One of the most common search criteria on Google that coincides with photography is that of lighting. It’s no surprise as photography really is all about the light, and when making and taking photos (yes, there’s a difference), one of the key things that people can grasp quite easily is the success of a photo is often very dependent on the lighting. Continue reading “Hardware Review: Rogue Flash Benders”
Tag: Lighting
Five Ways to Deal with Harsh/Low Lighting
A common question I get here is how to deal with harsh or low light situations. This is a great question, and for event photographers, it’s simply part of the job to recognize various lighting conditions and address them accordingly. Today, I’d like to share Five Ways to Deal with Harsh/Low Lighting:
1. Cranking the ISO and hoping to fix in post
With advancements in technology, noise handling both in camera and in post production has resulted in some astonishing results that in previous years would have been literally unrecoverable. While we should always endeavor to make our images shine as best we can in camera – advancements in tools of the trade simply give us more options and we would be foolish not to use them.
Here’s a good example of a shot that was done at a high in-camera ISO setting, that was recoverable to a good quality image. It may not necessarily be of “stock photography” caliber (you really need every pixel to be perfect for stock photography), but for event photography, I would consider this acceptable quality.
2. Implementing additional light sources (Flash, video lights, etc.)
3. Using a tripod/monopod in conjunction with longer exposures to increase odds of sharp captures
4. Use a gray card to get good white balance/off-set the ambient lighting conditions.
Having your subject hold a color balance card (or even just a gray card) in the scene for one shot is a great way to counter-act the effect of difficult lighting, including everything from halogen lights, to fluorescent, tungsten-florescent mixes, and the garish hue from sodium vapor lights common in locales like stadiums and street light settings.
5. Use supports from the surroundings to brace your camera
Using a tree, a wall, or even the ground to help stabilize your camera can reduce the shutter speed considerably to help when shooting in low light situations.
As much as we may try to hand hold our cameras, blur is unavoidable due to our heartbeats, finger tremors, breathing, and a host of biological factors, the best we can do is help to minimize that blur by using supporting mechanisms and techniques to get as stable a shot as we can. Even when we can hand-hold, matching that color from the scene is much easier to do when you start from a known vantage point, whether it be your own flash, or a controlled ambient scene. So much to think about and so little time…where do you want to go from here?
Hint: Sound off in the comments – would love to hear others thoughts, tips, and tricks for dealing with low and/or harsh lighting! Special thanks to Kerry Garrison of Kerry Garrison Photography for sharing a sample image from his own portfolio when I couldn’t track my own down in the library (bad me for not keywording fully!)…
kL2HNZVO
Hardware Review: Expodisc
It’s been a while since I’ve done a hardware review, and I realized that when the folks at Expo Imaging had sent me the Rayflash to review, I had also received an Expodisc. I know I recorded the video for it, but for some reason it never got published, as the two were meant to be posted back to back.
In any case, here is the long-awaited review of the Epodisc from the folks at Expo Imaging:
First – what is the Expodisc? It’s simply a disc that defracts light as it passes through your lens in order to determine the proper white balance setting for your images. Why is this a good thing? It’s a good thing because light doesn’t always fall into the specific categories designed by your vendor. It’s not always daylight, tungsten, florescent, etc. These vendor pre-sets can get you close, but if you want spot on white balance settings in camera, this is definitely the way to go! Here’s the short video I had put together a while back on how it works:
Do I like the Expo Disc? Absolutely – and if I were in an environment where lighting conditions change often, or it was tricky to determine (say those lights in gyms with the green phosphorous), these utilities are a godsend. Landscape environments can also be tricky when you are dealing with things like snow, shade and sunny areas at the same time, and portraiture can be tricky too – say you have a bride’s wedding dress, the whites of the eyes, and the teeth for sample areas – which do you set? Use the ExpoDisc and it will be spot on every time!
