – simple.

The next image in the blog was taken momentarily before the first image. We had been working down the other end of the beach and I could see the sun setting quite low in the sky. The camera was also in manual mode for this image; still at f/4.5 but I had backed the shutter speed off to 1/250^th of a second as Serena wasn’t quite behind the sun as I had hoped. So, spot metering again, this time I set the camera +1 stop over exposed according to the inbuilt meter as I really wanted to see the edge light from the sun around Serena’s body. It worked!

The image just to the right was one of the first for the afternoon. Once again – this is 100% natural light. No flash – no fill. My Nikon D700 was in [A] Aperture Priority mode with the aperture set to f/2.8 with the lens zoomed in all the way to 70mm. I kept the metering mode to [Centre-weighted Average] for this series of images as I was using the flash on and off depending on the composition and where I was standing in amongst the trees. It also had the effect however of allowing a little more brightness into the scene to which this shot is the result.

So, thats three for three so far that do not include a single pulse of flash on my behalf. I could get used to this!

The last shot in today’s blog post is also the last shot I took this afternoon. Literally. And yes, as you can plainly see, I used flash for this one. You see those hills behind Serena? Well they were blocking the sun which had now set behind them, so no more direct yummy sunlight was being cast on the models. So with the camera still in manual mode, I set the shutter speed to 1/250^th of a second. This ensured that the sky would remain fairly dark as the sun was really low and out of the way by this point. Aperture was set to f/7.1 to keep the flash under control and hey presto – we have a winner. Easy peesy – right?!

To finish up for today – I have to say I am kinda sorry. Sorry that I didn’t try to use natural light more affectively sooner. Sure – the images in this blog post are not perfect – but I really like them. A lot. Go to my Facebook Page to view a few other images taken on today’s shoot; some with flash and some without. I have a couple more shoots coming up in a week or so that I plan to try using natural light a bit more. Like they say; practice makes perfect. I really did love the light at the beach this afternoon…

Video Blog #10 - Using Nikon CLS on location...

2010-03-07T04:56:00.000-08:00

Hi everybody. Welcome to another thrilling – edge of your seat blog post. Ok, so maybe it isn’t quite that exciting but I’m sure that both of you that read this will get something out of it! Ha.

So, to tonight’s video. Right off the bat I want to send a big thank you to John at ViWest Video Instruction for all his help and enthusiasm in getting these videos out there. This is our first episode using a green screen background which allowed us to use the virtual apartment backdrop. Cool stuff.

The location we used for the video is an old disused dairy milking shed! It turned out to be a superb spot and there really was somewhere cool to take a shot almost everywhere you turned your head. Very cool stuff.

Anyway that’s enough from me for a little bit, have a look at the video…

What I’ll do now is just give you all a quick rundown on the lighting set-up that was used for each set that we did in the video.

This is probably my favorite image of the afternoon. It was actually the last shot that was taken on that segment of live shooting on the video. I probably shouldn’t be telling you all this, but in this shot the hair light positioned at the rear of the set has actually gone off a little over-cooked. It was actually dialed in to be quite a bit softer than it is in this image. But this is actually a good point to remember when it comes to using Nikon CLS out in the field, or in any location for that matter.

My point being - the CLS system only works well to a point. Let me now qualify that statement. Is it relying on the fact that the camera’s metering system can get a clear view of all the light that is being added in to the shot. This is obviously very easy for the key light (softbox) as the light it is emitting is filling the foreground; i.e., Serena, very clearly. CLS works by incorporating Nikons wonderful i-TTL metering system wherein a series of usually unperceivable “pre-flashes” occur momentarily after the shutter button is pressed but before the image is actually taken. Now, in this particular image the camera’s meter must have been dissatisfied with the amount of light it could see coming from the hair light during the pre-flash so it just dumped everything into the shot. In this instance I recon the result is quite pleasing, but it is not strictly what I told the camera to do.

So this is something to keep in mind; wherever possible make sure that the light coming from each remote speedlight is clearly visible to the camera’s meter… unless you don’t want it to see…

Anyway, to quickly recap on the video, the main light is coming from a Nikon SB-900 shooting through a collapsible Lastolite softbox. The rear light is a Nikon SB-800 mounted on a shelf on the back wall by using a Manfrotto spring clamp. That light is also gridded using a newly purchased Premier Flex Adaptor System and a Honeycomb diffuser or grid. I have only just heard about the Premier flash accessories and I have to say that they work really well. They also do a Beauty Dish for a speedlight that I intend to purchase tomorrow and give it a good workout. More on that in the coming weeks…

This next shot is just a really simple set-up. This was taken using only the shoot through umbrella and SB-900; the hair light was not on for this particular exposure. In hindsight I think I would have liked to have the umbrella a little closer to Serena as although an umbrella is a soft light modifier there are a few harsh shadows in the image simply because of the way we took the shot and due to the narrowness of the room we were in, I had to position the umbrella on the other side of the room; as you can see in the video.

That actually brings up another lesson for the younger players out there. A light source is only as “soft” as the distance between it and your subject. That same umbrella placed 300mm from Serena’s head would produce virtually no shadows whatsoever but rather it would wrap around her face enveloping it in a wonderful soft glow. But, move that same light source and modifier (the umbrella!) 3000mm from the subject and this is the result; the shadows are much more pronounced. This goes for absolutely any light modifier too, whether it is an umbrella, softbox or silk. The closer the light source is to your subject, the softer it will appear.

And now, the final image for today’s blog post. We were running out of time and had to do one more lighting scenario to wrap up the video. We actually took a bit of time getting the last scenario (with the umbrella) right. All the while the sun was setting right behind us, but we could not see it directly from the room we were in. When we finished though and came out into the light – my word it looked cool! There was only one thing for it; place Serena in the huge doorway at the end of the shed with the sun right behind her.

