Hard Light

Well, I have been getting ready for another Wedding this weekend, but thought I would take couple of pics for myself when my wife mentioned she was washing the dog. It's never easy to get a nice shot when both parties are involved more in the washing than the photography.

I decided to focus I what I could control and that was the light. I setup on Nikon SB-800 on a stand with a pocketwizard and started cracking away. No diffuser in sight. Changing up the aperture (settled on F5) and the shutter (settled on 1/400) so the sunlight was knocked down a little and my subjects were nicely lit.


Over about 15 minutes I took a whole range of shots but this was my favourite. I am still struggling with the hard light mainly because it is so hard, but it certainly adds a new dynamic to the photos.

One single hard light, not difficult to workout the setup yourself. Hope you like the effect.

Experimenting with Light

I have been playing with light again to see what can be achieved and how I can improve my batting average when I step up. The shot today I have posted is two separate shots stitched together for comparison. The setup is explained on the picture but I will put it here too. Click on the image to see a large version at anytime.


I am using an SB-800 triggered by a pocketwizard. The SB-800 has a CTO gel placed on it to warm it up. This is clearly visible with the shot on the left because the umbrella is a warm orange and not white. The White Balance is set to Daylight to correct for the sky and to emphasize the warming gel. Even though the sky is correct technically, I don't like it. This shot is taken around lunchtime and the sky is ugly. Anyone standing next to the umbrella would also be warmed by the umbrella.

For the right hand shot I have corrected the White Balance for the CTO Gel. Now the umbrella is white. The sky however is cooler as a result of the colour temperature change when correcting for the gel. Much more attractive. Now, anyone we stand next to the umbrella will also be colour balanced nicely for outside (Unless you want them to appear warm like at sunset) so this does nicely for during the day.

Car Show

Went along to a local car show today. We have some friends who were showing two cars and I never miss an opportunity to take some photographs. Too many ropes and restrictions, and people wandering into your shots to get anything extraordinary but still some ok shots.

Shot using available light the entire time. I don't like small hard flash when shooting cars with lots of chrome. One car as you can see here above had some added available light, but nothing I could control. I would love to stick a few remote strobes in a around this car a play with some very cool lighting effects.


Not a bad show for Darwin standards. I am also looking forward to an opportunity to shoot Brett's 66 Mustang (this yellow one) at a later date. Brett & Ange also have a Willies Hotrod. No photo here and not yet running. The world will surely be in oil crisis once it starts guzzling the gas. I will post some photos once it is completely finished.



Lastly, I have stuck this photo of a nice Porsche. I have always loved Porches and would love the chance to shoot a beautiful car like this somewhere a little more appropriate.



Sometimes I am too lazy to get down and frame a shot like this so I just lower the camera, crack off a few frames and check how they turned out on the Camera's LCD screen. Sometimes you are surprised by how the perspective improves the shot.

Air Force Open Day

Today my Daughter and I, along with my in laws went along to RAAF Darwin to an Open Day. As always these places are hot and lots of walking is required. They just don't build things close together on Air Force Bases. I was also about one of 50 kazillion people with a camera and wasn't hopeful of getting any inspirational Air Force type photographs.

The Open Day is part of Exercise Pitch Black 2008 taking place over the skies of the Northern Territory - Australia. It involves aircraft from plenty of nearby nations and the United States.

The FA-18 pictured in these three pictures performed an Aerial Display which was one of the best I have seen. Instead of just your standard fly over it flew low level, upside down, vertically and was very impressive.

These shots were taken with my D70 and 18-200 Beach Camera because I don't like carrying all the gear at places like this when a fairly basic kit gets the job done. Not sure my pocketwizards and off camera flash would have been very useful with these shots, especially the last one.

Face Painting

My wife, Michelle, is a Children's Entertainer. Today when she was heading off to work I thought it was a great time to catch her all dressed up. She was running a little late so I didn't have more than a few minutes to get a shot we both liked.

SETUP: I have a diffused strobe camera left creating soft light, and the sun back camera right as the separating light. The garden was still in shade so it is underexposed a few stops because I didn't want the sun to blow out Michelle's hair too much. I could have lit the Background separately but didn't have time. I used a couple pocketwizards to trigger the strobe so my little girl didn't go tripping over the cabling.

I will be playing around with a few photos like this as we are in the planning stages of a new website for Michelle. Will link to it when it is done.

Pocketwizards

Finally they have arrived. All three of them. I ordered them early last week and today I unwrapped the box like a kid at Christmas. They are three key tools to unlocking off camera flash and retaining a huge amount of reliability.

I have played with the Nikon CLS. I don't mind it, and TTL has its advantages, but now I have real control. Will definitely use TTL and maybe even a very small amount of on camera flash when required but the only way to get good at running off camera flash in full manual is to go hard.

This is my first effort with the Pocketwizards. I used two of them to take a picture of the third one. Just used a diffuser (A4 White Paper) in front of my SB-800 camera left and a reflector camera right. This was just messing around though. The plan is to get some actual people to stand still for a while and light them up. My DIY snoot is cocked, locked and ready to rock.

I will definitely post some of my future successes, and maybe even a few failures but I am sure there will be too many to choose from for the first while. Wish me luck as I journey into the unknown.

Not As It Seems

Here is another photo of my Daughter. Was at the beach having some family time and decided to try and pull some strobist tricks out of nowhere, with nothing but my beach camera (Nikon D70) and it's 18-200.

Took this shot on full manual, with the onboard speedlight on manual too. Shot is ISO 200, F11 & 1/500th. This was where it ended up. Took some tweaking and the little speedlight was at full tilt overcoming the aperture.

Because the flash is on camera and not finessed the light is hard. Next step will be to get that flash off camera and restrict it a little. Still reasonably happy with the effect and now bright daylight looks like twilight.

Off Camera Flash - First Real Attempts

Well, I've been living on the Strobist Blog lately. It is the best place I have found for good honest helpful information. I am loving some of the work done in full sun light and making good use of the hard light. Very handy for our Weddings here in Darwin.

In the meantime, I have been fiddling, using my Daughter as a model as usual. I took this shot with my White Balance set to Tungsten, and a CTO filter on the front of a snooted SB-800. Keep in mind she is not posed, just sitting still watching TV and I have done nothing with the photo other than crop out some distracting surrounds.

This really is my first attempt so I am reasonably happy. I am starting to get very excited about the possiblities of this off camera flash, using small portable lights in what I once thought were difficult lighting situations.

Thanks Strobist.