5D not loving life:(

Sad day. So in the middle of a recent photoshoot, my Canon 5D went black...literately. I was looking through the viewfinder and all i saw was black. I checked the lens, seemed fine, but when I took the lens off, I found that the internal mirror came off! WTF! Luckily i had my old camera as a backup body and I was able to finish the shoot, but that was horrifying to see. Well it turns out this is a common situation for Canon 5Ds. I guess the adhesive that holds the mirror onto the camera is weak and deteriorates over time. Canon said they will fix this problem at no cost, so my camera is going into the shop tomorrow. I hope all goes well. Keep your fingers crossed for me. Thanks Alex for the link. Please post if this has happened to you too and how Canon handled it. Here's the official statement from Canon:

http://www.usa.canon.com/consumer/controller?act=PgComSmModDisplayAct&fcategoryid=139&modelid=11933&keycode=2112&id=55659

MotoGP Weekend

Last weekend was pretty awesome! My girlfriend and I went to MotoGP at Laguna Seca. This was another first for me when it comes to photography and boy did I learn a lot. Okay, so I have to admit...I cheated...the photo above was photoshopped to give it the motion blur. This is actually easy to do. Just duplicate your layer and choose filter -> Blur -> Motion blur. Blur it and then add a mask to the bike and rider to make them sharp again.

Why did I use this technique? Well I couldn't get any of my pans to come out clear. These motorcycles move fast...I mean super fast and trying to pan with slow shutter speeds takes some real skill. Unfortunately none of my pans came out well so I dropped that idea and just shot at fast shutter speeds (1/1000+) to ensure that the pics were tack sharp. Here are a few more that I liked:
After the race I wasn't too stoked on my photos especially when I saw pics from the pros...Wow, they have some nice stuff! One pro in particular that made some sweet photos during that weekend was Drew Phillips. I actually wrote him an email for advice and he recommended that the next time I go out to shot to bring a 70-200mm and/or 400mm lens and shot at 1/125-1/160th for pans. I just had my walk around 28-135mm lens, so that may have been my downfall. I also could have used a pass to get closer to the action. Does anyone know a newspaper that can get me access. Any help is welcome! And thanks again Drew for all your help.

Glass Award Photo

Earlier this week one of my coworkers showed me this cool award the department received. An all glass plate engraved with this cool design. I couldn't help myself...I needed to take a picture of this thing. So here it is!

The setup - First I got a big piece of white paper roughly 3ft x 4ft long and taped it to the wall next to my desk at work. I placed the award around a foot away from the backdrop. Unfortunately I didn't have my tripod that day, but there were some big boxes around the office...ghetto tripod :). I needed to keep the camera still because I knew I couldn't light the award with just one pic (if someone knows how to do it in one pic, please let me know)...This picture is actually made from 3 different pics stitched together. Here they are:


...My bud Vasilis suggested that I use my flash really close to the glass. This worked, but it still didn't light the whole award properly. So I experimented with different flash angles and positions. In the end I chose three pics; one lighting the bottom, one for the leaves and one for the top. I used a single bare Nikon SB-28 (only $90 bucks at Samy's used) zoomed to 24mm triggered with my Skyport. I used the timer function on the camera so I could be away from the it to position the light by hand. The actual shoot was fairly easy, but the layers are what took some time...

Photoshop - Adobe Bridge CS4 makes it easy to layer multiple photos. Select the photos you want to layer and choose Tools ->Photoshop->Load Files into Photoshop Layers. In the past I would open each file individually into Photoshop and then use the move tool to stack all the files into one image. This is very tedious, but Adobe fixed this problem in the new version of Bridge CS4. Once imported, I used masks to hide the areas of each layer that I didn't want displayed...aka my arm :). DON'T DELETE stuff from your original layers, use masks...They're way better because they're non-descructive. If you masked too much, you can always bring back the content later, you can't if you use the eraser tool.

I hope this helps and if anyone knows better ways to get these results, please let me know. I'm completely self taught, so it would be good to get some advise from pros.

Santa Barbara Mission - Flashes and Layers

Last weekend I took this pic of the Santa Barbara Mission with the help of my friend Tuan. The day was perfect for a picture; a storm had just rolled through town and it cleared just around sunset...nice recipe for some moody light.