I made mention of this next fact in the video, but I’ll say it again. From experience, especially in bright light scenarios like this one, I find it beneficial to be as close to your light source as possible. This is because we are only using light, or in this case infrared light, to trigger the flashes. In really bright light this system does not work at all if you are more than a few feet away which is why in the video I don’t use anything else other than a 24-70mm f/2.8 lens. Ideally I would like to use my 70-200mm f/2.8 lens for portraits but this would mean that unless we were in total cover (like the first scenario for instance) the remote flashes simply will not receive the signal from the commander flash on top of my D700.

Anyway, this last set-up is just using the Lastolite softbox again and a SB-900. I set the metering on the camera to [Centre Weighted] and took a meter reading from Serena’s face and then re-composed the scene and took the shot. This ensures that the camera will send enough flash to correctly expose Serena’s face. I had actually set the camera to manual exposure for this shot. I pointed the camera at the background and took note of the exposure meter in the viewfinder. From memory it was something like 1/2000^th second shutter @ f/4.5, ISO200. I then set the exposure +2 stops, or about 1/500^th second at f/4.5 to really blow out the background. This also produces another effect; it means that all that sun-setting goodness will produce a nice natural rim light on the subject as it has done here. Point to note on this one – i-TTL works with Nikons no matter what shutter speed you have selected when you have [Auto(FP)] sync speed set in-camera. Sorry Canon guys! But the end result is quite nice as you can see.

Ok, well I think that is enough from me for one sitting. Have a great week everyone! Oh, don’t forget to keep your comments and suggestions coming – I really appreciate them.

19/325 - Has the old girl still got it?

2010-02-28T06:48:00.000-08:00

It’s a public holiday tomorrow here in Perth, so I thought I’d take some time out on a Sunday night and I went for a little drive to a town about 25 minutes away, Jarrahdale. There’s not a lot there, a couple of pubs, I think there is a mine down the road, and also Serpentine Dam is nearby (I think I might go there next). Oh yeah, they have a public phone booth in Jarrahdale too.

Anyway, I was tidying up a few things this afternoon. I went looking for something (for which I have no idea what it was!) because along the way I got distracted by my old Fujifilm S3 Pro DSLR body. In its day, this thing was in a league of it’s own. DP Review, Thom Hogan, they all had positive things (mostly) to say about the camera. At the time, no other digital SLR could produce the low noise, high dynamic range and that gorgeous signature Fujifilm color saturated shots like this camera.

This particular reviewer hits the nail on the head…

“The S3 has its limitations in the speed department, but for certain specialized tasks, particularly low-light photograpy and portraits, it really delivers. I love the rendition of skin tones and the ability to shoot at higher ISOs is a huge plus. I like the handling and overall the camera "feels" nice in hand and the different modes encourage me to experiment and pushes my creative impulses. I also like the neutrality of not having to deal with the Nikon vs Canon debate, as Fuji have their own approach, allowing me to avoid the religious wars that go on between users of these other brands. But the S3 is not a camera for amateurs, impatient people, or those who want something simple to use. It's best suited to experienced photographers who are willing to spend the time to get to know the camera and coax magic out of its complex sensor and shooting modes. As a second body that's dedicated to portraits or studio work, it will deliver and this is probably its best niche. As an only camera for inexperienced photographers, it might be frustratingly inconsistent - sometimes you'll get great results and sometimes not. Are you patient and willing to learn, to experiment, to push the envelope?? Ask yourself this before going down the S3 route.

In closing, I would say that the S3 is a rather unique photographic tool that requires patience and commitment to master. It is not a particularly good "general use camera" for amateurs or novices, but rather a specialized tool that fills a particular niche inside of the working photographer's roster of equipment. If you're willing to work with it and learn its unique traits, it will reward you with superb results. What is the S3 best suited for? Weddings, portraits, studio work, concert photography, abstract and artistic photography. Worst? Sports, landscapes (arguable), general travel.

Pros: Image quality, Fuji 35mm film simulation modes, extended dynamic range, low noise at high ISO, body ergonomics, image quality, image quality.

Cons: Slow performance, some handling issues, some colors don't look natural, takes time and patience to figure out and master different modes and settings, not a beginner's camera”

So off I went. Just the S3 Pro and my Nikon 50mm f/1.8 and Sigma 24mm f/2.8 prime lenses. No zooms. No filters, polarizer’s or flashes. I did pack my tripod too though. The phone box shot was taken with the 24mm prime at f/8, 3 seconds @ ISO100. The shot of the old mill was also f/8 but with the 50mm prime, 1/6^th second (handheld) @ ISO100.

The only post production applied was to crop the mill photo to a pano format, but that’s all. Sure, the quality of shots being delivered by today’s current crop of SLR cameras is outstanding – no denying that. But this camera body is now 5 years old. Who out there is using a 5 year old PC? Not many of you I bet. More to the point, try comparing the performance of a 5 year old PC to a current one. I am not trying to say that the Fuji S3 is still a groundbreaker in today’s market – that would be insane. But, if I had to I recon I could get away with using it on a client or two and no one would tell the difference. Just sayin’, that’s all…

In hindsight the phone box image is a little soft, for which I can only account that I must have bumped the tripod during the exposure; which is pretty likely as I was not using a remote shutter release. I’m gonna keep the S3 out of mothballs for the rest of the week I think and take some more images with it. I must admit that when I first loaded some batteries into it this afternoon for the first time in a year or so, when I tried to take a shot the shutter froze open and could only be released by turning the camera off and immediately back on again. But to be fair, it had not been used for some time and after this little mishap it was off and running.

I do like this camera, despite its age. It’s a gem and while I would not put it back into my fulltime workflow I will not be getting rid of it anytime soon; of that you can be sure. Stay tuned for more images by this little ripper… I think the old girl still has some life in her yet...

11/325 - Not quite the portrait I had in mind... but...

2010-02-20T07:01:00.000-08:00

Hi folks

Another quick update here for the purpose of sharing a Project 325 image. Today sees a shot of my little radio controlled nitro buggy. That’s it really. There’s no ulterior motive behind the subject – it was simply a case of it was close to hand as I was walking out the door and I needed something different to photograph.