Thanks again to the folks at Expo Imaging for lending me the review units of the Ray Flash and the Expo Disc. It was a pleasure, and for those interested in learning more about their products, please visit their website here.
Happy shooting everyone – be sure you get your shots in, because there’s limited time left in the Circles contest for a lucky participant. Here’s the Flickr thread – keep on posting and keep on shooting! We’ll see you back here again tomorrow!
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Let Me Light the Way
It’s kind of funny how things go in circles. As a regular reader of the Strobist website (as I am sure many of you are), I found it interesting that David was covering the RayFlash from ExpoImaging and comparing it to other styles of ringflahses over the last couple of days. The reason for my interest – today I am actually going to share with you some thoughts on the RayFlash specifically. Continue reading “Let Me Light the Way”
Cactus, Trigger, Zebra, Oh My!
Remember the old game of password where you said a related word to one on your card to get your partner to guess it? Well, here goes: What do the words cactus, trigger, and zebra all have in common? If you answered “flash photography” you’d be right! As you may have realized, that does mean that the podcast will not come out today – I simply didn’t have time to get all my thoughts and notes together. So instead, here’s a review of sorts that I did just earlier this evening.
A while back I decided to ditch the Canon ST-E2 wireless trigger for a number of reasons – those being:
- It relied on line-of-sight
- It didn’t have a very good range
- It wouldn’t work with non-Canon gear
I, like many others, have been salivating over the new developments in radio trigger technology. And, at my last job, I had access to multiple lights, strobes, and such for experimentation. So, in order to do said experimentation, I decided to invest in some Cactus Triggers that I purchased off an online web vendor (I forget the vendor off the top of my head – search the archives and I am sure it’s there…). Much to my chagrin though, it would not work with my Canon 550EX flash. So, when I left my previous job, it was back to the ST-E2. In order to spur some motivation to invest in some more serious lighting gear on my own, I decided to sell the ST-E2 to fund the purchase of some Cyber Syncs.
Long story short, I ended up with no off-camera method to trigger my one flash unit. So, I was back on-camera. Needless to say, ambient light photography was a large focus for that time period. Well, after the economy stabilized a little for the household with my state job, I decided to invest in the Cyber Syncs – but as a measure of insurance, wanted to make sure the devices would work in my 550EX (the 550EX does not have a sync port). So, a quick email to them revealed that a neat little device from the folks over at Flash Zebra would make the Cyber Syncs compatible. A mere $14 later and the device arrived late last week (while I was in SC). So, next month the Cyber Syncs will be making their way to my doorstep.
In the meantime, I have these Cactus triggers, and I thought with the inclusion of a sync port, perhaps I could jerry-rig something together. With the sync port going out to what looks to be an RC-mini, and the receiver also going out to an RC-mini, I needed a way to join two RC-mini’s together. A quick dig through my various buckets of cables and connectors revealed a dual mini that is normally used to connect to headphones to a single audio. Worth a shot, since it’s only about $50 total invested. I connected everything together to get this:
On your left is the trigger that came from Cactus, to the RC male. A reducer on that took it to an RC-mini male. In the center is the well-hidden PC-sync device that came from Flash Zebra. (For a better picture, see below…) A female sync port on that was able to connect to the male sync port that was included with my Cactus gear. That also went to an RC-mini male. These are both connected on the right to the y-connector that you would typically see two headsets connect to the same audio source. The technology is the same, so it’s worth a shot right? (No pun intended…)
I fired off a test shot from the 40D and it worked! So, how well would it work? What kind of reliability would there be? I took the flash into the next room and fired the trigger from a further distance away…about 20 feet. Flash! Then I took the trigger around the corner and fired it. Flash! How cool is that? Another set of tests was needed. One where radio waves wouldn’t bounce all over the place – outside! If you recall, I interviewed Scott Eccleston from Weekly Photo Tips a while back, and a recent post of his armed me with a good testing method of the Cactus triggers. Armed with the inspiration of this video, I enlisted the aid of my wife and took to the great outdoors.
