Comments on: workshop views: California ’09

By: Kim

Kim — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 20:28:12 +0000

Neil,

I missed your WS last year, and was so glad I could make it this year. You’re really a good teacher, and the workshop has been an eye-opening experience for me. The practice session is awesome, the models are gorgeous and very easy to work with. The group is fun, and I had captured some images that I can be proud of … ;) Looking forward to using flash everyday now …

By: Neil

Neil — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 22:16:40 +0000

Marcia ..

The trick there is, if you can’t even out the shadows nicely with tungsten-gelled flash .. is to change your settings so that the flash completely dominates. This is most easily done by raising your shutter speed.

I think the idea of a regular group getting together to practice, is wonderful. And it wouldn’t hurt anyone pocket if everyone chipped in to pay a model.

It really is the only way to improve as a photographer .. practice a lot! : )

Neil vN

By: marcia

marcia — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 21:46:03 +0000

Neil: Like Ben, I also learned a lot during the workshop and a group of us are planning to get together periodically to practice the techniques we learned. I think one of my favorite parts of the workshop was trying to overcome the harshness of the “video” light that you had trained on Sivan. Thanks for a truly great workshop.

marcia

By: Neil

Neil — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 14:58:40 +0000

Hi there Ben, it was good to meet you and Kenneth. I’m glad the workshop was of huge benefit to you. But you’re right .. it’s going to need practice from here on, and application of the techniques.

best

Neil vN

By: Ben Hui

Ben Hui — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 06:01:48 +0000

Hi Neil,
It was great meeting you last Friday (finally) and sharing those “aha” moments together.
Actually, before those “aha” moments, there were lots a “Damn” and “S###” moments when I was struggling with the settings and trying to apply what you said in the morning. None of my pictures are as good as yours but I am getting a hang of it now. My confident level is getting higher and I believe with some more practice sessions on my own (or with some seminar classmates), I should yield better pictures on my next photo event.
Once again, thank you for the great seminar and hope to see you again in SF or the Silicon Valley.

Ben

By: Derrick

Derrick — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 22:38:24 +0000

On the Nikon SB-800 this is for “Auto FP High-Speed Sync Mode” and this automatically kicks in when the camera’s shutter speed is set higher than the sync shutter speed. I leave this on, but it should not have had any effect given my shutter speeds maximum (with one test exception) was 1/200. I think the Auto Fp High-Speed Sync kicks in over 1/200.

By: olympus_fotograph

olympus_fotograph — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 20:08:41 +0000

hey derrick,
why do you use Focal Plane on your Flash when you shoot in lights given by candles?
peter

By: Derrick

Derrick — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 19:22:59 +0000

Thanks James Johnson.

To answer a couple of your questions, my camera was in manual mode but my flash was in TTL/FP and generally pointed over my left shoulder at about 120 deg and up about 45deg. I was riding my flash exposure quite a bit but could not seem to get a consistent read on it as I moved around the 4 sides of the table.

I wasn’t really using the birthday cake candle as lighting but the two main candlesticks on the table were certainly a major source of light for our eyes and I was looking to capture that in the photos. Unfortunately my results were spread across the board. The “bright” shots did not appear over exposed as photos go. They look OK and look as if they were taken with the kitchen lights on. The do not appear washed out, etc. They are just not the intimate lighting I was looking for.

By: Neil

Neil — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 16:55:39 +0000

Peter,

I don’t know exactly how much FEC I used in the top two photos since the program that I use (Breezebrowser) shows that flash was used, but not what the FEC was when I view Nikon images. It shows it for Canon images though.

From memory, the FEC must have been around 0EV since the flash was a fairly dominant source of light.

In getting to the correct amount of FEC to apply, it is a mixture of:

– anticipating from experience, and pre-judging a scene.

eg, someone with a lot of white or bright clothes would need more FEC. So I would start at +0.7 over my usual base setting.
Similarly, if I photographed two men next to each other with dark suits, I would dial in -0.7EV as a starting point.

- knowing your camera and flash. With the Canon 1Dmk2 and 5D, I would often keep my flash set to +0.3EV as my default, and work from there.

- shoot, chimp, adjust.
Often it is a matter of seeing on the LCD whether you like the image or not, and then adjust accordingly.

- shoot in RAW.
Often enough you will need to adjust the image’s brightness in post-production. For this, RAW absolutely makes the most sense.

Neil vN

By: olympus_fotograph

olympus_fotograph — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 15:29:49 +0000

hello neil,
how was your journey and your WS?…hopefully good.
1) How much FEC do you use between the upper two and the pic without flash?
2) Did you figure it out by taken some pic´s with Flash and see how much power is applied?
3) When there is only one or two chances to make the picture, how is it possible to figure out how much FEC/Power has to be applied(for persons who has not so much flash experience, but reading your blogs very carefully ;-) )
i mean….i could dial FEC in about +1 EV …or -0,7EV….is it right, that at the first pic i could not clear set the right FEC?(to show the face either over or underexposed)
no white there, so histogram could show a bit more left or a bit more right off the center?
………
to find the FEC on the first or the second pic makes me some headache.
right, you said it comes with the experience .
but sometimes i want to shoot my 2years old daugther and there could be only one or two chances to get the right pic.
mostly it end in a(for me) correct background and over or underexposed skin.(due to high or low flash power output)
ok, if the shoot takes a bit longer than i am able to correct the flash power a bit more or a bit less, until i have good skintones on the LCD(known that is the worst thing to check the pic)
for my E-1….forget the LCD
for my E-500…i know that skin tones have to be a bit overexposed, so that on the computer they are looking right exposed.(due to bad LCD, brightness still down to fully -7)
camera always to manual and flash to TTL, except i am stationary…than i use flash in manual mode
happy with an answer
thank you very much for your knowledge and your time
peter