So I threw it in the back of the car and headed down to Champion Lakes housing estate with the Nikon D700, Sigma 70-200 f/2.8 lens and a couple of SB-900 flashes with accompanying Pixel triggers. Those triggers are about to find themselves on eBay I think. Whilst they are a great idea and the first on the market place, the word ‘pre-mature’ (and all its connotations!) spring to mind. I think the best thing to say about them is that they are not quite finished yet. Another couple of firmware upgrades and they might be better; but that doesn’t help me or anyone else that has them currently as we cannot upgrade the firmware ourselves. I really should have waited until PocketWizard FINALLY come out with their Flex and Mini Nikon compatible TTL triggers. Come on PocketWizard – how long does it take – really!!

Anyway, the image was actually taken using one SB-900 on camera as a master unit (that did not actually contribute to the exposure) and another SB-900 in remote mode was positioned on a high stand to shorten the length of the shadows it would cast and placed about 4 feet away. The D700 was in Aperture Priority mode, ISO 100. Exposure compensation was set to -2 stops to really darken the sky and the flash output was set to -0.7 of a stop to balance the overall exposure. That’s it. EXIF data tells me the camera was at 1/400^th second shutter speed @ f/4.

Catch ya later!

Greetings from the edge of... something...

2010-02-19T05:59:00.000-08:00

Hi everyone. Well I had hoped to be much more productive this last week but I have been unwell and away from work and generally not doing too much at all, including all things photography related. It’s been a bit of a bummer but what can you do…

Anyway, tonight’s blog post is a continuation on the theme of studio test shots and the resulting images that I have posted on my Project 325 Album on our Facebook Page.

As you can see from the image, this time I was going for something very low-key as far as the lighting was concerned; but I still wanted to be able to clearly see the black object against the black background (even though the backdrop is actually a white paper seamless roll) with plenty of definition and edge detail.

Those of you with a keen eye will notice that the lighting diagram is almost identical as the last one I posted with one very important exception. With the last example we had a very high key backdrop by filling it with reflected light created by placing a strobe with a bounce umbrella on each corner of the backdrop and bouncing off it; this time those two backdrop lights have been turned around and have gridded reflectors on them to basically eliminate any spill whatsoever. Those lights are aimed directly at the back of the subject. The key light (beauty dish, also with a grid attachment on it) is metered for ISO100 @ f/8, with the accent or ‘rim lights’ metered at f/5.6.

So, even though I was shooting with a white backdrop, because there is no light spilling onto it we have achieved the effect of turning it black. Cool. Just be careful of lens flare in this set-up though. You can see a little bit of it in this image, but in this instance I don't think it is too obtrusive. If it gets too bad or you wish to eliminate it altogether from your shots you will need to flag off the rim lights from hitting your lens - more on this soon.

Of course you will not quite get the same effect when shooting a model because (in a full length shot) you will see some light hitting the floor and therefore lighting the backdrop around their feet. But for anything less than full length; i.e. do not get the floor into the shot, for all intents and purposes the backdrop is totally black.

Ok, starting to feel dodgy again (too much information?!) so I’ll stop there. See you all soon.

Peeking over the back fence...

2010-02-14T06:52:00.000-08:00

These quick blog posts are becoming a regular occurrence around here!

Tonight’s Project 325 image comes to you courtesy of the sunset as seen by poking my D700 over the back fence just before the sun completely set this evening.

I will be posting something a little more substantial in the next few days...

PS – don’t you hate it when you look back through the images you took on your cell phone over the last few days, and one of them is in a really nice restaurant that you have never been to and have no idea where it is – has that happened to you before – or is it just me… ? it’s kinda freaking me out a little… just thought I’d close with that…

Info update and a lighting diagram...

2010-02-12T08:48:00.000-08:00

Hi everyone

Just a quick update to let you know that I have created an online album for my Project 325 images on our Facebook Fan Page. You can view the album here.

Today’s image is a result of a little bit of experimentation in the studio. The backdrop is set up for a high-key effect which is achieved by placing a strobe with a bounce umbrella at either end of the backdrop. The umbrellas ensure a nice wide spread of light on the backdrop. These lights are metered so that f/11 is achieved when a reading is taken from the middle of the backdrop. Please refer to my video blog regarding light meters to get a refresher on how to do this.

The main light is the beauty dish and grid attachment, mounted high on a boom stand and almost directly overhead of the subject, as shown in the lighting diagram. This light is metered at f/8. The image was shot with one of my Fujifilm S5 Pro's; 1/125th shutter speed, f/7.1 @ISO100.

With this set-up you can get a bright white background with a bit of edge light spilling from the backdrop onto the subject. The grid on the beauty dish ensures plenty of contrast and shadows on the subject; which is really the opposite to what the backdrop is doing. It works well I think.

Ok, it’s late and this is a quick update. See ya!

I think I can I think I can...

2010-02-11T06:29:00.000-08:00

Well here I am again! This is becoming a habit…

But then that was the whole idea behind the Project 325 thing huh.

Tonight’s images are of Katelyn, another model from Xtreem Agency here in Perth. The lighting set-up is the same as last evenings post. Xtreem Agency have been sending a lot of their models my way lately to have updated portfolio shots taken; to which they have requested this standardized lighting set-up.

This is good and bad. Good because I know it really well, I can set it up in 10 minutes and it works every time, no fail! Bad though because it doesn’t really give me the opportunity to try new, more creative stuff. But hey, the client gets what the client wants… and who am I to argue with that.

So, this makes it 3/325. Only 322 days to go. Bring it on… although alas not every day is going to be filled with shooting models like this… nonetheless I think I am going to make it all the way to the end of this challenge - no worries at all!

See ya soon.

Keeping up with the Jones'....

2010-02-10T06:44:00.001-08:00

Hi folks.

A really quick blog post tonight to show you all that I am progressing with the Project 325 thing that I was blogging about last night.

