Opteka Speed Grids

Just got three new Opteka speed grids off ebay today, can't wait to try them out. I've been checking out their stuff on ebay for open box returns and such and got a real great price on them $8.95 a piece.

I purchased one each of the 1/8th, 1/6th and 1/4th grids. I already have a 1/8th. These things are great for getting a nice tight light on your subject and for the price you can't beat them. They use a velcro attachment to attach to your speedlights that with a little fiddling works pretty well. I'll show you how I attach mine in a later post. If you've got the money head over to ebay and do a search for Opteka and check out their open box stuff. You can usually get it for a good price and usually their stuff is pretty decent.

Brooks Institute Update and Other Things...

The first semester is over. There was quite a bit of writing in this semester and I'm expecting more writing in the next. I'm now on a four week break and I don't know what I'm going to do with myself. I do have some images to post from this semester and will be putting those up in the next couple of days.

I'll be putting together a little lighting talk at the Lompoc Photographers Guild on the 15th of January. I'm so looking forward to it. It should be a lot of fun. It has to be an hour long, I'm going to shoot for about a 45 minute talk and demo with 15 minutes for questions. This hardly ever works out because people always want to know about lighting.

How lignt can interact in an image.

Chris, our Photographic Theory instructor gave us a shooting assignment. We have to create five different images exploring the ways light can interact in an image. Here are my five:

Transmission

 

Reflection

 

Refraction

 

Absorption

 

Scatter

 

Lighting Workshop Aftermath

We survived!!!

It was a great workshop and everyone learned something. I think one unfortunate thing was the weather didn't cooperate with us to well but we persevered in spite of it.

I know we covered a whole range of topics and hopefully we answered everyone's questions but there were some questions on depth of field that I'll be covering here in a future post. I'll be shooting some examples over the next couple of days to help with the explanation. Hopefully this will clear up some of the confusion that I saw at the workshop.

I will also be getting a list of my equipment to everyone and where I bought it and how much I paid for it. Just remember that some of the speedlights that I use are very old and SHOULD NOT BE PUT DIRECTLY ON YOUR CAMERA. I use them mainly with radio triggers and off camera.

I'd really like to thank Melissa and Tyler for helping out. They were really helpful during the breaks discussing some of the information and answering questions for people. I'd also like to thank my wife Louise for putting up with me while we put this workshop together. I hope everyone had a great time and I hope you plan on attending our next workshop which we will be covering creative lighting. Look here and on Facebook for times and place.

Lighting Workshop

The day has finally arrived. We've got everything together and will be setting up soon. The apartment smells great with pumpkin spice muffins and chocolate cupcakes that Louise, my wife, made. I'm looking forward to meeting everyone and having a great time. We'll be posting photos tomorrow when it's all done. I'd like to thank everyone who helped put this together it was a lot of hard work.

Just to let everyone know we've started planning our next workshop already, which we're looking to put on in a few weeks.

Ebay Purchases

Well I purchased some equipment on ebay and am waiting for all of it to get here.

One Item already arrived: Professional 80cm Octagon Umbrella Speedlite Softbox Reflector (80cm is a little over 30 inches). It cost me $25 with free shipping and I was pleasantly surprised at the quality. It took less than 5 minutes to set up and it put out some pretty decent light. Now it's no Westcott Apollo with the rip-stop nylon and it only has one zipper opening unlike the four zipper opening of the Apollo but it's fairly deep, and you can use it with the diffusion panel taken completely off to give it some virsatility.

Another thing I purchased and I can't wait to get it is the Opteka OSC18 1/8" Universal Honeycomb Speed Grid for External Flash. They also have a 1/4 inch grid as well. This one cost me $8.95 and is an "Open Box" but Opteka stated in the description that "All open box items carry a standard return policy and will include a full manufacturer's warranty". From the reviews that I've read there are some minor issues with mounting the product, most of them state that adding another velcro strap or rubber band fixes the problem. Not so bad considering that the Honl Grids cost anywhere from $25.00 to $30.00 plus shipping. I'm really looking forward to getting this item. I love honeycomb spot grids. I have a full set for my Alien Bees and have been wanting one to put on my speedlites for a while. If this thing works out I'm probably going to purchase another one. I like to use them on my background lights with different color gels to get some really nice effects. I'll write up a full review of this after I test it out.

