CameraCard.Ca Blog

Working with a flash

Nick Turpin street portraits for Menshealth
I have decided to start at the beginning. I bought a Nikon flash for my camera. I was motivated to do so by several factors. The seasons are changing and the days are getting shorter and colder, taking more indoor photos and will be struggling to get enough light for good photos outdoors. I had shot some photos for a friend and was upset that the photos did not turn out as well as I had hoped partly as I did not have as much light as I would have liked. Finally I have been taking available light photos and reading David Hobby’s blog “Strobist” ( see links) and have be admiring all the dramatic looking photos made with flash units and have been wanting try taking some photos in that style.

There is a fundamental difference between shooting with added light and shooting in ambient light. In ambient light you capture, with added light you are really creating something that did not exist before. I had realized looking at my ambient light shots taken outdoors; that most of my subjects were posed back to the sun and that the sky was blown out. The camera has a much more limited range of brightest to darkest than the human eye. By using flash I could add light to balance the brightness of the sky. The challenge of that responsibility of creating images is that it takes a bit of experience to, create images that are attractive.

The major of using a separate flash is primarily the ability to control the brightness and color of the subject and the background independently. You also can chose to have the light hit the subject from a different direction than that of the camera. The speedlight also allow you to add light modifiers to shape the light, make it softer or change its color.

In the next series of blog entries I will be retracing my learning of off camera flash, showing results and sharing the lessons learned along the way.

One of the best videos on getting dramatic effects with off camera flash was this one from Nick Turpin, shooting with on the streets of London, you will find a link in the first line of this blog.

PhotoFast 533x Plus CF cards in stock

CameraCard.Ca is proud to announce the arrival of the new PhotoFast 533x Plus cards, in both 8GB and 16GB sizes, offering the highest speeds of reading and writing, ( 80MB/s read and 80MB/s write). With the fastest card readers a 16GB card can be downloaded in less than 4 minutes.  These cards have been tested and reviewed with the latest cameras including Nikon D300s and Canon 5D MKII. These cards offer the ultimate in write speed for sports, wildlife and event photographers.

As always, our pricing on these products is competitive with US dealers.

Note to customers:

• To obtain ultimate read speed you will need to use a PCMCIA, SATA, or Firewire reader as the read speed of PhotoFast 533x and 533x Plus card will exceed the transfer speed of USB readers. Even in USB readers they are noticeably faster than other cards.
• Max write speed in practice will be determined by the camera model, most cameras will be slightly faster with the 533x Plus Card, some cameras such as the Canon 5D MKII  will write significantly faster with the plus card than the standard 533x card.

Hugh Toward –President of CameraCard.Ca

Using a reflector

When we want to get a portrait to go from good to great, a bit of fill light can go a long way. Most of the time we think of a flash, be there are other options.

 

If you have never used a reflector, I will offer my tips here. I have two types of reflectors. A folding fabric disk with silver on one side and white on the other.  My second is much cheaper and more basic. It is a rectangle of white Styrofoam 1 ½” thick -24” x 48”. I use them differently.

 

The advantage of the disk is it is compact; I attach it to my camera strap.  For children’s portraits it will create beautiful round catchlights (reflections) in the subjects eyes. I use the sliver side when I need maximum reflectivity or are not close to the subject and the white side when working closer.

 

The disadvantage is it really needs an assistant to hold it with both hands and it cost more than the other reflector.

 

I use the Styrofoam board as a reflector at the office it has the advantages:

• Very low cost
• It works well adding fill next to a window
• It is rigid and more easily propped up for static shots
• I have also used it as a fake rear wall to get a less cluttered portrait, as well as a base for product shots
• Because it has flat edges it is more useful for adding fill to product shots, it can be placed closer
• It can be used outside even with snow or light rain

The effects of a reflector can be dramatic, in this case the reflector was flat on the ground, but in most cases I use it to the side to reflect window light for fill.

Gold in the shadows

I recently had an outdoor photo shoot were had the option to have the subject in the sun or the shadows. The better result was in the shadows. I used spot metering set to the largest point. The shots taken in the shadows are dramatically better. In both cases I have used spot metering to expose for the face.

The first image in mixed direct light and shade, the second image in in pure shade

Into the light

I have realized that one of my favorite shots under natural lighting is against the light; this has a number of advantages including:

• The sun will outline the subject and act as a hair light
• The skin tones are much more even in the shade.

The hazards are:

• There may be some softening or lens flare from stray light getting into the lens.
• The faces in the shade may need some reflected or flash fill to be bright enough. I would recommend spot metering, but sometimes it is not enough.

What file type should I shoot? RAW vs. JEPEG

The two most common file types to shoot are, RAW (NEF on a Nikon) and JEPEG.

RAW files are large (14MB or bigger depending on the camera, too big to fit in most Emails), but they have several advantages.