But there's a catch here... see the building? Grass? Cross? Well that stuff was lit with my flash...there were no lights on the building. Don't believe me? Well here's how I did it...

First things first:

So here's the shot with no modifications. There is no way I could get a good exposure for both the sky and the ground. I thought to myself, "why does this picture suck?"...

1)sky is too bright...no color
2)grass sucks...too dark..
3)building...dull

So how do I fix these problems?

Filters and flashes to the rescue! Forget HDR!
First, I put a Neutral Density Graduated Filter on my lens. If you have a camera, this is one of the best investments you can make if you want to shoot landscapes. Easy to use, balances the exposure and makes the colors in the sky come alive. But it's still not enough to bring out the detail in the building and the cross.

Time for flashes...With my camera on a tripod, I used two flashes with CTO filters (it's just orange plastic) on full power and this is the result I got. Wait wait, I know, the rest of the building is still dark and the grass too. So I took multiple exposures while my bud Tuan moved the flash to different positions on the building. This is one of about 7 shots to make the final image. The building, the cross and the grass in front were all lit independently...

Thank you photoshop... - With layers in Photoshop you can just take all those exposures and make them one by deleting the stuff you don't need. Also, as you can image, there are lots of people walking around considering the mission is a big tourist attraction. By taking multiple exposures I was able to take out all the people. Finally, I also boosted the contrast and made it a little brighter.

Hope this helps and this goes to show that you can use flashes for landscapes/architecture and get good results.

Studio Portraits

Studio lighting has always been intriguing to me, but I never really had the chance to work with them. Luckily my good friend Luke had access to some studio gear, so we had some fun.

Here is a photo that I did with a simple two light scenario. One huge softbox up high and another aimed at the background behind the model ...exposure was f/8 at 1/200th ISO 100


Studio lights rock!
These lights (monolights) are big in comparison to normal flashes and the size is shown in the power they put out. I hate when i have to wait...especially for small flashes. With the studio lights on the other hand, the power recycle times are so short. This allows the light to be ready quickly for the next shot so you don't miss expressions from you model.

Relax!
I find that taking pictures of people is more about getting them to relax than anything...Sure, you have to light the scene and make them look good, but if they're uncomfortable this ain't gonna happen. I like just talking to the model, reassuring them the pictures are coming out well even if I know there's something wrong. I've been reading a lot of Joe McNally's new book and even in there he explains this. Many times I'm behind the camera and I'm thinking "Do I really know what I'm doing?"..."Is this going to work?"..."oh shit!, Is this thing on?"..."lens cap idiot...take off the lens cap!"...once your internal monologue goes public it's over. They are looking to you to make them feel confident and that their pics are going to be awesome. If they relax it's easy to get some great expressions and get a glimpse of what their personality is like. Just relax and they will too...

Reflectors for the win!
I use a large gold reflector to bounce light back up at the model. Some people call this clam shell lighting; One light is directly above the camera angled down and the reflector is directly below angled up creating a "clam shell"...easy lighting technique for portraits

I hope this helps and if you want a head shot, let me know :P

New Wacom Bamboo!

Computer tablets have been around for a while, but I never was into them, until now. What first caught my attention was all the buzz on the internet about the new Wacom Intuos4 tablets. My big question is why so many pros swear by them? Do they really make that much difference?

Problems!...
My problems:
1) I didn't want to buy one and then find out a hated it...$300+ ...ouch!
2) No one has these things on display so i could try it out...wtf?

So I went to the local graphic designer at my work. He's a cool guy and he let me borrow his Intuos3 for a week. Lesson learned...This thing is weird...the surface is slippery, the aspect ratio is square, not wide screen, and then there's getting used to the ergonomics. I switched my whole desk around! This sucked and even with everything I tried, I couldn't get my handwriting to look better than a kinder gardener's chicken scratch. WTF?! Why do people like these things? This made me even more intrigued and it pushed me to try other tablets.

