computrainer

3 hours on a bike, with a simulation and video recording of the race. That gets you through about half of the course. The computer changes the resistance to match the hills on the real course, except you don't get to coast on the downhills.

fire at will

Spent about 30 minutes today trying to figure out how to trigger my 3 small strobes. I've got a bit of a mix of lights and triggers - 3 pocket wizards, two canon speedlites (a 580EX and a 420EX slave only/ TTL unit) and a cheap, second-hand Nikon SB28. I've also got a set of radio poppers (thanks to the guys at Tricoast) and a Canon ST-ET2 transmitter. A bit of a mess really. The problem is, I can't easily trigger all 3 lights at the same time. I can easily trigger pairs of them, using the pocket wizards, to control the 580EX and one of the SB28 or the 420EX. I can use the ST-ET2 to trigger both the 580EX and the 420EX, with or without the radio poppers in the mix to remove the need for line of sight. But I couldn't get all three to trigger at the same time. Eventually today I worked it out - but it is still a bit of a mess.

I was able to use the pocket wizards to trigger the 580EX, in master mode, that then triggers the 420EX. That works fine. Then if I add in the SB28, also triggered by the pocket wizard, all three only trigger, if the SB28 is out of sight of the other units. The 580EX seems to communicate/ trigger the 420EX within the white light flash output - I thought it might have been IR, but it doesn't seem to be. So the SB28 firing at the same time confused the 420EX in to not firing. The solution was to use the radio poppers to trigger the 420EX, covering up its control window with some duct tape, so that it only sees the control pulse from the radio popper. Not really ideal, but it seems to work at least for now. Next step is working out how to control the output power levels, but mostly I was interested in using the 420EX and SB28 as background/ edge lights in this arrangement, so the power levels aren't too much of an issue.

The alternative is just to buy some more controllable Canon flash units. Tempting!

Engine 2

Well, Amanda and I have been on the Engine 2 diet now for almost a whole week. I'm continually surprised about how good the food tastes and how full I feel. So much so that it provoked me to make a self-portrait - something I haven't done for a while now. Inspiration is everywhere...

back in Austin

Got back to Austin on Friday night, after a few weeks away. I'd hoped that I would do more photography while in North Carolina, but really the urge never quite grabbed me. Really that means I didn't get out enough with my camera and start shooting, until the urge grabbed me. It is very rare for inspiration to find me, until I actually have the camera in my hand and take a few frames. So in NC, my camera languished in the bag and I watched the Olympics. Took some pictures in the Outer Banks, but mostly recording the places I'd camped and things I saw - nothing too interesting. Then I shot a bit with a point and shoot when hiking in the Smokies. Started getting a bit of a twinge of an idea and did some motion panning on the trees. A small step but got me thinking photographically again at least for a few moments.

Then this weekend, the Austin Strobist group seems to be resurrecting like a phoenix from the hot ashes of an Austin summer. People are turning up, plans are being hatched and it is shaping up to be an interesting Autumn season. I went along just to see people, but took my camera. Then snapped a few while people were talking. Ideas started to flow, I began noticing the light where we were talking, and took a few portraits, playing with the stupendously purple walls and inflatable furniture and the directional window light. Having fun again and motiviated. All it takes is taking some pictures. Now why didn't I do that when I was away?

strobist GTG at dunvegan keep

Two strobes to camera right, on 1/4 power, fired through a diffusion panel.

I'm still feeling the post-SoFoBoMo apathy but the rescheduled due to rain Strobist GTG was yesterday. I managed to drag myself along, planning just to catch up with some people and hold reflectors when needed. It was a beautiful, sunny day in the mid-70s. Perfect weather to be outside but a bit challenging photographically, lots of dappled light and sun/shade. We'd also made the slight mis-step of rescheduling on Mother's Day so a lot of people had other things to do. I did take a few pictures in the end and actually changed lenses, switching to the 70-200 F4L and trying to work on full body images, rather than just head shots. Maybe I'm starting to get some mojo back. For now, I just really enjoyed the lovely weather. For this shot of Rebekah, I was lying prone on the grass to get a low angle, shooting towards the longer end of the 200mm. I asked her to move and twist to get some motion in the dress and stop things being too static. The green door was a big part of setting up here and the doorway has a porch overhead that cut the direct sunlight.

