Hummingbird Studio!

20090815-hummingbirdpanosetup, originally uploaded by craig.proulx.

I recently got the chance to setup and play with the hummingbird studio I have test out all summer. With the help of my father, we had a pivoting bracket madeup by a local metal shop. The beauty of the bracket is that it is fully adjustable! You can use it in many different ways, even as a macro light directly affixed to a camera body! I hate being stingy on info, but I don’t want to give away the details just yet, as he might decide to patten and market it in the near future! The studio itself is basically a bunch of speedlights (580ex, old 550’s, 540ez’s) setup in front of our muslim aka little piece of foamcore clamped to the side of a gazebo where there is a feeder setup. People think we are crazy for having over 12 flashes between the two of us, but surprisingly, you can find these perfectly older units that have been slightly used or sometimes even brand new for very cheap money. In most cases you don’t need to concern yourself with TTL because the best way to do a lot of this strobist stuff is on manual anyway. These older flashes, while they may not have the latest and greatest technology, can still act as slaves from masters such as 550’s or 580’s. We chose to use a 3 way sync cord, in comination with the wireless feature for this setup. As you can see, two of the flashes have battery packs, which are nothing more than 8 additional AA’s connected to the flash. It greatly increase the recycle time, and I swear by these things when doing weddings! For those of you wondering about the batteries themsleves, please note that I am relatively new to the rechargable battery world. However, I have been successfully using the duracell NI-MI AA’s and have no issues. You want to make sure you buy the pre-charged ones, though, because there are two different types of rechargables. One is a slow discharge and one is a fast discharge. In a nutshell, one type will stay charged for months at a time when not being used, while another type will only last a week or so before draining down. I found out the hard way, but luckily not on a paid job! The reason now for all those flashes is to freeze motion. I have to admit that I am not completely satisfied with my photos, but a lot is due to the fact that I believe I had some stray ambien light in the frame, that I failed to notice. These flashes have something that higher powered studio lights don’t…shorter flash durations! In fact, when I added an alien bee 800 to the background, the longer duration of the alien bee caused even more ghosting than I had without! When trying to freeze something like a hummingbird, the most important thing is flash duration. Keep all the power dialed down as much as possible. Even 1/128 power if you can! In this case, we wanted plenty of coverage to really bring out all angles and sides of the bird. Side lighting and backlighting, also provides separation from the background. The shutter only has to be set at your sync speed, and no faster! Some manual focus these shots, but I find the autofocus to work very well. Hummingbirds usually come into feed and then backoff a couple of inches from the feeder where they hover before going back in to feed. It is at this hover point where I will lock my focus and wait until they return to this postion before tripping the shutter. I must appologize for again not having the best example to show you, but I thought this was a fun experiement and now I know exactly where I want my improvements! Remember, you really need to watch any stray ambient light. Your exposure should be a nearly completely black frame without your flashes going off. Ambient light will cause ghosting. Set your shutter to near sync, and find an f stop that will kill this light. Position your lights, meter them, and wait! Below is my panorama of a hummingbird sequence. It is composed of 3 separate exposures. Next year, I will try and nail it in one. Don’t know if it’s possible but, I am sure gonna try!

Babies Babies and More Babies!

Up Close and Personal!

I don’t do a lot of baby portraits, but when I do, I must say that I am very lucky because the little ones seem to be just drawn to me and the camera.  This series of images is from a recent session with three different babies.  I was blessed to shoot in one of my favorite locations, a cottage that by itself, is a nice little portrait studio.  It features white walls, ceilings, and gorgeous light at almost anytime of day.  No need to setup lights.  I simply just bounce the flash and drag the shutter to get a nice soft, flat, light.  The ambient build up quite nicely and works as a great rims light if positioned correctly.  This little girl just loved the camera.  I was down at floor level, and just let her crawl towards me.  I was amazed at how close she got!  I had a 24-70 lens on a 40d body.  I know it is a goofy shot, but the awkward head size and expression sold me.  Normally, I shoot RAW.  In this situation, the lighting was so consistant and simple, I decided to shoot JPEG’s to save space on my cards.  I personally, love my images to jump with color right from the camera.  My simple way of doing this is by using the built in profiles that the camera has called “Picture Styles”.  I always leave my camera set on “landscape” as it gives me a nice combination of sharpness, and saturation, right out of camera.  I always try and go for warm, colorful skin tones, but always try to keep them somewhat in line.  I also, usually set my kelvin in camera to warm up the flash a little.  The next two images were shot using a 70-200 IS lens.  I was able to back up a little and throw the background out of focus.  To sum up all of this, when you are blessed with decent light, keep it simple and use your surroundings.  They can be walls, ceilings, or floors.   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Baby Paige Christening

Canon 40D with 24-70MM f2.8L lens. Canon 580EX, stroboframe, with stofen diffuser.

I was asked this past weekend to shoot a baby Christening.  Once again, the pressure was on to get some decent photos with little light, and a difficult angle.  This photo is of baby Paige and her godfather Jaime.  I liked this composition and moment the best out of all the shots I had taken.  To balance with ambient, I chose a shutter speed of  1/40 sec at F4.5.  I used my typical “event” shooting setup for this:  a 580ex mounted on a stroboframe with a stofen diffuser.  Getting the flash above the camera is key to avoiding red eye.  I always do a custom white balance for the flash, because I like my photos warm.  With consist light, the easiest way for me to shoot is in manual, controlling the background with ISO and shutter and flash with aperture.  I don’t usually do events like this, but it is a great opportunity to challenge myself and to try and be as creative as possible on the spot.

High Speed Sync and Graduation!

So my wonderful girlfriend Courtney graduated from College a couple of weeks ago.  It was a long hard journey for her, and having a photographer boyfriend, she knew that I would be there with my camera being all “creepy” (she calls it)  and such.  After arriving at the arena super early to get as close as I could to the stage, I was in a position to get a clear shot of her as she received her dimploma and shook hands with the college chancellor.  I had my camera mounted on a tripod, along with a 580EX with an external battery pack.  After getting a feel for the ambient light (very crappy sports type lighting), I threw the camera in aperture priority mode and pretty much let the flash do all the work.  I was using a 70-200mm lens zoomed all the way out.  The flash carried itself nicely all the way out to 200mm.  The only other thing I did was dial in some -EV for the background, but besides that I got my one shot that I had hoped for.

Canon EOS40D with EF70-200 f2.8LIS Exposure: 1/200 F4.5 ISO 800

After the ceremony was finished it was time to snap a couple of quick photos with family outside.  The sun was high in the sky, and there were people everywhere.  There was no where to really retreat where there was a nice looking background.  My quick solution was to throw the camera into f2.8, crop in tight, and make use of that special high speed sync feature on the 580ex.  I don’t regularly use this feature, but in this instance the camera was giving me a 1/800 shutter speed.  The high speed sync worked excellent, acting simply as a fill flash.  Not my idea of a perfect photo by any means, but certainly better than an average snapshot, especially in a quick and crowded situation.

–Craig