I began with a fresh set of batteries in both the trigger and receiver, as well as the flash. Starting from ten steps away from the flash, I tripped the shutter – flash! Twenty paces – flash! Thirty paces – flash! Fourty paces – nada. Hmmm…tried again – nada. So, I moved back to 35 paces – still nada. A couple steps closer and it flashed again. About four more tests at this distance and I had 100% flash rate. Starting back to my wife, I counted the paces, 1-2-3… all the way to 33 paces. At an average gait of 3 feet per pace, that’s an outside range of 99 feet! Considerably better than the ST-E2 and at a third of the price!
For posterity’ sake, and since I am in a very casual way reviewing the PC-sync adaptor from Flash Zebra, here’s a better shot of just that device.
Also for posterity sake, here’s a view of the trigger that attached to the hot shoe of the 550EX:
Go soak your gear!
It pays to review your web traffic periodically because I just learned a way that your bathtub can be used for photography! Not only is it a good place to mellow out after a stressful shoot, but it also makes a heckuva softbox! I was on a forum that had referenced the blog and a guy had some product that he placed in his tub. I thought it was an interesting idea, and decided to give it a try. As it turns out, the tub is a great place to put your gear! Granted, not to soak it (sorry, but I had to tease the title that way), but to act as a great background and softbox combined in one.
Here’s a few sample shots. For all the tech-types, these are pretty much straight out of camera (or sooc) – all I did was adjust the WB for Flash and adjust the ACR sharpening from 25 to 75. All are resized to 650px wide for the blog. Here’s the setup: I took the Canon kit lens (18-55) on my 40D, threw on the 550EX, and set everything to default values. Shutter at standard sync speed of 250, aperture at f8 and ISO at 100. I powered the 550EX at it’s standard setting, on camera (relax strobists – I can hear you shuddering from here), and started firing a few shots. I pointed the flash to camera right and got this:
Yup, that’s a God-awful shot, with a nasty shadow. Perhaps I could ditch the shadow. Since we’re not exactly using conventional wisdom here, let’s try it with the flash pointed straight at the subject:
Hey! That’s actually not too bad. It’s not that great, and still definitely a “Meh” kind of shot as it’s still got something of a shadow. So, I spun the flash to fire above me and bounce off the ceiling:
Voila! You know what? For being a spur of the moment thing, and without a lot of pre-planning or preparation, that’s not bad at all. And, it was shot in a bathtub! Anyone else out there have a bathtub? Try some shots in it for different items. I used a tape measure, but what about a pen, or a microphone, or a printer, or even a lens? I bet you could get some pretty cool results with very little setup! Anyone else have some odd or unusual ways to get clean backgrounds and even lighting on the cheap? Feel free to share your thoughts, ideas, and feedback in the comments. Feel free to link your own efforts there too! Happy shooting all and we’ll see you back here again tomorrow!
Can ordinary be interesting?
A while back I took Tracy out for an afternon/evening in Denver. I agreed to leave my camera behind, but in case she wanted to catch a moment for posterity’s sake, I grabbed the P&S one she asked for as a Christmas gift. After her initial interest waned in taking pictures, I ended up with the camera in hand (go figure) and even shared a few here on the blog (remember the bottle caps in the grocery?). Anyway, it got me to thinking about how to take ordinary scenes and make them interesting. I guess that’s part of the role of being a photographer: making the ordinary extraordinary.
We do see the world differently than others, and by capturing our vision, and then sharing it with the world with our particular expression, otherwise ordinary scenes can be seen in a new and different light. With that idea in mind, here’s one I captured recently (with my own camera) that kind of spoke to me in that way:
What made this unique for me was the ambient light. No gels, no lighting tricks or anything – it was on our weekend getaway, and since not very many places outside of mountain cabins have things like wood stoves, the idea hit me to catch this scene. What makes it (for me) is the fact that the ambient light is very “fireside”. The tungsten light combined with the sun setting behind the trees outside made this a perfect scene. So, up went the tripod, the shutter went long, and I kept the aperture up, and noise down. (5 seconds, f10, and ISO 100 for the techies in the crowd).
