Pushing the sync speed - Canon 5d MK II/2 beyond the 1/200 to 1/2000
Posted by admin | Filed under Photography
After receiving my new 5D MK II just before christmas I was a bit disappointed with the sync speed. With my old 40d I could happily use 1/250 and if I was prepared to loose a bit of the bottom of the shot I could go beyond this to 1/320, which for outdoor shooting was great. I mostly shoot with Canon 540ezs because they are cheap and the power is pretty good, but I recently invested in some Bowens 500s for a bit more juice and because I have been setting up a bit of indoor space as a studio.
Armed with my Pocket Wizards, the 5d and my Bowens I could only consistently get 1/160 without any banding which is pretty rubbish and is not very practical for the outdoor shoots. So I started to play around with my 430ex set to high speed sync (this shows as a flash symbol with a H sign on it on the flash display) attached to the hotshoe, I also set the camera to operate in high speed sync and this is then pointed at the Bowens which have an inbuilt optical trigger and with my amazement I could go past 1/200 and onward up to 1/2000. I have only tested this indoors (and I won’t be winning any awards for the quality of the composition) but from the shots below you can see that there is no visible banding and that the Bowens is producing all of the light in the picture. I need to try it outdoors once it stops raining but am pretty hopeful that this may be a solution.
All at f/5 and ISO 200
1/200 Ambient Only (not a lot to see)
1/125 430ex on Camera only
1/1000 430ex and Bowens 500
1/2000 430ex and Bowens
Lighting DVDs review - Strobist DVD, Onelight, Zeroplusplus
Posted by admin | Filed under Photography
A quick review of a few DVDs I have been watching over the last few months.
Strobist DVD - www.strobist.com
A 8 DVD box set documenting a days workshop and subsequent example shoots.
+ve
- great for beginners to off camera lighting
- covers all of the basics of multiple light setups
- some good examples of how to creatively light
-ve
- a bit repititive (especially if you watch the gear dvd then the first episode of the workshop back to back)
- the examples though useful are in the most part quite uninspiring
One Light - www.zarias.com
A 2 DVD set showing a quick intro to off single lighting with some digital workflow descriptions
+ve
- quick and to the point
- inspiring examples of how to light
- a good intro to Lightroom from a working pro
-ve
- the intro section on stops was a little OTT for my taste
Fashion & Glamour Lighting - www.zeroplusplus.com
A 750mb 90min download of studio lighting techniques and post processing
+ve
- great intro to a cheap lighting modifier made of ripstop nylon, this will save you a ton of money
- some really good fashion shot examples
- a great insight to what you really need (in terms of equipment) to get pro looking shots
-ve
- not enough time spent on communication between photographer and model
- not enough detail on the post processing
Overall
If I were to spend my money again and only choose one to buy I would go with the Zack Arias Onelight DVDs.
Venice Flooding
Posted by admin | Filed under Photography
Venice is in my top five yet to visit places and seeing the photos of it flooding is making me think I should get my act together and get there soon, I may have to move it up a couple of spots on the list. See some pics of the floods here:
http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2008/12/venice_under_water.html
More Lightroom web templates
Posted by admin | Filed under Lightroom, Photography
Another great resource for Lightroom templates, see here.
Instant photo frame
Posted by admin | Filed under Photography
A neat little christmas gift, trim your photo and write your message on the frame to make a little Polaroid style personalised gift. See here.
Hot shoe spirit level
Posted by admin | Filed under Photography
When I replaced my Manfrotto cheapy tripod with my shiny new Feisol number unfortunately I lost out on having a spirit level. I ended up on good old ebay and bought a three way hot shoe spirit level for less than £6. If you are like me and take quite a few landscape photos it is will definitely help and stop those feature losing crops to get it level again. I didn’t get it from this ebay seller but you can find very similar ones here.
Photo Manipulation
Posted by admin | Filed under Photography
- Formula Cow
Check this site out which has some great blended photos, see here.
Free Lightroom Presets
Posted by admin | Filed under Photography
You may have noticed how much I love lightroom by all the posts I have made relating to it and here is another. I love presets and I know I can recreate them myself but they are so quick to flick through once you have them installed you may as well get some and here is a great resource for them, see here.
Block Posters - turning small pictures into a wall poster
Posted by admin | Filed under Photography
I was looking for a way of getting one of my pictures turned into a big wall canvas a bit like those you see at Ikea but the cost was getting ridiculous (nearly £600 was one price I got) so have been on the lookout for a different approach and I found this. Block Posters lets you upload an image which it scales and then turns into a pdf with A4 size which you print yourself. I know this won’t look quite as professional and may be a bit blocky but I may give it a try, see here.
Lightroom and GPS
Posted by admin | Filed under Lightroom, Photography
I know people, I have gone a little external link bonkers at the moment but I am finding so many great little addons to Lightroom that I may have to get a special badge saying how much of a fanboy I am. Anyway I digress, I used to have a Trackstick Pro and loved the GPS + photo stuff I could do but tbh it was always a bit of a pain in the ass to get all the data in the right place, this new plugin from Jeff Friedl would have saved my bacon and made the whole job a lot easier. If you ever use any GPS geocoding with your photos and Lightroom get your hands on this plugin, see here.
