20091230

DIY gel holders

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A cheap and effective way of holding gels to your speedlights is to use Velcro. However attaching the Velcro directly on to the piece of gel will reduce it's life and waste the Velcro when you have to replace it. Not that gels are expensive by any means, but I save where I can.

I did not invent this and saw this at one of the strobist meetups I attended, taking from the idea of gel holders like this Rosco kit that you can buy, you can DIY the same thing with business card sleeves.

Simply get a pack of these and cut away. Try to match the area of the flash so that there are no extra material on the sides in case you want to use it with a dome diffuser. Stick some Velcro onto the business card holder that you've just cut out. You can even use a dome diffuser to hold down the gel holder, make sure the material is not that thick that you start to warp your dome diffuser and lose the tight fit. There, you have yourself a DIY gel holder that you can use again and again until it gets to destroyed and you can afford to just toss it and make another one. Get a sheet of the colors you use more often like CTO and window green and just try to score some Rosco or Lee sample packs for all the other funky colors.

Conversely, the SB-900 comes with a gel holder that's nice and compact. You're suppose to use it with the gels the SB-900 came with so it can do auto WB but I don't see why you can't just use it with regular gels that you've cut up. Of course, if you do not want to be ghetto like me, this Rosco kit is a nice, elegant solution.

20091217

secure hot shoe mount

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Being the cheapskate that I am, I take care of my gear because I can't afford to replace them. When you're putting a speedlight on a stand, for those of us with some of the newer speedlights (like an SB900 @ $500+), you are putting a lot of money into a very high place. Even though they're built like a tank, a 6 foot drop won't do it any good.

I use these Impact umbrella adapters, they're great for what they're worth but the hotshoe mount really suck. I've had a SB800 fall from 7ft off of this adaptor, lucky landing on something soft with no damages.

I had a Photoflex XS Softbox at one point and I want to get another one when I get the chance, the adjustable mount that you need with this softbox comes with a very nice speedlight hot shoe mount. Very secure.

I looked for this online and it wasn't a part that's sold on it's own. So I emailed the good people at Photoflex and got a very prompt reply from Alex:

Hi Rocky,

Thank you for your email message and for your continued support.

Yes, this part exists. Here is the info:
Item# RR-QRSHOE - $11.95usd ea
Availability: out of stock, will have in stock Jan 17, 2010

To place your order when it’s in stock, please contact us at 800 486 2674 mon-fri 8am-4pm Pacific.

Thank you!

So there you go. At 12 bucks, I think it's a very good investment for a secure solution and only a fraction of the cost of what your flash costs.

20091215

my flickr, my progress

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The topic of why I started this blog came up.

First of all because everyone has one and I want one too.
Secondly, it's something to compliment a portfolio when I have that up (soon).
Lastly, I think when I look back on it some time from now, I can really see my progress in terms of my photos and my thought process on photography as a whole.

This is more for me than for you. Just like my Flickr stream. On the odd day when I'm bored, I go through my stream and start from the beginning to look at all the crappy photographs I created.

I recommend everyone to go through their work once in awhile from the beginning to keep track of your progress and what direction your photography went and is heading towards.


20091214

strobist wino

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A great weekend with some fresh seafood (so fresh we didn't cook it) with good friends. I hosted a get together at my place so I did a lot of the preparation, rand around most of the night and didn't get a chance to snap some shots of everyone.

Bought a set of new wine glasses too, even though they're not DF's 50 dollar/glass, so I want to show them off. I can't call myself a wine enthusiast but I certainly enjoy wine. I have been regularly tasting (drinking) with DF and been documenting the group's get-togethers for DF's blog.

These are some of the more refined shots I have taken thus far.
The set up as follows.

1) I didn't want to set up my white backdrop so I decided to just shoot on the bar top. It has a glossy vinyl surface so it's quite versatile in it's appearance depending on what angle you shoot at. Please don't mind the junk...