These are a few images that I took this evening of Laura, a model with Xtreem Agency here in Perth.

And to show you that I am far from perfect - these are the images as they were taken, just stitched together in Photoshop CS4.

Lighting is provided by my favorite single overhead beauty dish with a grid attachment, supplemented by a another flash head to camera right also fitted with a grid attachment. Main light metered @ f8, edge light metered @ f/5.6, both for ISO100. Fujifilm S5 Pro set to 1/125th second shutter speed, f/7.1 (trust me, with digital it really helps to over-expose by 1/3 of a f-stop) @ ISO100.

See ya soon!

Project 325?

2010-02-09T05:42:00.000-08:00

Hi everyone.

Just a quick blog post today to share an image. It's nothing special that’s for sure, as you can see for yourself!

Rather, it’s the idea behind it. As I tweeted earlier today I was listening to a podcast today from the guys at LightSource. This is a great resource if; like me, you spend a fair amount of your day at work with headphones in your ears – listening to these podcasts is a great way to keep your mind ticking over about all things photography related.

Anyway, I was listening to an old episode today wherein they were interviewing a guy called Tim Tadder. He is a great sports/action photographer, which isn’t really a genre of photography that interests me. But this guy certainly had some words of wisdom to share. The interview ended with the hosts asking “what would be the ‘one-liner’ that you would give to someone that was wanting to get started in the industry?” to which Tim simply replied “take better pictures…” and to summarize he went on to say that you just have to get out there and take some pictures, and do it often.

This is something that I have heard quite a lot lately but the penny didn’t drop until today – go figure! A few of my mentors have been doing what they call “Project 365” wherein they are going to take at least one image every single day for an entire year. Well, as of today, this is my goal too. I will try to post a few images a week on here, but probably not one a day for the rest of the year – although I will be taking them. But I will be putting them on my Facebook Page in a gallery which will go online in a few days.

These images are not meant to be works of art – although some might be. They are not supposed to be wonderfully inspiring images, although some may be inspired. They are just for me, and a reminder for me to actually make the effort to get out there and start taking better pictures…

PS - todays image is called "Portrait of a Clothes Peg"! For those who care it was taken with my Fujifilm S5 Pro and my Nikon 85mm f/1.8 lens, ISO100, 1/2000th second shutter at f/1.8.

A trio of triggers... an update...

2010-02-07T06:20:00.000-08:00

Hey everybody. Well, things have been ticking along nicely. I looked at the calendar and could not believe it is February already. Well, that’s not entirely true; I knew darn well it was February already because I have been filling up every day in January with clients, post processing or other equally as exciting stuff.

Anyway I thought I’d give you a quick update on the Pixel i-TTL remotes that I have been using for a little while now. I blogged about them late last year when I first got them but had not really had a chance to test them.

Well, several weddings and modeling shoots later – I have mixed feelings about these little puppies. On the whole, they work pretty well. They are marketed as being able to work with Nikon’s i-TTL metering system as well as the Nikon CLS “Creative Lighting System” wherein it is possible to have an off camera flash set-up with multiple flash units, all being controlled by a master unit, either using the camera bodies pop-up flash or a speedlight like a SB-800 or SB-900.

So, as for the triggers, i-TTL works like a charm. Nikon CLS – not so much, in fact not at all! This is a little disappointing but not a total loss.

The main reason I got these triggers was to use them at weddings, when it is all happening very quickly and you don’t really have the time to set up everything on manual and meter everything yourself. You need to be able to arrive on location, arrange the bride and groom in the shot, take a few frames – bam bam bam – and jump back into the car to head for the next location. I have also been having; um… difficulties in some scenarios getting enough power output just from one SB-900.

A little while ago whilst on a training day hosted by the amazing Louis Pang I was taken aback on how well Nikon CLS would work when combined with a Lastolite Tri-flash holder and three speedlights. Why have one flash trying to output at 100% when you can have three flashes achieving the same output only at 50ish% and over a much broader area. Louis was using Radio Poppers which he personally had purchased whilst in the USA. Unfortunately Radio Poppers are not available outside the US at the moment, so I had to look elsewhere. Are you still with me? I’ll get to the point soon!

So I had to keep looking around for suitable triggers, and in the absence of the PocketWizard Flex and Mini TTL triggers still I chose to get the Pixel triggers. As you can see by the image, this is what the whole set-up looks like. I was initially a little worried about how sturdy the whole arrangement would be, but so far so good. The Lastolite Tri-Flash holder is cast alloy and tough as nails, so no worries there. The Pixel Triggers however, I am a little more concerned about, especially for the two horizontally mounted SB-900’s. everything is holding together just fine so far, and I am especially careful (some may say anal) with my gear but time will tell how they will handle a few weddings.

This image was taken this afternoon whilst my son was playing under the back porch. I used just a single SB-900 and a Pixel trigger firing through a Lastolite EzyBox Hotshoe 60cm softbox. I also had a second SB-900 with a Pixel trigger placed behind my son and set to -1 stop output to provide a subtle rim light on his left side. The point of this was to try out the Pixel triggers in a rapid-fire situation. My Nikon D700 was set to [C^h] shooting mode (i.e., 5 fps) and I had the camera set to manual mode, f/2.8 @ 1/320^th Second shutter, ISO200. I was aware that the flash batteries would struggle a little bit to keep up so I was limiting the bursts to five frames. Predictably the last one or two frames were in the burst were a little weaker as far as the flash output was concerned but overall the flash output was fairly consistent. Cool.

The last image shows a recent wedding I shot using the Pixel Triggers and a homemade tri-flash holder thanks to my good mate @JBcamera, as whilst I had ordered the Lastolite Tri-Flash holder it had not arrived in time for the wedding shoot. Anyways, the set-up was essentially the same; 3x Pixel Triggers, 2x SB-900’s and 1x SB-800 all mounted on a monopod and carefully held upright and in place by my awesome assistant. Those keen followers out there of my work (yeah, both of you!) will recognize this image as one that I posted on our Facebook Page the other week.

