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!

The Bogen “Magic Arm”, it’s better than buying that new expensive camera!

We all dream of getting that camera which we think will completely revolutionize the way we take pictures.  You know the one.  It might be a full frame for some of us.  For others, it might be that 10 frame a sec machine that would enable us to capture that bird we have been after for months now.  I must thank some of the photographers out there who made me think differently about accessories.  Guys like Joe Mcnally use these things daily and the fact of the matter is, these accessories will allow you to create not only better photos, but different photos.  Show me a camera that out of the box, you can fasten to the side of a moving car!  That $8,000 DSRL might be nice, but you need something else to put that $8,000 DSLR in a place that will give you a truely different perspective.  I am talking about GRIP EQUIPMENT! 

I like to shoot a lot of creative type stock images for both my portfolio and hopefully for someone to pickup on the “micro stock market”.  It might pay pennies, but the reason why I shoot this stuff is for the pure fun and creativity that is involved.  One of the many aspects I love using in my images is motion.  Conveying motion is not a difficult aspect, but is one that can easily be captured in camera, without engineering it in photoshop.  Below is an image concept I borrowed and expanded on.  I wanted to make an image conveying the extreme sense of waste that americans have nowadays with money.  By taking a Bogen Magic Arm, fitted with a super clamp, I was able to mount my DSLR, a canon 40d, onto a corn broom handle. 

This stock image of a broom sweeping cash, couldn't have been possible to pull off in camera without the magic arm.

The bogen magic arm features multiple ball bearing joints that allow you to adjust and position anything from a flash to a camera.  The unit is rated to hold the weight of a DSLR.  There are 2 types.  One has a friction arm so that you can fine tune the position of your camera or flash, similar to the friction balheads used on tripods.  The one I use, locks into place solid.  I prefer this one, because I know it will not vibrate loose and move on me.   Since the end plate is equipped with 1/4″ or 3/8″ lighting studs, attaching a tripod plate is easy!  If you want to mount a flash, simply screw on one of the hotshoe mounts that come with your standard umbrella lightstand mounts.

 

This is how I attached my camera to the broom handle.

Sometimes you need to put a speedlight in a place that is just not feasible for a lightstand.  How about a shower?!  Below is the setup image for an image I made in a shower.

This shows the super clamp and how easily it can be fastened to a shower head!

 

Why would I want to put a speedlight in a shower you ask?

How else do you back light a subject while taking a shower?

The image below shows the mounting system of a speedlight to the magic arm.  The amazing thing is, all three joints are locked by 1 lever.

A simple hotshoe mount from an umbrella mount is all you need to mount a speedlight to the magic arm.

Creating My Own Sunlight!

orangesplash-web-5226, originally uploaded by craig.proulx.

I have wanted to do a set of the typical fruit splashing into water type shot for my commercial portfolio and to sell as a stock photo for quite a while now. Originally this was supposed to be shot outside on a birght sunny day when the sun was high in the sky. You think it would have been a much simpler setup, having no lights to setup, just the sun. I soon realized that factors such as the wind, and not being able to see the damn LCD screen on the back of the camera was just to overbearing for me to take. After about 500 images taken that day, I was not satisfied. I got nothing useable.

Then I though…”Why not make my own sun?”. Don’t get me wrong I am a big fan of natural light and doing things as simple as possible. For this type of shot however, a controled lightsource and environment is what I was going for. Off to the studio it is! I used the same concept but instead of using the sun as my main light, I used an alien bee 800 studio head above, and added a backlight to pop the detail in the orange. I then decided to add a third light as a kicker on to the left of the orange. I purposely kept the speedlights and the alien bee turned down on low power for not only the recycle time, but for the fast flash duration. It would be that quick duration that would freeze the motion that I was after. The whole thing was setup on a silver reflector to bounce light back up into the fruit and water. All the bubbles were created by dropping the orange slice into sparkling water. I used “Perrier” although, I know you can grab cheaper stuff at the grocery store. I knew I wanted a nice complimentary color to go with the orange so I chose green. I simply, scotch taped some green construction paper around the glass vase that I dropped the orange into.

 

 

The beauty of lighting this whole thing in the studio, was there was no wind, and I could use a 580EX set to master to pop both the slave flashes and the alien bee! No sync cords required. I keep trying to see what I can pull off without PocketWizards, but I do know that someday I am going to have to cave in and buy some. For now, mostly everything I do is done with the Canon wireless system. I prefer to use my speedlights on manual, because I can lock in their output and it won’t change due to ETTL. With a camera like the 40D, I can do right into the menu and tell each flash what to fire at. SO COOL! I cannot stress enough what a relief it was when I finally figured this out.

So, if your trying to shoot something and the sun isn’t cooperating or it’s too damn windy, just take it inside and make your own sun! Ok, so maybe this wouldn’t always work, but it is worth a try!

Craig