The Week in Photos...

...Okay, not really. But I did take some photos this week. How nice. 

A friend who used to work there (and hopefully will again when the project is done) told me to check out a local middle school that is being completely rebuilt. The facade is being saved, so right now there are only two walls standing. Quite a sight. I took a

 few shots on my way home from work, then stopped on my way in the next morning. 

I only had one flash, wish I had more with me. I also learned that

 rubber bands (one of the big ones) can be used to secure your flash to a post in a pinch. On full power the SB-600 lit up the plaque on the building a little bit. I might try to shoot this again next week if I can get a better sky and more flashes.

I also took some early morning shots on the way to work and from where I work. The scenery here always offers something worth shooting. The first is the view from where I work. Ironic, because I have no windows in my part of the building, but the view is great. 

The second is from my drive to work the next day. There is a hill along the road and I pulled over and hoofed up it for a few quick shots. The wind was blowing about 30 mph, so I didn't stay long. But I liked this image. 

I'll be taking pics at the Community Easter service this afternoon-hopefully that will fulfill the people portion of my photo week! 

Back In Black

I though about adding the appropriate sound track to this post, but I didn't have time and it would be in violation of copyright. So best not. 

Spent most of Saturday afternoon in the basement with my new el-cheapo studio set up. Thank you to the unknown poster on Flickr who suggested this path. I went to the fabric store and bought three yards of black muslin and three yards of white- both 108 inched wide. With the coupons (one from the store flyer, and one from the nice lady with the kids next to me in line) the grand total in fabric was $29.32. Beat that on eBay for two 10x9 backgrounds. Then I headed across the street to the greatest hardware store on earth.

 No you idiot- I do not mean the big orange box. They have good prices and the people are nice, but if you really need to figure out something strange, you go to McGukin's. 

There I happily purchased 15ft. of light bungee cord, two small

 hooks and wall anchors, and two six packs of small alligator clips. All that for under $10. Total cost so far- less than $40. Got home and had the wall hooks up before anyone was the wiser. Bungee and alligator clips to hold the fabric and presto- we've got a ripping little home studio going in my basement. 

I really love the effect of the low-key background. It 

makes all the colors pop and adds some dramatic effect. For the portrait shots I had an SB-600 cam left with a homemade snoot on it, and an SB-26 cam right with an umbrella. The snoot was aimed across the models at about head level and  pretty tight. The umbrella was shooting fill on the other side. As you can see, I am the least attractive thing in the house (except maybe the cat), and the pictures improved considerably when I stayed behind the camera. The portraits were taken with a 50mm 1.8. When the dogs came in I switched the lens to a 24-120mm so I could keep pace with a moving kid and dogs, and took the snoot off the 600 on the left and aimed it at the ceiling for a high overhead light. I really like the way it turned out.

 

There were a few really great shots of my wife and daughter. My daughter just kept mugging like crazy, and my wife kept laughing, and I kept shooting. 

I was using my new iShoot PT-04 CNs as triggers for the two SBs, and I didn't have one problem over the course of two hundred shots. I am not sure I would try them at a hundred yards, but close in they work great. I also really like the electronic shutter release from Younguo. The remote really slows my synch speed (see previous post), but attached to the camera it was great to fire without worrying about my hands moving the camera/tripod. 

I can also see how it would help keep contact with the subject. I wasn't hiding behind the camera, and could make eye contact much easier. That remote also operates the auto focus on the Nikon, which is nice. 

Eventually we even got the dogs to pose for a few shots (even tougher than the five year old). We do have a matched set of labs, and if we can get them to sit still they are pretty darned good looking. As you can tell, I am surrounded by blonds. I know that would have sounded good a long time ago...

Of course, as soon as I have tried one thing I am thinking of another. I am looking forward to trying out some product type shots with a more high-key look in the upcoming weeks. I have several friends lined up to provide products, some large and some small, and as soon as things get a little greener around here I have a plan for a series of shots in my town featuring elements of local life. I am hoping to improve not only my lighting skills but also my post production skills with some of these ideas. 

In the meantime, keep an eye over your shoulder!

She really is a total ham. But she's got the model moves down. There are a few more of these in my Flickr stream. Click the new button on your right to see them.

Generic Post

For a guy doing a photography blog, I seem to have a hard time taking pictures right now- so this post will be about gear. For the 'non-gear' thinking this week, see David duChemin's blog of the last few days (todays post was freakin' hilarious!)On to gear. I just received a set of iShoot PT-04 CN radio triggers. $55 on eBay for a transmitter and three receivers. This is the type of radio trigger often refereed to as "Poverty Wizards", as opposed to Pocket Wizards, which are the industry standard for pros. Of course a similar set of PW's would cost about $900.

Messing around with self-portraits in my basement, all the triggers worked great. I had a few unplanned triggers of flashes, but no failures. I haven't tested the maximum range, but they worked fine through a wall, and from over 30 feet.

The flash triggers synch up to 1/250, which is as advertised.

 Interestingly, when I was using the YN-128 as a remote trigger for the camera, I could only get 1/125 as a synch speed. If I used the YN-128 as an electronic, but not radio trigger, I got 1/1250 again. But for a total of $76.98 it is a pretty good outfit and has definitely increased my options.

