That sinking feeling

That sinking feeling
Originally uploaded by Andrew David Photography

This is a test... I have a lot more to say.

Day 36

So... I can tell you that almost no planning went into either of these other than I had a pose in mind based on the location. The rest was just wondering how it would look using the flash. Another plus here for using a speed light off camera with wireless triggers.
I just wondered what this would look like with flash while snowing. I honestly forgot that the flash would light up every single snow flake like some kind of little nuclear reactor. All in all I dont think its horrible but its not exactly what I saw in my head. Anyway... I should have taken a setup shot just because it was funny. The camera is on a tripod sitting in my house so as not to get covered in snow. It's pointed out the front door with the door wide open so my house is heating the neighbor hood. The flash is on a stand to the right of the picture (covered in a stuff-mart bag) shooting into my 45" silver umbrella. Im sure the neighbors think I'm nuts since I was running back and forth from my open front door to the tree and then POP! the flash would go off.

Details: 20-135mm lens @ 38mm, ISO:100, f/4.0 @ 125sec shutter speed
Strobist: 580exII @ full power camera right shooting into a 45" silver umbrella about head hight and 8 feet away.

I didn't intend this one to be black and white but as I got to working with it, that was the best choice just based on othe over all mood. I did this at the base of my stairs with the flash out side shooting through the front door. Again... I just wanted to see how that would look. I had hoped maybe I could create a "light through the window" look but thats not what happened.... at least I don't think.
Both of these are "just shoot something" shots. I get sick if sitting and even more sick of hearing myself complain that I don't know what to do or what to shoot so I did both of these in about 45 minutes. Of course I took several shots, these were just the ones I decided were OK enough to show.

Here is the setup shot for the image above. Nothing changed and I didn't shut off the other lights. Keeping the shutter speed up to 1/250 pretty much means I am only going to get the light from the flash. The camera was just to the left of this shot on a tripod.

Details: 20-135mm lens @ 28mm, ISO:100, f/4.5 @ 1/250sec shutter speed.
Strobist: 580exII camera left @ 1/4 power shot into a 45" silver umbrella shooting through my front door about 4 feet from me.

Day 22

Day 22. I decided to try more with the back lighting. I didn't want to shoot at the ceiling again so tried something another idea. I originally was only trying to create a silhouette with the back ground blown out. I couldn't quite get it. I may just not have enough power from the speed-light to do it. Have to experiment more. So I scraped that and sorta went back to the Day19 look. However this time, instead of the light on a stand blasting the wall and ceiling I took the white sheet that I have been using and tacked it up to the ceiling so it would hang down. I first tried the light behind the sheet on a shelf but that didn't work well. So, what did work pretty well was taking the light off the stand, using the little foot that comes with the speed light and placing it on the chair directly behind me. This is why I love wireless triggers and speed-lights. I couldn't get as much dispersion as I would like so I tried using the fold out grid dispersion that comes built in with it and viola! it worked pretty well. This is pretty heavily edited in LR3beta so check out the before shot. I used PhotoShop Elements ONLY to add the text and scale down the image. LR was used for everything else. This is viewed best large on black. Enjoy!

Details: Canon 20-135mm "kit" lens @ 56mm f/10 and 1/250sec on tripod. ISO:100
Strobist info: 580exII at 1/1 (full) power bare directly behind me. Silver reflector on stand camera right. Triggered via RadioPopper JRx studios.


Before post process (PP) in LightRoom3beta

Day 20 and 21

Day 20: Its late and I'm sick so I may not have much to say here. I love shooting my daughter. She has had the camera in her face from day one and she always looks right at it. Makes things easy.... plus she cant run away yet. I shot this with my 50mm prime (like I do most everything else) because I just love it. Its a great lens for $400 bucks and I personally think should be in every Canon owners bag. Its just fun. The fantastic plastic 50mm f/1.8 is also a great lens for a hundred bucks, I'm told. Judging from what Rosina Waszaj does I would say so. She's a great photographer that makes every day life a thoughtful and beautiful photograph. You should check her work out.

