I often get asked ‘How do you do that?’ when I show someone a picture with off camera flash, and of course I am more than happy to oblige as I love to talk camera geekery. I have always been keen on off camera flash, I have practiced it a little bit at home, but I don’t claim I’m a guru on the subject, I just love to have fun with different photographic techniques. In this article I’ll talk about the vision I had for the photograph, the trial and error, the equipment and technique as well as the retouching on a series of images I took with the awesome Nicole and Billy. More after the jump (Click on the title).
I had the opportunity recently to second shoot for well known Victorian Wedding Photographer Robb Duncan of Pixxil Photography down in Sorrento. The couple could not have asked for a better day, as the weather was fantastic and enjoyed by all the guests at this relaxed garden wedding in Sorrento Park. Hopefully soon we’ll see some more images of this fantastic wedding which was a pleasure to shoot.
Also coming soon is a ‘How To’ article on a recent Engagement Photo Shoot I did recently, which will show how I tackled some portraits with Off Camera Flash on location.
Nicole and Billy were the lucky couple to be test subjects for my first Engagement Session in one of favourite spots to shoot, St Kilda. The weather was near perfect, not too cold, not blaring sun, just overcast with a strong sea breeze. Here is a small selection of images taken on the day, just click on the thumbnails to view larger.
A big thanks goes out to Nicole and Billy and my ring in assistant for the day Travis. Fun was had by all! Stay tuned for some Flash how too and some image critiques as well.
I am very excited to introduce my new DVD Folio and 11×11″ Buckram Finish Debossed Photobook to my range of products for Wedding, Engagement and Portrait Clients. These products have been carefully chosen to represent my business and provide an excellent level of quality to the buyer. The DVD Folio comes as standard with the Digital Deluxe and Deluxe with Print Credit Packages and the book can be purchased separately at anytime. Duplicate DVDs in a custom folio will cost $75 and the book is $370 for a 40side 11×11″ book with a matching slip case and the new premium Lustre paper. The book comes as standard in black, but many other colours and materials are available upon request. Have a look at all the images for a closer look.
Contemporary Design
Classy Looks
Hand Applied Film Pattern Ribbon
DVD Folio Gift Box
No ties or ribbons to get tangled up!
Leather Finish Folio in protective wrap
Duplicate DVD in a folio is $50 with any other purchase
Your photo inside for that personal touch along with an Archival Grade Disc
Matching Slipcase on Photobook
De-Bossed Image on Buckram or Leather Finish (Black Buckram shown)
Names and Wedding date on inside cover (80sides shown)
Strong Press Quality Binding
All layouts are custom and not 'Auto Fill Page' layouts to better tell the story
Simple, classic layouts with timeless white or sometimes black backgrounds
Top quality and exclusive Lustre Photo Paper for great image sharpness and contrast
Full bleed layouts dotted throughout
Attention previous wedding clients! Get this 11×11″ book with matching slipcase and 40 sides for an introductory price of $300. Valid until the 14th of February 2011. Extra sides (pages/layouts) are $15each. Just email me with “Photobook Special” in the subject line to marcel@mvphotography.com.au for details on how to arrange your purchase.
I spent last Sunday evening with the awesome Nicole and Billy to photograph their engagement session in St Kilda (where Billy proposed) before their wedding in March this year. We were blessed with, just ok weather, not pouring rain like it has been lately and in other parts of the country (especially Queensland), albeit it was a little windy. What I was happy with though, was the cloudy sky to give me a nice soft light and we then finished off the night with one of the best sunsets I have seen for over two years. This was actually my first E-session ever, so I was very thrilled to do it and we all had a great time.
Stay tuned for the full session in the coming weeks, including a great series of flash lit shots that I’m especially proud of. I would like to thank Nicole and Billy for their time and for being a great couple to direct for shots and also a massive thank you to my assistant (I couldn’t have done this without him), Travis who lugged my lighting case around the busy streets of St Kilda and got me the bits I needed for the shot swiftly and without a complaint. Thanks mate!
