Mixing it up – Oh aperture ring how I love you!

Every now and again it is a good idea to try something new, or in this case, something old. I shoot Nikon and when I first started using their gear I looked down at the aperture ring and thought who the hell would use this, and why do they still put them on?

Whats funny is that I love to shoot with old manual cameras and lenses. I have a few different adapters I use in order to put the older lenses onto my Nikon bodies. Then after all of this time the thought finally came to me to give the aperture ring on my new lenses a shot. When I turned the option on in camera I fell right into step with it. As a matter of fact, it felt far more natural to me to use the ring to adjust the aperture than it does to use the sub command dial.

Now this super feature is not available in all Nikon bodies. Grab your manual and check out the custom functions and see if this is an option for you. If it is, give it a try!

Now go on out and take some pictures!

From the Vanished Twin Family.

There are going to be some new features on the Vanished Twin Blogs! We have a ton of product reviews coming up this summer, along with a few new features like: Tips and Tricks, Shooting Set Ups, guest bloggers, and a question and answer section.

With the new question and answer feature you can send your questions to: info@vanishedtwin.com or use the Contact page at www.vanishedtwin.com and we will get to them ASAP.

How I see it

When I set up my shots I tend to not think about what I want lit, but where I want my shadows. I build my images by punching holes in darkness, or obliterating it with light. For me it always comes down to darkness and shadows.

I am very organic in my approach to shooting. The client and I will have our pre-shoot meeting and discuss expectations we both have for the session, and what needs to be done to accomplish our goals. I make sure that we also take some time before talking business to get acquainted, especially if the pre-shoot is our first face to face meeting. Pretty straight forward stuff there, but it is the little things that can make a huge difference on the day of the shoot.

On the day of the shoot I do my best to keep the atmosphere as lite and relaxed as possible. When I am photographing children I will always let them check out my camera before I start shooting, and let them touch some of the buttons. Usually once they see a picture of themselves on the back of the camera they get excited and want to take more photos.

Normally when I photograph children I use a small soft box and Nikon's CLS so I can let the shadows take over the background. I hand hold the soft box in my left hand and the camera in my right armed with a 50mm prime lens wide open. With the soft box close in, the aperture at f/1.8, and the shutter speed around 1/8000, you can let the background be swallowed by shadows and have a very shallow depth of field on top of that. I will use this approach often when I need to work around a cluttered background.

Using high speed sync to push the shadows off the face is one of my favorite lighting techniques. My two go to modifiers to help shape my shadows are the Westcott 60” convertible umbrella and the 28” Apollo soft box. Both of which are very versatile light modifiers with High speed sync.

Cactus V5 now works with Nikon flashes

The wait is over for Nikon flash users! The Cactus V5 on sale are now equipped with the new hot shoe plates. The previously mentioned Nikon SpeedLite models are now compatible with the Cactus V5: SB-28, SB-80DX, SB-600 and SB-700.

For current V5 users, we will ship you the new hot shoe next week. An email will also be sent to you confirming the number of hot shoe(s) required. The replacement of the new hot shoe is simple. If in doubt about the installation please do not hesitate to contact us.

Thank you again to your understanding and patience in this matter. If you have any questions or concerns, be sure to contact our CS at service@gadgetinfinity.com.

Blown out Ash

Meta Data
Camera - Konica Minolta 7D
Lens - Tamron 90mm f/2.8
Exposure - 1/45 @ f/2.8
Focal Length - 90mm

Lighting - Brand X strobe
Light Modifier(s) - 60" Westcott shoot through umbrella, and large diffusion panel.
Trigger - Pocketwizard


For this shot I set up a large diffuser for the background and placed a strobe behind it to blow out the background and also to give some back light through her hair.

For the key light I used another strobe shooting through a Westcott 60" shoot through umbrella.
With her looking down her hair fell forward a bit and i increased the power from the light behind her to let the back light eat up some of her hair.

