The Photo Journey » Setup

Stobes in Landscape Photography

Scott — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 02:22:02 +0000

Using small portable strobes when capturing a landscape can dramatically transform a scene. Sometimes the use of a small light to illuminate for instance a leaf in a rainforest can focus a viewers eye. They are also great for lighting the shadow side of very large subjects like this weeks subject the HMQS Gayundah ship wreck. I have put together a short video where I walk you around the wreck and explain my lights setup.

Not only is this my weekly landscape 52 shot it is also my entry for the Strobist boot camp III, Assignment 3 competition. HMQS Gayundah was a flat-iron gunboat operated by the Queensland Maritime Defence Force and later the Royal Australian Navy (as HMAS Gayundah). She entered service in 1884 and was decommissioned and sold in 1921 where it was used as a sand and gravel barge and was later run aground at Woody Point, Redcliffe to serve as a break-wall in 1958.

I had arrived at 4:45am so I had plenty of time to setup the gear and try a few compositions. I ended up using 2 Cactus KF36 stobes set at full power and positioned down the side on the ship. These were fired with Cactus V2 remotes. It took a little time to position the lights so that there was an even distribution of light. I started with capturing the correct flash exposure for the wreck and I then dialed in a longer shutter speed to bring in the ambient sunrise.

To really appreciate the size of the wreck and get an understanding of the light setup I have put together a small video. I would love to hear your comments and critique on both the shot and the video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Confetti Cleanup – BTS Video

Scott — Thu, 09 Dec 2010 02:37:42 +0000

Here is the 3rd in a series of videos on how I took my photos for this years Canon Photo5 Competition. Check out the other photo5 blog posts here. For more information on the competition check out the website.

Brief 3 was to incorporate confetti in motion. This was going to be 1 messy shoot

I wanted to capture the cleanup after the party. I put together a short video of the setup explaining the lights used and the way I rigged up the vacuum cleaner. Over a month after the shoot I have still managed to find confetti all around the house.

Once again it was recorded and edited all on my iPhone 4. Interesting exercise. Love to hear your comments.

Incense Black & White Brief Video Tutorial

Scott — Fri, 22 Oct 2010 03:37:52 +0000

Here is the 2nd in a series of videos on how I took my photos for this years Canon Photo5 Competition. Check on the other photo5 blog posts here. For more information on the competition check out the website.

Brief 3 was to be a black and white shot capturing smoke from the supplied incense stick. I had shot smoke before but this time I wanted to engage the viewer with a message not just have them think, “Hey kewl smoke shots”. I wanted to get a message out about the effects of smoking to a persons health. I had been searching for an empty packet for the shoot for about a week when Anna managed to come across a drenched packet in the middle of the street near her work. It has been raining 2 weeks solid here so the packet had certainly copped a beating. It was perfect for the look I was going for.

Check out the BTS video on how I setup for shooting the smoke and a few tips of taking your own smoke shots. You may want to check out a older blog post I did on this with post processing video also. Check it out here – Smokin…Tutorial

Once again it was recorded and edited all on my iPhone 4. Interesting exercise. Love to hear your comments.

Happy Easter!

Scott — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 04:04:17 +0000

Easter has arrived once again and I have seen some great shots over on flickr marking the occasion. I have been trying to think of the perfect Easter themed strobist shot when I noticed the Easter Raffle being held at my work. It was a massive basket full of chocolate. I had an idea for a shot but I had to win the basket first. So I bought my 3 tickets and on the day of the draw told everyone to come along to morning tea and see me win. I was rather cocky about it all. Sure enough the winning ticket was mine. I double fisted the sky like an F1 driver who had just won the championship. Just goes to show that as long as you believe in something enough you can make it happen.

So I went about drawing up my idea that had developing in my head over the previous week. I wanted to do a not so pleasant family shot. More of a chocolate lover treating the basket like Gollum and his precious ring. It would need some harsh lighting on my face and a deep red gel behind on a wall giving some separation and mood. As you can see in the setup shot below it deviated a little from my initial sketch.

I used my reflective umbrella with a Cactus KF36 @ 1/16 but pointed up so that just feathered light fromthe edges of the umbrella would fall in the basket. Then I positioned a Cactus KF36 with a red gel @ 1/4 on a seat behind the basket. I would straddle this seat for the final shot. After a few test shots things were looking good. I was time to introduce another KF36 @ 1/2 power with my short snooted grid positioned directly above the camera and pointed towards my face. It was secured with a Nasty Clamp which took a few attempts to get positioned correctly as the gridded snoot gives a very narrow light beam. Any wider and it would have ruined my red gel from behind.