Recently I did a photo shoot for this awesome gift store in Ferntree Gully. Get in for your last minute gifts, avoiding the big shopping centre crowds.
For the photo techno nerds, most shots were done with a Canon 580EX II Flash on a stand set to Manual and firing either into an umbrella or a small pop soft box. I gelled the flash to match the lighting in the store to get a more natural look. I chose to shoot at a wide aperture for a shallow depth of field and with the products as they sat in the store to move through them quickly. The old ‘shoot on a white background’ thing would have been too time consuming and didn’t suit the warm and fuzzy feeling the shop gives you when you shop there. More photos will be done of the store and its owners when the Christmas rush is over and when the store is re-tiled out the front.
MV Photography is available for hire to photograph your business, products or services, so feel free to drop a line with the form on the contact page.
The subject matter isn’t the most exciting for some, but for some Strobist enthusiasts (people who love to photograph stuff with off camera flash to a point where it is nerdy) this stuff is great! The setup for this was relatively simple and can be achieved with manual flash or ETTL, wired or wireless. I used a combination of wireless manual flash and ETTL flash that was connected to a 10m (30ft) cord and controlled from the camera body. The purpose of the job was to photograph a car radio installation kit in a new Holden Captiva (aka Chevy) and steering wheel audio control interface kit. The images will be used in an industry brochure that is designed to announce the product’s introduction.
Now for the process: With no clear direction for the shots needed, I decided to shoot first and ask questions later and the client was more than happy with the results that I showed them on the back of the camera as I shot the job. The middle shot was photographed first using my Tamron 17-50mm f2.8 lens set to manual focus, 50mm focal length and f8 for good depth of field. Ideally this sort of work is photographed with a medium format camera and a tilt shift lens in a studio but I don’t have $50k worth of gear at my disposal. The tilt shift lens would have been used to match the product plane with focal plane of the camera to maintain perfect sharpness. I still got it to an acceptable level due to the size it will be printed at. I first determined a base exposure of 1/250th of a second at f8, ISO 100 to knock out the ambient light from the skylights in the warehouse where the car was located. With no ambient light to worry about, I built up the light bit by bit until I got good coverage and balance. First I setup one Canon 580EX-II speedlight on a stand and firing into a soft box to soften the light with an additional Stofen diffuser on the flash head. Here a battery pack and am ETTL cord can be seen.
The 60cm soft box on a stand through driver's window
I fired a few test frames to get the lighting right by using a few different positions through the windows and checked the results on the LCD of the camera. I was getting heavy shadows cast by the steering wheel over the focal point of the photograph, the radio fitting kit. I had to fill the shadows somehow, but I still wanted good contrast and blacks to suit the style of brochure that it was going to be in. First thing was to try bouncing the light back into the shadows, but I didn’t have a reflector with me. It wouldn’t have been any use because it would be too big to fit in the car anyway. I scoured the warehouse to find something white and I found an empty white cardboard box which was perfect. I first tried a small section but it didn’t do what I needed to do, so I had to result in using another flash to get more kick. So I rigged up another Canon 580EX-II flash on a table stand, a Stofen diffuser and a radio trigger to pop the flash during the shutter sequence. This I bounced into a larger sheet of cardboard with the flash mounted on the centre console to create a larger source of light to make it softer. I then experimented with power levels until I got the right balance of light and shadow. You can see here the flash is flagged with a piece of foam (a very commonly used piece of equipment in my bag) to prevent lens flare.
The high tech reflector
I took the photographs on a tripod to slow down the process in getting a good composition and to maintain maximum sharpness in the final file. I also used a suedo HDR (High Dynamic Range) technique on the wide shot of the dash as the shutter speed was too fast to record the lighting on the dash, so the only way to soak it into the shot I turned the flashes off and shot at 1/40th of a second to register the low light output of the dash lights. The two shots were combined in Photoshop and I merely combined the layers and used a mask to paint in the lights. I also used that frame to add more depth to the photograph as the top of the dash was totally black and it needed some life. All photos had to be prepared to a printable standard in post production, so the images had to look flawless. In order to keep my retouching time to a minimum I cleaned the car in the front top to bottom with a good quality cleaner and a towel. Once that was done, I used the air gun in the workshop to blow off any dust on the product to make my job of cloning out the dust specs much easier. I used some layer blending techniques to brighten and darken certain areas to highlight the product better. The image on the navigation was superimposed on the system as it never looks good if you try it in camera. I added a slight gradient of white over it to resemble the glare from the light source.