Included below is one bad self portrait. Taken using all the gear mentioned above (the remote is really nice to have). 

Messin' Around

My friend Cory and I spent the afternoon in his office building (shhhhhh...don't tell), playing with lighting setups. Way too much fun. Here are a few of the highlights.

That is a gaffer tape base holding up the Buddah. Love that tape! Used an SB-50 to blow out the wall behind. I am starting to appreciate a small flash with built in slave, even if it only fires at full power. We used it a bunch to turn white walls into high key backgrounds. I will keep that in mind for the future. I did have to remove a security device from the background in Aperture.

SB-25 camera right with umbrella, and a reflector panel camera left, just out of frame from the statue.

Cory mugging for the camera here.  I included this one without cropping so you can see the effect of SB-50 in the back lighting up the wall. Natural light through a blind from the left- SB-25 with umbrella to the right.

Your's truly. Same set up as above. Just cropped close in to get that high key effect. I really like how the white background just disappears when you blow it out. 

All these were shot with a 50mm f1.8. Love that lens. If I had to have only one- that would be it. Used a PC cable to connect the SB-25 on a light stand. SB-50 on slave mode. Poverty wizards on the way- hopefully arrive this week!

Gotta get a picture up!

In the little picture taking time I had this weekend I was mostly messing around in my office with some new gear. I took the following shot with a Nikon SB-25 mounted on a stand with a shoot-through umbrella camera right, connected to the camera with a PC cable.  To the left was a Nikon SB-50dx with home made softbox and a diffuser panel (the SB-50 only fires at full power in slave mode, so I needed to extra panel to get the light down to a reasonable level. The SB-50 in slave was triggering off the 25's flash. 

Worked pretty well. I got bored with just the pen and ink, so I wrote my name. Quill pens are totally impractical for actual use, but they sure do make your writing look purty. This is the best of the bunch.

I really liked using the 2 light set up. I can't wait for my 'poverty wizards' to arrive from China so I can run all my flashes in radio slave mode (I have an SB-600 as well, but the PC connection doesn't work if you use the pop-up flash as the commander on a D300, so to get two flashes I had to break out the totally obsolete SB-50). I just got the SB-25, BTW, and I love it. 

Very powerful.

Well, at least I got a post up. I have a portrait package in a fundraising auction this week- hopefully it will generate some new photo ops!

Sunday project.

So- spending far too much time at Flickr reading the Strobist discussion threads while anxiously awaiting the arrival of new light stands, umbrellas and a used SB-25 picked up for an excellent price! ;-) In the meantime, I did a DIY project inspired by David Hobby, the Strobist himself.

There is a lot of discussion at the Strobist group on Flickr about Do-It-Yourself  (DIY) light modifiers and such. Inspired, I made my own. So for your viewing pleasure- a 10x8, foam packing material softbox, for about $4.

Cardboard and duct tape to start with.

Mmmmmmmm...time for spray paint. Fun outside (kids- always spraypaint in a well ventilated area. I prefer 'outside'). 

Gloss white goes on the inside for better light, black on the outside for that 'professional' look.

Here is the finished product. The piece of 2mm packing foam that inspired this project makes a GREAT diffuser, but wasn't big enough. I am getting a lot of light spilling out the sides. Tomorrow I will swing by a packing store and get a bigger sheet and cut it so its fastened all the way around. I am also looking forward to experimenting with different materials, as I used velcro around the rim- making 'quick changes' easy.

Given that its a totally home built rig- it fits on the SB-600 perfectly (had to re-enforce some of the key points with extra-duct tape). The light it produces is actually quite even. I am glad I used white paint inside and not tinfoil as I originally planned, I think the glossy paint is better.

And now that we are done...

 an homage to David Hobby. 

The original can be found here(scroll to the picture at the bottom of his post).

Finally taking pictures again!

After a bit of a hiatus- I'm  back on the shutter. I am really spending some time with off-camera flash right now, mostly just experimenting, so todays post includes some of the experiments (hopefully none in the Frankenstein mode!)

This is Marin and Lor in the basement. Strobe is camera right and up high, with a totally jury rigged diffuser (some foam clamped into the Justin Clamp that's holding the flash. I included this because you can see the flash and diffuser reflected in the TV. I just ordered new stands and some shoot through umbrellas, and I hope to add another flash soon, to really expand the options.

This was an experiment in color. Flash is gelled blue, with a home made snoot, and held directly over the glass. I was just messing around on this one. I tried a bunch of colors, liked this one the most. 

And last, a shot of Lor outside that I made today. We were trying to get some new images for her website (Nextwritething.com). It was breezy and we had hair control problems, so she wasn't happy with any of the shots for that purpose, but I really like this one. I also really liked shooting portraits with the bigger lens (Nikon 80-200 f2.8), which I hadn't done much of so far. I will do a lot more of it. The flash is on a stand camera right and just out of the frame. I do like the way the sun worked as a rim light/hair light- wish I had stopped it down a bit and I wish I had noticed that the snow on the hill was intersecting her hair. If we had moved there would have been a bit more separation.

I've also discovered Flickr recently, so some of these images are showing up in my photostream under JGstott.

Hopefully more experiments on the way.