So other than the lighting I melted 2 small eggs in a cup and went about pouring it on my face and napkin. Then drank the rest and quickly went about bursting off 30 or so shots before the chocolate had set on my face. I had hidden my remote shutter release behind the basket and set a 2 sec timer. Camera was set at f20 for a dark environment and shutter speed on 200th of a sec for syncing with my remotes. ISO was at 400.

Post Processing was rather light on. I boosted the contrast with a basic curves adjustment and added a little more darkening to the edges of the frame. Little bit of dodging and burning to the chocolates.

Anna wasn’t so keen on the final image, actually she had seen all 30 shots and was disturbed by my eyes in each of them She said I looked like Gollum or a Zombie which was exactly the look I was going for so I guess its a winner.

ThePhotoJourney.com Turns One

Scott — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 07:17:02 +0000

Yesterday was the sites 1st Birthday. Its been a great year and I wanted to share with you a few stat from the year.

Most popular post is my tutorial on Smoke Photography, with 1126 unique visitors.
We have had visitors from every continent except Antarctica. America being the largest visitor.
Over 100 Unique Visitors a week so far.
50% of you guys use Mozilla Firefox. (Mozilla Rulz)
We’ve had 1 visitor from Kenya. Must have been my Qld Athletics post.

The next year will be massive with a trip to Europe and the 365 Photo Journey. The above image was Day 34′s efforts and below is a quick setup shot to explain how it was taken.

Thanks for all the support over the year and I would love to hear any ideas you have for the site and its content.

Capping off a big weekend – Product Shoot

Scott — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 01:49:09 +0000

After a massive weekend of photographing babies one day and a formal themed Christmas party the next, I finally had time late on Sunday afternoon to do a few test shots of Hats. A Queensland clothing company has approached me to shoot their hats and shirts for advertising and online sales. I needed to present them an idea of what we can do for them.

The setup for this was very easy. Obviously for the actual shoot I will use a table and not my super comfy lounge.

I made use of all 3 of my lights. 2 bare bulb @1/4 power and the other shot through my umbrella @ 1/4 power.

Using my large white foam core boards I setup one as the base and the other about 2 feet behind the hat as my background. This board will provide fill-light that will bounce back at the hat.

I shot from underneath the right corner of the umbrella. This gave me a nice angle on the hat with its leading logo on the peak of the hat.

I achieved a black shadow inside the hat by rolling up my black reflective umbrella material into a ball and sticking it inside the hat. Not sure I will go with this in the actual shoot as the hats will be the truckie style.

I then headed off to Photoshop to cleanup the image and make sure my white backdrop was pure white.

Added a Levels Adjustment Layer, and made sure my surrounding white areas are pure white
Added a Curves Adjustment Layer with a slight S Curve
Added a Colour Adjustment Layer to improve the yellows and greens
Added a Vibrancy Adjustment Layer and boosted the colours a little
Cropped the image to a tighter fit

The Client is very happy with the results of the test shoot and has set me up with 9 different hat designs to shoot and a heap of Mens shirts. I will blog about the actual shoot soon and let you know who the Clothing company is. Oh and BTW the designs of their gear are very funky.

Bokeh – Canon Photo 5

Scott — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 16:19:33 +0000

Well its that time of the year again. Canon’s Photo 5 competition. So this years competition is a little different. Not only have we got new items but we also have briefs. The first item I decided to attack was the Bokeh star hoods they supplied.

I setup my garage with my multipurpose ladder draped in Christmas lights and I clamped on a black sheet to hide the lights reflection on the garage door.

I tried my 50mm f1.8 lens but found it didn’t give me enough sharp focus on my face and still blow out the back Christmas lights. So I tried my 17-85mm, but wide angle lenses don’t work well at all with the bokeh hood. It just makes a star biscuit cutter shape on all the images. So out came my 70-200mm f2.8. This lens being a telephoto allows me to easily throw out focus on background highlights.

Once I got some decent bokeh results with this lens it was time to introduce my reflective umbrella slightly closed up to light up my face. I chose the reflective umbrella so I had more control over the lights direction. I didn’t want light spilling onto my backdrop. I used my new Cactus KF36 @ 1/16th power. triggered by Cactus V2s remotes.