Day 20 Details: 50mm set to f/2.8 @ 1/60sec hand held. ISO: 100

Strobist info: 580exII at 1/8 power shot into a 45" white umbrella camera right. Triggered via RadioPopper JRx studios. Silver reflector camera left of the subject. PP done with LR3beta



Day 21: Same setup as above, I'm just a little further back and to the right.Yes she's wearing the same outfit and yes I took these the same day. On day 21.. I think. Both of these have low f stops because I want to try to blur as much as I can behind her while still getting the exposure I want. She is not that far away and I cant move her any further forward from it because I am using one light source and I want to light up as much as I can behind her too. If I move her forward I also have to move my flash and then the background will begin to darken. If I increase my flash power then I risk over exposing her. And I am pushing it as it is.

Details: 50mm at f/2.2 @ 1/250sec hand held. ISO:100
Strobist info: 580exII at 1/8 power shot into a 45" white umbrella camera right. Triggered via RadioPopper JRx studios. Silver reflector camera left of the subject.


Setup Shot. Click to see larger.

Day... 12 and er, 19.

So I got this wonderful thing called a Trojan on my PC. Think Trojan horse. It was called H8RST and sadly im not sure how it got there and dont care... it took me several days and many searches to get rid of it. Constant pop-up's, slow buggy computer and then, for the last two days WinXP decides I dont need a mouse any more. Thanks. May or may not have been related to the Trojan but dont know. Never the less, here we go again many days behind schedule.

Day 12 Details: 50mm f/1.4 lens / ISO:100 / f3.4 @ 1/250sec with 1 580exII @ 1/16 power shot into a 45" Westcott silver umbrella. PP in LR3beta.

This was the last picture I took before the PC got infested. Yes, the sweater is tucked in. I was desperate to shoot something, I was still in my work clothes and it was late. This was all I could come up with before bed. Its also the first time I tried to setup a shot and then step in front of the lens with it pre-focused. I dont think it totally sucked but my left hand is a bit fuzzy... aside from the hair. I should have taken a picture of the setup because it was rediculous.

 Since I didnt have my wireless triggers AND I didnt want to bounce the flash off the ceiling I improvised. I kept the flash on the camera and pointed it backwards into my silver 45" umbrella that was sitting on a seperate stand.

Day 19 Details: 50mm f/1.4 lens / ISO:100 / f1.8 @ 1/250sec with 1 580exII @ 1/16 power. Bare flash on stand behind me pointed at the ceiling. 45" Silver reflector in my hands for face fill. PP in LR3beta.

So now I have right sync cable thanks to Lon at FlashZebra.com and now I can use my flash off camera, as Zach Arias says, "The way God intended it to be". Flash in general is tricky although things like TTL for film SLRs and ETTL for digital SLR's have made things much, much simpler for proper flash exposure. The problem is this only works off camera if you want to a) spend tons of money on wireless triggers that will send the TTL info to the flash no matter where you put it or b) spend money on really long hot shoe cables that limit your range of motion and how far you can be from the flash. ETTL is also not that consistent. The other option is to set everything manually on the camera and flash and use a dumb trigger like the basic PocketWizards or the RadioPopper JRx that I have. I went with the RP triggers for price. They are half the cost of the PW's and have, at this point, proven just as reliable in the field based on reviews. So back to my point... flash is tricky, off camera flash is really, really tricky. Especially when its late, your tired and your stuck in your basement to shoot.

So, the shot. I took many, many pictures. Silver umbrella, white umbrella, from the right, with a reflector without a reflector. Happy face, sad face, serious face. Turn this way turn that way. Didnt like any of them. Last attempt was this. Bare flash on the stand behind me pointed at the ceiling with me holding the silver reflector for face fill. I was trying to look intimidating more than creepy but I like it over all.When I saw the picture Devil Inside by INXS was the first thing that came to my mind so I went with it.

Days 9 10 and 11

I finally get time to update... three days late. So here we go, days 9, 10 and 11. (Full disclosure: These were all shot on the same day. This 365 may just be a 365 days of new photos uploaded and discussed.)
 I'll start with 10 9 since its the most relevant to the picture to the left. What you see to the left is how things were setup. I shot the other two pictures in the exact same spot but Day 9 gives you a really good idea of what the camera does not show and how flash changes everything.