2) SB900 on white shoot through camera right to start things off.
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3) Adding a SB800 to light the background.
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4) Because of how I laid out the bottles, one key light on the left would leave the bottle on the right side underexposed. So...SB800 on a shoot through on camera right. I moved that background light behind the bar and pointed up. You'll notice a bit of spill on the light on camera right, fixed this by flagging the speedlight.
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5) I snooted the background light to give focus to the bottles. I did this with a piece of black construction. The position was a bit off and I needed to play with it a bit to get it just right.
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6) The final set up.
Riesling galore set up

Be sure to check out these wines at DF's blog
From Left to Right:
2008 Thirty Bench Riesling
2004 Reichsgraf von Kesselstatt Riesling Kabinett
2008 Flat Rock Cellars Nadja's Vineyard Riesling

And the resulting shot, enjoy!
Riesling galore

20091209

subtle HDR preset - thirty bench winery

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I'm a fan of HDR's and I could spend hours tweaking one to perfection (my version of perfection anyways). I personally have nothing against HDR's and have an appreciation for them as a methodology to to simply increase the range or a style when going for the dramatic, rendered effect. When executed with care, they turn out beautifully.

This set was taken by bracketing at +/-0.7ev. +/-0.7 is a good range to increase the range just enough to give it that pop while not going HDR happy.


There is more to it than just running it through Photomatix. This shot took more masking and adjustments to look the way it did now. One of the main things I look out for is the trade-off between revealed detail and noise, a shot at iso100 can easily look like it was shot at iso400. I don't bother trying to compose a HDR when you're shooting at iso400.

You can find this Photomatix preset here.

Mind you that the preset will not work for every shot. Each HDR requires its own attention to the adjustments to achieve the look you want. Having said that, this may be a decent starting point. The main thing I change when I start out with this preset is the temperature as that seems to be what varies the most for me.

Enjoy!

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The final product.
Thirty Bench Vineyard

20091202

lighting for a party room

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I make an effort to make the flash as seamless as possible relative to the environment. Gels are important for an on-location shoots where you want to balance the background with the flash. You often see indoor shots where the subject in the proper white balance while the background with ambient tungsten light is orangy-red. Adding gels to unify the temperature of the light avoid weird tints in the shot.

In this situation, there's some mixed lighting so it made it sorta difficult to match. I turned off some of the lights that weren't needed so that I would only be working with one temperature. I used a 1/2 CTO gel for my flashes but it didn't match the ambient perfectly. I set my WB to tungsten and the flashes still seemed a bit blue relative to the ambient lights. At the beginning of the event when there was still light coming from the outside, it was very difficult to work with since the temperatures of light had too much variety from the light coming in from the windows to the ones coming from the incandescent bulbs. Things got better and more consistent as the night went along after the sun set.

Two speedlights were placed in the main room, one in the kitchen area, and one on camera. Initially I used a piece of black foam to flag the flashes and pointed towards the ceiling, so that it would be less distracting to the guests. However, I lost a lot of light and it just wasn't enough to light the room, so I removed the flag and just used a diffuser to bounce off the ceiling.

The shots for this event here.

Enjoy!

Wine & Photography @ Anita's

20091126

Wine & Photography @ Anitas

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A wonderful event for wine tasting with Anita and her family and friends. We tasted Spanish and Portuguese wines, many of which were new to them. Everyone came with an open mind and ready to have fun with the wines. Fortunately, nobody was camera shy.  I covered this event with a mindset of getting candid shots and the essence of the event without being intrusive. So I sniped away using mostly the 70-200/f2.8 to get closer without having to get in anyone's face.

It can be intimidating not having gone to a wine tasting before and not knowing what to expect but I think everyone had a good time. For those that is new to wine, this is definitely a nice kick off. For those who already enjoy wine, it is great to discuss it with someone as passionate about it as DF.

Read about this event at DF's blog. That's DF doing what he does best and here's what I do best.

Enjoy!

20091119

collaboration

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A collaboration with my good friend DF on a project. Doing what we do best with our respective hobbies, wine & photography.