The third thing I purchased was a Ravelli ABS Background Stand, Again another open box item from Assiamounts out of Phoenix, AZ. My winning bid was $62.00 and at that price  it also comes with two Prism backdrops, one white, one black. I admit I was really looking for extra light stands but at that price I just couldn't pass this up especially when Amazon has this kit for $152.00. It also comes with a guarantee against defects. I should be able to use the supports as light stands if I want as well. Again I'll review this once I get it and check it out.
 

Here are the links the manufacture's or seller's web sites so you can check this stuff out.  As with all things you purchase on ebay, make sure you can return it for defects, check on customer reviews (I found most of this stuff reviewed on Youtube), and try to get it for the lowest price you can.

http://www.cowboystudio.com/product_p/8080%20octagon%20umbrella%20softbox.htm

http://opteka.com/osc18.aspx

http://ravelliphoto.com/ravelli-abs.html 

Thrift Store Find (Olympus FL-40)

Went to a thrift store yesterday here in the area that offers a 25% discount on Mondays. They always have a few camera bags behind the counter and I went up and had them pull them down so I could see what was in them. One bag had an off brand 35mm film camera with two lenses and a small flash with no bounce. Tried to open the battery compartment and it was full of leaky batteries. That one was a definite no. The next one had an old Canon AE1 with two third party lenses and a small Sears flash. They wanted $40.00, with the 25% discount that would have put it at $30.00. Still too high so no. Last bag was $12.99, so it came in at $9.75. It had an old Olympus 2.5 megapixel digital camera with an Olympus FL-40 flash. I took a chance and bought it without testing it out. and $9.75 no great loss if it didn't work. Fortunately when I got it home and tested out the flash it worked fine. Score!

I went online and did some research and found that it's a pretty decent flash, It has a Guide Number of 40 and it's adjustable in 1/4 power steps. The head rotates 360 degrees and bounce of 90 degrees. It has a tele and wide setting. The GN of 40 is at the tele setting. The only thing I don't like about it is it doesn't hold the last settings when it's turned off, so I'll have to keep an eye on that when I'm using it. There is one on ebay for over $40.00 right now with 2 bids on it. Amazon has them for over $110. You can check it out here: 

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00004Z97S/ref=olp_product_details?ie=UTF8&me=&seller=. 

I know this flash isn't that powerful but it will come in handy for all sorts of things.  Oh and I gave the camera to my 7 year old who loves it. Two Velcro strips later and this thing's in the bag ready for use. As always with used older flashes this thing will never see the hotshoe on any of my cameras but with remotes it'll work just fine.

You never know what you're going to find at the thrift stores. Just make sure that you don't overpay and check everything for battery leaks. If you're unsure and you have a smart phone you can always look something up online before you buy. You can even take in your own batteries to check stuff out. I try to carry 4 AA batteries just for that purpose, I just forgot to put them in my pocket yesterday. I have several flashes that I bought from thrift stores for very little money, some of them I use quite a bit for product type shots, Others work great for on location portrait shoots. Never underestimate those older flashes. Even the ones that can't be adjusted. You can do a lot with them using gels and gobos.

Getting Ready for The Lighting Workshop

It was a busy day today getting ready for the Lighting Workshop we're having on the 20th of July. We're polishing up our Power Point presentation and getting our goodie folders together. Spent some of the day testing out the equipment making sure that it's all operational. We have two models lined up for the workshop and both of them are great fun to work with. We should have a lot of fun. I'm really looking forward to putting this on.

Playing Around With Light

Here is is the "Peppers" picture and the lighting diagram for the images. The only difference from the Bread and Peppers to the Tuning Forks is I used a diffused back-lit background with a gridded light and a gelled speedlight and a gridded Main light. The tuning forks were also placed on a piece of quarter inch glass raised up from the table about 8 inches so light would fill in from underneath.

