Tree Farm

Sorry for the lack of updates. I've been busy and haven't had much time to shoot or post. We went to a tree farm to take some pics a couple of weeks ago. The weather was beautiful--the sun was out and it wasn't too cold. Here's a couple of pics I took with a hand-held 580. They were taken close to noon. In the past, the time of day along with the harsh sunlight filtering through the trees would've wreaked havoc with shadows on their faces. But now that I'm not afraid to use a flash, I'm able to get some decent shots. There's a bunch of flare, but I was having a tough enough time just trying to get a decent shot. Gotta love 4 year olds :)

Simulated sunlight: Follow up

Someone revived an old post in the flickr group that was for a guy selling pre-cut color correction gels. In that thread, there were a couple of links to some .pdf files from Rosco (gel mfg.) The second one was of great interest to me, because it looks like it has suggestions for specific gels to create specific looks! Nice. They have several ones to use to simulate sunsets/sunlight/moonlight/etc. I'm gonna have to test all these out!

Link

Bouncing with fill

I had tried taking pics of the girls while they were putting ornaments on the tree. I thought this'd be another good chance to fiddle around with my lights (much to my wife's chagrin). In the past, I would shoot this with my flash on camera, bounced of the ceiling. The pics would come out decently...


...but I knew that now having multiple lights, I could do better. You can see in the photo above that her eyes are pretty dark. I initially tried lighting this with one flash in a shoot-through on one side of the room, and another flash reflected by an umbrella on the other side of the room. I wasn't too happy with the results and quickly removed the reflective umbrella and instead made that flash bounce off the ceiling. It was a little better, but it really did depend on where the kids were--and they were of course all over the room. I turned to the strobist flickr group to get some suggestions, as I didn't want to be constantly adjusting my lights as they moved.

First off, they told me to change the position of my bounced flash. On the side of the room, it wasn't in the best place with the way my ceiling was sloping. For the 2nd flash, I had two suggestions--the first was to keep it on camera and fire it directly at the subjects as fill, and the second was to keep it on camera but bounce it off the ceiling as well. Keeping one flash on the camera helps to compensate for the kids moving about in the room. Here's the first test shot using a direct fill flash:


I had the 580 turned down as low as it would go (1/128). Not too shabby, but I still wasn't completely happy--it still has that "flashed" look to it. Not a lot, but enough that I notice it. It may be something I just have to get used to--which is tough because I really, really like a nice, soft light. Thinking back on it now, I may have to try this again using my mini-softbox on my flash. It really does fill in the shadows; so much so that there's really not a lot of definition and it looks a tad flat.

So, next I tried bouncing my on-camera flash. For the sake of comparison, I did one shot with the 580 turned off so I could see how it looked with the off-camera flash bounced:

Much better than the first pic with just the 580 on-camera bounced. You can definitely see a color cast from the walls/ceiling when compared to the 2nd picture in this post. Finally, here's a shot with both flashes bounced:


I didn't find there to be much difference between the two. Looking closely, there is a little more fill in this last shot--her cheeks are brighter, and the background (esp the bottom of the couch) looks a tad brighter. But again, not much difference. I will have to say, though, that I did correct the exposure in photoshop for the images--out of the camera the picture with just the bounced off camera flash was really underexposed compared to the last shot.

So which method is better? I kind of lean towards the look of the bounced 580 rather than the direct flash. I think I need to fiddle more with the ratios between the two flashes--perhaps reducing the off-camera one a tad and increasing the on-camera a bit will help. Maybe I'll be able to give it a try tonight :)

Simulated Sunlight

I was experimenting with some gels from the Rosco sample pack to try and find one that would give me the effect of golden sunlight right at sunrise/sunset.

This one is with the pale gold, I believe. Not bad. It's a nice and warm light.


Here's a shot without the gel for comparison:


Another with 1/2 straw (I think):


I don't think either of them *quite* hit it, but they're close. I wonder too if I've diffused the light too much shooting through the umbrella. It may look more like sunlight if I shoot a bare flash.

Cross lighting with the Sun

We got our tree this past weekend, and as is tradition, getting the tree turns into a photo shoot of the girls. I usually shoot this sans flash, and I always end up dealing with harsh shadows as the sunlight comes in through the trees. This year would be different, I thought to myself. Armed with some new strobist knowledge, I was going to use my flash and balance it with the ambient, using the sun as the main light and my flash as fill, and perhaps get a couple of shots using the cross-lighting technique.

