Puppy Portraiture - Speed Lighting with Speedlights

A couple of weeks ago, a good friend of mine sends me a message. "Can you take some photos of my dog? I want to put together a birthday gift for my Mom." Sure, that's easy enough! I've wanted a chance to play with multiple lights, I love dogs, and I like taking photos.

Now, before I continue, be aware that I very much like to get things right. Yes, I experiment with things - trial and error is something that I like. That said, I prefer my trials and, most certainly my errors, happen when I'm experimenting - not when I'm taking shots for someone else!

Seeing lighting has been getting more intuitive. Fill light on the dog, and then a subtle flash that I could use to bring out the background. Heck, I even made a nice DIY reflector from cardboard and aluminum foil to get a little bounce to fill in shadows! I knew what I wanted from this shoot - Eye level shots of a pooch that were well lit and had great color. Oh, and obviously, I wouldn't ever want to crop things!

Now, our pup of the day was Bianca - an adorably happy dog that, try as we might, did not enjoy sitting still. Which was an issue, when you'd find the perfect spot to shoot, get it lit, and then bring the dog over. Well, little Bianca would check out the spot - and then decide she wanted to run elsewhere. Bribe with treats, get 20 seconds of possibly good shots (but oh, don't forget to shift the camera position a little, because now poor little Bianca is showing off that nice cardboard reflector in the background! After 15 minutes or so of this rather silly endeavor, the dim bulb begins to illuminate, and I start finding other places that I can make super fast lighting arrangements. Ah, here's a nice section of carpet - Get those lights set!

Thoughtful Dog - Unsightly Reflector

That's how you end up with a couple hundred photographs, many of which are of a hyper little pup dodging the camera in the name of excitement! And that is also how you end up with one sad photographer, when he begins looking through his shots, and is struggling to find usable ones. But they come. Gradually, but they come. More and more usable shots - more than enough with which a friend can craft a gift.

Equipment Used

Nikon D7100 Camera
2 x SB-600 (used gear from solid resellers like B&H or Adorama, amongst others, is awesome)
3 x Cactus V5 Wireless Triggers
DIY Cardboard-foil reflector

Images

Rim Lighting with a Black Background - Help Needed

So this will be a very simple and short post!

I've been shooting some portraits with a black tablecloth background lately, and getting some really fun results with it. But, I'm running into one annoyance that I need to think through - my rim lighting from the rear of the subject is reflecting off of the subject and back onto my background, giving it too much variation in tone and color.

Here is what the set up looked like, with a little help from Lighting Diagram 

And here is the resulting image

How do I fix it, readers?

Making Your Own Light: Or How I Stopped Being Afraid of Flash

Like pretty much every aspiring photographer, I loved learning how to make better images the more I shot. Books, articles, videos - anything that explained the craft, I devoured. Until, that is, I began learning  about flash. Wasn't it enough that I had begun to master all of the functions of my camera? Why did some new device have to come into play?

But then, while reading Joe McNally's "The Moment it Clicks," everything (wait for the terrible pun)... clicked. Flash isn't something scary. It is light. Light is EVERYTHING. Light is what you're capturing. Sometimes it even looks pretty cool when you capture it! That understanding of what flash photography actually means, plus the incredible resource that is David Hobby's Strobist blog got me to experimenting.

Since I love being outside and doing things like hurtling down hills on thin sticks in the snow and ice, I thought that trying out these lighting ideas might work well in such a simple environment. One homemade jump into a gully of fresh powder at the base of a hilly driveway, and I had my chance. Before I get to the photos, let me just say that I learned some VERY important lessons here.

1) Plan what the heck is going to happen before you get out there. The guys doing the tricks had it all set, including the landing area. I got people next to the jump to get my focus preset. I did this ALL on manual focus. In the dark, there is no way you're going to get auto-focus tracking. Also, knowing where they will land is a good way to make sure you're not there.

2) Set your gear up BEFORE you're set to shoot. I played with my Cactus V5 triggers inside so that I wouldn't be fumbling about with gloves on in single digit temperatures. But this lesson is just as important even if environmental conditions were ugly - the more pre-planning, the more time you have to deal with what you want to shoot!

Note, when you want to fire multiple flashes with the Cactus V5's, the unit attached to your camera is the commander and must be on Channel 1. The other receiving units can then occupy any of the "blue" channels (1-5). Pretty awesome stuff when you consider that these all cost less than a single PocketWizard - and one PocketWizard won't do you much good.