I still recall telling DF to start a blog after several wine reviews on facebook. Seeing his dedication in writing is inspiring. This is another milestone when we get started.

Exciting things to come, stay tuned!

One of my favourite shots.
a lonely thanksgivings...

20091118

istockphoto - 1st rejection!!



Looked at micro stock and decided to sign up with istockphoto. Went through with the application and submitted my first 3 photos for review.



Rejected.

Comments from the iStockphoto Administrator:

These images are very similar in subject matter or style. We would like to see a demonstrated range of diversity and variety in subject matter, so if you have anything else you can show us we would love to see it.
 Sort of asked for it since I didn't put too much thought into the selection and chose some recent stuff. They also said no snapshots of pets too, but I'd like to think these submissions aren't snapshots...but I guess they do not want pets in general.

Will try again.

20091117

fail-safe white

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After testing out the thunder gray (step-by-step set up here) with Ben, I found out how much of a newb I am with it and decide to just do a quick switch back to the trustworthy arctic white.

Again, nothing crazy. Simple, elegant, and even a newb like me can make it look good.

2 SB-800s to nuke the seamless and a SB-900 on a shoot through as the key. I used a foam core as a reflector that's not in this set up shot.

ben x white

20091116

step-by-step setup shots

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These set up shots have been well received and I have been getting a lot of hits from them. Please comment and let me know how you guys like them and what would you like to see!

I believe it is more helpful for me to show all the mistakes I encounter when I setup a set rather than just what the final setup is like. It helps me keep track.

Please feel free to comment, advise, share your insight or ask anything about my setups!

Remember to click on some google ads that may interest you, then I can get rich and stop being cheap!

benjamin

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Benjamin is a doll.

The shoot started off with a stroll in the park for him to run off some energy and also to do his business on the grass instead of on the backdrop. A pee stain would be cumbersome to clone out.

Tested out the thunder gray, but moved back to the failed safe white near the end of the shoot.

Enjoy!

Lights for 66

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PYeung is moving out of her home of 10+ years. Exciting times!

They put a lot of time and effort to make it into a beautiful home. I took some time to document some of her designs for her portfolio. This display cabinet was home to her Coca Cola collection.

I used 3 SB-800's and an SB-900 off camera to trigger in two groups via Nikon's CLS and on camera flash. The shoot was done with a Tokina 12-24mm which has been replaced by the second version with a built-in motor.

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Group A was the SB-900 on a shoot-through umbrella to light the main area and a SB-800 with a diffuser dome in the kitchen below. If I didn't have a light in the kitchen, it would just be a dark room.

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Group B are two SB-800's behind the glass cabinets. These just gave the cabinets a bit of a pop. I'm not entirely certain the shadows cast on the wall opposite works out but I left it anyways. I had to play with the angle a bit so that the flashes are just out of view to prevent any flares.

DSC_5424

I was at a high enough shutter speed where virtually only the flashes are contributing to the exposure and the lights are only turned on so that it gives a glow to say they've turned on. Shot at ƒ/8, which is about the sharpest setting on this lens. After some colour/brightness/contrast adjustments and etc, here is the end product.

Display Cabinets

get into the head of a newbie strobist

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Opened up the thunder gray for Benjamin's shoot. Lovely neutral colour but more difficult to use than I expected!

Using the white seamless for a high key look is easy, it's fail safe. It's a simple, elegant set up and hard to screw up; Two lights nuking the backdrop, light the subject properly and voilà.

The gray requires more thought and understanding. It is very versatile so it's only natural that there are a lot of different setups that result in different looks. Understanding lighting ratios are important and I am still a newb at this. I also found a lot of blemishes (ripples) in the gray backdrop that shows up quite a bit, I think I'll either need to go lighter or darker to avoid this.

I tried a few things to get it right and in the end I think I still screwed it up. It doesn't make it easier when the subject runs all over either (especially with the rim light)

I would like to take you through my thought process in my learning experience step-by-step.