Of course, with the girls being 4 and 2, it was pretty much impossible to contain them to really give any of this a decent try. They were running around like crazy, never standing still. Not being anywhere near fast with these techniques and flashes, it was not what I would call a success (though we did get a fantastic tree!) I did manage to get the girls to stand still for a pic by getting them to show their rocks that they had found to the camera. I positioned them with the sun above and behind them to their left, and had a 580EXII directly opposite low, to the front and to their right on my ultra-portable but very expensive light stand (i.e. my wife). I think it turned out OK for my first cross-lighting attempt. Yes, the highlights are blown, but I didn't really have time to check and adjust my settings as they quickly ran off after I snapped the pic.

My first favorite!

Woo-hoo! Got my first (strobist) "favorite" on flickr today! I uploaded this pic to the strobist pool that was taken over Thanksgiving. 430EX in a shoot-through umbrella, camera left.

Comparing light

One of the things I like to do is to try and take the same photo under different conditions and then compare them. It really helps me learn what the effects of the different variables are so I can eventually get to a place where I'll be able to "see the light" as DH says.

So, we were at my sister's for Thanksgiving and being the only one with kids, we were of course, the only ones up early in the morning. While the kids ate breakfast, I thought that this would be a good opportunity to set up some lights and mess around with them. I still don't really have a good handle on what I'm doing, so I'm trying to play around as much as I can to see what does what. The first pic here was done with a bare 430EX off to her right. At least this time I balanced the flash right and got a good exposure on her without that "direct on camera flash" look.


For the next photo, I thought I'd try out my snoot that I had made the week prior. I made it out of a cereal box and covered it with black gaffer's tape. It's about 6" long. I had to make some adjustments to the flash power, but I was able to get the subject properly exposed while achieving my goal of reducing the light on the background.



And for comparison's sake, I took a shot with the 430 behind a shoot-through umbrella (flash was in the same position for all 3 shots). You can see how the light is much softer--the harsh shadows on the background and on her face are gone, and I have some nice catchlights in her eyes. It's very interesting to me how the "mood" of each of the pictures is different, and it was all accomplished by just modifying/restricting the output of the flash.

Gymnastics and the feast

Just a quick update on my kids' gymnastics and thanksgiving feast at school that I mentioned a little while back. I got sick that day and was only able to make it to the gymnastics class, and there I only used my flash on the camera, so no strobist stuff. I did however notice that when I was bouncing the flash in E-TTL mode, it was still underexposed--I don't know if it was because there were a lot of white walls around, but thanks to going the strobist route, I was comfortable using the manual mode on my flash and was able to turn the power up to 1/1 and get a proper exposure (the ceilings were really high!)

Going outdoors

Last week I ventured outside for the first time with my lights. I first tried using a bare flash. I'm finding that I really need to work on this. I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong, but I just don't like the look of a bare flash. Even with it off camera, it still has that characteristic "flash" look. I'm not sure how to make it more natural. When I try and turn the power down, I end up with an underexposed pic. I'm wondering if it's just that I'm not using it properly in the creative sense--meaning it's not the right look/lighting for the picture.



The first pic above has that direct-flashed look to it. Dunno how to eliminate that. The 2nd one is just a harsh light, with clear, sharp shadows. Which of course is to be expected, I guess I'm just struggling as to when is the appropriate time to have this "look". If I had put a more yellow/gold cast to the light, it almost looks like direct sunlight at noon.

So, I went back to using the shoot-through umbrella (I guess I should at some point try using it relflectively as opposed to using it shoot-through). Got much better results--the light has that soft, diffused characteristic which I personally love. It looks like that's the way I'm going to be shooting the majority of the time. Here are probably the best of the bunch I took that day, trying to balance the flash with ambient:




And a pic of the setup:

Small updates

Nothing much to really blog about...I did a photo session outdoors with E a few days ago that I need to write about and post to the flickr pool. That'll be coming soon. I've also made filter holders and a couple of 6" snoots for my flashes that I'll have to try out. I wonder how long the filter holders will hold up, as there's not a lot of material on one side. It was kind of a pain trying to get the filters to fit in there easily--I'm still not sure if I'm doing it the best way, but it's working. I got a business card holder and took out the CTO and CTG filters and put them all on a little binder-ring-thingy. They're all clamped together, and it looks like they'll stay in the filter holder without me having to open the binder ring thing and pull them out individually. That's nice. I'll have to figure out what to do with the rest of the filters. Right now I've got them on a large binder ring and stuffed it in my main camera bag. I guess maybe as I start to use them, I'll settle on using a few key ones over and over and I can begin to pare down the stack.