Here is what we set up. The arrow is the direction the skiers and boarders came from. I was shooting from below the jump and just towards the main light side of things. One thing that you'll notice in a set up like this is that you get a narrow window of good lighting in the pitch black. When you miss that window? Well, cool things can still happen - like this.

Oh, and it doesn't hurt to get big fluffy flakes coming down when you shoot something like this. All of those flakes getting caught in the strobes are just tasty!

Equipment Used

Nikon D7100 Camera
2 x SB-600 (used gear from solid resellers like B&H or Adorama, amongst others, is awesome)
3 x Cactus V5 Wireless Triggers

Images

Outdoor Photography Preperation - Gear-Hacking a Camera Holster

An Easily Accessible Outdoor Camera Rig - For Half of the Price.

 

Over the last two years, I've attempted to combine my love of photography with the enjoyment that I get from being outdoors. To put it mildly, I have had very little success. Sure, I've snagged a few nice shots, but if you're going on a multi-day camping trip, the amount of time you can spend pulling gear out of bags to get the perfect shot is limited

So, how can I make my camera more available to me, on the go? I'm going on hikes, doing alpine climbing, and paddling down rivers at times. Breaks are fine, but part of all of these journeys is reaching the destination (eventually) . If I keep stopping for the perfect shot(s), I'm going to be very late to work the next Monday!

There are a number of complex chest rigs to hold your camera in place as you hike, even with a full backpack on. Well, those cost anywhere north of $99. That's a little much for what I want to spend. But then I stumbled on Think Tank's Digital Holster 10 V2.0. (You're welcome, Think Tank. How about endorsement money now? No? Maybe a coupon?)

So, let's get this puppy all set up. See this cool super sturdy velcro tab? We can attach the camera holster to the backpack via the chest strap.You may be curious as to why I didn't just attach the holster to my waist belt. Well, I'm going to be traveling while wearing a climbing harness on occasion. The one thing that I do not want my camera to interfere with is my safety equipment. Safety first!





















Just make sure that you've got enough room on the male end of the clip to buckle the strap. You might think that this will be uncomfortable, but the chest strap isn't meant to be cinched tight and bear weight. It should be semi-loose when clipped!

So here is what we've got when it's attached to the strap and clipped in. Not too bad! But I'm putting some pretty pricey gear in this holster. I don't want to trundling down a hill, cliff, or worse when I take my pack off for a breather. After all, tired minds make mistakes. So we get out a cheap carabiner.





















Finally, I've attached the carabiner to one of the metal D-rings on the holster, and then attached that to a closed loop on the chest strap. Note - CLOSED loop. If it's just the strap, the holster can still go sliding off - this time with a carabiner in tow. And there - I've just recreated a camera set-up for half of the price that keeps my gear well protected from weather and bumps, all while securely fastened to me in an easy to reach place.

ProjectDC: Welcome to the Metro

Well, I've been out and about on the Metro a few times this summer, and on occasion I've felt that I'm in the right place at the right time (and in the right mood) to capture life in D.C. on the Metro. As some of my Twitter followers may know, D.C.'s Metro (WMATA) can be downright terrible for reasons that perplex me. But that's old hat in D.C., sadly.

So how better to begin exploring the Metro and its problems than by looking at the people on the Metro? I have a long way to go, that much I know. I've lost a bit of my street photography mojo - if I ever had it! Eventually I hope to do some portraiture in the system, but, until then, it's just about capturing life on the train.

Images

Mea Culpa

Well. I've been remiss this summer in posting content - photos, tips, pitfalls that I've encountered - everything. Fortunately, I haven't stopped shooting, and will have plenty of posts coming your way soon!

The most exciting post, in my view, is from my first set of D.C. metro shots. Some are good, some are keepers, and some are juat good learning experiences.

So, stay tuned! I will be better!

Simple And Fun D.C. Fireworks Shots

There isn't much to say about this set of photographs. I wasn't close enough to really get the best out of my wide angle lens, so these are cropped fairly heavily. Despite that fact, the colors and the motion, I feel, really came out nicely. Which is what makes me happiest about fireworks photos, so I'll call it a win!

Equipment Used

Nikon D7100 Camera
Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8 lens
Manfretto BeFree Tripod
Nikon MC-DC2 Cable Release

Images