Good things come in small packages...

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)

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

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…

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

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!

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

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!

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

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…