Don't get run over!

I thought I would talk about this shot. It's not perfect and the young lad in the photo is not a model. However, I like the shot. Here is how I did it.

Umbrella cam left with a Sony 58 flash fired through it at full power. Camera set to manual at f4 @ 35mm and 1/4000. Simple if you camera can do high speed sync.



Now get back to work.

Hutch

It's been a while!

Well folks, summer is over and with it the wedding season is coming to a close. Still a few hole is the calender for fall... but for the most part weddings are done for the year. Now, it's time to have some fun with some of the projects I have been dreaming up.

The first thing I would like to talk about in "Blog" form today is Sony and it's off camera flash system. Now... Sony has some great tech, like their TV's and their digital camera sensors that are used in Nikon and Pentax cameras. But I wan to talk about Sony's Flash system. First off, their flash system is super great, but does not have a lot of support from 3rd part manufacturers like Pocket Wizard. You need special hotshoe adapters and a lot of patients.

Enter Sony's off camera flash solution.... the pop up flash. It is able to transmit an IR signal to a whole pile of Sony flashes (36,42,56,58 models) and even a few of the older Minolta flashguns (3600d 5600d and with a little soldering the 5400hs) But how good it is and how do you keep the pop up flash from appearing in the final shot.

First... I have fired the pop up flash on both my a200 and a350 at a distance of 80ft outside and over 100ft indoors to triggered 4 Sony/Minolta flashes. Not bad for line of sight. But what if you need a flash befind you or two in front and two behind you. Well... try it... You might need to bounce the IR off of something... like your hand... but I haven't missed yet with the system.

Second... How do I keep the pop up from showing in the final image? Well...the magic of HSS. High Speed Sync. I am not going to go into how it works and how the flash actually flashes, that's a job for Google. But I will say that if you don't want your pop up flash to show in your final image... you need to push the shutter speed faster then 1/200 of a second. This will null the pop up. I will also say that you need to play with this and understand that this is super hard on your flash(es) and the recycling times will take a huge hit. You may also need to play with your f-stop and ISO levels to refine the image.

Here are some shots that use the Sony Strobist tech:


--one flash fired by the camera HSS at 1/2power. Flickr photo here



-- two flashes fired by the camera. 42 full power bare cam right 40ft behind subject, Sony 36 TTL left 25ft behind cam bare bounced off wall.

Simply amazed by how far I can trigger none-line of site with the Sony System. Flickr photo here


AND FINALLY



-- two flashes. sony 42 TTL through ST umbrella behind cam left, sony 36 TTL bare flash into wall cam right. Flickr photo here



So, as you can see, you can create some very different looks quickly with Sony's pop up IR system. Now... go try it and see what you can turn up.

Thanks, talk to you soon and somebody tell David Hobby how awesome he is for all the inspiration!

Chuck Palahniuk Tell All Tour 2010 : Flickr and the power of Facebook.

Chuck Palahniuk Tell All Tour 2010 Calgary

So, I have been reading Chuck Palahniuk for many years now. I got started on his work after a view of Fight Club and wanted to see what else this fellow had written. A couple of years ago he came to a local Chapters / Indigo and read from one of his books, however, I learned of this 2 hours after the event.

Thanks to my lovely wife Josephene, I learned he was coming to town to read from his latest book "Tell All". I got excited and booked a ticket over the phone with Calgary's Wordfest.

I poked around his site and the Wordfest Calgary site and found that there was a Flickr group dedicated to event photos from his reading all across north America. Naturally, I joined this group.

May 12th, they day of the event, I couldn't decide if bringing a camera would be a good idea or not. I could see myself getting mugged and having to explain to my wife that someone has made off with a Sony Alpha: and it has your Mother's Day Photos on it! However.... 90% of the bad things a person can think up will never ever in a million years happen.... so I brought along the a200 and a 75-300mm to see what I could get.

Now, having never been to Calgary's Central Library or the John Dutton Theater, I had no idea of the layout but I know it would be dark in the audience and light on stage. With that in mind I figured if I exposed for the stage lighting I would manage to exact some nice exposures. But the audience would be black dog at night dark.

Sure enough the place was a buzz with people getting their seats, their books personalized by the man himself and people sitting, nosing through their signed copy of Tell All. I took a quick snap with the iPhone just to get something up on Flickr quick and let the world know... Stick Out Your Face Photography was on happily waiting to hear Chuck speak.

I found a spot mid way into the seats and on the extreme left. A perfect point to not bother people but have a clear view of the whole stage. I sat next to wonderful ladies who asked if I was from the Newspaper. I said "No, but I am a photographer and huge fan of Chuck Palahniuk!"

Now, I will not bore you with the details of the night. But it came down to me taking pictures in the dark and having a great time.




It was great. We played games. Chuck read a story that will turn up in the December issue of Playboy. Then an interview. Then Q&A. Then more games. Then bye bye!

Shows over folks.... everybody go home. So I did... with a little over 110 frames on the camera, a book and a 4 foot tall inflatable award. (You had to be there)

The next day I was wondering what to do with all this stuff. So I fired up the laptop and dropped 6 pictures onto the Tell All Flickr group and see what happened. And not much did happen, so I let my Facebook friends know I had pictures from the night on flickr. I also put it up in his facebook fan page. Then I tweeted Chuck himself tell him I had pictures up on flickr. Then... I left it for about an hour. I guess during that time Mr. Palahniuk tweeted about the pictures. Well all hell broke loose and the traffic to my pictures went through the roof. By 11pm May 13th over 1100 view of the 9 photos. That's a big deal to me! So thanks Chuck for the boast.

Now.... for some reason I check out his website chuckpalahniuk.net and there to my astonishment was one of my pictures fro the night before!

I was very excited. Thank you for the exposure. Now if I can just get him to send me a t-shirt.

Facebook Friending Week Rampage

So, not so much of a photography post. Just something I woke up on Monday and felt like doing. I logged into Facebook and posted "Screw it, I am friending everybody" And thats what I did. The little suggestion tab on the side had a few suggestions to I took Facebook up on it and just kept hitting Friend untill there was no one left to friend on the list. Facebook had run out. The result... 30+ new connections in under 24hrs. I went from 156 to 209 this week. Some of the people I know... some not. Didn't matter, all of these new friend are people who touch the lives of my close friends and that is awesome to see all these new conntections.

I started a Facebook page to showcase fun things for social networking

Check out my fun Facebook Page for Stick Out Your Face Photography
Then go friend me at Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/stickoutyourface

Photoshop CS5 "Skynet goes self aware"

Strobist Tech for event photography.

I was asked about a month ago to come and shoot a big honking birthday party. About 200 guests. Big... bigger then most weddings. Anyhow, I have been using strobes on camera for a while now and wanted to have an off camera set up for this job. So... I set up a shooting gallery. What it consisted of was 2 light stands, 2 Sony flashes, 2 flash head mounts and one shoot through umbrella. Then as people walked into the zone of happiness... I could have them pose with their family or sit or just look cool and have there portrait taken. Next time you have an event... let www.stickoutyourfacephotography.com set up a shooting gallery for you and get pictures of friends and family worth putting up at an art show.