Tag Archives: tutorial

Tutorials

Overpowering and changing the mood of available light

Lizelle photographed by Steve Fetbrandt 1/250sec f4.5 55mm. Notice the background and how distraction abound because of the available light.
Lizelle photographed by Steve Fetbrandt 1/250sec f4.5 55mm. Notice the background and how distraction abound because of the available light. Notice the highlights? Those are from the sun on the right.

Overpowering our sun is a tall order even with the most powerful of studio strobes.

So to attempt that with small flash units or speedlites that run off 4AA batteries requires either the sun to be covered by clouds or one has to wait till the sun is past its most powerful noon hour.

In case there are those of you reading this wondering why is this desirable, the answer is for control.

One of the techniques I teach during my Small Flash Lighting workshop is how to change the mood and feel of a scene.

When relying strictly on available light to make pictures, you constantly have to find backgrounds that are not lit or backgrounds that are lit in such a way it is less subdued against your subject.

Remember,  in your scene, whatever isn’t lit is less of  a distraction.

For my pictures below which were taken  at about the same time as Steve’s, I made sure to use my longest focal length lens so I could blur out the backgrounds. (The longer the focal length, the shallower the depth-of-field)

Steve used 55m to 200 mm Nikon lens but set his lens at the 55 mm setting.

I picked up my 80-200 Canon zoom and set mine at 175mm. Continue reading Overpowering and changing the mood of available light →

Tutorials

Using daylight one flash for a different mood

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Wendy Mayberry's picture taken at about mid-morning looks like it was taken at dusk because she was able to use one Speedlight using a shutter speed of 1/800 sec f5.6 ISO 100 Canon 60D 35mm setting on 18-200 zoom. I added more warmth in the color in post production to create the illusion that the picture was taken at dusk.

Rainy or cold weather should never discourage photographers from leaving the house.

Some of the more unusual and interesting pictures happen when the sun is not dominant in the heavens.

Landscapes have a different feel when clouds appear in the sky.

Compare the picture that Wendy took with what the scene was like in the picture on the left. Her models brought a change of outfits which made her pictures even better.

As with my previous field trips, weather threatened the field trip for my Digital Wedding Photography class. Continue reading Using daylight one flash for a different mood →

Tutorials

Moving photos from Wall Photos to other albums in FB

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I’m not sure how many of you are Facebook users but their numbers are so big now I thought I’d share something I learned recently.

For a while, I’ve simply been uploading photos through my status update for my FB page and the default album, “Wall Photos” has become cluttered.

I wasn’t able to find anything, so when I came across a way to move photos, I thought I’d share it.

This video tutorial will also serve as a reminder in case I ever forget.

There’s actually quite a few steps.

For those who don’t need the lengthy explanation, just look at the screen shots below:

(1)From your FB home page, choose Photos

Continue reading Moving photos from Wall Photos to other albums in FB →

Photography, Tutorials

Using Canon’s E-TTL part2

Now that I have my 2 Speedlites talking to the transmitter STE-2, a field test is in order.

Max lit up when I brought out his toy. The flash output as you can see is too harsh. With a subject like Max, there's not much time to fine tune.

In case those of you who use Nikon are feeling left out, Nikon also has a similar transmitter, the SU-800 Wireless Speedlight Commander. It does the same exact thing but even better. You can control 3 groups of Speedlights compared to 2 for Canon’s STE-2..

Instead of a still life, flowers, a plant or bric-a-brac around the house I decided to try using my kittens as my subject.

Was I up to the challenge?
Continue reading Using Canon’s E-TTL part2 →