Quick Portraits in a Snap

Christy asked me to begin taking pictures of the kids at Church who are in the Primary organization. I needed a quick and simple set up that would allow me to cycle kids through quickly and get decent photos of them.

Here's a diagram of the setup I used:

Here are some of the portraits I was able to take:

Flash on a Bright, Sunny Day

So, why use flash on a bright, sunny day? While it's unlikely you'll be totally overpowering the sun, using external flash does give you some more control and options over what you can do with your photography.

While the below examples aren't fine art, hopefully they can help convey the ideas I have about flash on sunny days.

To Balance


In many cases, the key is to balance. You want to have both the background and the foreground/subject properly exposed. If you expose for one, you will likely over or underexpose the other.

Camera Info

ISO: 100

Shutter Speed: 1/250s

Aperture: F6.3

Camera Info
ISO: 100

Shutter Speed: 1/250s

Aperture: F11
Underexpose the Background for a Bit More Drama

If we underexpose the background a bit, sometimes we get a bit more drama - the subject pops out a bit more from the background.

Camera Info
ISO: 100

Shutter Speed: 1/250s

Aperture: F10

Camera Info
ISO: 100
Shutter Speed: 1/250s
Aperture: F16

Make the Sun Go Away

If we really fire up the flash and underexpose the background, we can just about make the sun go away. If we were using more lights, we could turn a bright, sunny day into nighttime.

Camera Info
ISO: 100

Shutter Speed: 1/250s

Aperture: F25

Second Curtain Flash - Faking it with non-Canon Flashes

When you take a picture, there are two "curtains" that control access to the sensor, one that opens right when you hit the shutter and a second that closes, covering the sensor. Most of the time, if you are using external flash, the flash fires right as the first curtain opens. This is fine if you are using faster shutter speeds and your subject is relatively stationary. However, if you are using a slower shutter speed, it doesn't work as well - you can get odd looking ghosts - your subject will be in focus when the flash first fires and then there will be ghosting of the image as the subject moves, and then the second curtain closes off the sensor.

One way to mitigate this is to synch your flash with the second curtain. The ambient light burns into the sensor, exposing the background and then, right before the shutter closes, you flash your subject, getting a nice in focus subject.

Here's an exaggerated example. I am using a five-second shutter speed and small kids, even at the end of the day, right before bed, don't slow down much.

There is some ghosting, but it is leading up to the final moment. It can show movement in a more natural way, since the ghosting leads into the portion of the photo that is flashed and in focus. The area that was flashed good is nice and in focus.

I was triggering this by walking my flash over and focusing it on one spot - the bad part of this is if I dwelled in the frame, I show up a bit, like below (on the left portion of the photo):

Second curtain shutter can allow you to use a longer shutter speed to get a good exposure of a night/twilight scene and you can then flash your subject right at the end. With some practce (and unlike above) you can balance the light so the whole thing looks good. Hopefully I'll get there, just need more practice.

The trick is, I think you have to have the expensive Canon flashes to do this from the camera; I've got cheaper third-party flashes. But there is a way around this.

The Work Around

My flashes (and pretty much all external ones out there) all have a slave option. This means they can be triggered by the light from another flash. So what I did was use my on-camera flash as the trigger, since I can set this to fire in synch with the second curtain. In order to not have it impact the exposure, I powered it way down - 1/128th power. This is enough to trigger my slave sensor in my other flash.

I was able to sucessfully do this inside the house and also outside, under cover and in the shade. I'm not sure what kind of range I can use this, since the light from the on-camera flash drops off pretty quick. The good thing is that, in theory, I should be able to balance that out with my other external flashes. As I get more time to play around, I'll have to post some more trial photos.

10 within 10

One of the things I've heard about is trying to find ten photos within 10 meters. I've been trying to get out and use my new camera more and try different things, so I thought I would give that a shot today. Luckily the weather cooperated and the kids were out playing - hopefully that isn't cheating, having pics of the kids count as well!

The kids were outside enjoying the nice weather, setting up little tea parties for their toys and all.

Another part of this exercise was to use only one lens, in this case my 70-200mm zoom. The goal is to do something similar with each of my lenses.

All of the photos are untouched and direct from the camera without modification.

Anyway, here are the shots I got today for my 10 within 10:

Light Box Photography

I had made a light box in Athens, but when we left there, I got rid of the box I had there. One of the benefits of moving is that I had a new box to use for a new light box!

Here are a couple of photos taken in my new light box:

Camera Info:
Shutter Speed: 1/250s
Aperture: F14
ISO: 100
Lens: Tamron 17-50mm
Focal length: 50mm


Lighting:
Side lights, 1/4 power, 35mm zoom
Front light, 1/16 power, 35mm zoom

Below is the box setup with the lights:

What I did was take a cardboard box and but three sides out, leaving a bit of a frame. I then put a piece of vellum paper over those three sides and taped it on with black gaffer's tape. I also covered the inside of the box (the bottom of the box and the one remaining side, with gaffer's tape as well. Last of all I put a piece of white poster board inside to act as a seamless background and voila! Light box!