I wanted to capture a high key image of Ashlee and the honesty in her expression.

Ashlee In Profile.

Ashlee Profile., a photo by Vanished Twin: Photography on Flickr.

This shot was taken in a studio that my friend John Keel and I rented to shoot together and to just play with light and shadows

. In this shot I used a Nikon sb600 in a Westcott 28" Apollo. It was placed camera left and I turned Ashlee straight on into the light.

I placed Ashlee close to the wall to get some of the light to spill onto the wall to create a bit of a vignetted background. Other wise the light was pretty close to straight on for this profile shot.

iShoot Sniper hands on review

 

 The iShoot Sniper is a transceiver unit available from Photoloving.com. The iShoot Sniper features 16 selectable channels, three shooting groups, and remote shutter release capabilities. This transceiver operates on 2.4Ghz, takes two AA batteries, and has one hell of a range.

The company says that it will trigger up to 500 meters distance with a 90% hit rate in open field. I went out with a set of the Snipers and my Nikon sb900 and did some range testing. I was able to get a consistent firing from about 300 meters, and after that it got a bit spotty. Having said that, I was not out in an open field. I was along a stretch of road that was surrounded by office buildings and power lines. I have no doubt that the Sniper can make it to 500 meters on an open field with little to no radio interference. I was happy with the 300 meters and did not try to find a 500 meter open field. The range on the iShoot Sniper is more than most people will ever need from a trigger.


The transceivers were very well packaged, they did not come with any cords, however, but they did come with a stand for the transceiver that looks like the one that comes with a Nikon sb900. If you are just planning on using these units with speed lights then the fact that they do not come with any cords is not a big deal at all. If you are planning on using them with mono lights then make sure you get what ever cables you will need to hook them.


On the top of the iShoot Sniper there is a hot shoe, test button, and the sixteen channel selector dial. On the left of the transceiver we have the three selector switches for choosing between flash or camera triggering, receiver or transmitter mode selection, and your group options. The right side of the unit is where you will find the battery door. The Snipers use two AA batteries, which I think is a great touch.

At the back of the unit you will see your control sockets and led lights. The two control sockets are located behind a rubber door and they are a 2.5mm shutter control socket and a PC sync socket. Above the control sockets are two led lights labeled led2 and led1. These lights will be able to tell you all sorts of information from how much juice is left in the battery, to signal strength. I carry with me the paperwork that came with the units to reference, but it is pretty straight forward with red/bad, green/good.


The Snipers have a maximum speed sync of 1/500 of a second depending on your cameras max speed.


The tranceivers can act as wireless remote shutter control. It can also activate the auto focus, and supports four second delay, bulb mode, and continuous shooting, along with the ability to wake up sleeping flash.


These transceivers pack some great features, but the two that stick out the most are their durability, and reliability. Having been shooting with the iShoot Snipers for about a month now, I have yet to encounter any issues with them. I have taken them out into the wet Portland, Oregon winter, and into signal rich offices, and still I have yet to have a misfire. Being able to be used out in wet conditions is a big plus for anyone that lives in rainy areas. I have run these units through as many obstacles as I could think of to get them to miss fire. I have to say that they stood up to everything I could throw at them as they have a great dust proof and waterproof design.

The iShoot Snipers are a solid feeling transceiver. In your hands these units feel like little tanks with out being too heavy on the camera. The shape and layout of these units are very comfortable when you are using them as a remote shutter trigger.


The only improvement that I would like to see on the Snipers is TTL pass through on the hot shoe. I am a Nikon shooter, and there have been a few time that I have wanted to mount the Nikon SU800 on top of the Sniper to have control of the power levels of one group of flashes, and have another group just fire, as they are set out of line of sight.


I recommend the iShoot Snipers to anyone who is looking for a brilliant weather sealed, solidly built, reliable transceiver unit. Head on over to photoloving.com and order yourself a pair or two.

Lumiquest saves the day!

