Canon Speedlites

If you are new to the world of off camera flash and you would like to learn more about it this is a great video i found from Syl Arena. Well worth a watch to pick up a few tips.


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Cocktail Night - Speedlite 52 - Week 10

Cocktail Night - Speedlite 52 - Week 10

This week i wanted to try some food colouring shot. As usual my make shift studio is my kitchen table! The trouble is its just not big enough, the white background is a A1 size piece of mounting board and the glasses are sat on a A1 size piece of glass laid over more mounting board.

This is right on the limit of what i can do with this space to get the full reflection. Ideally i should have more space between the subject and background but if i moved subject i would not be able to get the full reflections. So trying to control the light is a challenge.

After laying out my background i assembled the glasses which i had measured out with equal amounts of water and added a few drops of food colouring to each glass, bit to much in the yellow really!

I also had two reflectors, one left one right, these reflected light obviously, and help block stray light from my back door !

Camera Info:-

ISO           160
Exposure  1/200
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	Aperture   F/8.0 Focal        43 mm

Strobist Info:-

Speedlite 430 exii at 1/64 power
Speedlite 580 exii at 1/64 power

Both speedlites fitted with stoffen diffusers, on speedlite stand one left one right both fired towards the background.

I used Adobe lightroom 4 to make a few highlight adjustments and colour luminosity adjustments.

Set up

I am a little disappointed with the large martini glass as the dark shadows don't look nice. This i think is due to the fact there is not enough separation between subject and background. Really need my own studio!!


Thanks for looking and i welcome your comments and feedback.

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CS6 Beta - Whats new ?

Found this video from PhotoGavin  about some of the new features of CS6 beta


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Reflections - Speedlite 52 - Week 9

Reflections - Speedlite 52 - Week 9

Found myself right at the end of the week and still had to produce a shot, luckily i had recently purchased a A1 size piece of glass, some grey card and some mounting board.

The mounting board i used as a background and placed the glass over the top of the grey card as my base.

These items i purchased from Hobbycraft apart from the glass which i had cut by Ramsgate Glass.

Strobist Info:-

430 ex ii with Stoffen Diffuser fired from camera left onto background at about 1/4 power
580 ex ii with Stoffen Diffuser fired from camera right towards glasses and background at 1/4 power

Made very few adjustments in photoshop just a bit of contrast and tidied up the background slightly.

Next time i will pay more attention to detail such as aligning the wine glasses better to align the rear crossover better.

Really need more space as my kitchen table is just to small to work on really but we all have to work with what we have.

Comments welcome here or Flickr

Thanks for looking


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Crab Bay Dover, Chalk Fall

Crab Bay, Dover Chalk Fall

Following this weeks huge chalk fall at Crab Bay Dover, a friend and fellow photographer Barry Stewart, and i decided, to visit the area ourselves.

We drove to Dover and parked up in the National Trust car park at Langdon and paid our £3.00 daily parking charge, national trust members i assume would be free with your badge. On arrival we made straight for the well equipped coffee shop and enjoyed a beverage while we contemplated our walk ahead.

After we finished we made our way to the car for a quick change of footwear and gathered our equipment. We made our way along the cliff top footpaths and to the slope which zig zags its way down the white cliffs to the beach below.

This is a fairly vigorous walk and defiantly got the heart pumping....fast! If like me you have never visited the area i would highly recommend it. Lovely walk along the cliff tops and very nice coffee shop for food and drinks, alternatively take a picnic and use the picnic tables that are dotted around, just try to avoid the ones close to the edge!!!

Once down onto the beach below we still had a walk ahead of us to the fall site which was over large boulders and seawead which was very slippery. I was also very aware of the possibility of another chalk fall. We remained vigilant and as far away from the cliff base as possible,

Once i had composed this shot and made my way around to the fall site Barry activated my camera for me, if only i had purchased those triggers!! Soon :-)

The walk back was as vigourous if not more so on the return journey up the zig zag path to the cliff top. We once again made use of the facillities before we headed home.

On the plus side France is now slightly further away!


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Ben Usain Bolt Pelling - Speedlite 52 -Week 8

Ben Usain Bolt Pelling - Speedlite 52 -Week 8

The weeks are just flying past! Yet again this was not the original shot i had planned this was a back up shot which as it turned out i preferred to the planned shot.


Strobist info

Camera	Canon EOS 7D
Exposure	0.004 sec (1/250)
Aperture	f/8.0
Focal Length	17 mm
ISO Speed	200

 The background was underexposed by about three stops and i then used two speedlites, one high camera left the other was low camera right

The high left was a 580 exii in a Westcott 43-inch Optical Satin Collapsible with Removable Black Cover which was on manual mode fired by 7d built in wireless system,at about half power.

The low right was my 430 exii in a shoot through umbrella at about a quarter power and again fired by the 7d wireless system.

I am fairly happy with the result but would have liked more colour in the sky but there is always next time!

Any comments or constructive criticism welcome here or 500px or my flickr account

Thanks for looking

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New Canon Speedlite 600ex-RT and ST-E3 RT

Found this video on the new Canon speedlite and radio transmitter system tested by Syl Areana



Its new so i need one or three !

If you want one you better start saving !
Available from Warehouse Express or the ST-E3 RT

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Angel - Speedlight 52 - Week 7



Angel - Speedlight 52 - Week 7

This week i found myself in Ramsgate Cemetery.The cemetery in Cecilia Road, Ramsgate, opened in 1871. There are two chapels, one of which is in use for funeral services, the other serves as a memorial chapel. Both are listed by English Heritage.

