Jennie's June assignment : one light

I used one light but thought the background was cool and well enough lit so I chose to put my light behind her. I had to push my ISO to 1600 to get enough ambient light to fill around her but then it causes some blow out. My added light was a 580EX II full power shooting through an umbrella(from pretty far away, enough to hide an umbrella behind her). Might have needed more power from my light and less ambient. Tough color in these spaces, any tips on how to combat that? Other ideas on how to make this better?

iso1600 f/2.8 1/100

JUNE ASSIGNMENT: A very pregnant Francis

For my (David Gralian) June assignment of "one light only, diffused", I GOOFED UP!!!!!!
I forgot the part about it being to use "ONE LIGHT ONLY" until I re-read the assignment, I used two lights. Well, I'm going to publish what I did anyway. Needless to say I failed the 'follow instructions' part of the assignment. Oh Well :-)

Below are a few of the images of Francis that I took this past Sunday, she is due to deliver "Eduardo" in the next 2+weeks. Now this photo session has special significance to me as Francis is my daughter-in-law and Eduardo is my 4th grand-child (soon to join us in this outside world).



Below is my oldest son, Wayne, with Francis. In the next image is my 3rd grandchild, Carlos. I gotta tell you, that the smile you see on Carlos' face is pretty much always there, he's one happy boy.


Switched to a black backdrop here for these images of Francis.


As you can see, Carlos loves to get his picture taken.


Here's a picture of the setup I used:


It consists of 2 backdrops, the blue-grey mottled (10'x20') and the other a black, which you can see as two parts, one half flipped back over the top of the stand as well as one half in the forground under the lights. I used the two umbrella's in a clam-shell arrangement, each lit by one 580EX2 triggered by a RadioPopper Receiver. The lower umbrella is running at about 1/4th the light of the upper umbrella. On the camera, I used an STE2 with a RadioPopper Transmitter attached. The two flash units are powered by a Quantum Turbo 2x2. The upper light (Main) is in "Group A", the lower (Fill)) is in "Group B". With the STE2 it is very easy to ratio the "Group B" to the "Group A", so controling the lights is pretty straight forward.
The 8' ceiling heights alway present a bit of a problem trying to keep the top of the backdrop from showing, so I have to keep close track of that especially when someone tall is there.

If I'd followed the instructions, I would've used a reflector for the bottom light source instead of the second umbrella.

Well that's it, even if I missed following the instructions of the assignment. I'll make sure I don't make that mistake again.

As always, it is a pleasure to share with all of you, and I'd appreciate any and all input you can give me on what I can do to improve my skills and results. REALLY!!!

David Gralian
email: david@davidgralian.com
http://www.davidgralian.com/
www.davidgralian.com/blog

A Portrait for June Assignment

After a month of back and forth with B&H in an effort to get them to deliver a 34" x 34" Ezybox Hotshoe complete with the adaptor ring and flash bracket, at last I can play with my new toy.

This one is of my husband taken today in front of a light-absorbing black backdrop.

The Ezybox with my 580ex ll providing the light is close-in because I wanted to wrap the light enough to illuminate the left eye. A reflector, just outside the edge of the frame camera right, adds enough extra light to keep the overall lighting from being too stark while maintaining the drama. It also helped define the edges of the hair. There was a silver reflector low on camera right, angled up towards the subject..

Used the Canon 40D with 24-70 at 70 mm, f 4.0, 1/200th, flash compensation - 1 3/4, ISO 200. Uncropped. Some pp, but very close to what came out of the camera.

My biggest frustration was trying to keep down the hot spots, especially on the forehead. I would appreciate any thoughts. (The skin was not oily.) Do people use makeup for that?

The other problem is that I didn't have enough depth of field for the distance from the subject. This is not altogether a bad thing when photographing older folks, but I need to do better.

Still, overall, I am pleased with the lighting.

Assignment with a bed sheet

Not from July, but I took these in April with a full bed sheet and two sb900's behind the sheet and one more bouncing off a reflector on the floor. Used the sheet because I needed to light some groups of 7 musicians and only had a 10 minute set up time. It worked well but I had a lot of reflections in some pictures. Joe explained how I could have used black paper above the flashes to avoid this. Just something to get this month started.