Ill start at the beginning. I don't have my off camera triggers yet so I have my speed light on camera but set to manual. This is in our basement that has really low white ceilings so I knew I could bounce the light off ceiling making it my large light source for the room, which is small. Bouncing the light from a ceiling will help to soften shadows and eliminate or at least lesson the "point and shoot" pop-up flash look. Next you will see a dark line in the lower left at the corner of the stripped edge of the mat. That's the edge of a reflector and I used this to help direct the light from the ceiling onto the front of the monkey. Its a Westcott 5 in 1 Photo Basics. In this case I was using the silver side because I wanted a sharper light to help bring out the highlights on the.. uh, fur. I have it facing the front of the subject to help lesson the shadows I knew I was going to get from the light coming straight down off the ceiling. The last part is the white(ish) bed sheet. This would be the poor mans white seamless backdrop. :) The sheet helps to bounce light around the subject, reflect up on the subject and throw a little more light at the reflector as well as making a nice clean backdrop. Ironing it would have helped but it was late, I was lazy and I knew I could pretty well over expose the the sheet without killing the subject and keep a shallow depth of field to get rid of most of the shadow lines from the wrinkles. Next time however, I will iron it.


Day 9 Details: Canon 50mm f/1.4, ISO:100, f/2.8 @ 1/250sec (I'll try to remember the strobe settings for next time)

9. I don't think it turned out to bad over all. I did have to bring up the exposure a bit in LightRoom because my lack of ironing and my flash being limited to sitting on my camera created a few shadows from wrinkles. I also learned how much I want a new IPS based LCD and calibration software. It took me several tries and then uploads to Flickr to (mostly) get rid of the lines and shadows in the back ground. I couldn't see them in LR but once uploaded and viewed through a web browser they showed up. I kept tweaking the exposure to lessen them or eliminate them.

UPDATE: 1/13/2010. Ugh... now that I am at work and looking at this I can see I didn't get rid of the shadows as much as I thought. Really, really need a good monitor and calibration tools.


Day 10 Details: Canon 50mm f1.4, ISO: 100, F1.4 @ 1/250sec

10. This has become my favorite photo to date for the simple fact that I (mostly) intended it to look like it does. This is the first photo of a person (my lovely wife) where I directed them on how I wanted them to pose and composed a shot. I knew I wanted a shallow depth of field so her lips would be the thing in focus. If I had it to do over I would have more of her left eye in the shot more but over all I am pretty happy considering the location. I cropped it to a 16x9 aspect (just like the monkey) because I am somewhat obsessed with that style right now. The setup is the same as above, exact same spot other than I am using the gold side of the reflector to warm up the light hitting the subject and I am holding it to the left of the camera just out of the frame. So its closer than it was to the monkey.


Day 10 Details: Canon 50mm f1.4, ISO: 100, F1.8 @ 1/250sec 

11. Same as above... same location. I have a few more shots like this on my Flickr page but this one I chose for my 365. I really liked her hair and the black ear-ring against the white background. The one thing I did different here is held the reflector directly in front of her. If I had it to do over I would have held it much closer... or had her hold it. That could have worked too. The shadows were softend under her neck but not eliminated. I dont think they look bad but I would have liked them gone better.

What I learned.... do something, anything to shoot. Experiment. I had read about using a sheet out doors here at DPS and figured it would work well indoors too. I Think it worked pretty well. It took a few tries before I was happy with the exposure but once I was happy I only took a few shots. I need to shoot more and move around a little more. On camera flash makes this a little harder because any time you move so does the flash and then your flash to subject distance is changing and can cause everything to be over or under exposed. The final thing that motivated me to do this was this blog entry from Chase Jarvis. If your into photography you should follow this guy and keep an eye on his blog.

365 Day 8

I was outside shoveling and the sun broke through the clouds. That doesnt happen to often here. I went running inside for the camera and caught this at around 11:30am. Click  it for the larger version.

Details: Canon 50mm f/1.4. ISO:200, F22 @ 1/100.