Tuesday Tutorials Temptation…Trashed

Well, I came home from work today, set up the tutorial for recording (with my new preamp in place for truly the best audio recording thus far), and after a few dry runs, recorded everything with no interruption. When I went to review it, I realized that the “microphone” option in my recording software was not checked. I never recorded the audio! So, the hype and setup for the Tuesday tutorial has thus been a tease, as I had to trash it. (Doncha just love my alliteration? It literally rolls off my fingertips! 🙂 )

I will re-record it tomorrow (with audio) and finish production on it tomorrow, so it’ll be a day late this week. For the time being though, I got this question in an email from Dave in California:

Hey Jason,

Can you do a video demo on how to set up and use the ST-E2 with multiple
flashes and different light ratios?
That would really helpful.

-Michael

This is a great idea Michael, and I would love to do one – but alas, I do not have multiple flashes, nor the ST-E2. Additionally, my recording capabilities are limited to on-screen subject matter, as I do not have a video camera. I could tell you how it’s done according to some stuff I’ve run into on other sites, but that kind of defeats the purpose of preparing tips, tricks, and tutorials for you to read on Canon Blogger directly. So, I’d love to see if anyone else has the means to do so! That’s right – open audition night for CB – submit a video clip (in AVI or MOV format please) of the set up, and I can port that into the format. Naturally, the original recorder would retain all copyright, and I would be more than happy to help promote your work if you have a website.

The terrible truth about me and lighting is that I tend to prefer ambient light. I do have a 550 EX, and have used it on occasion, but am not very well-versed in off-shoe lighting techniques. I’ve read all about it and know it’s the way to go, but I’ve just not pulled the trigger (or should I say “tripped the shutter”? ) on doing much of that yet. A great resource for learning about this is one of my favorites too: Strobist, a site run by David Hobby that truly is the mecca for anyone with lighting questions. If you have a question, post it in the comments and believe it or not, you will likely get an accurate answer, usually within about an hour or so. His site is just hoppin’! Not meaning to leave you in the dark Michael, but lighting suggestions and recommendations are really out of my league. I did find something within the vicinity of an answer on SportsShooter, so check this out along with Strobist for more details.

Feel free to throw me audition tapes! 🙂 Thanks to Michael for the great idea, and I’ll be sending you an email shortly. In the interests of full disclosure, I would also like to help Michael out by offering a link up to his website – he’s got some really cool photography set up at Sage Photography. My one recommendation would be to add title tags to your header info. Each page comes up with a title in my browser of “Untitled Document.” Does not help with Google crawling…

In lieu of a tutorial, I would like to point out a key factor in the behind-the-scenes of the tutorial – stamp visible! This is a great utility in Photoshop that lets you create a new layer out of all existing visible layers that is fully editable. This is great if you want to have multiple versions of a base workup, you can create multiples with this function. The keyboard combo is Command + Option + Shift + E. (In Windows it’s Control + Alt + Shift + E). Quite a large keystroke set to remember, but it sure provides the ability to take things to the next level! I’ll show it to you in action tomorrow – I promise! In the meantime, Happy Shooting!

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