Tag Archives: Lighting
Lighting Review: Rogue Flash Benders
One of the most common search criteria on Google that coincides with photography is that of lighting. It’s no surprise as photography really is all about the light, and when making and taking photos (yes, there’s a difference), one of the key things that people can grasp quite easily is the success of a photo is often very dependent on the lighting.
Five Ways to Deal with Harsh/Low Lighting
A common question I get here is how to deal with harsh or low light situations. This is a great question, and for event photographers, it’s simply part of the job to recognize various lighting conditions and address them accordingly. Today, I’d like to share Five Ways to Deal with Harsh/Low Lighting: 1. Cranking the ISO and hoping to fix in post With advancements in technology, noise handling both in camera and in post production has resulted in some astonishing results that in previous years would have been literally unrecoverable. While we should always endeavor to make our images shine … Continue reading
Hardware Review: Expodisc
It’s been a while since I’ve done a hardware review, and I realized that when the folks at Expo Imaging had sent me the Rayflash to review, I had also received an Expodisc. I know I recorded the video for it, but for some reason it never got published, as the two were meant to be posted back to back. In any case, here is the long-awaited review of the Epodisc from the folks at Expo Imaging: First – what is the Expodisc? It’s simply a disc that defracts light as it passes through your lens in order to determine … Continue reading
Let Me Light the Way
It’s kind of funny how things go in circles. As a regular reader of the Strobist website (as I am sure many of you are), I found it interesting that David was covering the RayFlash from ExpoImaging and comparing it to other styles of ringflahses over the last couple of days. The reason for my interest – today I am actually going to share with you some thoughts on the RayFlash specifically.
Cactus, Trigger, Zebra, Oh My!
Remember the old game of password where you said a related word to one on your card to get your partner to guess it? Well, here goes: What do the words cactus, trigger, and zebra all have in common? If you answered “flash photography” you’d be right! As you may have realized, that does mean that the podcast will not come out today – I simply didn’t have time to get all my thoughts and notes together. So instead, here’s a review of sorts that I did just earlier this evening. A while back I decided to ditch the Canon … Continue reading
Go soak your gear!
It pays to review your web traffic periodically because I just learned a way that your bathtub can be used for photography! Not only is it a good place to mellow out after a stressful shoot, but it also makes a heckuva softbox! I was on a forum that had referenced the blog and a guy had some product that he placed in his tub. I thought it was an interesting idea, and decided to give it a try. As it turns out, the tub is a great place to put your gear! Granted, not to soak it (sorry, but … Continue reading
Can ordinary be interesting?
A while back I took Tracy out for an afternon/evening in Denver. I agreed to leave my camera behind, but in case she wanted to catch a moment for posterity’s sake, I grabbed the P&S one she asked for as a Christmas gift. After her initial interest waned in taking pictures, I ended up with the camera in hand (go figure) and even shared a few here on the blog (remember the bottle caps in the grocery?). Anyway, it got me to thinking about how to take ordinary scenes and make them interesting. I guess that’s part of the role … Continue reading
Cactus Confusion
Well, I finally got the Cactus gear that I ordered online at GadgetInfinity last week. I had ordered their wireless trigger/receiver combo set and an extra receiver for the purpose of getting two lights to fire. I excitedly opened all the packaging and unwrapped it all, then – stop, hold the phones, and check this out – I read the directions! Yes, that’s right, an admitted geek read directions to make sure I utilize them right. After reading about these kinds of things on David Hobby’s Strobist site and over on the Flickr Colorado Strobist site, I wanted to make … Continue reading
New Podcast is Up!