So, as you can see, the trio of flashes has enough output to balance the bright afternoon sun. Interestingly, the overheat warning came on the SB-900’s after about 15 minutes of shooting various poses and scenes on the beach. This did surprise me, as I was thinking that the higher number of flashes meant that each one had to work a little less. In hindsight, they probably were, and I was probably shooting a lot of frames in quick succession. But I do know that if the flashes had been set to manual mode, ½ output power I could shoot “pop pop pop” all afternoon without them overheating. I put this overheating down the fact that because I was in i-TTL mode the flashes were all pre-flashing for each shot in order to achieve correct exposure and therefore they had to work five times harder than if they were not pre-flashing in [M] Manual mode.

Ok, to wrap this up for now; I’ll try to get a few more examples of the Pixel Triggers in the next blog post or two. Oh yeah, keep an eye out for our new look Video Blogs – coming soon to a computer near you!

If you own a Digital SLR Camera read this!!

2010-01-17T06:04:00.000-08:00

Hi everyone. This is a really quick blog post just to let you know that if you;

a. Own a Digital SLR camera

b. Love using it

c. Want to learn how to use it more effectively

d. Are trying to figure out how to use Photoshop (CS3 or CS4)

Then you HAVE to look at this new series of ongoing video podcasts called “D-Town TV” by Scott Kelby and Matt Koslowski. You can find their website here or alternatively they are on iTunes too.

These guys are two of the best known photo-education personalities on the internet at the moment. They have done lots of shows before including (the ongoing) Photoshop User TV and Lightroom Killer Tips series of video podcasts.

The first series of D-Town TV was Nikon-centric and an amazing resource for ALL things to do with your Nikon D-SLR. Over 24 episodes they covered far too many topics to list here. The name “D-Town” came from the fact that every Nikon D-SLR model name has a “D” prefix.

However, they are now on their second series and the “D” has been replaced to stand for “Digital”; i.e., the show is now about all things digital photography related. Cool. This means that they now cover a whole range of topics that are relevant no matter what your brand of camera is. They are also going to be covering a bunch of Photoshop and Lightroom tips as well as studio lighting tips, location lighting, gadgets and gizmos – the list goes on.

Go on, give them a go. You will not regret it!

PS- that is officially the most hyperlinks I have placed into a blog post to date… :o)

Things that make you go... ouch...

2010-01-16T07:07:00.000-08:00

Hi everyone – I’m back… kinda. I decided to take some well deserved time off from everything over the Christmas / New Year break and also the first two weeks of January. Wow, I gotta tell you, it was great. Now when I said I took a break, I still had plenty of shoots, a couple of weddings and a swag of post production to do to boot. So what I should say is that over the last couple of weeks I haven’t gone out of my way to do anything other than what I had to!

One of the things that I have been doing however is getting ready to relocate my office here at home. We live in a humble little 3x1 with an attached granny-flat. The granny flat has for a long time now been renovated and is used as our studio space. It works really well. We have a reasonable but modest floor space for the studio, a storage room, a comfy client lounge area with a bathroom and a walk-in wardrobe/change room. In the main house I have been using one of the bedrooms as my office which has also worked really well.

However as my wife and I are expecting our second child in a few months, it was decided that I was getting evicted from my office and I had to relocate into the, wait for it, walk-in wardrobe in the studio. It is a fairly small space obviously but it isn’t that bad. In fact, I am typing this blog post from my little closet on my made-to-order desk; albeit on my laptop via the wireless network as the electrician isn’t due for a couple of days to install the 48 power points that I will need in here (ok, that’s an exaggeration; but not much of one!) and I have yet to re-route all of the network cables currently criss-crossing in our roof cavity. The studio has always had ducted evaporative air-conditioning from the main house but in honestly it has never really worked all that well. That’s why earlier this week we had two brand new Panasonic Inverter split system refrigerated air conditioning units installed down here in the studio. Cool… so very very cool!

Speaking of getting work done, the image in this blog post tells a bit of a story. This ladies and gentlemen is how not to clean your camera’s CCD. Those of you with a keen eye will have noticed the enormous scratch on the low-pass filter covering the CCD. Ouch. And that was the CCD in my Nikon D700. Again I say, OUCH!

I have cleaned the CCD’s in my old Fuji D-SLR’s dozens of times over the years, literally. I have never had a problem like this before. Just my luck I guess that when I attempt a clean on my Nikon that I stuff it up! Oh well, lessons have been learned and my D700 now has a sparkling new CCD assembly. Note to self – next time, take it to a Pro shop and let them clean it for you. Actually, I have to give kudos to all of the guys at Hartland Camera Repairs here in Perth, our authorised Nikon Repair Centre. Once they had the part from Nikon I had my D700 back in 48 hours, all good as new. Thanks guys!

Ok, that’s it for now, we will return to normal programming in a week to two!

A quick video and something a little more annoying...

2009-12-13T07:08:00.000-08:00

Just a quick update tonight. Basically I just wanted to share a new video blog that my mate and I have produced regarding how to use the brilliant Nikon CLS [Creative Lighting System] (including i-TTL) wireless flash system. This video is the first in a three or four part series covering all aspects of the CLS system. This introductory videos shows the following information;

1. Setting your camera menu to turn on Commander mode if you are using the pop-up flash on your Nikon D700, D300s, D300, D200 etc. We also show how to set the on-camera menus for a Fujifilm S5Pro,

2. How to set your Nikon SB-900 to Commander mode,

3. How to set your Nikon SB-900 to Remote mode,

4. How to set your Nikon SB-800 to Commander mode,

5. How to set your Nikon SB-800 to Remote mode, and;

6. How to set your Nikon SB-600 to Remote mode,

In order to appease the YouTube gods I had to stop there as our 10 minutes were up. In the next couple of videos we will show how the system works in practice and how you can use different groups and channels to your advantage. We even plan to throw a bone to you Canon guys (as I feel a little sorry for you!) and demonstrate how the Canon E-TTL system works over on the other side of the fence. But you’ll have to wait a little while longer for that one…

Anyway, have a look at the video.