My brother came over for dinner so I asked him something I never expected to ever ask him “Can you punch me in the head please?” He happily lent a hand or is that a fist. It took us a couple of timer shots but it worked out relatively well.

As far as post processing goes all edits were made in Photoshop CS4. I applied sharpening and contrast boosts. And after following a video on creating blood I added bruising marks to my eye and nose. Here is a link to that video.

Now I will be working on my mostly black brief and cardboard cutout glasses portrait shot. I will be certain to blog about all of the briefs so please stay tuned. I’d love to hear what you think of my entries.

Worth Bottling

Scott — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 03:15:36 +0000

We headed off to Tamborine Mountain here is Queensland for a wine and distillery tour about 2 weeks ago. We sampled plenty and bought a fair share also. But before I let Anna open these bottles I wanted to get some photos of them.

This is the International Award Winning Wattle Toffee Liqueur. The bottle is hand painted by the owner of the Tamborine Mountain Distillery Alla.

Setup Details

For the shoot I wanted the bottles on a seamless white background with as much detail of the bottle as possible, and considering for my birthday in July I got a light stand and umbrella it it was time to put them to good use.

Using white foam core boards as the base and backdrop I could nuke the setup giving me a nice white environment.

As you can see the flash was setup at a 45deg angle to the bottle and slightly above. The Vivitar 285 was set @ 1/4 power and triggered with my Cactus wireless remotes. Lens used for the shots was my Canon 70-200mm f2.8. Reason I went with this was that my 17-55mm f4-5.6 wasn’t offering the DOF or sharpness I wanted. I wanted a little more pop, and you just cant beat the sharpness the Canon 70-200mm f2.8 lens offers. Only thing was that I was shooting from the lounge room.

So what did I learn from this shoot? Firstly I have to ask myself why I hadn’t opened the packet of Jatz biscuits at the end of the table during the shoot(Man those things are addictive). And secondly a larger white backdrop would have helpded limit post processing time, as each image required cropping and adding of white space. Think I will invest in larger foam core boards this week.

I’ll be doing more product photography based shots this weekend as I will be visiting my parents and Mum needs some of her Silk art and products shot for the launch of her new website. More info on that soon.

Here is a shot of the Lemon Myrtle Vodka that is certainly the best vodka I think I have ever had. I wouldn’t mind re-shooting this but on a black or dark gray backdrop.

Viva Le Tour & DIYPhotography.net

Scott — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 04:57:18 +0000

Well one of my favorite blogs DIYPhotography.net has just launched a competition series about setting yourself up a cheap but professional studio at home. DIYPhotography.net has been bringing interesting projects to us hacks for years now and Udi has decided its time for us to make a background and take a photo that will remind us the photographer of the things we love.

Its been a month of late nights for me watching the Tour De France. So I wanted to pay tribute to the great race. Bike in the pictures is actually my brothers GT single speed that we are looking after currently. Its not a light bike I would like to add.

Canon 40D,17-85mm, ISO 800, 17mm, f5, 1/200th

For the above shot I basically used my garage as a massive light tent. Its actually much easier then it at first looks.

After a nice new coat of white paint to the brick wall we were ready to go. The wall will now allow me to make it a brillient white or what ever colour I gel my flash for.

To get the whole wall and roof illuminated I setup my Canon 430ex and set it to full power for the bike shots, and 1/4 power for my profile shots. I had it resting about 2 foot up on my esky as i don’t yet have a light stand let alone an umbrella. (Its my birthday in like 5 days so that will be rectified soon).

Attached was my DIY Yogurt Diffuser. I went for this as it will spread the light in all directions like a gary fong. However this mod is alot cheaper and tastes better too. If I had just used the flash without the mod only the back wall would get a proper covering of light. Flash was fired with my Cactus remotes. All shots were on a 10sec timer. Trust me 10 seconds flys when you are trying to pop-a-mono.

The below shot was the portrait version of the leading photo on this post. Not sure which one I like the most.

Canon 40D,17-85mm, ISO 800, 17mm, f5, 1/200th

Below are 2 shots taken with my nifty fifty. I didn’t need as much illumination as by background was much smaller. Flash was set yo around 1/4 power.

Canon 40D,50mm, ISO 800, 50mm, f3.2, 1/250th

After a few edits in Lightroom 2.0 and adjusting to the white space like removing a few objects in the side of the frame I recon its come out ok for a first attempt. Next time I think I would snoot a 2nd lighton my tyre tread.