This shot was taken at 11.18am and so the sky was very bright. I wanted to make the background darker and light the Angel with my speedlite, so i set the camera as follows

Shutter 1/250th sec
Aperture F/16.0

The camera was on manual mode and these settings actually under exposed image by about two stops. The speedlite was my 580 exii on auto ETTLii mode connected with a hot shoe sync cord and a lumiquest softbox iii attached, positioned high left.

The camera was mounted on tripod fired by ir remote and the flash was then handheld.

Graveyard shots can be very atmospheric and in my opinion always look better in mono graphic form.

Please feel free to comment here, 500px or my flickr account thanks


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Decaying Bulldozer Hastings



Decaying Bulldozer

Was out and about with my wife over the weekend and we took a trip out to Hastings, which is about 70 miles from where i live. Walked along the seafront and found lots of small fishing boats on the shingle beach. These small boats are launched by these bulldozers towing them into and out of the water. Due to the salt water these bulldozers are decaying fast but are still working hard.

This image was taken handheld three exposures to create this hdr. Converted to mono with silver effex 2 a red filter applied to darken the sky and made a few adjustments in CS5 such as dodge and burn sharpening.

Comments welcome here or in either my flickr or 500px accounts thanks for looking

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RX8 Interior - Speedlite 52 - Week 6

RX8 Interior

Had this shot in mind for a while but i wasnt sure how it would work out. My RX8 is fitted with blue interior lights so wanted to highlight this by using a blue gel on a 580 ex ii which was connected via a sync cable.

Camera was mounted on my travel tripod as my main tripod was to big to fit between the rear seats.I used my sigma 8 - 16mm ultra wide angle lens. I used the live view to set the focus and then switched it over to manual so it wouldnt hunt when i took the shot.

I used my 7d a 580 exii with blue gel a sync cord and the flash was set to ETTL II mode with a blue lee filter attatched.

Fired using a canon infra red remote control

Made only a few adjustments such as sharpening,saturation,noise, the border and copyright

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Black and White Conversions

If any of you are wondering how i convert my images to Black and White i use Nik Software Silver Efex Pro 2 i find it very simple to use with some great default settings but i use the manual conversion sliders and the control points are just fantastic to fine tune your work. I am a big fan of Nik Software very simple to use and great results


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Kingsgate Bay Broadstairs Kent

Kingsgate Bay Broadstairs Kent

For years i have lived and worked in Kent but today was the first time i had actually been down onto the beach below the Captain Digby in Broadstairs Kent. This little bay has so many photographic opportunities. Today wasn't the best day as i really wanted to try out my new circular polariser but the conditions were not as i hoped. But mental note made for a return to this spot on a better day!

That is my point, keep an eye out for photographic opportunities of where to shoot and at what time of day and year then return to the location to bag your shot!

The above shot is a HDR image with just three exposures i used photomatix pro 4 to create HDR image then tweaked in Photoshop CS5

Will return here during the summer for a evening sunset shot
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Thats Magic - Speedlite 52 - Week 5



Now thats Magic!

Found myself nearing the end of the week and no speedlite shot taken so i thought i would try something with second curtain sync . The problem is i had just finished work it was getting very late and i was tired, not ideal for being patient and creative. That is the problem with a specific challenge like this, sometimes you find yourself cutting corners of settling for second best. I really wanted to avoid this but here i am in only week five!

The idea was to get the ace of clubs streaking in from the right and finish up on top of the king, could not get the shot i wanted and instead of doing it another night i settled for this shot !

I will try this again on another day when i have more time.

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Tulips - Speedlite 52 - Week 4

Tulips

This week seemed to come round really quick and thought i had better take my next shot while i had the opportunity. I brought some flowers in the week for my wife and i really liked the colour and remembered i had some speedlite gels of the same colour so i thought i would be nice to use them.

Set up my home studio in the kitchen as you can see this was taken with two speedlites.

Strobist info

Speedlite 580 ex ii in Lumiquest softbox iii to front camera left at 1/16th power
Speedlite 430 exii with colour filter to camera right and above and behind flowers at 1/8th power

Set up shot



Tulip set up

Made a few adjustments in lightroom and photoshop before publishing

Really want to get out and do a few outdoor shots but weather been bad but still i am storing a few ideas for later shots.
As ever like to hear your comments and suggestions thanks for looking
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Splash of Milk - Speedlite 52 - Week 3

Milk Splash

So week three and the weather had turned nasty outside so a indoor shot was the way forward, and with splash shots being very popular at the moment i thought i would give it a try myself.

I wanted to to photograph something with a splash in the composition so this seemed a good first attempt

So i set up the shot, which i have included a set up shot below, and set about trying to capture the seconds after the impact.

I tried various objects to drop in the cup from peas, carrots, cauliflower but finally decided the ice cube was about the best results

Then it was just a matter of timing sounds easy right ? That's what i thought too but with the camera set to fire via remote IR release and flash units in wireless mode trying to time it was very difficult. The height it was dropped from and when to fire remote proved a challenge!

Then after every shot the clean up operation reset composition and try again, took a long time i can tell you and still not totally happy with result but i did learn to set a greater DOF next time.

Milk Splash Set Up

So here you can see the set up of the two speedlites in relation to the cup and camera and also you will notice i have a large reflector on the right. This is to block some of the daylight coming from rear door and also fill in shadows.







Strobist

Rear Speedlite 430 exii at 1/128th power
Camera left Speedlite 580 exii at 1/64th power

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Camera	Canon EOS 7D
Exposure	0.004 sec (1/250)
Aperture	f/6.3
Focal Length	41 mm
ISO Speed	200

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