Posts tagged 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!

Blast from the past – New Zealand 2003

Travel

Almost seven years ago. Let me see if anyone knows the equipment I used … I feel like the time I showed my 8 year old nephew a film camera and he asked me where’s the LCD display!?
Camera bodies:
– Canon EOS 30 (with Eye-controlled focus)
– Canon EOS 50E ( ” )
Lenses & Other (hmm, my lens collection is pretty old!)
– EF 16-35 f2.8L lens
– EF 28-105 f3.5-5.6 IS
– EF 70-200 f2.8L lens
– EF 50mm 1.8 lens
– EF 2X TC
– 550EX Flash

And my sensors, aka film were Fuji Velvia (ISO 50), Fuji Provia 400F (ISO 400), Kodak EliteChrome 100 (ISO 100)! All the photos you see here are almost as-is. What’s done is my Nikon film scanners is the Digital ICE correction (for dust and scratches) and for resizing, unsharp mask was used. The output from the scanner was intentionally left soft for any post-production work if needed.


Aoraki Mount Cook, shot on the side of Lake Pukaki, 70-200mm lens at 200mm with 2X teleconverter. 400mm on Fuji Velvia.


Church of the Good Shepherd on the shores of Lake Tekapo. 16-35mm lens and Fuji Velvia


Another view of Aoraki Mount Cook while hiking in the area. Kodak EliteChrome, 28-135 IS lens.


Farm gate, on the Road to Wanaka. 16-35mm lens, Kodak EliteChrome


Queens town from the Peak. 16-35mm lens, Kodak Elitechrome and guesstimate exposure. Hey, no LCD previews then. I’ll guess exposure times from 1 to three minutes at f/11. Shot half a roll on this!


Saw this sign while driving/wandering around the Milford Sound area. Kodak Elitechrome


Our 25km hike from Wanaka. Kodak Elitechrome. 16-35mm lens


Prancing Pony from Lord of the Rings or in real life, the Cardrona Hotel, Arrowtown. 16-35mm lens, Fuji Velvia


Morning drive along Lake Wanaka. 16-35mm lens, Cokin 2-stop graduated ND filter, Fuji Velvia


If you want him, come and get him! The black riders cross the Bruinen Ford here in Lord of the Rings. Near Arrow town. The water is very cold but I walked across! 16-35mm lens and Kodak Elitechrome


Pesky Kea parrots. They were rather destructive, trying to take the wipers off our CRV.


Sheep making love? Te Anau downs, 70-200mm lens, Fuji Provia


On the road to Milford Sound. Fuji Velvia, 16-35mm lens


Looking for Isengard! Near Te Anau. 70-200mm lens, Fuji Velvia


Angry cows near Wanaka. Found out later that they were bred for beef, hence their hostility — milk cows it seems are friendlier. 16-35mm lens, Fuji Velvia


Parked at Isengard. Tea with Saruman? 70-200mm lens, Kodak Elitechrome


Sheep pasture, Te Anau, 70-200mm lens, Fuji Velvia


Looking for Navorra lakes and the spot where the Riders of Rohan ambushed the Uruks of Saruman… 28-135 IS lens, Kodak Elitechrome


On the Milford Explorer cruise ship, Milford Sound. 16-35mm lens, Kodak Elitechrome


Milford Sound. 70-200mm lens, Fuji Provia


Arriving at the woods of Rivendell, near Te Anau. 70-200mm lens, Kodak Elitechrome


Road-kill possum. No, I did not run this one down. They are a pest in NZ though and some bumper stickers urge you to run them down. It was getting dark and I had my 16-35mm lens and ISO 50 velvia… hand-held at like 1/2 second exposure. The digital era has spoilt a lot of us 🙂


Henry, the Tuatara at Invercargill. 70-200mm lens, Fuji Provia


The YHA we stayed at Dunedin. Supposedly haunted. Didn’t bring any IR film and nothing untoward happened anyways. 16-35mm lens, Kodak Elitechrome


Lands’ End at Bluff. 28-135 IS lens, Fuji Provia


Arthur’s Pass, the high road cross the south Island from Christchurch to the West Coast (Tasman Sea). 16-35mm lens and Kodak Elitechrome. Obviously someone felt that the name Arthur’s Ass was more appropriate!


Misty mountains? Not really but it was really misty when we drove across to Hotkitika. 70-200mm lens, Fuji Velvia


Toast on a clothes line. Near Milford, this home of Murray Gunn, an elderly bachelor is a museum of sorts. 16-35mm lens, Fuji Velvia


Caitlin Falls, the Caitlins. 16-35mm lens, Fuji Velvia. 2-stop ND filter, Again, another guesstimate exposure.


The light house at Bluff, Land’s End. 70-200mm lens, Fuji Provia


Kaikoura Whale Watch catamarans. 28-135 IS lens, Fuji Provia. At ISO 400, my fastest ISO available! The Pacific ocean is no joke. Expect the boat to be rising and falling over fifty feet and getting soaked with sea spray. Suffice to say, my Canons had no problems with the ocean water!


Sperm Whale tail. 70-200mm lens with 2X Teleconverter. Fuji Provia.


Dolphins decided to show off instead. 70-200mm lens with 2X teleconverter. Fuji Provia


Christchurch Cathedral Square. 16-35mm lens, Kodak Elitechrome

2009 – The year on Don’t Panik!

Life 3 Comments

2009 was my quietest blogging year with only 65 entries compared to 117 in 2008! I guess things got a bit crazy, especially with work after the big house move. I guess also a lot of things happened as well.

Well, here goes 2009 in review on DP…

January

February

March – Before the big house move…

April – No time to blog… moving house


Truck load #1

May – Settling in…


New Home switches!

June

July

August

September – Realized I shoot more of others’ families than my own…

October

Awesome experience with Jerry Ghionis!

November – A blacked-out month after life’s greatest lesson about living – dying.

December – Miracles do happen… more over here.

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!

Sunday construction!

Life 1 Comment

Had a three-day working weekend — taking the dog to the vet, proposals, videos, photos, weddings, house-painting, mowing the lawn and more! I also had the chance to put my RadioPoppers to work in various distances and ranges around the house. Sunday evening was spent working on write-ups and excel spreadsheets while it rained but once the rain stopped, we went ahead to put in a new addition to our home farm — four-angle beans, cucumbers, peanuts, basil and more. The former two plants are creepers or vines so good thing we had a supply of freshly cut bamboo to construct our new trellis.

Behold!

Have tested round the corners of the house plus from the dining to the living room (approx 25 feet) and still have full e-TTL2. I’ll try them this weekend at our Orang Asli Christmas charity event — full outdoors! The bamboo trellis above was shot with three Canon 580EX II flash units, two RadioPopper PX receivers – first unit sitting 8 feet left of me, second unit right-side around the corner of the house, approx 12 feet away. I’ll be adding more Poppers next March!