I think it worked, but would like to hear from the readers out there. Does this work? Can ordinary scenes be made extraordinary? What about the role a photographer has? Is there really a “symbolic” or larger purpose for people who enjoy taking pictures? What do you enjoy about photography? Feel free to sound off in the comments, as there are no wrong answers here…
In the meantime, happy shooting and we’ll see you back here Friday!
Cactus Confusion
Well, I finally got the Cactus gear that I ordered online at GadgetInfinity last week. I had ordered their wireless trigger/receiver combo set and an extra receiver for the purpose of getting two lights to fire. I excitedly opened all the packaging and unwrapped it all, then – stop, hold the phones, and check this out – I read the directions!
Yes, that’s right, an admitted geek read directions to make sure I utilize them right. After reading about these kinds of things on David Hobby’s Strobist site and over on the Flickr Colorado Strobist site, I wanted to make sure I don’t accidentally fry either my precious 40D or the cheapo 550EX because of improper usage.
Well, after reading through the massive 1/4 page sheet of instructions, I was confused so I sorted back through the gear and here’s what I have:
So, I am not sure what the one cable is for on the right of the trigger (transmitter). Is that supposed to plug into the transmitter, or the transceiver? If you look at the back of the transceiver, there’s a funky little plug there that looks as if it is made to accept the one female end to that spare cable. Meanwhile, the other end looks to be another RCA mini, and the side receptacle on the transmitter is built to take an RCA mini. Not sure I understand why, as the trigger would normally be connected to the hot shoe of your flash.
Finally, it looks as though in order to get these triggers to work with a Canon 550EX, I would need an adaptor cable of sorts that would change an RCA mini to a female version of that three-prong set on the 550. Any ideas from those out in the blogosphere?
Lest I forget you, dear readers, here’s a brief bout of humor courtesy of What the Duck:
HAPPY HALOWEEN EVERYONE!!!
Don’t get too hyped up on sugar – you’ll get camera shake! Happy shooting all and we’ll see you back here on Monday! Thanks in advance to anyone willing to help me sort out this wireless trigger confusion! 🙂
New Podcast is Up!
That’s right, for two successive weeks now since our move, I’ve been able to find the time to record an audio podcast. Todays show had everything to do with the absolutely horrendous performance by the Broncos last night on MNF – their season turned to the toilet rather quickly. What ever happened to the fundamentals?
Oh, sorry, this is a photo blog, not a football one! 🙂
Okay, here’s the latest and greatest from CB. First and foremost, CB Episode #55 went up today. I took about twenty minutes to talk about off-camera lighting. I looked at the radio transmitters available, infrared transmitters and a number of different companies that deliver products. Pricing from various websites was also reported. As prices may change, and sales may happen, those are approximate according to the date of publication. So, if you have questions about off-camera flash, this may be a good starting point. I look at everything from PocketWizards to Cybersyncs, Skyports and more. It’s about a 20 minute listen, but chock full of information, so download it and feel free to share your thoughts in the comments – I’d really like to hear what people think of the “new format”.
Other news from CB – the header is updated! I’ve got new header shots rolling out every day this week, so make sure you visit the blog and look at the new images (this is for all you RSS readers out there). For the regular visitors, you may also notice that I finally took some time to sit down and add some of the common links above the header, so now you have quick access to The Online Photography Test (more questions and ideas are needed for the “Expert exam”, not linked like yet), the Colors and Textures Gallery, and my own website of personal photography work. Finally, I also added a link to the CB Flickr group (I’d love to see some more members sharing photos and ideas). Pretty cool stuff that I am happy to finally have in place. Thanks go out to Erik Bernskiold of Bernskiold Media for taking some time to jog my memory on the particulars of HTML editing – it’d been a while.