Tomorrow E has a thanksgiving "feast" in her class and K has gymnastics. I'll probably be taking pictures at both, but unfortunately I doubt that I'll be able to set up my lights. I'll bring them anyway just in case.

Oh, I almost forgot, I also found a tri-fold foamcore board at Office Depot to use as a reflector. It's about 3' x 4', so it's not too bad of a size. It was a little pricey as I thought I'd be able to get a larger sheet for half of what I paid, but who knows. I may be remembering it wrong and I don't think I've seen foamcore anywhere else. All in all, it was still cheaper than buying a white reflector of the same size. They also have it in black. I'm not too sure when I'd use it, but I think I'll end up picking it up as well before long.

RIP, Erich

I haven't made any posts the past couple of days because of some sad events that took place over the weekend. Some friends of mine were brutally attacked in their sleep, and unfortunately one of them didn't make it. Erich had just moved in with his girlfriend and was extremely happy. On Saturday at 4:30 a.m. his girlfriend's ex-husband broke into their house and attacked them savagely. Erich left us on Monday. I made this memorial image to him the night he passed. Erich loved playing soccer, and loved playing his xbox as well, which is how we met in the first place. We first knew each other from playing video games online together, and we and others eventually met each other in real-life. Over the next several years we would get together periodically and hang out. I made this picture as a memorial to him. We'll miss you, you hippie.

Understanding light

Later on during my first night with the new gear, I set about trying to get a feel for the effects that various parameters would have on lighting a subject. I set up a white sheet on my couch, put my xbox controller on it, and started messing around. I started with the flash on-camera in E-TTL mode straight on, then bounced, then manual mode, the off-camera, and then off-camera with an umbrella. Finally I added a 2nd flash to the mix. The results were interesting.

This was the first shot with the flash on-camera, E-TTL. I corrected (not very well) a white balance issue towards the bottom of the picture that came from the ambient light. I had too slow of a shutter speed at this point. Getting some glare, lighting is pretty flat and uninteresting, and there's really no detail in the background.



This one was bounced off the ceiling. Overall, it's not really all that bad. There's some shadow on the left side of the frame where the sheet goes up the back of the couch. You get some nice shadows that are beginning to give some definition and visual interest to the controller. There's a slight warm color cast from the ambient incandescent lights due to my shutter speed being 1/80 sec.


For this next pic, I had direct flash camera right at 1/128 power. I've learned that I need to master this hard light look. I don't really know how to control it so that it looks good in my photos. I kind of like the look that it gives here--very dramatic lighting. When I try it on people though, it looks bad and artificial. Oh well. Gotta practice some more, right? The color cast is gone as I upped my shutter speed. However, I neglected to remember that with the poverty wizards, I can only sync to 1/200 sec. I had my camera set to its max sync speed of 1/250 sec, thus causing the shadow at the bottom of the image.



Here I put an umbrella on the flash and turned it up to 1/32. You can see how it really softened the shadows, and got rid of the one on the back of the couch. I was really liking this shot and knew I was close. I just wanted to add a little bit of fill, as the top of the controller near the xbox button was a little dark, and I wanted to eliminate/reduce the shadow cast by the controller on the sheet.


And so, I added a second flash for fill. I turned the main flash up to 1/4 power to compensate for closing down my aperture from f/2.8 to f/8. The fill was a 430EX set to 1/16 power hand held and bounced off the ceiling. Here's the final shot:


Overall, there are subtle improvements and differences between this shot and the one that was just bounced with the on-camera flash. The top of the controller in the former was a little too evenly lit. In the latter there's a nice shadow cast by the keyboard attachment. Subtle differences, but in the end, that's what can make a good picture into a great one.