1) First thing after setting up the backdrop was to position my key light. This position was too much off to the side and I would get too much shadows emphasized on once side of the subject.
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2) Moved the key more towards the front so it's more or less camera left @ 45 degrees. However there's too much spill into the background. I also added a flag to prevent the spill from the side of the umbrella. Simple solution: cardboard + elastic band.
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3) Lowered the flash since my subject is Ben and he's tiny. This offers more control of the light and reduced the spill onto the background. A boom would definitely help this since I can get the light closer to the subject without the lightstand being in the way. Ideally, I would have more space between the subject and background but as you can see I don't live in a mansion and is too cheap to rent a studio.
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4) Introduced a background light. Wanted to create a nice fad in the back. Here, you can see it could use some adjustments. The diffuser dome also created too much spread and the light spilled from the side of the umbrella to the ground.
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5) Took off the diffuser dome and there's still some spill.
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6) Flagged it to reduce the spill even more but there's still a bit but it's at an area off to the side that I probably won't be shooting at. Also jacked up the power to increase the fad area. My ghetto flags are more visible in this shot.
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7) Next I introduced a rim light. This was with no light modifiers.
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8) I found that it there was too much spread and put on a snoot. This concentrated the area and would reduce any flares in case the rim light spill straight into the lens. I'm still not too sure about this because the rim light created a pretty harsh shadow on the ground. I think I should have lowered the flash and directed it more parallel to the ground so that light doesn't spill on the ground. The problem is Ben is going to be running around so much that it will make it difficult for the rim light to land on the right spot unless I have a voice activated lightstand (PYeung) that would always point the rim to the subject.
DSC_4423

9) Back to the background light and more experimenting. I ditched the umbrella and snooted the flash. I ditched the snoot after this shot because my ghetto snoot (piece of black foam) sucked and didn't give a nice shape and the fact that Ben would run around too much to make the spot look good because it'll rarely be directly behind his head and would need to be moved constantly to center it (pretty much impossible)
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10) Took the flash off the stand and placed it on the ground with no modifiers to try to go for a simple streak of light. Zoomed into the SB-800's most telephoto setting (105mm). I placed it right beside the seamless.
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11) Just testing out what different distances and angles would result with and I was fairly happy with this.
thunder gray studio set up

12) Last thing I tried out was to have two rim lights. I think this might work with a portrait of a person, but not with a little dog that will be moving constantly. I ultimately ditched this and went back to #11's setup because taking the SB-900 off as the commander to get that 4th flash in, I would have to sacrifice a flash group since the in camera CLS system only offers two group of control.
DSC_4443

There's still a lot of experimentation to do with this colour. Advice and feedback needed!!

Ben

20091114

great food great wine!!

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It's always a treat at DF's, always. It was a celebration. I'll let him do what he's good at to talk about the food and of course, the wines (here and here). Please read about the wines, they're were spectacular (they better be at that price)!


The night started off with great food and ended off with an awesome photo shoot with multiple wardrobe changes! When people are enthusiastic about the shoot, then results are just THAT much better.

Thank you again for the hospitality.


20091113

clamshell lighting

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Clamshell lighting is a technique used by many fashion photographers to create a very flattering look with a 1:1 lighting ratio.

It's almost a fail safe technique next to the 'umbrella-camera-top-right-@-45-degrees.' It makes the average person look good and make good looking people even better. Pairing this with a telephoto lens just makes everything come together that much better.

The set up is simple, some use only one light and a large reflector, or in this case two speedlights. The light source should be large to give a flattering soft light. Remember that it's the relative size that matters, so getting the light in as close as possible increases its relative size to the subject. I actually had PYeung hold up the light at the top just above DF's head. This can be eliminated if I had a boom, but I'm cheap like that and my assistant is free.

Clamshell x DF

The set up includes two SB=800s with the shoot through umbrellas. A SB-800 in the back for some separation. (I moved the hair light when I took the following).

DF

The camera loves DF.

**edit* the lights weren't so awesome that it changed a bowtie into a neck tie...wardrobe change