Posts in Photography

Joe McNally in Kay-El

Photography

Let there be light. And there was light! A one day seminar at Shangri-La KL was packed full with a large group of people already lined up waiting to get into the ballroom. I mean, this is the Shang, with excellent finger food, coffee, tea and all that and people rather just line up to be the first into the room? Anyways, the day started with a short introduction with Louis Pang showing guerrilla lighting techniques for wedding photographers.

More fun was the “krumping” by volunteers and Joe McNally himself as the “father” of the “bride”, Evon. The only letdown was that we didn’t get to see the shots from Louis’ shoot of the krumping. We got cool stuff in our goodie bags and finally snagged my World Tour DVD!

Joe was funny, humble, instructive, approachable, direct, simple, profound and all that thrown in. He doesn’t hide a thing, shoots openly for all to see. His thought process laid-bare. The way he approach the subject, the lights, the step-by-step build up, was just inspiring. Joe started with a single speedlight and built up using reflectors, diffusers, multiple speedlights, EzyBoxes, Octas and more. The gear alone was staggering but the information and stuff he showed were all more important. After all, there’ll be newer bodies, newer lenses and newer flashes but light is light. If you can see “light” and you can direct it, control it, bend it, beat the heck out of it, you’d be good to go! I think I need one of those paint pole thingies and an EzyBox, and more speedlights!

And here are some shots of the day…


Of course I have to have a shot of us and the Guru of Lights… and of course, he signed both my books! Awesome!

Christmas Wish list

Photography

Hey, one can wish right? There’s a lot of stuff I need for the house like a new refrigerator or oven or even some new furniture but I think I’ll be quite happy if someone would just drop a 1 meter long GlideTrack into my Christmas stocking!

RadioPoppers rock!

Photography

Took my RadioPoppers into the jungles of Pahang over the weekend and they absolutely rock! One time, I had them on two lightstands at a distance of 400 feet and they still worked flawlessly. With e-TTL to boot! They’re so awesome I’ll be getting another set next month plus a pair of 580s to go with them.

For me, range is not that important, well, anything up to 100 feet is good enough for me but e-TTL is. The ability to have exposure control plus the ability to remotely control the slaves is important. However, more importantly, reliability is the key. The existing Canon wireless system is too dependent on line of sight and is quite easily confused when in bright areas, especially outdoors. I even had problems one time I did a portrait shoot where the left flash unit was fired through a translucent reflector and the right-side flash was bounced off the right wall and ceiling and one of the flashes wouldn’t go off 100% of the time. I shot forty frames with that configuration and ended up with 9 frames where one of the flash units did not fire properly. This is indoors with a full height glass wall on one side. Maybe the infrared beams went through the windows but who knows.

In a wooden shack building 40 feet by 70 feet, I had 100% trigger rate no matter where I placed my two slave flashes. I had them outside the building firing through the side windows, left and right of the main hall, anywhere basically and all seventy frames fired successfully!

Video Workshop at Integricity Visuals

Photography

“What? He’s doing video also now?”

That’s what my brother-in-law said when he found out I was attending a video workshop. Funny but that’s where I was on a Sunday morning. In fact, the workshop ran on till past 7pm! We had a blast.

Why would a stills photographer attend a video workshop? Well, my DSLR has been called a VDSLR but I like what Vincent Laforet calls it, a HDDSLR — a SLR that shoots HD video. It’s also a world apart when working with stills and video. It’s not easy but it’s something that requires a different kind of planning, approach and all that stuff.

While I’m not sure if I’ll be producing a lot of movies, I do believe that no learning is wasted and that if you only stop learning when you die. So, even from the stills photography side of things, movie-making does give you a few ideas and a cinematic approach is not a bad thing to add to your array of styles or ideas.

It was fun to see how things are done in the movies and learn some interesting camera tricks as well. There was basically an overload of information and I think it would be best done as a 2-day workshop as the video project takes time to work out, and do. Also, movie-making isn’t a solo endeavor so teaming up is a good approach but time is a biggest factor here. That said, the entire workshop taught me a lot of things, not to mention that if you want a cinema look, try not to use the zoom! That’s pretty easy… zooming on a HDDSLR is not the easiest thing to do.

Sorry bout the some of the photos below… I was using my iPhone as the class pace was fast and loaded, making it difficult to reach for the HDDSLR and take notes at the same time! The only thing I wish there was more off would be more examples and sample videos but this is an intro workshop so can’t go into such depth. Time to save up for my Redrock Micro video DSLR rig and the Intermediate Video workshop 🙂

A fun thing would be to have a Collision Conference or Re:Frame right here in Malaysia.

Kee Sitt and Grace demonstrating a 180 degree flip… a no, no in video.

Gear envy!

Editing our little Nescafe ad we made…

By the way, I’ll post our end result once I get the final copy from Karan.

Mark IV

Photography

It’s finally launched. Unfortunately not full-frame but otherwise, a rocking camera body I can’t afford anyways! Okay, wait, I have to clarify that. Purchase it, I can but need it I do not. Hmm, that came out rather Yoda-esque. Pretty happy with my 5D Mark II. Next on the list is a H4N audio recorder and a Red Rock Micro Video DSLR rig! And plus my 7D 🙂

Rob Galbraith has a good preview here and of course you have to watch Vincent Laforet’s Nocturne video.

And in case Vincent’s blog has been flogged by too many people, here’s the embedded link from Vimeo:

Nocturne from Vincent Laforet on Vimeo.

Awesome Seminar : Jerry Ghionis in KL

Photography

Jerry Ghionis’ recently had a one-day seminar in KL and it was definitely worth going! Besides his usual humorous and approachable self, Jerry also dispensed with a lot of advice — what you normally get in a five-day workshop was distilled into just about 9 hours. Of course the classroom was larger, packed with over a hundred eager photographers and you don’t get a hands-on session with models and all that. That said, it still packed a lot of information and Jerry doesn’t hold back one bit. You get the genuine teacher in Jerry and he’s passion about shooting is equaled only by his desire to teach others.

We simply had an awesome time and managed to network with many great photographers as well. And time to start saving for the 5-day workshop!

Just to relate a short story here. I signed up for Jerry’s educational website, the ICE Society and Jerry’s beautiful wife, Georgina refunded me some cash. She told me that the credit card went through without the 20% promotional discount. I didn’t think much about it and went home pretty happy. Last week, I got my credit card statement in my inbox and it had the 20% discount applied. This means that I got 40% discount. I always believed that if you think you deserve to get paid for your services and work done, this also applies to others. I emailed Georgina immediately about the mistake and offered to pay the balance.

To be honest, Jerry and Georgina came across as good people to me. Good as in they were the kind of people you know were genuine 100% honest to goodness folks who made it. This means that I actually knew in my heart they won’t ask for the money. I even knew that even if I offered to pay the balance, they wouldn’t take it.

Well, that is true and Georgina thanked me for my honesty. To me it wasn’t about the discount, the money, or being honest about it. I guess that is the way I was taught or brought up but I can see why Jerry’s successful. Nice guys don’t finish last. They get the money and success (like all the awards he’s won)! Thanks Georgina and Jerry! I’ll send you a Christmas gift in the post!

Awesome experience with Jerry Ghionis!