That’s right, for two successive weeks now since our move, I’ve been able to find the time to record an audio podcast. Todays show had everything to do with the absolutely horrendus performance by the Broncos last night on MNF – their season turned to the toilet rather quickly. What ever happened to the fundamentals? Oh, sorry, this is a photo blog, not a football one! Okay, here’s the latest and greatest from CB. First and foremost, CB Episode #55 went up today. I took about twenty minutes to talk about off-camera lighting. I looked at the radio transmitters availabe, … Continue reading
Wednesday Walk around the Web returns
As the final hours approach me here on Tuesday, I still find myself struggling to capture something of interest that would be a fun topic for the “What’s This?”, so, a rather easy one is up for your guessing pleasure. Truth be told though, this is kind of lame, and as such, I would like more of the focus for today’s post to be the traditional “walk around the web” Here’s what’s going on this week in photo land: First, stop over to Scott Kelby’s blog – guest writer John Nack from a little company called Adobe will be filling … Continue reading
Monday Muscle Failure
This was quite the weekend! Two of three bedrooms have been cleaned up, packaged, and taken to an off-site storage so we can “stage” the house. Apparently staging a house is very important when selling. It helps “define the space” for the prospective buyer. Anyway, as a result of all the lifting, bending, pushing, pulling, hauling, and shoving (oh yeah, we packed some boxes too!), we are very much in a state of “muscle failure”. For the more athletically inclined, you know what I am talking about. For the rest, when you push your muscles to the brink of not … Continue reading
What’s This: Week 4
Now in it’s last installment for the month of June, “What’s This?” has become the most popular subject for the blog. Gary correctly guessed that last week’s What’s This was a shower head, so props, kudos, and congrats to Gary! Let’s see if someone else can mount a challenge this week. Here we go (and no more hints)…this week’s What’s This is: Good luck to everyone! If the fun continues, I may be able to start offering prizes too (depends on whether any vendor would be interested in sponsoring the “What’s This Weekly”…so, Canon, Adobe, USRobotics, Apple, Microsoft, Joe’s Tire … Continue reading
Tuesday Tech Talk: Canon ST-E2
This week, the Tuesday Tip is more of a “Tech Talk”. I got an email from someone inquiring about the Canon ST-E2 asking about how to use it, and what it’s compatible with. Taking a cue from this, I decided to make it a video tip from the MacbookPro,and set things up to give a basic primer on what the ST-E2 looks like, how it mounts to your camera, and how it triggers off-camera flashes electronically. Hopefully this will help demonstrate the purpose of the ST-E2 in a better light (bad pun, sorry…). Because it was recorded from the Mac … Continue reading
Hot and Cold Lighting
We all know that tungsten light is a warmer light (think regular light bulbs) and fluorescents and flash produce cooler lighting. While it makes sense, until I read an article by Peter Kolonia in Popular Photography, I have never thought of combining warm and cool light to produce different effects in a photograph. Since I’ve not tried this yet, I don’t have any sample pictures, but they should be viewable over at www.popphoto.com so stop over there to see samples in action. Basically, the article says that by lighting your subject with one tone and the background with another, you … Continue reading
Geographic Composition
Jason Moore has an ongoing activity where photographers from different parts of the globe capture their perspective on various themes. I was invited to join this group of photographers a short time ago, and this is now my second contribution to the activity. It’s quite a bit of fun as it challenges you to think in new ways, and in participating you get a chance to see other perspectives and ideas. This is probably one of the most useful ways that you can challenge your creativity and to find new sources of inspiration. Anyway, without further ado, the theme for … Continue reading
Usual becomes unusual
The tutorial for this Tuesday, you may notice is not your typical Photoshop tip, trick, or tutorial. I took things outside of the desktop and into the real world to show you examples of thinking outside the box when it comes to lighting. By now we are all familiar with Strobist, and the methods he uses to encourage people to think about lighting and how to do things in an economically friendly way. Today, I wanted to take a moment to share with you a few lighting ideas I’ve had and some of the effects they’ve produced. None of these … Continue reading
Noise, Lighting, and Links – Oh My!
In lieu of a video tutorial today, I’ve recorded an audio podcast. The primary reason for this is because the tip I want to share involves a technique I don’t really have a good sample shot in my library to show you how to apply the technique. So…tune in to this special audio episode for Canon Blogger. Show notes include information on: I will have a new gallery of photos out on my photography gallery site tomorrow. Selective Noise Reduction A DIY Backlight (how to make your own) Not one, but 2 videos on lighting gear from www.prophotolife.com Jason Moore … Continue reading
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