And finally, as I mentioned last week, I regularly look at my website stats. I do this for a number of reasons. I like to see how much traffic is passing through, how many new and unique visitors there are and what pages are being viewed over others and so on. I also like to look at whom the referring sites are that referred traffic to my site, or which sites have directed visitors to my site.

I had noticed a somewhat familiar name coming up on the list for a little while now, but I mostly ignored it. Tonight however I decided to look a little closer. It appears that this person has decided to basically copy ALL of the text from certain pages on my website and paste it on theirs. And not just any pages, but the ones describing the packages that we offer our clients. That’s just not on in my book. It seems that there are still people out there with so few brain cells that they feel they have to steal someone else’s ideas and hope that nobody notices.

I sent them a polite email this evening suggesting that they change or remove the wording from their website. Let’s see if I get a response… I’m not getting my hopes up. Damn Rockingham bogans!! Ok I’m done…

The old makes way for the new...

2009-12-06T05:03:00.001-08:00

Well, I’m still here, just busier than the one legged man at the “you know what” kicking competition! It’s always funny, but as some of you know I keep a fairly close eye on my website stats. Its really encouraging to see the number of hits on my website steadily growing from one month to the next, and it continues to grow from one year to the next. That’s cool – and the number of clients that we book seems to grow in accordance with website visitors – makes sense huh. Well, every December for the last three years visits to the website drop dramatically but the number of bookings we take for the month are about triple for the rest of the year. Just though I’d share that…

So, while business is good I took the liberty of buying a few new goodies in the last couple of weeks. The first was a new Sigma 24-70mm f/2.8 HSM lens from B&H Photo in New York. The second is a pair of newly released remote TTL radio triggers from eBay. I’ll get to the triggers in a moment but firstly, the lens.

For those of you who do not know, my workhorse lens is a Sigma 24-70mm f/2.8D EX DG. These are a good value for money lens that offer reasonably good optical performance for a great price. In fact, at last count I have owned three of them. However this lens does have a downfall, and that is at wide open apertures it is known for being somewhat soft – it really doesn’t start to get sharp until about f/4+, which kinda defeats the purpose of having a constant f2.8 aperture through it’s focal length.

Enter stage left the newly (well, it’s kinda new…) released HSM version of this lens. In fact, its full name is a Sigma 24-70mm f/2.8 IF EX ED HSM. What do all the acronyms stand for? Well, the important ones are IF [Internal Focussing] which means to ensure stability in focusing, this lens moves the inner lens groups without changing the lens' physical length; and HSM [Hyper Sonic Motor] which means this lens uses a motor driven by ultrasonic waves to provide a quiet, high-speed Auto Focus. It’s also almost a full 100g heavier than its older brother and weighs in at about 800g. That means there's a lot of glass hiding in there...

Optically speaking – this new lens is a cracker. You can read a really good review written by someone who actually knows what they’re talking about here. Suffice to say when it comes to the optical performance of this lens, it is only marginally pipped by the awesome Nikon AF-S 24-70mm f/2.8G ED (which costs $1000 more) but the Sigma totally out performs the Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L USM which costs $500 more. Cool.

So what does all this mean? Well the comparison image above shows a pretty good example of what I am talking about. The two images were taken showing the somewhat grotty keypad from my fax machine, and they both show a portion of the middle of the image enlarged to 100%. For both of the images I was using the [V] on the keypad as the focus point. Both were taken using a Fujifilm S5 Pro D-SLR body set to manual mode. Both shots were taken at 70mm, f/2.8 @ 1/2 second shutter speed, ISO 100. There really is no comparison as you can see, the image at the top (the new lens) is sooo much better at f/2.8.

Why is this so important you ask? Well I like to do a lot of portraits at larger apertures and now it means I can go all the way out to f/2.8 and not worry about sharpness issues. I was also having problems at weddings with the old lens. This is because in the reception I like to keep the aperture around f/3.2, which at ISO 800 gives a nice bright exposure when coupled with my SB-900 bouncing light off the roof. However the images were still a tad too soft for my liking, with some images coming out looking like they were not focussed properly; but is was just the lens performing badly.

I shot my first wedding yesterday with this lens and I have to say; although I have just had a preliminary glance at the images, it was great. I think I am going to like this lens even more than its older brother…

And finally, I bought myself a couple of new triggers. In a previous blog post I gave a demonstration of the very reliable Bowens Pulsar triggers. These things are great and work without skipping a beat, and I have never been in a situation where I have gone out of radio range with them. But they are not an intelligent trigger. Let me qualify that – they are only good for triggering a device by sending a trigger pulse to what ever is plugged into the receiver at the other end. There is not a lot of mathematics involved in this process and it means that you have to set your camera and your flash unit both to manual mode. Now, when you have lots of time this is not an issue. But it does mean that you have to unpack your light meter, get a reading of the ambient light in the scene, set your flash to [x] power level, take a meter reading of the flash to see how it compares to the ambient light reading, repeat the process again once you have adjusted the flash output, and keep repeating this process until all is good according to your light meter and you have figured out in your head how much brighter (to make it the key light) or softer (to make it a fill light) the flash output needs to be in balance with the ambient light. This is of course time consuming but it works really well at giving you a constant exposure, shot to shot, as nothing is changing that is going to affect your exposure. The time issue is a big one however, especially on a wedding shoot where you HAVE to make it happen there and then, with the minimum of fuss as the bride has given you a list of 100 places they want to have their photos taken in that short space of time between the wedding ceremony and the reception.

