Playing with light II

My wife and her new hairdo, originally uploaded by Dave Romanis.

This other shot of my wife, Lou, was taken on the same day as this shot. I wanted a mixture of shots of her looking at the camera and away from the camera, as well as happy and 'blank' (rather than sad!)

I think this one is my favourite photo from the shoot. I was really pleased with the lighting set-up, which was to use both off-camera flashes and make them soft by putting them quite close to her. The Canon flash had a Lumiquest softbox on it and was pointing up towards her from about 3 feet away.

The second flash (the Pentax) had a mini umbrella mounted on it and was about 8 inches away from Lou's forehead shooting straight at her (my hand with the flash is just out of the shot, above the frame and just to the left of centre).

I started with an aperture of about f/10, but opened it wider until I got to f/6.3, which gave a really pleasing result. The 1/160th shutter speed was just enough to allow the grey wall to bleed into the shot, but if I had been able to shoot faster - say, a 1/1000th - I would've tried to blacken the wall completely. The triggers don't allow for anything faster than a 1/200th, unfortunately.

I really recommend getting a Strobella mini umbrella (link on the Flickr page for this photo) as it's such a handy and lightweight piece of kit (and at around 6" collapsed, it takes up little room in the kitbag).

Kit

I thought it would be useful to outline the kit I'm using instead of mentioning it each time.

I use a Canon 5D Mk III with a 24-105mm lens most of the time, but the 50mm f/1.4 is whipped out from time to time and when I'm feeling strong, the Sigma "Bigma" 50-500mm lens makes an appearance.

In my lens arsenal, I also pack a 100mm macro, a 17-40mm f/4 and a 70-200mm f/2.8 IS USM.

I have a number of flashes now, amassed over the years: a recently-purchased Canon 600EX-RT, a Canon 430EX, which I bought in NYC in '07, Pentax AF220T (a Christmas present from my parents YEARS ago) and a Vivitar 285HV, my Dad's old flash, which he got with a Pentax K1000 and 55mm f/2 lens in the mid-1970s.

For the off-camera flash action, I have some YongNuo RF-602/C triggers to replace my Cactus V2s (as they're more reliable than the Cactus triggers, which used to go off randomly).  I'm not a pro-shooter, so I don't really have the budget for PocketWizards or AlienBees. One day, perhaps.

I don't have a full studio set-up, so I've also got a number of flash modifiers instead: a Lumiquest 80-20 bouncer, a Lumiquest Mini Softbox and some home-made snoots.  I also bought a Strobella mini umbrella from http://www.strobella.com for a mere 7 Euros (about 11 Euros with delivery). I'd recommend getting one as a) they're cheap, b) they made shooting through an umbrella highly mobile and c) it looks like you've stolen Barbie's brolly. Hand-holding flash with this umbrella attached is simple and quick.  And you look silly, but don't let that bother you.

In the past, I have used a Canon EOS 5D Mk II, Canon EOS 10D and various Pentax film SLRs: Pentax K1000, P30, MZ-50 and MZ-M.  I also have an array of 'weird' cameras - lomo stuff like a Lubitel 166B TLR camera and a Zero Image pinhole camera - and a medium format Mamiya 645AF, which I've always wanted.  I use it rarely, so it might be on eBay soon.

Playing with light

My wife and her new hairdo, originally uploaded by Dave Romanis.

Ever since I found the Strobist web site, I've been hooked on flash photography, especially off-camera, multiple-flash photography.

This shot is part of a photoshoot I did today (June 5, 2010) with my obliging wife as the subject.

I used both flashes with a couple of modifiers I have collected over the years. Most recently, I bought a Strobella mini umbrella from www.strobella.com which is a comical bit of kit - I'm sure I'd be sniggered at in professional circles for having this overgrown cocktail umbrella sticking out of my flash, but I didn't care.

The umbrella came with its own velcro strap which is used to attach the umbrella to the front of the flash. I was hand-holding the flash so the highly mobile umbrella is very useful.

The second flash - the Canon 430EX - was sitting on a chair to the right of Lou with a Lumiquest mini softbox attached to spread the light a bit more (and soften it as well). I chose to shoot it through a makeshift 'cookie' to produce the effect on the wall behind Lou and with the wider spread it also provided a little bit of hairlight.

I handheld the umbrella'd Pentax flash high and left of Lou and around 2 feet away to make the light as soft as possible. The umbrella is nothing to be scoffed at; it really spreads the light nicely and in this shot, it provided a lovely soft light on Lou's hair, shoulder and neck.

I applied the sepia and vignette effects in Lightroom and cropped it to put Lou vaguely in the centre, but no sharpening was needed as I'd used the Live View mode on the 5D (using a tripod) to fine tune the focus at f/16. My F-Stop iPhone app (very useful) told me that the depth of field at f/16 was going to be around 40cm at 55mm focal distance - the 5D on the tripod was only 1m to 1.5m away from Lou.

I was happy with the result and this is one of my favourites from the shoot. I REALLY need some light stands though!

RomanisWorld

I'm not an obsessive blogger, but ever since I blogged my driving lessons in 2009/early 2010, I got the bug and find it quite useful a) to continue writing in an informal style, b) to remember things I'm likely to forget and c) to share with others, if they're/you're interested.

The fact that you're here is encouraging. Take a seat, relax, enjoy.

What is the blog about? Anything, really, but mainly photography at the moment. I've recently discovered the blog facility on Flickr (which I DO use obsessively) and would like to make more use of it.

So here it is - hope you enjoy what I post.