1. They are clearer; I notice a difference in the hair and anything with transparency or reflection.
2. The color balance can be changed later.  The color balance is not “baked in” like other formats. These will be easier to work on in Photoshop or to fix a problem with white balance. The downside is that some RAW readers do not apply the in camera white balance settings and users will need to select a color profile to correctly see the color balance on the image.
3. They can be converted to other formats.
4. One photographer referred to RAW as an acquisition format; once all the adjustment was done he would deliver the image as JEPEG.
5. Not all photo programs recognize RAW files; Nikon ViewNX is available free and will let you view your RAW (NEF) files.

JEPEG is a smaller file size (the largest JEPEG from a Nikon D300 is about 7MB, which limits you to one image per Email).

1. On a Nikon you can change the file both the resolution and detail. This is handy to select a small file size before you shoot when you know that the photo will end up in an e-mail. It will save time compressing and resizing the file. In a pinch you can drop the file size if you are running out of memory space.
2. JEPEG are less flexible for editing or correcting the color.
3. They may capture slightly less detail than a RAW file.

I have spoken to Wedding photographers, and some shoot only RAW, others only JEPEG.

I had always shot large JEPEG, and today I have switched over to shooting RAW (NEF), I enjoy the quality of the image and that I can convert it easily to a smaller file 2-3MB to send in an Email. As memory becomes more affordable it makes sense to capture the image in the best quality. It may seem like a trivial decision, until you are looking at shooting 3-10,000 images on a trip or vacation. In the past I used JEPEG, today I would use RAW.

My camera allows me to shoot RAW and JEPEG at the same time. (And select the file size for the JEPEG). I am planning to use this for shooting my next event, I will collect the images in the best quality RAW, but will have JEPEG basic ( smallest)  files to e-mail or upload to Flicker. By shooting in both formats at the same time it saves the step of converting several hundred photos.

Review of new PhotoFast, Transcend and Sandisk cards

I am posting a link to a review of the new fast CF cards from PhotoFast , Transcend and SanDisk. While they are all good cards, I would like readers to keep in mind that the PhotoFast cards (sold here at our online store) are much less expensive, and competitively priced in Canada, (unlike some other brands in the test).

 

There is some great testing data, including how fast each of these cards is in different brands of camera. Note that the fastest card in your camera is not always the card with the highest speed rating.

 

The review, also tests several readers, a good reader is essential to getting the fastest download speed.

 

Here is the link.

 

 

Card Readers, getting the most speed out of you fast CF cards

Having a fast CF card, is not enough to get the highest download speed, here is what you should know about CF card readers.

1. USB card readers are limited to about 42/GB/s or about half the speed of current cards (80-90GB/s), but faster than your camera.

2. If you want fast, you will need reader that is UDMA and supports Mode 6.

3. Your options to go faster than USB, are different depending on your type of computer:

a. If you have a Mac, look at a Firewire reader
b. If you have a Mac or PC laptop with a PCMCIA slot a UDMA reader that fits here this is as good an option as #a
c. If you have a PC desktop, look at an E-SATA drive that will fit into either
i. A slot in the motherboard ( access via the rear of computer)
ii. A slot for an optical drive or 3.5 inch drive space
iii. Or in an external case

4. Drivers are important for card readers; some of the card readers are not yet compatible with the Apple Snow Leopard operating system.

5. If you are in a real hurry, there are E-SATA/ PCMCIA readers that take more than one card (2x or 4x) at the same time. It is recommended that you have really fast or solid state drives otherwise the write speed of the computer’s hard drive becomes the bottleneck.

Photographing one of the fastest drummers in the world

A friend of mine was organizing a Drum Clinic with some world class drum teachers and asked if I could take some shots.

Fast moving objects are a challenge for a photographer, and as I found out they do not get much faster than this.

The photo was taken from Nikon D300 on a tripod at ISO 3200 (1/100/sec). I used a remote shutter release to minimize camera shake. No flash was used.

I wanted to slow the action without completely freezing it. As I am taking the photos, I recognize the drummer Mike Mangini, from the Discovery Channel program, “Time Warp” (a program that uses high speed cameras to show what normally cannot be seen). The drummer holds a number of records for drumming speed. No wonder I had such a hard time to get a crisp shot.

Summer photos

As the days get colder, I look back on the best of the summer photos. This was taken with the camera almost at water level and using the pop up flash. 

There are two strategies, I have found to work well for photographing wake boarders.

The first is to shoot with the sun and use a high shutter speed (2000/sec or less) and a minimum aperture.

The second is to shoot against the sun and use a flash, this gives great colors, but you will be limited by the power of you flash as to how far off the back of the boat your subject is. In the above photo I am nearly close enough to touch the board. While most cases you will want to dial down the flash power, start at 0EV and dial up power till you get the effect you are looking for.