Austin Strobist GTG

Video from the latest Strobist GTG in Austin. We've got a good group, going places!

rebekah

More portraits with the nose, but this time with some fill flash. Mike was kind enough to be my mobile light stand for this shot, trying to fill the shadows a bit against the direct sunlight. Colour is processed a bit to pull up the greens, balancing against that big old red nose. Originally she had a black top over the green, but seeing the potential to play it off against the red, we switched things around. Not a whole lot of green but just enough on the edges to frame and play against the red. Something I've been playing with is to ask people to focus behind the camera, through the lens. Typically if you ask someone to look at the lens - they literally do that - focusing their gaze right on the end of the camera. Asking them to try to look through the lens and focus around where my head is seems to make a subtle shift in where they are looking - it seems to be much more directly at the viewer. Probably something to do with viewing distance of the portraits I suspect. From my brief foray at the opticians, I know your eyes tend to move further apart as you focus on distant objects, so maybe we can pick up that subtle shift in the pictures.

outline

Well I'm making some slow progress on the book I'm trying to drag together. Either that or I'm stuck in the ever so fun procrastination stage. You know the time when you might create overly elaborate, coloured and indexed study calenders. Or print out all the concepts on little bits of paper and try to organise them on a large table. Then maybe take a picture of it and talk about how you aren't actually writing anything, while shoving the bits of paper around. Anyway, that's where I'm at. The good thing about printing and shuffling them on a table is I have a much better chance to actually pull the structure together. A word processor window seems far, far too small for getting my head around all these bits of ideas in one go. The table helped. I'm just hoping I can capture all of this before the next stiff breeze. I'm glad we don't have a cat. On the lighting front, this was lit with a 580ex, off camera, triggered by the ST-E2 and bounced off the light fitting hanging above the table, giving the rather funky dappled reflected pools of light.

jessa

85mm 1/250s @ f1.8, ISO 1250

This is Jessa, from the Strobist get together in Austin. We found what probably looked like the least appealing end of the corridor that we had been shooting in, for this shot. I think Kirk wanted us to see what you can make, from essentially nothing. There was no interesting light - other than the tungsten light fittings in the hall. No ambient light in the corner we'd picked either. We sat down in the middle of the corridor and I put my canon 580EX flash on the floor, pointing to the wall on my right. Tried a few shots like that. Then we put a large silver reflector on the floor, that you can see in the catchlights in her eyes. The flash was aimed up towards the corner of the wall/ ceiling and fired in TTL mode. I composed the shot to use some of the lighting elements in the background to provide a frame and just fired a few shots. This was my favourite. I had originally planned to take it to black and white, but after doing that, I partially resaturated it to bring it up to this muted, half colour half black and white palette. I've used this technique quite often when I try black and white images. Often I like the feel that you get - a uniquely digital palette, but not overly obvious or too saturated. Subtle colour, turned down but still part of the composition. It seems to work particularly well for high ISO shots so that the noise in the image adds a subtle grain, particularly in the out of focus regions. Holly asked How are you using your flash off camera? I got a Canon ST-E2 infrared flash controller for Christmas, so I've been playing around with that. It means I can use TTL flash triggering, which seems to be a mixed blessing. Easy to get good exposures, but it seems you can't use it to manually trigger the flash at a given, repeatable power output. I've also got pocket wizards, which have a much longer range but no TTL capability. I'm working on learning how to use both more effectively.

Puzzling it out

The latest Strobist lighting102 assignment is to play with using the specular highlight as a background element, while lighting the foreground subject. You can see one of my early attempts here, with a strobe in a silver umbrella to the camera right and high up. I think this has worked out reasonably well, even with my confused look. The only real issue I can see is th shadow my bonce is casting into the specular highlight on the wood behind me. Next time I'll need to be a bit further from the background or change the flash angle slightly. This was relatively easy to set up - you can see the highlight through the lens if you trigger the flash while looking through the viewfinder, so it is possible to line things up pretty quickly, even if you are going to be the subject in the photo.