So because of this, I usually leave my Bowens triggers at home and either use a reflector, simple (dare I say it) on camera flash, or if I can find some shade somewhere I’ll use the Nikon i-TTL system. i-TTL is brilliant. It allows you to get a full metered; i.e. automatic flash output to obtain optimum flash exposure, while using the flash wirelessly off-camera. It is instantaneous, requires no calculations or manual adjustments on your behalf and will give you a perfect exposure, well; the greater majority - about 95% - of the time. But under normal circumstances the flash on your camera (master) and the off camera flash (remote) have to be in line of sight, and have to be fairly close together so that the infra-red signal communicating between the two flashes can be seen by the units. This is virtually impossible in bright daylight unless you are within a few feet of the remote flash – which kinda defeats the purpose of having off camera flash to begin with. As I said earlier, the only other option is to go indoors or find some shade somewhere.

Enter the TTL flash triggers. I have been waiting a long time for PocketWizard to come out with their i-TTL triggers for Nikon, and there is still no light at the end of the tunnel. So, I took a bit of a gamble and bought these triggers. They have been causing a bit of a stir on some of the biggest camera/lighting blogs around the world. They apparently work really well in TTL mode (single flash unit) but I have not yet seen any results of how they will work in i-TTL mode. i-TTL gives you the ability to have more than one flash unit contribute to the exposure and also assign different flash units different power levels and even have different groups of flashes all operating at once. Very Cool.

I have yet to receive them but I am hoping they will be the answer to my problems. I will certainly let you know on the next blog post how they work and exactly how reliable they are, but initial googling have found some, albeit sketchy; encouraging results. Time will tell! I also intend to produce a video or two on how to use i-TTL to wirelessly trigger your flashes, sorry Canon guys you will have to look elsewhere for now, but I may be able to wrangle something in the near future.

Ok, I’m outta here, I’ll let you all know about the new TTL triggers (fingers crossed they work!) and I’ll catch you all soon!

Taking time out... and staying in control...

2009-11-14T05:52:00.000-08:00

Hi everyone. Hey can you guess what kind of week it has been? HA. Yep – flat out.

The entire latter half of this week was spent at the Perth Convention and Exhibition Centre shooting the WALIS International Forum 09. This was basically three full (and I mean full) days of shooting seminars, keynote speakers and an Awards night to boot. I pretty much used the Nikon D700 as my main camera, shooting inside the conference rooms and theatres at ISO1600, no flash, and hand holding my 70-200mm telephoto lens with shutter speeds of about 1/40th to 1/80th second. Rest assured I have perfected my “sniper grip” and was able to get shake free images even when zoomed all the way into 200mm. Cool.

The highlight (pun intended) of my week however was today I was able to participate in a wonderful workshop held by the awesome Louis Pang. Louis is an award winning wedding and portrait photographer who is sought after the world over by his prospective clients. Have a look at his website if you have not done so already. Wonderful stuff. What made this particular workshop better than any I have been to is that Louis is such a nice approachable guy. Some courses and workshops I have attended have had good content teamed with an arrogant or egotistical teacher. Bad recipe. Not the case today! All of you really missed a good one today…

Anyway, now that I have made it pretty clear what a nice and approachable guy Louis was as well as being a phenomenal photographer, lets quickly talk about the images in this blog post.

It’s a sad reality for me that in the day to day photography I do lately is pretty safe. Safe in the fact that I have learned what works well to get good images with the minimum of fuss. I have discussed this in a previous blog post for those who really care to remember. The point of the matter is that when the pressure is on and the client has their money on the table; right there and then is not a good idea to try and get all creative. Just deliver what the client wants – thanks very much and have a nice day.

Therefore, invariably I tend to live in [A] Aperture Priority mode on all of my cameras. I set the aperture to the effect I wish to achieve and then let the camera figure out the actual exposure all by itself. And it usually does a reasonable job. So with this in mind it was really refreshing when the very first thing Louis told us to do was to put our cameras into manual mode and leave them there. Ok.

Oh yeah, I should point out that each and every image in this blog post is how it was straight out of the camera. No Photoshop or any sort of manipulation other than to apply the watermark and reduce the file size for the web. So what I want to do now is just give you all a quick run-down on these images, how they were taken and what/where the light source was.

So, the first image in this blog shows Jess from Chadwick’s up against one of the tall pine trees on the grounds of UWA. I love the way the natural light looks on Jess’ perfect skin in this shot. So, do you think it is over exposed? I thought so too, but now think about it again. What really is over-exposure? Am I loosing any image detail in Jess’ skin, eyes or face? No. Is the background blown out slightly? Yes. So what – it’s all about the effect that you are trying to achieve right? This shot was taken with my 70-200mm f/2.8 telephoto at 200mm and f/2.8, 1/200th second shutter at ISO400 with 100% natural daylight. This was two full stops over what the camera thought was “correct exposure”. There are no reflectors or foam core panels in this shot. I love the way the image appears to have had the diffuse glow / Gaussian Blur filter treatment in Photoshop. Not the case folks. Like I said, this was straight out of the camera. The gold hue to the image was achieved by manually setting the white balance on the camera to [Cloudy].

The next image shows Terrance (forgive me if I have your name wrong – can someone help me out here?) in one of the hallways in the building we were in. He is standing directly across from an open window. This image was taken once again with the 70-200mm f/2.8 telephoto at 155mm, handheld, f/2.8, 1/40th second at ISO200. I like the way here that the white wall he is leaning against is filling in the all of the shadows on the right side of his face, and how the background is nicely blurred by the bokeh of the lens.

Moving right along, this is Jess back out side against the exterior of the building. Can you tell what the light source is in this image? a) The sun or b) artificial flash? The answer is ‘b’! I purposefully set the white balance on the camera to cloudy in this shot to make it look like late afternoon sun. This shot was taken at 2pm. This time I used my 24-70mm f/2.8 lens at f/2.8 and 70mm, 1/250th second shutter at ISO200. The camera was set to +1 stop over-exposure according to the in-built meter and the flash was set to -1 stop under-exposure. The flash was a Nikon SB-900 shooting through one of Louis’ Lastolite Softboxes and was being triggered by another SB-900 on my camera in i-TTL mode. The whole soft box/flash assembly was placed on a monopod and held up about 1 ½ metres above Jess’ head. I love the way the light is particularly soft on Jess and also the overall warmth of the image made simply by making the aforementioned white balance change. Cool.