Marketplace

Hi everybody,

hope you are enjoying the summertime!

I found this old guy on a market in Jutland. He is a retired fisherman and now selling ropes to sailers and campers on markets to support his pension.

One SB800 camera left on the end of a SC-28 wire/cable, trying to overpower the sun over/behind him and using the sunlight as rimlight. The ropes are a little too hot, I know.

D2x, 17-55 f. 2,8 at 22 mm., f.4, 1/8000 sec., ISO 200, manual mode.

Cheers! Bjarne

June Assignment

Hey, So I missed out on doing the first assignment but I am jumping into the second one. These are two photographs of a dancer that I took using one large softbox to camera right and had a reflector on the left toward the ground. The reflector evened the light on the left side. I like the cold look of the New England weather but wish there was some contrast between the sky and sea.
It was quite an adventure to go out to these rocks with my lighting equipment. I even lost a lens to a puddle up there. Thank god for insurance.

Fun With Water Drops

After reading the article in the Strobist BLOG about making images of water drops splashing into a pool of water, I took a shot at doing it also. I won’t go into the process of setting up to take the images as the Strobist article (How to Photograph Water Drops) covers that very well.


Both images above are with a straight flash against a backdrop, the first being a sheet of white paper and the second the cover of a book.


These 2 images are with a blue gelled flash against a white paper backdrop.

These 3 images are with the flash gelled with different colors, Bright Yellow, Orange and Lavender flashed against white paper.

For these 3 images, I used two flashes. The first flash with a blue gel against a white backdrop and the second flash with a red gel from directly overhead. The color of the reflected light in the image depends upon the angle of the water/splash to each light source.


This image is also the result of two colored light sources, yellow to the backdrop and red from above.

I have to say, this was fun and is something I want to do again. It definetly teaches you more about using your flash equipment and can turn out some very interesting images. When I do, I’m going to get a different dish (all black), a better way to create the water drop (a controllable valve setup) and I’ll try some different backdrops as well as try 3 lights, maybe even try some colored water. I also want to try different camera angles, especially those from on more of a level with the water as all these images are from about a 30 to 45 degree angle.

I hope you enjoyed this,
David Gralian

www.davidgralian.com

www.davidgralian.con/blog

Equipment used: Canon 1Ds M3, Canon 24-105mm lens, Canon Speedlight 580EX2, Canon STE2 Trigger, Really Right Stuff Ball Head BH-55, Gitzo G1228LVL Tripod.

June Assignment

Here is my assignment for June. My son celebrating the first day of Summer Vacation!

High speed sync using my new PocketWizards in E-TTL mode. Shot using a shoot through with the bottom half flagged.  

For the second shot, I took a more unconventional lighting approach.

Same camera settings, high-speed sync and E-TTL but instead of an umbrella, I bounced the flash off a glass candle holder sitting on the table. 

Really interesting result. 

More light

Hi Guys,

here's the latest self assignment from me.  I was looking 

to try out gels but the light starting going quick, so I ended up throwing

on a green gel (not even sure which) , tweeked the kelvin and then just gave up.  I was in almost complete darkness

so focusing was fun, the shutter was at 10' to 15' on tripod.  So all that to say

I showed up and did my best.  Please let me know how this could be better.

Thanks Guys, onward and upward.

June Assignment with one flash

I I take a number of pictures at my high school each week for the on-line newspaper and only take one flash with me. These are some recent shots.
Carol MacKay

Jennie Hard Light

Sorry I am a little slow guys :) So I positioned two EX580II on stands pointed to the center of the floor from maybe 12:00 and 7:00 (on the dance floor at a wedding). Neither had any diffusion, pointed directly at the subjects. The bright one behind them was at 1/8 power and the one behind me was around 1/32. Kind of fun I felt more limiting having to wait for them to be positioned how I wanted in between the two lights.

hard light (well sorta)

Hey guys, I'm tardy, I know and sorta went left of center of the assignment to boot.

I had a model scheduled the end of the month for a specific hard light shot but last minute got cancelled on.  So I'll give the self assignment I did last week.  It was lit with the wee bit corner

of a small softbox (so in a sense a hard spectral light) cam left and sb80 for flick cam right.

Thanks all