Putting it all together: Cooking light

So enough of the boring test shots. This one is putting together some of the things I've learned so far, for the first Lighting102 Strobist assignment. The 'stage' is an upside down colander, with an sb-28 flash underneath, triggered with a pocket wizard. That shines the light up through the holes and hits the 'Nespresso' coffee capsule. This is a small orange capsule with a silver foil cap. I wanted to try to play the complimentary blue colour off the orange capsule to get some dynamic play between the colours and create some depth/ drama.

I first tried to colour the silver foil by reflecting a lit blue card, but I was getting a lot of reflections from the surface of the colander, giving a half silver, half blue result. Thinking about the angles a bit, I realised I needed to lift the capsule a bit, so I put some putty underneath, on the other side from the camera to raise the angle slightly. I then switched to using a Canon 580EX speedlight with a blue gel and a grid spot to focus the light onto the foil at a very low (1/128th) power. This coloured it up but didn't cast too much glare in to the lens. That's pretty much all there is to this - the lighting is on two distinct planes so the colours don't mix and I could vary the power of each independently.

I'd just been reading 'Light Science & Magic' and that explained a lot about how to achieve this, with discussion on the families of angles and lighting surfaces independently. Best of all, this got picked as one of the 'standout' entries for the assignment.

Lighting: specular highlights

This time around I'm playing with controlling the specular highlights that appear on the subject. The specular highlight is the reflection of the actual light source, bouncing off whatever it is you are lighting - in this case it is the white glare or sheen you can see on the pepper mill and also the white reflection on the metal top. Some subjects (such as metal) really only show specular highlights and no diffuse reflections, other's like wood, show a mix of specular and diffuse highlights. These properties of the materials can be used to control the lighting in a variety of interesting ways. I'm also using some of the other tricks from previous lessons to control diffusion and fall off, along with playing with the location and size of the specular highlight. From left to right, the shots are: (1) Bare flash to camera left, at the same height as the pepper mill, about a 45 degree angle. Nasty light, harsh dark shadow, bright, narrow specular highlight the length of the mill because the light source is small and non-diffuse. To try and improve the situation (2) I moved the light source to almost directly overhead, but still slightly to the left to give some direction. You can tell this by where the shadow falls on the pepper mill. Now the table is better lit but the shadows are still harsh. The specular highlight has moved to the curved edge of the top of the pepper mill, as this is the direct reflection of the light. There's no specular highlight visible from the table, as the angle of the light, camera and table means it isn't visible. In shot (3) I've added a diffuser between the flash and subject. The specular highlight has gotten a bit bigger, as it is now reflecting the diffuser. The shadow edges have softened, both on the table and along the edge of the mill. In shot (4) I added a small white reflector to the right of the camera to bounce some light back in to fill the shadows. This doesn't change the specular highlight from the light source, but adds a new specular highlight on the right, which is the reflection of this new light 'source' - the bounce card. You can see that new highlight particularly in the metal top of the mill. In the final shot (5) I changed the light source from a diffused flash to a flash bounced into a silver umbrella. You can see that the specular highlight has become larger again, reflecting (literally!) the change in size of the light source.

In this sequence, I've gone back to the original light position, at the same level as the object, at about 45 degrees to the camera access. The goal this time was to create a specular highlight that ran the height of the mill. I brought the light in closer to get more fall-off on the background and diffused it to control how harsh the specular highlight was. The second shot, in the middle, brings in a bounce card to the camera right, again to fill in the shadows. Once again, these changes can be reverse engineered by looking at the specular highlights in the metal top of the mill. Finally after inspecting the shot on the LCD, I decided I wanted to get a bit more definition on the metal top and background, so I moved the light source a bit further away to decrease the light fall-off towards the back of the scene. That added some more light to the background, at the top of the shot which brings the top of the mill out of the darkness. Note that moving the light also reduces the effective size of the light to the subject - so the shadows in the third shot become that bit more defined.