As promised, here are the links from the show (a.k.a. show notes):
- Pocket Wizards (B&H) $380
- Elinchrom Skyports (B&H) $180
- Alienbees Cybersyncs (Alienbees) $130
- Cactus Triggers (Gadget Infinity) $25-$50
- Nikon (B&H)
- Canon (B&H)
As I said in the show, I’m migrating from the ST-E2 from Canon to the Cactus transmitters. If you’d like to hear a follow-up episode on my experiences when I am done, let me know and I’ll try to get that “in the can” too.
Well, that was just a ton of information for a Tuesday, so I’ll leave things at that, and let everyone come back tomorrow rejuvenated for the Wednesday “What’s This?” Happy shooting and we’ll see you back here tomorrow!
P.S. Don’t forget the poll on the sidebar or the Photrade contest – both are ending soon so get your votes in today!
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Wednesday Walk around the Web returns
As the final hours approach me here on Tuesday, I still find myself struggling to capture something of interest that would be a fun topic for the “What’s This?”, so, a rather easy one is up for your guessing pleasure. Truth be told though, this is kind of lame, and as such, I would like more of the focus for today’s post to be the traditional “walk around the web” Here’s what’s going on this week in photo land:
- First, stop over to Scott Kelby’s blog – guest writer John Nack from a little company called Adobe will be filling in, and if you don’t already know who he is, and why we listen, stop over at his blog to catch up…
- Next, some shout outs to…well, myself sort of, but also to Scott Eggleston, over at Weekly Photo Tips. He chose an image I shared with him over on his blog as a monthly winner in his photo contest! While I am flattered to have won the prize, it’s just more germane to say that as I was packing things up the other day, I was talking to my wife about how I wished I had some convenient way to pack my AA batteries! Hello Alanis Morrisette, isn’t that ironic? He also had a post on late last week on how to shoot reflective surfaces with a YouTube video too – very informative!
- Next, Brian Reyman over at Professional Snapshots has his third in a series of lighting tutorials he’s posting on. Very useful and a great presentation of the info there. I’ve been reading Brian’s blog for a while now and he has a truly innovative way of thinking. Shout outs to Brian! 🙂
- Visual Realia continues to keep my creative juices flowing, even though I did not come up with a very good image for today./ Look at Andy’s blog any time you need a kick start for your creative voice. His last three images of normal playing cards, show how anything can be beautiful if well visioned and composed!
- Finally, stop over to Hyperphocal for some great reading material if you have some time. It’s becoming quite the repository of excellent photo-related articles. A couple recent articles include the subject of Getting your photos into gallery shows, and Reasons to watermark your imagery. Like I said, great reading all around!
Since others have discussed it, particularly today, it bears mentioning (at least acknowledging anyway) that Nikon has released to new bits of gear – the D700 body and the SB-900 flash. Rather than regale you with tons of links on both of these, let’s just say that since reading quite a few posts from some respected photog-types, it seems people are curious about teh new body, but almost to the tune of 75%, they are expressing more excitement over the flash. Even Michael Johnston from The Online Photographer
picks up on the news, and throws in an off-handed remark about the new flash (and two new PC lenses that I’d not even read about until hitting his blog). Just goes to show you, the bells and whistles are there to generate new interest, and in many cases, it works! Having said that, it seems more and more that the tried and true utilitarian upgrades and additions to a camera line are what pulls repeat buyers back for more.
Until tomorrow, happy shooting and watch those apertures!
As a shameless self-promotion slug, as we move toward the holiday weekend, it’s time too brush up on your night photography. Remember what apertures and shutters are and how they relate? Refresh over at The Online Photography Test , hosted right here at CB! So, stop over there to test your A&S awareness (among other things) before heading out to shoot for the day! Don’t forget to pick up the feed for CB if you haven’t already.