Next upgrades to the studio setup will be some sort of white flooring and a curved board where the wall meets the floor. Then I can do head to feet shots. I can also do a shoot longways down the garage once I clean it up a little more.

Viva Le Tour & DIYPhotography.net.

Headshot, Boot Camp II

Scott — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 10:42:33 +0000

One of my favorite blogers, David Hobby that runs strobist.com is well know for running free assignment based workshops every now and then. Unfortunately I haven’t had the chance to participate in the past but last month he announced Strobist Boot Camp II. The idea of Boot Camp is for people to put the knowledge gained from his site about off camera lighting into action. The assignments are sort based off real world situations.

The first assignment for this year was to take a nice headshot of someone unemployed or similar that they could use on their resumé so as to stand out from other applicants.

So my subject for the shoot was my wife Anna who is just about to finish a Masters of Environment – Education for Sustainability. She has been applying for relevant jobs like crazy and has had a few interviews of late that she has finished up 2nd best even though the relevant HR Departments couldn’t give her a decent reason why she was just overlooked for the position considering she fulfilled all requirements well. I nice headshot on her resumé may be just what she needs.

So I had my subject but now I had to decide on how I wanted to shoot her and where. Considering Anna is in the environmental field I wanted to give her a natural and warm look. The assignment also happened to begin while we were preparing to go on holidays to the bottom of Australia. At first i was worried the holiday would stop me from getting the assignment done but then it dawned on me. We are going to a massive national park with prehistoric ferns. What better environment to shoot in to convey my subjects passion.

It was getting late into the afternoon and we came across this perfect location for the shoot. I wanted to have Anna backed up against the tree and have the ferns in the background.

Gear for the shoot was:

Canon 40D
Canon 50mm f1.8 mk2
Remote shutter control
Canon 430ex
Home made light mod(shown below)
Cactus remotes
Tripod for camera
Voice activated light stand

With the camera in manual mode I set my exposure to 1/200th and an aperture of f1.8. My ISO was set to 400. I setup the camera on my tripod right next to the ferns trunk seen in the location shot. I then used myself as a voice activated light stand to camera left shooting the flash (1/32th power) with my mod through the ferns branches.

I don’t own a light stand or umbrella yet and there was no way I was going to bring one with me to the other side of Australia on holidays. So it was now time to test my newest flash mod.

Yep that’s one massive yogurt container converted into a diffuser sort of thingy. I have been keeping a keen eye on the container ever since my wife bought the yogurt. After a nice clean and removal of the label all I needed to do was make a nice X cut to the lid and BAM.

After a few test shots I had something i was liking and it was Anna turn behind the camera. I made sure she set the focal point to my leading eye and using the shutter remote she held the flash in a similar area to where I had it and lets just say us photographers are not great at smiling of que. Anna did get a few laughs out of me and she has done very well considering the complexity of the situation.

Next time I may use an aperture of around 4 or 5.6 so as not to blur as much of the background ferns. Also the addition of a 2nd light would be a luxury so as I could have a rim light for our heads to stand out more from the tree. Anna’s blonde hair was a savior here. But overall I’m very happy with my first ever headshot and my first proper go at a on location shoot. This is what Strobist boot camp is all about, pushing our boundaries and exploring the awesome world of off camera lighting. Bring on assignment 2.

Photography Blogs and I live by.

Scott — Thu, 07 May 2009 06:43:01 +0000

I thought it was about time I shared with you my favorite photography blogs that I spend most of my time on the internet trawling through.
Mark J Rebilas – http://markjrebilas.com/blog

Mark is a freelance sports photographer based in Phoenix, AZ. I’ve been following his blog since the 2008 Olympic games in which Mark captured some amazing Olympic moments and showed us just how diverse his sports photography skills are. His work can be seen on ESPN, Sports Illustrated, USA Today, the Los Angeles Times and loads of other sites.

He is one of very few sports photographers that shares how he sets up remotes and he doesn’t mind showing you his not so great shots, like when some stupid redneck fan gets in his way of a play.

Trey Ratcliff – Stuck in Customs – http://www.stuckincustoms.com

Trey is the king of HDR Images. His blog is updated with a new striking image everyday or there about. He has traveled all over the world putting his HDR spin on some amazing world icons and even a few spins on different cultures.

He has written one of the most in depth tutorials on the technique of HDR (High Dynamic Range) photography available on the internet. He teaches you how to use HDR in such suttle ways to enhance the image but not destroy it with halo effects and unreal colours.