Next image. This one was pretty much the same scenario as the previous one with the exception that the metering was reversed; that being the camera was set to -1 under-exposure according to the in-built meter and the flash was set to +1 stop over-exposure. This was in an attempt to bring the background down a little, which was a little hard to do in the afternoon overhead sunlight. So yeah, the flash was fired through a soft box, which was on a monopod and this time about 2 meters away from Jess so it would spread a little bit more. I used the 24-70mm f/2.8 lens at 26mm, still at f/2.8 at 1/640th second shutter speed at ISO 200. I do like this image but it isn’t my best for the day. In hindsight I could have used my 12-24mm ultra wide angle lens and got the blue sky and top of the building into frame. But still, it isn’t that bad…

Ok, almost done. And thanks for reading this far down the page. Good for you! We were running out of time so we headed back inside for a change of scenery. Also because of the time issue (we were shooting in groups of four and only had limited time each to photograph Jess) we stuck with the flash/soft box/monopod arrangement as it was working so well. I am not really happy with how Jess’ hair is all bunched up against the railing here – alas I did not notice that when I took the shot. This again was my 24-70mm f/2.8 lens at 46mm, f/4.0 at 1/100th second shutter speed at ISO1000. The camera was set to -1/3 stop under expose according to the inbuilt meter and the flash was set to -1 stop. I originally took the shot at ISO200 but the background was too dark for my liking. So the shutter and aperture and flash were all left alone and I only upped the ISO.

Oh yeah, I think it relevant to clarify it here, but you may have noticed that I have been quoting camera over/under exposure “according to the inbuilt meter”. This is for very good reason. When you are shooting in Aperture (AP) or Shutter (SP) priority modes, if you wish to shift the whole exposure up or down you can use the exposure compensation function on your camera which automatically shifts the shutter speed up or down if you are in AP mode or the aperture up and down if you are in SP mode. So clearly; if you have everything locked down in manual mode this exposure compensation is NOT going to work. The camera will let you make the exposure compensation adjustment with the controls but it does not have any effect on your aperture and shutter speeds that have already been locked in and will therefore not affect the image. So you have to do exposure compensation manually also by adjusting your aperture (for controlling the amount of flash in your image) or shutter speed (for controlling the amount of ambient light getting into the image). Simple!

Ok, last one. I had actually finished my allocated time-slots with Jess but this was a bit of an opportunistic shot! One of my fellow workshop attendees was struggling with her manual camera settings, so while Louis gave her a hand I made a couple of posing changes to Jess and managed to snap this shot. I’m glad I did, it’s my favourite from the whole day. I used my 70-200mm f/2.8 lens at 85mm, f/3.5 at 1/100th second shutter speed – handheld, and ISO 320. In hindsight the background is a little distracting and I could have dropped the ISO down to 100ish… but I LOVE the light on Jess’ face in this image. Gorgeous.

So, there you go. Thanks again to Louis and his wife for putting on a fantastic day – and one that I will remember for some time to come.

Ok, well I think that well and truly wraps up this blog post. Take care everyone and I’ll talk to you all soon!

Still alive and snapping...

2009-11-08T06:57:00.001-08:00

I know I say it every blog – but bloody hell time files when… you have lots to do!

This week’s blog post sees me back at the beach – but this time I was photographing a local clothing designers outfits for children; and she also imports jewellery.

Some of you may have seen the Facebook photo I posted showing the set-up for the kids shots. It involved a single speedlight shooting thru my new softbox that I had not had the opportunity to use. I initially had my Nikon SB-900 set up in the softbox, but it would not trigger using Nikons brilliant i-TTL wireless trigging. Hmmm I thought; and a few other things. Ok, so I turned off i-TTL, set the D700 and SB-900 to manual, grabbed a couple of my Bowens Pulsar radio triggers and tried again. Still nothing. I started to sweat! This is not good; and the clients were not all that impressed judging by the looks on their faces as I kept running back and forth to my camera bag getting this thing and that in an effort to fix the situation.

Then it clicked – pun intended. It seems that the speedlight mount on the softbox was shorting the hot shoe contacts on the SB-900, meaning that the flash was refusing to trigger due to conflicting information it thought it was receiving through the hot shoe. So, I switched out the SB-900 for my Nikon SB-800 and everything started to work.

It’s funny – I have heard and read a thousand times that you should never try out new things when the pressure is on and you have to get the goods. I guess I was just a little lazy. I had tried out the softbox prior to the shoot, but only for about 5 minutes the day before at home, and in hindsight I must have been using the SB-800 because everything worked perfectly.

So anyway, back to the shoot. For the children’s shots the sun was out and the glare from the white sand meant the flash only had to deal with the shadows around their eyes caused by the overhead sun. I ended up positioning the soft box only about 1.5 meters away from the subject and used it in manual mode, setting the power to full whack; 1/1 output to cope with the bright conditions. And it worked pretty well.

As it turned out, the model in the images attached to this blog post (who’s name I forget – sorry!) was quite late and we had already gone over the allotted time for the shoot. The great thing about this was however that the sunlight was quickly fading and the clouds started rolling in. So I put away the Pulsar triggers, got my SB-900 back onto the D700 and turned i-TTL back on also. The clouds were rolling in fast and we only had about 15 minutes of usable sunlight left so I had to move quickly but I have to say I am pretty happy with the shots. I love the way that the soft box has controlled the spill from the flash. It is evident on the models face that she is being lit by the flash but there is no shadows being cast by the flash on the sand behind the chair.

I managed to finish the shoot, thank the client, pack up and hike back to the car, load the car and get in. And then it poured with rain. A lot of rain! That pretty good timing I think!

Catch you all soon. Take care.