Category Archives: Photo Talk

Off Camera Flash at Weddings

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I’ve been using studio strobes at weddings receptions for a few years now. I’m slowing trying to work them into formals and group photos, particularly for shooting outdoors when I need to overpower the sun. Part of the issue is that I shoot alone and without an assistant so it’s important that the system I come up with is conducive to the fast paced day!

I recently had an opportunity to shoot with NYC as my backdrop, thanks to a wedding I shot in Queens, NY. You can find the blog post here.

I used the following combination for “running-and-gunning” outdoors:

It’s not super portable but I managed to carry this over my shoulder and integrate it pretty well. As long as I don’t have to walk with it for more than 5-10 minutes I should be fine!:)

I’m still trying to figure out a better system so that I can operate more smoothly. For example, I need to get a shorter cable so that it’s cleaner and tangle-free. I also want to figure out whether I can use my Kacey Beauty Dish and still keep it reasonably portable. Wedding days are usually pretty hectic and time is always of the essence so keeping things simple is very important.

Anyways, here are a few shots taken with this setup. Setting used: 1/200 f11 ISO100. Strobe at almost full power.

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5D Mark III Firmware update version 1.2.1

Posted inPhoto Talk,Photography

I’ve been reading in various photography forums regarding an issue with the 5D Mark III when used with a Speedlight and its AF Assist beam. Specifically, some folks were claiming that focusing became very sluggish to a point where they were missing shots. While I haven’t noticed a glaring problem to a point of it becoming a show-stopper, I always felt that the focusing was indeed deliberate. That said, I don’t recall ever missing an important shot because of it. But any improvement of course is welcome!

So when I heard a new firmware was coming out that addresses this very issue, I jumped on it and upgraded to version 1.2.1. Fortunately, I happened to have a Wedding booked the very next weekend so it was a perfect opportunity to test the new firmware out.

Let me just say that I immediately noticed a difference at the Wedding reception. Focusing with the AF assist beam on the 600EX-RT was extremely responsive. Definitely much better than before. This despite the fact that I was not one of those who felt unhappy about the previous performance. So that’s saying something!

I highly recommend this firmware update!:)

Here are a few photos from the Wedding Reception.

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5D Mark III Sports Action Photos

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I’m not much of a sports photographer. Actually, I’m just not.:)With that said, every year, I go to the USTA National Tennis Center to check out world class Tennis players practicing on the Sunday before the U.S. Open officially begins. It’s free and it’s a great opportunity to check out these players up close and personal.

Anyways, this year, I had my family, including my almost-6-month-old with me so shooting time was rather limited. However, I did manage to sneak in a few tennis “action” shots with my 5D Mark III and 70-200 f2.8 L IS MKII! Suffice it to say the AF system on the 5D Mark III did exceptionally well as did the 6fps burst rate.

Here are a few photos from the day!

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PC Upgrade!

Posted inPhoto Talk

OK, so I’ve been kind of annoyed at the speed of my i7-920 based PC. Don’t get me wrong. It’s still very much a nice PC, but I found it getting a little too sluggish for my taste. I was pondering a move to an Ivy Bridge based system, but I decided to try to get more mileage out of my PC instead, you know, because it’s always fun to do geeky stuff like that right?!?;)

Anyways, the first thing I decided to do was overlock the CPU. I had to get a new heatsink and fan in order to do this because the i7-920 chips are known to run pretty hot. So I went a little crazy and bought a monster of a heatsink called the Noctua NH-DH14. It ain’t cheap either! And, oh, it’s friggin’ HUGE! So huge that I needed to get a new case because my 12 year old Antec case (you remember those beautiful looking beige cases from way back when don’t you?) wasn’t big enough to accommodate the NH-DH14. So off I went to my local MicroCenter to buy a new case and I ended up with the Corsair Obsidian 550D case. Pretty awesome case if I may say so myself!

So all told, I have the i7-920 2.66Ghz chip running at 4Ghz. Not bad eh? Not bad at all!

Still no satisfied, I thought about how else I could improve performance. I thought, hey why not get some Solid State Drives? And so I did. 3 of them. 1 for the operating system and applications. Another for a dedicated cache/scratch drive for photo editing. And another for working on photos from my current projects.

Let me tell you. My PC flies now. I mean, wow. That’s all I can say. What a difference. It’s as if though I have a completely different PC. I was so amazed that I had to install an SSD in a pretty old Sony Vaio Core2Duo laptop. What do you know? That thing flies now. Well, at least for surfing that is!:)

Anyways, I think I’ll get another couple of years out of this thing…or at least until Intel comes out with an 8 core processor that is affordable!

Remember these cases? Yup. Totally awesome. Hahaha!

Here’s a look at my new case’s interior. This was taken before I bought the humongous heatsink.

 

OK, I finally managed to take some photos of the huge Noctua cooler. Here it is, in all its glory!!! (Oh, and I upgraded to 24GB of RAM.:))

 

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Before and After #5

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OK, time for another quick before and after!

When I saw the wall, I knew I needed to get some shots in. There was a nice spotlight on the subject, but the color temps looked terrible. I knew I would be able to fix it in post.:)

So here’s what I did.

Here’s how the shot looked out of the camera. Notice that the colors look horrendous thanks to the Tungsten lighting.

Photoshop Before and After

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