Well I hope someone got something out of this article as it was a lot of fun to shoot. Feel free to leave any comments or questions.
'Spotlight' A shaft of sunlight breaks the forest canopy
Just a quick post before I head to bed, this is shot I took at the Pancake Rocks, New Zealand of a shaft of light breaking the forest canopy to light this tree stump. I kept telling myself when I walked around New Zealand taking photos, that I should sometimes look beyond the major attraction and sometimes look down or go off the normal path taken by tourists. This tree stump caught my eye walking back to car as there just only this spot of light coming through the trees while the rest of area was fairly dark from the surrounding forest. While Belinda patiently waited on the path I went all terrain to get closer to the subject. I love the fact you can see the few strands of spider web caught by the sun.
How I got this shot is totally different to what the camera’s exposure meter would have set if I was on any of the auto modes. I set the camera to spot metering mode to get a reading off the sunlit side of the stump. This totally rendered the background and shadows completely black, so it frames the fine details that caught my eye to start with. It began with a vision in my head what the image would look like before I even took it. The aperture I selected was f3.2 on my Tamron 17-50mm f2.8 lens to get a shallow depth of field, but not totally wide open as most lenses are not at it’s sharpest then. The resulting shutter speed was 1/200th of second which is more than adequate to hand hold.
Lake Crucible defrosting in the Siberia Valley, New Zealand.
One of the highlights of our trip to New Zealand’s South Island is the Siberia Experience that flies out of Makarora not far from the beautiful Lake Wanaka. After checking in at the one of only a few buildings in town, you are sent over to a shed across the road to wait for your ride, either a 6seater Cessna aircraft or a 5seater helicopter. We thankfully had the helicopter as you can see out the bottom easier and it was more exciting than a plane I thought.
The ride was a descent 25 to 30 minutes through the Siberia & Wilkin Valleys and over snow covered mountain tops of the Mount Aspiring National Park. In the helicopter you get to see nearly untouched wilderness, hidden valleys, ancient glaciers and frozen lakes. On the way we got to do a flyover Top Gun style over the top of a Jet Boat taking a spin up the Wilkin River. Our guide was very informative and relaxed while he took us for our flight as well as offering to take a picture of my wife and I in front of the helicopter after it dropped us off in depths of the Siberia Valley in preparation for our 3hour hike.
In the photo you see the Crucible Lake which is a glacial lake that freezes over every winter. You can also see the river of melt water that comes off it heading down the mountain side with chunks of ice floating down it. You can also make out in the lower part of the picture the massive and brittle ice shelf floating in the water. There are walking tours available to this spot, but a high degree of fitness and cold weather endurance is required if you hike there in the snow season.
The images specs are 1/1600th of a second at f5.6, ISO250. I had to keep the shutter speeds nice and fast to avoid any vibration caused by the helicopter engine as well to avoid blur to compensate for the speed of we were moving at. I used aperture priority with about 1/3rd to 2/3rds of plus exposure compensation to keep the snow bright and white instead of grey. I selected f5.6 for the aperture as this is the shapest setting of the Tamron 17-50mm f2.8 lens.
The final image that made the flyer for UpDown Apparel.
A couple of weeks ago I did another photo shoot for my friend’s clothing company UpDown Apparel in preparation for a flyer to be distributed at Australia’s largest Mini Truck show, East Coast Cruise (ECC). This shoot stretched my technical ability to its best, with the use of multiple off camera flash, a reflector and a model, all the while I had time pressure from the location’s manager.