Playing Around With Light

With the Lighting Workshop coming up I thought it would be good to practice some lighting techniques so I pulled out my lights last night and some stuff that I had sitting around and set up a shoot in my kitchen. I've been wanting to do this for a couple of months now and I finally made some time to do it. I didn't get done til about 3:30 this morning and fell asleep on the couch.

I woke up at around 9:00 am and put everything away. I really need to get a studio setup where I can just leave it all up.

Here are two of the finished shots, "Bread" and "Tuning Forks".

I also shot some "Peppers" and a weird child toy called a squish which is wooden tubes and balls held together with strings. I'll post these later as well as the lighting diagrams.

Lighting Workshop Update

I've been working on the lesson plan for the lighting workshop next month and am getting really excited about putting it on. I'm looking forward to getting together with other photographers and talking about my favorite subject... Lighting. I can't wait to exchange ideas and techniques to help everyone get the best out of their lighting and improve their photography. It should be a fun time.

Sunny 16 Rule

Here are some of the images that I shot the other day using the Sunny 16 Rule, All shots were taken at ISO 200 @ 1/200th @ f/16.

Remember you don't have to stay at 1/200 @ f/16, you can adjust your exposure. So if you wanted to shoot at a faster shutter speed all you have to do is open your aperture for an equivalent exposure. So if you wanted say 1/400 of a second you'd have to open your aperture to f/8. I just kept it on 1/200th @ f/16 just to see what I could get at a single shutter speed and aperture. Another thing that you might try is to bracket your exposures a stop open and a stop closed to help ensure that you get a good exposure. A good exposure is not unnecessarily a proper one. For instance the building in the first image above, I would have liked to see one a stop open to open up the shadows in the building a little bit.
Just a small note: none of these images were processed. these are straight out of the camera to show you the results you might expect using this rule.

Sunny 16 Rule

Went for a walk yesterday and took one of my Nikon D90 Cameras with me. I put my 50mm 1.8 AF D lens on it and set it up for ISO 200 with a shutter speed of 1/200 @ f/16. I did this to test out the Sunny 16 rule. I totally disregarded what my meter was saying and just went by feel When I hit a bit of shade I opened up a couple of stops. I took an initial look at the images and they look pretty decent. I'll post a few of them once I have some time to really look at them and do some processing to them.

For those of you who don't know what the Sunny 16 Rule is it states that your exposure on a Sunny day is 1/ISO @ f/16. So if your ISO is set to 200 your shutter speed will be 1/200 @ f/16. You can compensate for shade and cloudy weather by opening up a stop, for darker clouds or shade open up 2 stops. Give it a try sometime you'd be surprised at how well it works.

Lighting Workshop

Are you...

An experienced Photographer looking to refresh your lighting skills?

An intermediate Photographer looking to step up your game?

A photographer who has your camera skills down but would like to step up to the next level and learn about lighting?

But...

Can't afford those expensive all day lighting workshops?

Don't know where to start?

Start Here...

We're putting on a lighting workshop on July 20, 2013 at the Deer Creek Apartment Clubhouse at 1600 Clubhouse Dr, Xenia, OH 45385 from 4:00pm to 9:00pm
Phone: (937) 768-9848 or Email: robertgainor@hotmail.com with any questions.
Cost of the Workshop is $50.00 (split into $20.00 registration fee and $30.00 due at the door).
We'll be covering the following Topics:

• Ambient Exposure
• Flash Exposure
• Exposure Balancing
  • Indoor / Outdoor
  • Fill Flash
• Inverse Square Law (and how to use it to your advantage)
• Using modifiers
  • Umbrellas
  • Softboxes
  • Diffusion Panels
  • The 5 in 1 Reflector
  • Bounce Cards
  • Gobos
  • Grids
  • Gels
• Lighting Setups
  • Single Light Setup
  • Two Light Setup
  • More Lights
• Creative Lighting
  • Light placement
  • Intensity
  • Bringing In Some of the Ambient Light
  • Adding Motion to Your Images
• Equipment
  • Getting the best out of what you have
  • Inexpensive alternatives to get you started

June Quick Tip: Splitting the Difference

This month's quick tip covers dealing with different lighting in the same image and you don't have a flash to balance the exposures. For example: your out shooting in the woods and you see a flower in the shade but you want to frame it with trees and use the sky as a backdrop. You have the exposure at the flower and the exposure of the sky. One thing you can do is get the exposure of the sky then get the exposure of the flower. Now split the difference between the two. You'll be slightly under exposed on the sky and slightly over exposed for the flower.