Not so easy, after all

My stuff arrived yesterday (woo-hoo!) I won't go into details now--I'll save that for another post--but I'm very excited and at the same time a little overwhelmed. I went into this thinking that it honestly wasn't going to be *too* difficult. I mean, I've been taking pics now for over 4 years. Yeah, I know my work isn't the greatest, but I do like to think that I have a better eye for it than your average bear, and I've been paying more attention to my lighting and have noted where it could use improvement. So, I totally thought that I'd be able to jump right in, have a good idea where to place my lights and where to have a person look and where to shoot from...but boy was I wrong. It's a lot more difficult than I thought it was going to be. So much to think about! I can't just focus on composition and aperture (since I shoot in Av mode)--now I have to think about my shutter speed as well to balance with ambient, lighting position, strength, and ratios...and the list goes on and on.

I'm finding that I also have to put more thought into my background/surroundings. Right now, I usually shoot with very large apertures to get that shallow DOF and oh-so-creamy bokeh. Which also means that I don't have to worry too much about my background since it'll be blurred anyway. But after playing around with the lights last night, I'm wondering if I'm going to have to start stopping down quite a bit. Turns out these lights are a lot stronger and harsher than I thought--even when set at their minimum power. I took one shot with the flash on my camera in E-TTL mode in manual. Good exposure. Keeping the same camera settings, I turned the flash to manual mode and turned it down as low as it would go. Totally overexposed. It seems that with E-TTL you can turn the flash power down a lot farther than you can manually. I had assumed that it would be the same. This means that in some situations, I'll have to be stopping down a lot more than I usually do in order to cut down on the light from the flash.

Here are some pics that I shot last night. I wasn't paying too much attention to composition--I was mainly trying to see how the light looked. I shot this at f/2.8, 1/60sec. I think I had too slow of a shutter that allowed some ambient incandescent light in, because my wife's face turned out a tad too red in the photos and I had to desaturate it some. These were all shot against a brown wall in my house. 430EX camera right, about 2ft away and a little above the model with a shoot-through umbrella. On a couple I added a 580EX fired through a translucent reflector to light the background. Overall I thought they came out OK--certainly not bad for my first real go at it. I think the lighting was a bit harder than I thought it would be--gotta figure out a way to soften it up some more. They're not bad, but they still lack that "wow" factor for me.

On its way

Your package is on time with a scheduled delivery date of 11/15/2007.

Date

Local Time

Description

11/15/2007

5:30 A.M.

OUT FOR DELIVERY

Those are beautiful words.

On a slightly related note, last night was my 2nd dream where I was trying to setup my lights and umbrellas and failing miserably. Let's hope that's not the case ;)

To infinity, and beyond!

Oh. Boy.

My first strobist purchase is here. I ordered the Cactus V2 triggers from Gadget Infinity and they arrived today. I was pleasantly surprised because I didn't think they'd be here until the end of the week at the earliest. I had just ordered them either Wednesday or Thursday of last week, and Monday was a holiday and with them coming all the way from Hong Kong...well, I'm certainly not complaining :)

I was a little concerned when I opened up the envelope and the first thing I pull out looks like this:
At least the other box looked fine.














So, I took them out of the package, put the batteries in, hooked them up to my camera and flash, crossed my fingers, and made my first ever off-camera flash picture:
Yep, that's it. What a difference having your flash off-camera makes!
And there, folks, is the reason I'm spending more money on flashes. The 420EX fired at full power right at the wall since there's no manual control whatsoever. Glad to see that the triggers work (at least for now) and that I've saved $500 vs going with the PW's. My second strobist pic wasn't much better:



Oh well. I guess I have nowhere to go but up :)
Can't wait until tomorrow when the B&H package arrives....

Let's see how far this rabbit hole goes.

*Deep breath*

*Exhale*

I've been trying to semi-seriously pursue photography for about 4 1/2 years now. I started out with a Canon G2 and a 420EX (see, even back then I knew about the importance of a good flash!) and now I've "graduated" to the big-boy (well, for me anyway) 20D. I've always disliked having to use flash; I tried to use natural light whenever I could. I always hated the way flash photos looked, even when bouncing the flash off the ceiling I wasn't entirely happy with the results.


And then I stumbled upon the Strobist.


What's that, you ask? Take a look here. The results that these photogs were able to get simply by using small camera flashes was absolutely amazing. I was hooked and I had to learn more. After reading many of the posts and tutorials on his site, I finally decided to take the plunge and give this whole lighting thing a shot. I thought it'd be interesting to blog about my experience learning how to control the lighting in my photos and hopefully one day be able to look back and see how much I've improved.

Either that, or look back and remind myself of that fall when I ended up wasting a bunch of money on my hobby ;-)

Here's to hoping it's the former!