The venue is a steel craft shop in Hastings, Victoria where most of the trucks built in the area come from, so it was the perfect backdrop for the shoot. The lighting on location was no use to me, as they had mercury vapour lamps in the ceiling which are hard to colour correct and very dull anyway, dull skylights and one garage door opening on the side of building. Even with the door wide open and in the middle of the day, the ambient lighting exposure was 1/30th-1/15th of second at f3.5, ISO100, not an entirely useful amount of light to photograph a person.
To light the scene I used a Canon 580EX II on a light stand using either a shoot through umbrella or a 24″ softbox. To give some edge lighting to the model (Amber) I used a Nikon SB28 Speedlight on a little mounting foot in various different positions throughout the shoot. The Canon was connected with a very long custom ETTL cord to give me accurate exposure quickly. Normally I’d do it totally manually, but time was bit of a premium. I also had the bonus of playing around with the exposure compensation of the flash right in camera, saving me to go to the main light to adjust it all the time. To trigger the Nikon flash I had a wireless radio trigger connected to the camera’s sync port and in turn the receiver was connected to the flash’s sync port.
I took my usual approach of selecting an aperture value first in Manual mode (in this case f3.5) where I new I would have adequate depth of field for the shot I was taking, fast or wide enough so the flash didn’t have to work too hard and it was in the sharpest range of the lens (f3.5-f6.3 is the sharpest range of the Tamron 17-50mm f2.8). I knew my base shutter speed was 1/30th of second, but I wanted to render the background in near darkness. For this I reduced the shutter speed to 1/250th of second which is the max sync speed of my camera and flash trigger. Combined that with an ISO of 100 for maximum sharpness and file detail, the background went into complete darkness. Remember the faster the shutter speed, the less ambient light reaches the sensor in relation to the flash exposure, which is controlled by aperture.
The vision for the shot was a girl emerging from the passenger side of her boyfriend’s mini truck (in this case the actual truck that is part of the UpDown logo), with directional high contrast lighting to give the image an edgy mood. I always used to light literally everything from every direction, but now I take a more minimalistic approach to add more drama. The main light in the softbox was camera right, about 5ft high and about 4ft from Amber. To get some extra warmth in the shot I gelled the flash 1/4 CTO (colour temperature orange). The light was tilted only slight downward to get some light on her legs. Camera left was a big reflector to help fill the shadows only very slightly as I wanted to keep some aggressive shadows. Inside the car I used the Nikon flash sitting on the center console totally bare and set it to 1/16th power. The head was slightly pointed up to get some good edge lighting on Amber and this separated her from the blackness a bit.
There was extensive colour work on this image, even just in Adobe Lightroom, with dramatic combinations of an unusual White Balance, colour level settings and contrast. Nearly every slider in Lightroom was adjusted to achieve this look, but the final tweaks were in Photoshop CS4. Here I did some selective contrast and sharpening layers, retouched some imperfections on the truck, skin smoothing on Amber, selective brightening on various parts of her as well and a High Pass Sharpening layer over the whole picture.
I’m very happy with the result of final picture, even before I edited it, as the vision came together nicely and the equipment performed beautifully. I think that anyone with basic flash equipment can achieve this style of photo with a little practice, but the image would have never come together if I couldn’t picture it in my head before I hit the shutter button. It’s 70% vision, 20% technique and 10% editing.
In the future I will post some more sucessful pictures of the shoot.
A phone camera shot of me at work with Amber. Photo courtesy of Lachlan Hale, UpDown Apparel.
As promised, the review for the Kata 3n1-33 Camera Bag which I have taken on assignment in the field and on my Honeymoon overseas in New Zealand, where I subjected the bag to all weather conditions. So this review is not a look at its features and construction, you can read a number other reviews and watch videos online for that. It is more of a report of how it fared in the field under actual use.
Me with the 3n1-33 on a hike in the New Zealand wilderness.