lighting: apparent size

Okay, let's keep the excitement building for a while with some shots of melons. Or at least one watermelon, multiple times. The principle I'm playing with here is how the apparent size of the light source can dramatically change the shadows. In particular, it changes the transition zone from the highlight to the shadows. Again the camera and subject are fixed and I'm just changing the lightsource. Each time it is just one flash, sometimes zoomed in on a narrow beam and directed straight at the melon (top left). Next I widen the beam with the zoom controls on the flash head (top middle shot) After that I start diffusing it in different ways. The top right shot has the light firing in to a large white ball that acts as a diffuser (and tints the light slightly warmer). For the bottom row, I put the flash head in a silver umbrella. Here I vary how far away the umbrella and flash is from the melon. Bottom left the umbrella is quite far away - so again the shadows are quite well defined, but with a softer fall off as the light is still much larger than just the bare flash head. The bottom middle shot I've moved the umbrella closer in, giving a much more wrap around, even light with very diffused shadows. Finally, I put a gobo (a sheet of paper) in between the umbrella and the melon - everything else is well illuminated but the translucent paper knocks down the amount of light hitting the melon - the background ends up brighter as a result.

Lighting distance

Well the excitement just keeps on building with another series of shots of Stan. This time though the camera & subject are in a fixed position (about 3 feet apart), with a white wall about another 3 feet behind. The only thing varying here is the light position and power. What this really shows is how the light can fall off, depending on the ratio of the light to subject and light to background distance. With a high ratio the light falls off quickly (such as the first image on the left) The flash is close to Stan and turned down low. He is well illuminated but the light falls off quickly so the background is dark. Moving the light source a bit further away, so that the background is about twice as far from Stan as the light source, leads to the image in the middle. Again the flash power is adjusted so that Stan is well exposed and the background ends up more evenly exposed, showing up around mid grey. For the final shot on the left, I moved the light back another 10 feet or so. The relative distance between light to subject and light to wall become almost the same, so for a proper exposure both Stan and the background wall appear evenly lit. Next up, shots of fruit. Really. Can't you just not contain your excitment ? I'm working quite quickly through the initial Strobist Lighting102 exercises, so I'll be on to hopefully some more interesting things fairly soon. Stay tuned...

lighting: point of view

This is the second part of playing around with the direction of light for the Strobist Lighting102 exercise 1. Nothing particularly dramatic going on here - the first shot has the light at about 45 degrees to the subject, on the camera right. The second shot is taken just over the light. The real lesson here is that once you start looking at the subject from where the light is, you can see what will be lit or not. This might seem straight forward but it is pretty fundamental, particularly when working with strobes that you can't see the light until they trigger. So what you can see from the point of view of the light is what will be lit. Notice in particular in the shot on the left, the side of Stan's face is in shadow and in the second shot, you can't see the side of his face or hat. Using this knowledge, you can set up lights and know exactly where the direct light will fall - just look from the point of view of the light. As Stan would say I've really learned something today.

Lighting position

I've been a bit uninspired with my photography lately. Not working so hard along project lines, just not shooting as much. In about a month I'm going to Savannah for a week long workshop that I'm really looking forward to. I'm hopeful that will launch me off in some new directions. At the same time, Strobist has recently started the Lighting102 class & shoot-along series so I've decided to work through some of those exercises too, just to get my visual muscles flexing and hopefully learn some more lighting techniques. I'm about a month behind on the lesson plan so I'll be trying to catch up over the next few weeks. The series of portraits above of my good friend, Stan, are really simple. All shot on manual exposure, with the flash power output on manual as well. The only thing that varies from frame to frame is the light location. The subject <-> light distance doesn't change (much), the camera settings or position is fixed too. Yet just by moving the light around I can dramatically change the look and feel of the shadows and the overall shot. I'm not doing anything particularly interesting here, but it still demonstrates a large amount more control and opportunity than if the flash was on-camera. Canon 1DII, 50mm 1.4. Nikon SB-28 off-camera