The quickest way to do this is set your camera meter to spot, point it at the flower and zero out your meter. You then point it at the sky and zero it out but make sure you count the number of stops as you change them. You can then go back the other way but you will only go half the way. For example you zero out the flower then you count as you zero out the sky. Say there are 6 stops between them. You would then adjust back 3 stops frame your shot then shoot. The example I used here is not the greatest photo but it demonstrates the technique rather well. The photos are of some stuff in my bedroom window and the pillows on my bed with the window for the background. I did not do any post production on the images. The first shot is exposed for the inside stuff. The second for outside and the third is exposed in between the two. I know you can use an HDR Program to get a good image but if you don't have access to one this technique will work in a pinch.

All images were shot at ISO 1250 and an aperture of f/16.

Shutter Speed of 1/40

Shutter Speed of 1/1250

Shutter Speed of 1/320

The difference between the exposure here is very extreme, almost 6 stops difference between the two areas and I lost some details on the jars and the darker colored items, but the closer the difference the better your results will be. From here you can fine tune your exposure as well to get a better balance between the two.

Flash and Ambient Exposure

I was going through some images the other day that a photographer had taken outside using a flash on a cloudy day, and noticed a huge problem with them. There was no definition in the sky. The sky looks totally white. I took a look at the meta data and found that the shooter used an aperture of f/4 and a shutter speed of 1/60th to 1/100th of a second.  Looking at them I couldn't help but wonder why the photographer forgot one important fact about flash photography. He forgot that when you use flash there are two exposures to take into account. The flash exposure and the ambient exposure. He could have stopped down on the shutter speed to bring those clouds in or even stopped down the aperture and increased the flash power or the ISO (set at 100). Given the camera that he was using he could have gone all the way down to 1/200th of a second on that shutter speed. Another thing I noticed was he was using a flash on a bracket and the flash was pointed straight up. I know these things because I was there when he shot them. When you're outside the flash should be used as a fill flash and pointed straight at the subject when it is on the camera. Another thing that could have been done is to get an inexpensive set of radio triggers, put one on your speedlight, get a friend to hold the light where you tell him to.

Try this next time you're outside. Get someone to model for you and another friend to help you out with the flash if you can. If you can't find someone to model for you get something about the size of a person, and try to get your flash off camera.

Setup and take a properly exposed shot without the flash, making sure your meter is zeroed out for a proper exposure: this will be your starting point.

Setup the flash and take another shot properly exposed for the flash. Your subject should look about the same in each shot.

Adjust the exposures so that the aperture settings in both are equal. For example if the ambient exposure is 1/250th at f/5.6 and the flash exposure is f/8, then you want to make your aperture at f/8 and your shutterspeed 1/125th and take a shot. Note that if your subject is in the same light as the background it may appear washed out. This is because you are, in essence, doubling the amount of light hitting the subject so you need to stop down your aperture to f/11 and set your shutterspeed to 1/60th because the flash exposure is controlled by the aperture.

You now have what I like to call the reference exposure. Now take a few bracketed shots, one with a one stop faster shutter speed and one with a one stop slower shutter speed. This should have no effect on your subject or model but should have an effect on the background. You probably won't notice it so much on the camera display but when you look at it on the computer you should notice the change. Take a few shots with even more drastic changes in the shutter speed and see what you get. Just remember to keep in mind the sync speed of your camera. This should be listed in your camera manual. If you're having trouble getting the shutter speeds you need change your ISO. Just remember if you change one setting you'll need to know how it affects your image so you can adjust your other settings accordingly.   

Lighting Diagram and Photo from April 13th shoot.

As I promised a lighting diagram and finished photo from Saturday.