I went out last Saturday night to photograph the band Sweet Teen Killing Machine at The Globe. It is a fair sized venue that is equal parts restaurant, bar, and lounge. The place has a great vibe, and I was looking forward to the show.

When I got there I noticed an all too familiar phenomenon at smaller venues: the absence of stage lighting. The place itself has fantastic ambiance, however the stage has next to none. I looked around to see if there were any lighting options, but I found none. As I sat there thinking about cranking up my cameras ISO to 3200 and seeing what I could get from it, I had an idea. I went to the band and asked if they had any problems with me adding a bit of light into their show. The told me that I could have at it, so I did.

I was very happy that I brought my full kit with three flashes and my new Lumiquest FX and FXtra gels packs. This was going to be fun. I have had these for a few days and I was looking for the perfect place to give them a run.. This was definitely it. The Fx is a gel holder for your flash. It comes with five colored gels that you simply slid into the holder when it is placed onto your flash.

The Fxtra is a smaller version of the FX, and it comes with a few more color correcting gels. Both of these products are small and can easily fit into any kit along with a couple UltrStraps to mount them onto your flashes.

I set up two of my flashes on stage flanking the drummers kick drum, facing up and out at a 45 degree angle from the stage. I could get some serious silhouettes from the band this way. One flash was a Nikon sb900 that I had the FX on with a green gel, and the other was a Nikon sb600 with the FXtra on it with a blue gel. I then set up one of my favorite new stands, the Linco 8308 Compact Light Stand. I mounted a Nikon sb600 with an omni bounce on top and put the stand to its full 8' height without any gel.

Now came the hard part: controlling the flashes from a balcony above and to the right of the stage. It was a great location to get shots from, but it made it tricky for changing the output of the flashes. I turned to the Nikon su800 for triggering and control, and I am so happy that I did. There were a few times that the IR signal could not bounce around the walls with enough power to still make it to the flashes. This would have been the perfect place for some Radiopoppers. In the end, the Nikon su800 and the Lumiquest FX and FXtra along with their Ultra Straps work together fantastically.

The Lumiquest FX, FXtra and the UltraStrap have found permanent homes in my camera bag. If you have not checked them out you really should.

My weekend of music, mayhem, and murder

Just like the title says, I had a great weekend filled with music, mayhem, and murder. It started out with me shooing the In Repose concert down at the Tiger bar in northwest Portland on Saturday night. Great show! If you missed them you can catch them playing at the Ash St. Saloon on April 2^nd. Head on down and see a great live show.

On Sunday it was pretty much a day shoot for the band Sweet Teen Killing Machine. The band is

Scott Chapin - Vocals, Guitar, Bass, Keys Paul Becker - Guitar Cheo Larcombe - Drums Kevin Ellis – Keyboards. Sweet Teen Killing Machine is a recording project dedicated to rock and horror 

I am making a short film, of sorts, to play behind the band at their music video release on Saturday, March 19 · 8:00pm – 11:00pm at The Globe, 2045 Southeast Belmont Street

Release of their new cd and the premiere of the video "City of the Shrieking Dead" Video Premieres @ 9pm accompanied by a "making of"montage and @ 9:30 is the debut performance of Sweet Teen Killing Machine

So, where does one shoot a mini horror movie in Lake Oswego? Why, in the creepiest crawl space I have ever lived above, of course. Our condo is built on the side of a hill, (a volcano, technically) and the crawl space under it goes from about ten feet deep to close to twenty. Just a little bit of light fights its way in through the foundation vents, but that is no where near enough to see by.

Paul from STKM comes by the house, as does Brett from In Repose. Brett makes a fabulous villain on the screen, so I asked him to come over and play crazy man. We were initially going to head out into some wooded areas nearby to get some chase footage first, but just before Brett arrived a huge rain storm hit with super wind and we lost power.