Price Paid: $140 used on eBay (near new with tags and packing material)
Airport friendly: Yes, Carry On compliant and has easy access to the Laptop compartment
Weather subjection: Snow, rain, heat and dust
Capacity:I will first describe what I usually carry with this bag to give you an indication of the realistic carrying capacity of this bag. I carry a Canon 50D with a battery grip and Tamron 17-50mm f2.8 lens attached, Canon 70-200mm f4L IS with tripod collar attached, Tokina 11-16mm f2.8 with lens hood attached, 50mm f1.8mm Prime lens, Canon 580EX II flash and a set of 52mm close up filters. That is just in the lower compartment!
In the upper compartment, I would normally carry a memory card wallet, set of Gels for the flash, a wireless flash trigger and reciever, pen, Giottos Rocket Blower, business cards, Cokin Filter holder and ND Grad Filter, ND screw on filter and a Polarizer filter. When I was in transit to and from New Zealand, I still had room for a windscreen suction cup mount with a ball head attached (for my time lapse rig), and when I was hiking I could still fit a jacket in its place in the top compartment in place of it. One thing for sure, this bag has an amazing capacity and great flexibility when it comes to packing in all of your gear. On location I use the top compartment for an additional flash and flash triggers and various small flash accessories.
The laptop compartment easily fit a 14″ Toshiba laptop, but I would think a 15″ laptop would the biggest I’d go. The power connector will have to be carried in another bag or in the top compartment if you are prepared to loose some space. I also used this space to carry a set of gloves and a beanie when I wasn’t carrying the laptop.
Gear Access & Configuration: All this capacity is great, but can you get to it quickly when you are out in the field shooting? I used to own a Lowepro Computrekker Plus AW to carry all my gear on bigger photo shoots, but for travel this bag was useless. It was way to heavy when fully loaded with two or three camera bodies and a full suite of lenses and it was difficult to configure to suit your gear and it was also a pain to dismount the bag from your back and lay it on the ground to access it. The Kata answers this problem with being a sling bag/backpack hybrid. The idea is to use the side access flap (left or right hand side configurable) to grip your camera with the mounted lens. What was great I could easily change lenses without putting the bag down and quickly change the inserts to suit the newly mounted lens, all while it was still hanging from my shoulder. I also found I never used it in the ‘X’ strap configuration, as this was awkward to dismount and reattach to your body. I just had the straps arranged in the conventional backpack mode, but I found the bag still easy enough to swing around to the side of my body (to access the main gear flap) when I used just the right hand strap over my right shoulder.
The videos on the internet will show you the sling bag strap mode, but I found when I configured it this way the bag felt unbalanced on my back and if you try to swing it around the front like in the Kata demo video, it takes your jacket with it and it is all just too hard and uncomfortable. That would only be a problem if you were wearing a big snow jacket like I was for most of the time in the New Zealand Alps.
As far as access too the other parts of the bag while mounted on your shoulder you will have to dismount it to access the top compartment. I did like the fact though it opens away from the back giving you easy access and great visibility to its contents whilst the bag is upright. On that note, the interior of the bag is a bright yellow, by far the best colour compared to the fluoro orange and green I have had in bags in the past, so finding gear wasn’t a problem. Even the little side pockets were lined yellow, each of them having a handy little net to keep the contents from falling out. You can only access one side pocket while it is mounted on your shoulder though. I used this pocket for a bottle on lens cleaner, a cloth and my most used screw on filter. The other was used to carry a spare battery and a cable release which I used rarely.
Accessing my gear on the side of a snow covered Glacier
Comfort: On our trip to New Zealand, there were numerous times I would have to carry the bag (sans laptop and time lapse rig) almost the entire day. This is the ultimate test for the comfort of a bag over long periods of time and I’d have to say this is the best one I have used. I carried a Naneu Pro Millitary Ops Tango bag for 5 weeks around the United States, which is a Sling/Shoulder bag hybrid and found that one a pain in the neck (literally) to carry for long periods, even after a couple of hours. It also carries much less gear than the Kata, even though they have similar overall dimensions. The Kata bag I would wear almost all day and I’d only start to feel uncomfortable in the shoulders after about 5 hours.