Dan Newton – Liquid in Plastic – http://www.liquidinplastic.com

Dan is one of the best star trail photographers I have come across on the internet. Like Dan I too became a fan of star trail photography when I got my first science text book in year 7. It happened to have a star trail over an astronomers observatory on the front cover. Like Trey has his tutorial, Dan has an equally great tutorial on star trail photography.

Not only does Dan share his tips on star trails but he also gives great setup shots and details on his other still life shoots.

David Hobby – Strobist – http://www.strobist.blogspot.com

Strobsit is one of the most famous photography blogs in the world. David has shown the world the power of small off camera lighting. His Lighting 101 posts developed amateur on camera flash photographers into off camera pro’s and he followed this up with Boot Camp and Lighting 102. He steps you through how to get that flash off camera and even better how to do it on the cheap side by using old soup containers as diffusers and so forth.

Zack Arias – http://www.zarias.com

Want the honest truth about photography? Well Zack will tell you, and who knows his wife meg may well help along the way.

Zack is a full time editorial photographer and he will tell it to you as it is. He recently release his DVD titled OneLight Workshop and it looks to be a very well put together production.

One feature of Zack’s blog that i really did is his critiques. Basically a bundle of wannabe paid photographers send in there site to get critiqued. Zack and his wife Meg sit up to all hours discussing the selected sites giving tips and cracking some great jokes. If you want to know how or how not to layout your online portfolio well this is the place to find out. Oh what ever you do don’t use selective colouring and expect them to love it.

Udi Tirosh – DIY – http://www.diyphotography.net

Udi has built one hell of a diverse selection of DIY photography hacks and tips. Wanna know how to make gels for your strobes for cheap? Maybe you wanna build a light box or sound trigger. This place has it covered.

I have built a fair few things from the site and made a few modifications along the road. For us non-professionals there are some great hacks.

Star Wars R2-D2 Shoot

Scott — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 08:27:06 +0000

One of my favorite photography forums Ausphotography is currently running a Star Wars themed competition in the lead up to Star Wars Day. Obviously held on May the 4th (May the force). Being the massive Star Wars fan that I am I just had to try a few things.

I’m an R2-D2 fan and though it would be great to create a shot of R2 escaping from the Skywalker’s moisture farmer in search of Obi-Wan Kenobi. I had some old R2-D2, C-3Po, & Chewbacca figurines that I got as a kid from Pizza Hut. They had been sitting in a box for 10 or so years.

In the cover of darkness grabbed a handful of sand from the spare block up the street from us. It was very weathered and almost like concrete in some spots. Much like the planet Tatooine’s surface.

I then folded out m trusty multi-purpose ladder and placed 3 wooden boards salvaged from a crate across it. Poured a fair bit of sand onto the middle board in a mound formation and began brushing the sand around my little R2 unit with an old tooth brush. The base of the R2 figurine is bright yellow so I needed to cover this up.

Then it was time to setup the camera and tripod. Lens for this shot was the Canon 17-85mm f4-5.6 IS. Reason for this choice was that I could try closer up and wider shots without the need of changing my lens. Tripod was setup so that the camera was in a portrait position at about the same height as the boards.

I then placed my Vivitar 285 flash at the back left of the sand mound at 1/16th power. I placed an orange gel that I had picked up from reverse garbage shop a couple of months ago. The flash was directed at the white brick wall in the garage, and positioned so that the hotspot of the flash would be to the left of the composed image.

To light up R2 and give him a shadow I used 2 LED lights that I have for our mountain bikes. One was aimed at the sand and the other was held above left pointing at R2′s head and gave a nice shadow behind him.

Camera settings were

Exposure: 1/250
Aperture: f/6.3
Focal Length: 85 mm
ISO Speed: 400
Vivitar 285 set at 1/16th power with orange gel

Post Processing in Photoshop CS 2

Cropped image a little to place R2 on a vertical and horozontal 3rd
Auto Contrast
Saturated the blues a little and decreased the light level for blues by just a little
Added curve layer, small S bend
Sharpened image
Added a small border by adding some guide lines and then using the paint brush with a soft edge I painted a white thin line around the edge except where the text will be
I then added the Text R2-D2 and centered it

This weekend I plan on doing another Star Wars themed shoot once I find which box my model Tie Fighter is in. I have a few ideas for it that I have drawn up on some paper. I might scan that and upload it too.

For all things Star Wars check Wookieepedia

Any questions please ask in the comments or contact me via the Contacts page.