With that much rain it didn't make sense to shoot outdoors. We decided to try and wait it out. Power-less, we headed down into the freaky crawl space to get the horror footage first. What could possible go wrong? There was water streaming into the area from the storm, and lots of cobwebs, but it went great. We had to create enough light to get my cameras to focus in the dark, so thanks to a few Lazer-Brite lights, we got some crazy stuff.

After a healthy dose of Flying Pie Pizza, the power returned and the rain settled. We headed outside to get the last part of the chase scenes, and shot into the night. Now comes the fun part: editing it all down into a twenty plus minute nail biter.

I love my job!

Flora continuous lighting system

The Flora continuous light system is the newest lighting kit from Linco Inc. It offers 2040 watts of 5500k daylight balanced power from a single unit, and can be easily used for both video and still capture.

The Flora has a convenient compact size head that is made of flame retardant nylon. Its off set tilt mound helps keep the over all size of the unit small, and with the large handle on the back of the unit you will have no problems making adjustments.

The light is very simple to set up, with the only time consuming part being screwing in the 6 large 85 watt compact florescent bulbs into the head after installing the soft box. The hexagon shaped soft box is incredibly easy to set up and install. It is built much like an umbrella where all you have to do is pull back on the rear cord and the box opens up and locks into place. Then place it onto the Flora head, tighten down the holding screw, and you are set. There is also an internal mount for an umbrella to add more versatility to the system.

On the back of the Flora you will find two power switches. Each of the switches controls three of the lights so you can cut your power output by half if needed through an on/off/on combination.

The only downside to this unit is the bulbs and transporting them. I ended up keeping the original shipping boxes and using them to pack up and transport the bulbs to the studio, and then to another location. It would be fantastic to have a bulb carrier to go along with these lights with some kind of foam in bag. I don't think that it would be to difficult to put something together, either, if you find yourself needing to travel with them more frequently. If you're going to be keeping them in a studio the majority of the time, then this will not be an issue at all.

As I mentioned before, these lights are also very good for video work. We took them over to a commercial shoot and used one of the Flora units for lighting an interior. Another option to help dial in your light is to remove some of the bulbs if they are giving too much light output. All in all, there are many lighting options from these units.

One thing I must point out is the stands that came with these lights. The 8308 compact light stand retails for $39.99 from Linco and they are one of the best stands I have ever used. They have a tight foot print when collapsed down, and can extend up to 8'. They have a holding weight of 19.8lbs., and weigh only 4.4lbs each. These stands are are tough and take up less space in your bag than many others.

The Flora lights themselves have the versatility to take care of your lighting needs especially when using modern hybrid cameras that are used for both still and motion capture. I think that these lights will find a very comfortable place living in studio. I might not take these lights out to locations on a regular basis, but these would be my first go to system for all of my video work with out a doubt. I recommend them to anyone who is looking for a light system for both still and motion capture.

Trigmaster Plus from Aputure

A couple of weeks ago I was fortunate enough to receive a few of the Trigmaster plus transceivers from Aputure for review.

These units ship with 2 AAA batteries, Remote cable to hook to your camera for remote shutter control, PC cable, Sync cable, and Sync output converter. They retail for about $60.00 and, needless to say, you are covered for most of your uses right out of the box.

The Trigmaster Plus transceivers have a nice feel to them. They do not feel cheap and easily breakable in your hand. They operate on 2.4G instead of 433Hz like previous models. The button layout is simple and logical. You have a function switch to go from transmitter to receiver, illuminated channel selection via the small channel button to the right of the channel display, and a large trigger button. The power switch is located on the user's right side next to a very beefy antenna. On the other side of the transceiver are three ports: Studio flash sync, camera remote shutter port, and a PC in port.

The units have a sync speed of 1/250^th of a second and a range of about 260 feet. They have plastic feet without a locking ring. At first I thought that this was going to be an issue. I do like metal feet, but these have a set of tabs on the side of the feet that do a great job of keeping them in place. There is also a hole for accommodating a locking pin from my Nikon flashes.