Another godsend is the suitcase handle loop on the back of the bag which you can hitch over your suitcase while you wheel your case around. The top of the bag is fitted with a handle which is built very tough and this makes it easy to heave into cars and into overhead lockers on the plane.
Build Materials: The build quality of this bag is outstanding, it has tough zippers with zip tags, a stiff shell and good buckles. I bought mine with the tripod mount and I used that numerous times, it was fiddly to setup, but once it was on it was easy to mount and dismount the tripod (I sometimes even forgot I was carrying it as it didn’t sway or rattle around like it does on other bags). The straps have good quality pads, that are coloured on one side to identify which way is inside. Another neat feature is the small pads that are located on the lower parts of the straps which I suppose is for when you have it mounted on your back, you can place your palms on them to relieve a little pressure from your back and to stop the strap cutting into your sides. If you find you don’t use both straps you can tuck them away so they don’t get in the way.
The Velcro parts are of good quality and they show very little fray and it still sticks well. Inside the side pockets and the pocket in the top compartment are lined with mesh to easily identify the contents of the pocket and to stop things falling out.
The exterior material is robust and easy to clean and can withstand all types of weather. I subjected the bag to snow fall, actually placing in the snow, heavy rain and water spray from a boat ride. The water even beads off and eventually dries rather than soaking the material. At all times the interior was free from any moisture. The bag does come with a rain proof cover, which I took with me, but I never used. I can only imagine if you were caught in monsoonal rain you would actually bother to put on this cover. I actually hung it (in the provided bag with clip) on one of the zip tags while hiking and it fell off somewhere on a mountain in the Siberian Valley.
The interior as I mentioned before is yellow and made from nylon. I prefer the smooth nylon interior compared to the soft cotton of other bags, it just feels nicer and doesn’t mark as easily.
Conclusion: There is always that holly grail with finding a great camera bag as most photographers will spend the same as what a pro camera body is worth trying to find one, believe me, I have. So that makes this bag almost the ultimate in terms of gear capacity, access and comfort. So if you are after a bag that has a great capacity for a modest DSLR outfit with 3 lenses and a flash or two, a laptop and handful of ‘just in case’ accessories, this is the perfect bag. It is not the most expensive in its class, it looks great without being over the top, flexible configuration modes and well built. This one has my thumbs up.
Hi everyone, it has been a while since my last post, so I thought I tell you all what’s been going on.
The new pricing guide has received much praise from new clients and friends. It details everything you need to know about MV Photography and the range of beautiful printed products available.
February and March next year is starting to look like a busy period for me, so if there are any couples looking to get married around this period it is best to give me a call soon to book your spot.
Being the wintery non wedding season it has been time to sort out all the paperwork and business materials, so coming over the next few months will be a Photo Book sample, a beautiful new brochure and new business cards.
I am still taking registrations of interest for basic Digital SLR training, so if anyone is interested please shoot me an email as the more people I can get the faster the training will come and the cheaper it will be for everyone.
I’m in discussions with some wedding photographer contacts to present some training at a business level (namely Photoshop and Adobe Lightroom) skills) to be held at a studio in Malvern, so that should be interesting.
I myself will be taking in a few seminars and workshops when I can as they come thick and fast in winter.
I have registered for the 2010 Annual Photo Walk being held in St Kilda on Saturday 24th of July. It’s always fun to catch up with other photography enthusiasts and just take pictures of stuff we would normally pass by. Head over to Scott Kelby’s blog for information if you want to join me.
My Lowepro CompuTrekka Plus AW photo backpack is for sale as I don’t really use it that much (it looks as good as new) and I’m going to invest in a big road case to carry all my gear to wedding photography jobs. Please email me or call me for details and a price (full review and pictures coming soon).
Below is an image I retouched to show a potential client if I could do a particular style that she saw on the internet, so I was happy to demonstrate this to her. Soon there will be a full blog post on the step by step on what I did to achieve this look in the photo.
