Monthly Archives: February 2010

Natural Light Portraits

Posted on by

I have been doing more and more portraits with flash recently, and I often forget just how wonderful natural light can be. While at Kate and Eric’s wedding, I thought that it would be a great opportunity to take some portraits of Annie with her fancy clothes and all.

The first shot I took, with the light directly coming in the window, I didn’t include here. It wasn’t as flattering because the light was still a little harsh. I had Annie standing in front of the walls on both sides of the giant window at the end of the room. The day was overcast, but the light coming in the window was still a little harsh.

The shots you see here are after I pulled the sheer curtains in front of the window. It helped quite a bit. I was surprised at how much softer the curtains made the light. It was like I made a huge softbox. The image still has shadows, and light areas, but the transition is very soft.

The walls of the hotel also provide a nice background, as if I had hung one just for this purpose.

I like the image above. We were trying something with her hair, which wasn’t working out, but it got a great smile out of Annie.

Lastly, I found an image that made a great black and white.

D90 Pop-up flash as Commander

Posted on by

The above image was taken with a D90, pop-up flash as commander, and a SB-900 held out at camera left. I think that there is something wrong with these photos, but the subjects liked them. My issue? There was too much flash, especially from the front, and there is a shadow at the bottom of the image. But why?

I was certain that I read somewhere, saw a video, or a podcast that said that the D90’s pop up flash, when acting as a commander could not contribute light to the scene. I was wrong.

At home, I had previously been trying to use a two light setup with one light on camera, and another off to the left in an umbrella. Both were SB900’s. I had been playing with the lighting ratios, and what the light looked like. I would leave the umbrella at full power, then decrease the on camera. Then I would lower the umbrella, and increase the light from the on camera flash. This was all done via CLS.

Then I was shooting some informal portraits at a wedding. We were at a country club, on a golf course, and the sun was going down. Twilight blue sky. I set my subjects up with the golf course and the mountains behind them. I held a SB900 with dome difuser on in my left hand at arms length. (I didn’t have other diffusion materials with me.) I popped up my on board flash to use as the commander. It didn’t register that it was set to TTL. I took my picture with a Nikon 17-55 f/2.8 lens on the front, and a shadow shows up in front of their feet! Whoa! Where is the light coming from? I was a little confused and didn’t have time to figure it out, so I just zoomed in a bit more so the shadow wouldn’t be as noticible. I also added some dodging in post to even out the light a little bit.

It wasn’t until I was back home looking at my pictures that I figured it out. The light from the built-in flash was contributing to the exposure. I know that in the past I have sworn at Joe McNally because it seemed like my flash was contributing to the light, when I know that he has said over and over that when using CLS, the commander flash doesn’t contribute light to the exposure. Except when you don’t pay attention.

So, if you do not want your pop up flash to contribute to the exposure, make sure that beside the line labeled Built-In, in the left column it says “–“. If you do want some light from this flash, set it to “TTL”. You will most likely want to lower the light from this flash so it acts as just a bit of fill, by setting the right column to -2 or even -3.

I think my mistake (probably more than once) was when I looked at the menu and saw TTL, and thought, of course that is what I want. But, you probably only want light from the off camera lights set to TTL, and the pop up set to “–” for commander. The most I can hope for is that I have learned my lesson.

Kate and Eric’s Wedding

Posted on by

This was a wedding that I didn’t go to as the official shooter. I was just a guest with an unusually large camera and flash combo. 😉

I have know Kate for quite awhile now. She doesn’t live in Minneapolis, so we don’t see each other a lot, but she is great friend/cousin, and I wish her all the best.

I bet you can’t tell that Alison is her sister. It was fun to be shooting at an event where you knew the people that you were taking pictures of. I think it helped to get some fun shots.

Sometimes you know that a picture of a brother and sister captures a moment that you might not realize is so appropriate unless you know the people.

I think by paying attention (and taking a lot of pictures) I got a few great looks.

And a picture of the dress detail can’t hurt.

Or the love(ly) cake.

A few opportune shots on the dance floor round out the package.

It was a fun wedding to be a part of. Everyone had a great time. It was an interesting experience to try to stay out of the way of the official photographer, and still get some good shots. I think I did a pretty good job. He didn’t shoot much of the reception or the dance floor, so it wasn’t too difficult.

Congratulations Kate and Eric.

Westlaw Next Ice Sculpture

Posted on by

Westlaw Next in Ice

I have been sitting on this image that I took with my iPhone for a long time. The official name was announced within Thompson Reuters last month, but we were told not to ‘leak’ the name early. How anyone coming to the Eagan office was going to miss this and not pass it on to the media is beyond me. Actually, I think that was part of the leak strategy.

Well, the product is about to be released, and on the last weekend before launch, I am going to Boise, Idaho for a cousins wedding. I am not shooting it, but I do have my gear packed. I have a new smaller light stand now, and I even packed it and an umbrella. Who knows when an impromptu photo shoot will break out.

Because of taking my camera gear on board (light stand is getting checked) I have another bag with my clothes in it. It could almost fit in an overhead bin I think, but because it is getting checked, it cost me $15. That means that my flight just went up by $30 total. Sheesh.

Jellyka font for my signature

Posted on by

I have decided that my signature is crap. I tried to make a nice signature, scan it, and use it to sign my photos, but it wasn’t working. Also, when I post images online, I have used different fonts to add my name to the image, usually on the bottom. I haven’t been terribly happy with any of the fonts I have tried so far. Until now.

I think I like Jellyka – Estrya’s Handwritting. Jellyka Nerevan seems to be giving away the font for personal use. I wasn’t sure what exactly other uses would be, but I sent a donation via pay pal for the font. She has other fonts on dafont too, or you can see her website at CuttyFruty.

I have used this font with the last few sets of images I have placed online. I am not sure if I am going to keep the drop shadow or not, but it looks good on plain white!

Full Screen Slideshow in Javascript

Posted on by

So I now have a full screen slideshow in Javascript, without using flash, and I wanted to tell you how I did it, and how you can do it too. I will talk a bit about Javascript here, but you will be able to download the jQuery plugin I have without needing to know much, if all you want is to implement the gallery.

I got the idea for this plugin after looking at a flash version of Scott Kelby’s portfolio. I just wanted to give it a try in Javascript.

I have created a permanent page for bgStretcher2, so it is easier to find from the side bar, so look here.