These transceivers can also be used for shutter control. There are two ways to do this: the first is to use the remote cable and connect it to a transceiver, turn the mode switch to tx, and you're set. The second is to use a second transceiver mounted on the top of the camera and connect with the same remote cable. When you have the triggers set for remote triggering you can use the continuous shooting mode. Just hold the trigger button down for 3 seconds and when you release the button the camera will continue to fire at a fairly fast pace. Touch the trigger button a second time and the continuous shooting is canceled. I find this a fun function for both sports and children.

The only issue I have had with the layout of the Trigmaster Plus units is the test button. The main trigger button on the unit is used for remote shutter firing, and not as a test button for your flash. Instead you have to hold the trigger button down half way and then press the channel button. That is how you test fire your flash units. It is not an impossible task, but is does get a little cumbersome when you are holding a flash meter in one hand and trying to test fire your strobes. Overall, if that is the only issue for the Trigmaster Plus units then they are doing well.

All in all, the Trigmaster Plus transceivers are a great transceiver, easy to use, very reliable, small, and use common AAA batteries. All of that along with a small size makes them a great buy. If you are in the market for triggers I highly recremend taking a good long look at the Trigmaster plus transceivers from Aputure.

Bounce Flash

One of the most discredited lighting set ups is on camera flash. However, I am a big fan of it, especially when it comes to photographing children and families in their home. My go-to light set up for children is a TTL on camera flash bounced off the ceiling.

If the ceiling is too high, sometimes I will use a second flash set up on a bookshelf or nearby table for a key. I find that with this set up, a bounce card on the flash works well. 

Another technique that I add to the mix is bouncing the flash off the wall, but I usually switch to wall bouncing only when the subject is playing next to said wall. Hallways work wonders for bouncing light around.

The only issue that you will encounter with this idea is the color of the walls. Make sure that you use a gray card to set your white balance in each set up that you do.

 

One of the reasons that I go with TTL in these situations is the the children tend to move at the speed of light, and more often than not you will only have one chance to capture whatever they are doing. Having lighting set up in the most versatile way possible and letting your subject do what they do in their home environment will give you great results.

 

 

Fourth Annual Emerging Pro Photo Competition

Congratulations! You're a finalist in the 4th Annual Emerging Pro Competition.

Woot!

Cactus V5 Duo Review

Photographer Brian Hursey has a review of the new Cactus V5 Duo up on his site. You should head on over and check it out.

Cactus V5 video

Here is a little preview video for the new Cactus V5.

A.Z. The Return of the Dead

2011

Westcott 60" Convertable umbrella

Today I am going to write about one of my favorite light modifiers: the Westcott 60” convertible umbrella. The versatility from this umbrella is fantastic, and if I can only use one modifier out on location it is this one. I find it very capable of handling medium sized groups as a bounce umbrella or as a shoot through with no problems.

Cactus V5 teaser

I came across these teaser images from photographer Brian Hursey. He is in the process of writing a review on these yet to be released trigger transceivers from gadgetinfinity.

You can see some more of the images at Brian's Flickr page here.

Pocketwizard for Nikon update

From Pocketwizard.com:

Product Updates - December 2010



MiniTT1 & FlexTT5 for Nikon:

Canada: Dealer shipments will begin on 12/21/10.

USA: Product should begin to arrive in dealers the middle of January, 2011.

All other countries currently shipping.


AC3 ZoneController for Nikon: Product should be arriving in dealers in February 2011.


AC9 AlienBees Adapter for Nikon: Product should be arriving in dealers in March 2011.


You can see it on their site here.

Nikon shooters check this out!

If you shoot Nikon you are going to want to check out this review by my friend from Copenhagen, Henrik Delfer. On his site he has posted a very comprehensive review of the Pocketwizard MiniTT1 and the FlexTT5 for Nikon.

 Check out the article here.