Thank you Samy's!...
I did more research and the new Intuos addresses a lot of these issues. I needed to find one on display at a store, and I did. Thank you Samy's Camera in Santa Barbara. They actually have the large version of the Intuos4 on display with a crazy MacPro Tower. Sweet setup...Let's just say I was there for a while playing...that thing rocked, but it was huge! I don't have space for that beast on my desk...how are you supposed to bring it around...

Katarina to the rescue!!
Finally I spoke to my friend Katarina and she told me she has a Wacom Bamboo. This was the answer. She let me borrow it for a week and after that, I never looked back. This has all the cool stuff the intuos4s have without the big price tag...sure the 4s have more pressure levels, buttons galore and so on, but I'm not pro. I don't need all that. I just need something simple that works for photoshop post processing.

The Bamboo answers the questions that the Intous3 got wrong. It has a cool textured surface that feels more like real paper, wide screen aspect so you don't lose workspace to keep the proportions the same as your wide screen and it's small. It's basically a baby Intuos4. and the best part is it's only $70 bucks! Deal...

Recommendations!
If you decide to get a tablet I would recommend a few things.

1) Check out this guide first. It shows you proper ergonomics and will help a lot!!! I'm using the "trade-off" position for my purposes.
2) You need to have desk space...the Bamboo is small and I still could use more space on my desk. I couldn't imagine how to use the larger versions
3) Find one to try first. You need to feel a tablet before you buy it
4) I put my pen stand between my keyboard and the tablet. This way when I'm browsing, there is a fluid motion when I have to put the pen down and type.
5) When using the pen, I like to press the buttons with my thumb rather than my index finger. This is way more comfortable!

All this being said, I love my Bamboo...I use brush tools extensively and the pressure levels are priceless. If you use Photoshop, this is a great tool for post processing. I'm sure there are many other great uses for this tablet as well.

The Pic - the pic above was really easy to light...I basically used a Maglight L.E.D flashlight and zoomed it on the bamboo logo. The flash light was positioned high and slightly behind the unit and to the camera's right. No flash for this one :)

-Morgan

Polynesian Dance Portrait

Just last week I was asked to take some photos for a local Polynesian dance club that's based here in Santa Barbara. Well, the shoot went well but we had to battle a lot of problems...

1. Huge fire in SB = sky looks like a scene from Lord of the Rings! Straight Mordor status!
2. 30mph winds = Hair nightmare and umbrellas, softboxes and other big light modifiers are out of the question
3. Seaweed = girls don't like seaweed...enough said...
   

Considering the girls needed these pics for an upcoming flyer, they needed the photos right away. What to do? Find a shady spot! I saw another guy taking some photos near the rocks and I thought, "what a great idea!". So I moved the girls into a nice position on the rocks (where the wind was not so powerful) and I took this shot.

Settings: This is a fairly easy photo to take...I first exposed for ambient light in the scene and then I stopped down about 2 stops so I could darken the distracting rocks. I wanted to have the girls as the focal point so I dialed in my flash to expose them properly. This was with one bare flash gelled with a 1/2 CTO filter (to add some warth) up high off to the camera's left triggered wirelessly via Elinchrom Skyports (Cool little devices). I had my bud, Tuan, aim the flash high and at the girl in the back to feather the light. I had to dodge and burn a little in post processing to get everyone evenly lit, but I didn't have to use too much.

Quick recommendation when taking pics with multiple people: take a bunch of shots at the same location...i took about 5 shots of this scene and each one had a problem or two. Someone wasn't smiling, someone blinked, someone was looking somewhere other than the camera, etc. Doh! By taking multiple shots I was able to clone one girl's face from another picture into this one so everyone looked nice. It's a bit of work in photoshop, but can you tell which one has been worked on?

I hope this helps and remember if you're flashing, try to get the flash off of the camera and the results will be way more dynamic. You don't need to get a wireless system like me. I actually started with a simple wire solution. Even if your camera doesn't have a flash output, you can buy an adaptor that goes on your hotshoe and it will convert it for you so you can use an off camera wire. Check out Strobist for more in depth info on off camera flash. Lastly I've been reading Joe McNally's new book "Hotshoe Diaries". This is a really cool book if you want to learn more about off camera flash.