WWII Re-Enactors strobist shoot fun

My Photo; My Comment. No Responses »
Aug 012009
3757746163 407bee0134 m WWII Re Enactors strobist shoot fun


Last weekend our DFW Midcities Strobist Meetup Group had a fun and interesting strobist outing shooting a few local WWII re-enactors. Lynn and Dean are long time players while Zack and Zane were a member’s teenage sons were conscripted into the German Army for the event.

As a photographer I thought I had a lot of gear; man these guys had more toys than any man should be allowed to own. A full sized anti-tank canon, land mines, machine guns, pistols , camouflage nets, manikins, road signs, barbed wire and on and on and on.

10 strobists, 4 actors, 5 acres of land and toys! We had a blast.

See more of my photos, including behind the scenes shots, here. To see all the uploaded photos by members of the groups go here.

WWII Re-Enactors 112

WWII Re-Enactors 117

-- Weather When Posted --

  • Temperature: 93°F;
  • Humidity: 44%;
  • Heat Index: 97°F;
  • Wind Chill: 93°F;
  • Pressure: 30 in.;

Posted by Ray at 5:23 pm

Strobist ballhead and umbrella test

Lighting tests Comments Off
May 042009
3493512371 076561ff9d m Strobist ballhead and umbrella test

In Joe McNally‘s CLS video it showed him using a ballhead to align the flashhead along the umbrella stem axis. Made sense that it would distribute the light more evenly; so I bought the rig. Here’s the test results – you decide.

As pointed out in the note above, I forgot the diffuser.

Single SB800 set to TTL into Wescott 42″ shoot through umbrella.

The ballhead is the Manfrotto Lite Tite Swivel+Umbrella Adapter 26
The coldshoe is the Stroboframe Shoe-type Flash Mount Cat. No 300-SHO

I consider this as a ‘nice to know’ experiment only. With the inherent spill associated with shoot through umbrellas and with the difusser on the speedlight the coverage appears to be good. One additional advantage I found with the ballhead set is the ability to quickly rotate the flash body to align the IR sensor to face the camera.

I’ll know better after I field test it.

3493654589 a843384855 m Strobist ballhead and umbrella test

Sideview

Sideview

-- Weather When Posted --

  • Temperature: 31°F;
  • Humidity: 75%;
  • Heat Index: 30°F;
  • Wind Chill: 25°F;
  • Pressure: 30.48 in.;

Posted by Ray at 8:02 am

Hassled by the Washington, DC Park Rangers for taking photos

Places, Rant 5 Responses »
Dec 172008

I’ve spent the last three days here in Washington, DC on business. Meetings with the Emily at the WW II MonumentFAA, HHS and the WAAS office. Long times between meetings and I’ve been done pretty early in the day. So, I placed a casting call on ModelMayhem to see if I could pass the time doing what I like to do, take pictures. 5 or 6 TFCD models responded and I set up sessions with two of them. As my luck would have it – both at the same time. That wasn’t a problem for me (read assistant) or them though so we met at my hotel and headed for the National Mall to shoot. The plan was to use the monuments as the background. Sounded way cool.

We chose the new WW II monument because it had a nice water fountain. We got there around 7pm, good light, not huge crowds. As one model was getting her ticket from the Park Police (wrong way on a One Way street) the other model (Emily) and I set off to set up and shoot along the granite outside wall of the monument. I Danielle 087 Hassled by the Washington, DC Park Rangers for taking photosused 2 SB800s, at first to fill then to light her. Nikon CLS is so cool. So far so good. I get about a dozen shots off when the other model, Danielle walked up. She dismissed the ticket as part of life in DC and we starting posing her along the same wall Emily had used. About 10 minutes later I hear:

Sir – Sir:

Click to continue reading “Hassled by the Washington, DC Park Rangers for taking photos”

-- Weather When Posted --

  • Temperature: 93°F;
  • Humidity: 44%;
  • Heat Index: 97°F;
  • Wind Chill: 93°F;
  • Pressure: 30 in.;

Posted by Ray at 6:09 pm

Using the Nikon Creative Lighting System

My Photo; My Comment. No Responses »
Aug 052008
2661837751 771b9eb490 m Using the Nikon Creative Lighting System

This photograph was taken using a Nikon D-300, the Nikkor 28-70 f2.8 and 2 SB800s. One SB800 was placed high picture right behind Emily the other was hand held slightly high picture left above her head. Although I have the equipment to mount the flashes to either an umbrella or softbox, this session was done with only the Nikon defusser on one of the strobes.

I am becoming a real fan of the Nikon Creative Lighting System (CLS) and the ability to control the SB-800s using the Commander mode on the D300. I’ve now used them in studio sessions as fill or hair lights, outdoors from as far as 30 feet away or the sole source of light as in this photograph.

The two cautions when using the system is to remember to have the sensor facing toward the camera and don’t step to far in front of the flashes. I spent nearly 10 minutes on one outdoor shoot trying to figure out why the flash wouldn’t fire, gave up and realized, the next day, that I had the IR receiver facing away from the camera.

CLS is a great tool, take the time to learn it.

Read about us being hassled by the Park Rangers in Washington, DC during this shoot.

Also see Damien Franco’s expansion of my photo tip about Seeing the Shadows over at www.yourphototips.com.

-- Weather When Posted --

  • Temperature: 81°F;
  • Humidity: 71%;
  • Heat Index: 85°F;
  • Wind Chill: 81°F;
  • Pressure: 30.02 in.;

Posted by Ray at 6:45 am
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