I had one light on each side, positioned to light from the top and the side. These lights had gobos attached on the side facing the camera to avoid any flare into the lens. A third light is coming from the front and side; it has a diffuser attached to it and is powered down well under what the other two lights are. The goal is for the front light to fill shadows on the subject, but not to create new ones in the back or sides.

Portrait Catch-up

I wanted to catch up with a couple of portraits I took recently in my "home studio." The kids did a great job!

One thing that we did in this session is we traded off between the girls. I think that they were able to last longer than if we tried to just shoot photos of one of them straight through. This way we would take a couple of pictures, then that girl would get a few minutes to play and relax while the next girl was up. It also gave a chance for outfit changes, as well.

The lighting setup is the same as in my post below.

I liked this first one because it captured a great look, a nice, natural smile.

Camera Info:
Shutter Speed: 1/160s
Aperture: F8.0
ISO: 200
Lens: Tamron 17-50mm
Focal Length: 38mm

The above photo has a slight lomo effect on it, which saturates the colors a little more and increases the contrast just a bit.


This one is a more serious portrait, but I really liked how it turned out.



Camera Info:
Shutter Speed: 1/160s
Aperture: 8.0
ISO: 200
Lens: Tamron 17-50mm
Focal Length: 24mm

Home Portrait "Studio"

I put studio in quotes because it would really be a stretch of the imagination to call my setup a studio, but, lacking a better term, that's what I call it! And it works well enough.

Here's a quick shot of the setup:

We're lucky enough to have a large loft, which has gone from being a bedroom, to playroom, to now a part-time photo studio.

I put a couple of clamps onto the ceiling beams. On these clamps I attached some large zip ties - one on each side that holds the curtain rod at the highest level and then about six more on each side that are linked like chains and allow me to adjust the height of the curtain.

As for a backdrop, right now I'm using a large sheet, but am planning on replacing that with some (much) larger cloth backdrops. It helps to have a few contacts that are in the sewing business! As I take portraits, the plan is to slowly add one or two from my earnings.

Now for some sample images from this setup (all images, with the exception of the first, are untouched. The first one was only cropped):

The big thing I noticed is that I need more light on the backdrop - in this case I want it to be white, not the off-white it really is. It can be fixed in post-processing, but that's just one more step that can be eliminated with proper lighting. That and I need to iron the background before I take real pictures ... But I think that the subject lighting is pretty good.

I wanted to get some test shots in before I started taking "real" portraits!

Photographing Butterflies

One of the things I enjoy about photography is looking for colors and contrast, which is perhaps why I enjoy photographing flowers so much; butterflies also fit well in this category. Here are some examples of butterfly photography I have done, nothing too amazing, but hopefully they convey a couple of ideas I've had.

If you ever get the chance to go to a butterfly farm, do it. There are generally lots of beautiful specimens there, plus lots of very nice flowers, so you get the best of it all. The only thing to be careful of is humidity - the butterfly houses tend to be very warm and very humid, which is generally not a good thing for an expensive piece of electronic equipment.

The tricky part, as always, is composition. How are the butterflies positioned on flowers or other objects? How do they fit into, or stand out from, the scenery around them?

This first example is from a butterfly house in Mindo, Ecuador.

I liked this because of the vivid contrasting colors, but also the plant - the stem kind of leads through the picture, but not in a distracting way. The butterfly is also nicely defined against the background - you can see it well and it doesn't become part of the background.

Here's another one, from a butterfly garden in Stratford Upon Avon, England. While I like the colors, particularly the purple that stands out, the black of the butterfly does kind of fade into the background, making it difficult to distinguish from the background.

 Another one from Mindo. I liked how the flowers compliment the butterfly yet it is nicely distinguished from the background.

 
While the background with all of the flowers is kind of busy, I hope it doesn't distract too much from the butterfly.

Why I love my new tripod

I recently got a new tripod and it has been amazing. I decided to upgrade to a Manfrotto tripod and Manfrotto Joystick head.

The tripod itself is heavier than my old one, which makes it much more stable. The joystick head is great - I mount my camera on there, lock it into place, and then, with a squeeze of the grip, can reposition it just about any way I can imagine. And it has a death-grip on my camera, so it's not going to drift downward just after I frame my shot and before I snap the picture.

This is great for taking multiple shots to stitch together into a panorama, like this photo:

The other great feature of the tripod is that you can splay the legs out and get it really close to the ground. That's what helped me get this shot:

If I had known how great this tripod was, I would have gotten it sooner!

Inauguration

I have decided to go ahead and create my own blog that focuses on photography.

Enjoy!