Showing posts with label Neewer Remote. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Neewer Remote. Show all posts

Tuesday, May 13, 2014

How to create photos that are spectacular!!

Fuji X-E2, 55-200mm, ISO 6400, ƒ/4.7, 1/75 [Neewer TT850 on light stand bouncing. The Neewer 433MHz Wireless 16 Channel Flash Remote Trigger to fire the off-camera flash and control the power from the camera.]

Those are spectacular!!!  Much nicer to have the lighting off the camera’s direct line of sight.
email from a parent

I photographed my daughter's orchestra awards banquet and while there a guy came up and started talking to me and asking questions. I could tell from all his camera gear he was either a pro as well or just a hobbyist. He wanted to know where my photos would be accessible. He had been taking photos for a few years since his child was a senior in the orchestra. My daughter is just a freshman.

I gave him my business card and he wrote sending me a link to his photos. Since I knew he was wanting to share I sent him the link that I had also given to the orchestra teacher to use for the newsletters and other things to help out the program.

That is when I got the email with the quote above "Those are spectacular!!!  Much nicer to have the lighting off the camera’s direct line of sight."

Fuji X-E2, 18-55mm, ISO 6400, ƒ6.4, 1/30 [Neewer TT850 on light stand in back of room pointed straight toward the front of the room. The Neewer 433MHz Wireless 16 Channel Flash Remote Trigger to fire the off-camera flash and control the power from the camera.]
I think the father noticed my flash on a light stand because my Fuji X-E2 didn't look pro as compared to his large DSLR and 70-200mm ƒ/2.8.

His wife later in the evening said, since you do this professionally you can answer a question. She then pulled up a photo where you could see the reflection of her on camera flash in the glasses of people. She wanted to know how to get rid of the reflection.

Fuji X-E2, 55-200mm, ISO 6400, ƒ/6.4, 1/40 [Neewer TT850 on light stand in back of room pointed straight toward the front of the room. The Neewer 433MHz Wireless 16 Channel Flash Remote Trigger to fire the off-camera flash and control the power from the camera.]
I talked to her about how your flash works like you playing billiards/pool. By getting the flash further from the lens you avoid the problem with reflections in the glasses.

This is the Neewer TT850 on light stand and the Neewer 433MHz Wireless 16 Channel Flash Remote Trigger on the Fuji X-E2]
This flash system isn't TTL and therefore controlling the exposure is done a few ways.
  • Flash Power—How bright the flash is will influence if the picture is over, under or properly exposed. You can control the Neewer flash from 1/128 to full power in 1/3 stop increments.
  • ƒ-stop/Aperture—You control how much of the light is coming into your camera by the camera iris called the aperture. These are fractions. The focal length of the lens over how wide the opening of the lens is. 
  • Flash Distance to Subject—The closer you put the flash to the subject the brighter the subject and the further away you put is the darker it gets. This is assuming your Flash Power and ƒ-stop are constant.
When the radio is on the same channel as the flash you can then send the signal to change the power settings of the flash. 
I put the flash off to the side of the room or at the back of the room. How do I determine where to put the flash in relation to the camera? I want the FLASH—CAMERA—SUBJECT to form a triangle. Usually the flash is between 45º to 90º most of the time.

What impressed the parent wasn't my cameras or really my flash—he had as good of gear if not better than what I had, but the thing is his flash was on his camera and that is what made my pictures spectacular. How do I know this—he said so.

Friday, May 02, 2014

Make your photos "DIFFERENT" at events or don't get hired

Nikon D4, 14-24mm, ISO 100, ƒ/10, 1/100, off-camera flash using the Neewer TT850 flash & Neewer 433MHz Wireless 16 Channel Flash Remote Trigger
I get hired a great deal to cover events. Everyone with a camera could cover these events, but I make my photos look different every chance I get.

Here in these photos I am using off-camera flash to help improve the photos. This first photo the sun is behind the ladies on the left hitting the man's face. This puts them in a silhouette and the way I fixed this was to have my assistant hold the flash on a monopod up high pointing down at them.

Nikon D4, 14-24mm, ISO 100, ƒ/7.1, 1/50, off-camera flash using the Neewer TT850 flash & Neewer 433MHz Wireless 16 Channel Flash Remote Trigger
Here the flash is off to my right pointing at the ladies on the left. Here you can see again that without this flash their faces would have been silhouetted. Had I used a flash on the camera I would have flattened the features. By having the assistant hold the light up high I still get some shape to the cheek bones of the ladies.

Nikon D4, 14-24mm, ISO 640, ƒ/5.6, 1/200, off-camera flash using the Neewer TT850 flash & Neewer 433MHz Wireless 16 Channel Flash Remote Trigger
Here the assistant is bouncing the flash off the ceiling inside the room. I am just raising the light level inside so that the outside is balanced and not washed out with no details.

Nikon D4, 28-300mm, ISO 2000, ƒ/5.6, 1/40, off-camera flash using the Neewer TT850 flash on S2 [slave setting] with the Nikon SB900 and SB800 on Pocketwizard TT5 triggered by the TT1 and AC3 to control their output. 

Nikon D4, 28-300mm, ISO 1250, ƒ/5.6, 1/100, off-camera flash using the Neewer TT850 flash on S2 [slave setting] with the Nikon SB900 and SB800 on Pocketwizard TT5 triggered by the TT1 and AC3 to control their output. 

Nikon D4, 28-300mm, ISO 800, ƒ/5.6, 1/100, off-camera flash using the Neewer TT850 flash on S2 [slave setting] with the Nikon SB900 and SB800 on Pocketwizard TT5 triggered by the TT1 and AC3 to control their output. 
There are three flashes in the room all being controlled by the camera. I have the Nikon SB-900 and Nikon SB-800 working on TTL and triggered by the PocketWizard system. The Neewer TT850 has a 2nd flash setting to work with TTL flashes.  The light in the room was so mixed with different color temperatures that I wanted to clean this up with the flash.

Nikon D4, 28-300mm, ISO 10000, ƒ/7.1, 1/100, off-camera flash using the Neewer TT850 flash & Neewer 433MHz Wireless 16 Channel Flash Remote Trigger 
Nikon D4, 14-24mm, ISO 640, ƒ/2.8, 1/25, off-camera flash using the Neewer TT850 flash & Neewer 433MHz Wireless 16 Channel Flash Remote Trigger
With all these photos the camera was on Aperture priority and I am winking the flash just slightly brighter than the ambient light. Often same light value or +  1/2 stop greater to just clean up the color and give a little pop to the images.

I know that if anyone was shooting with the iPhone or point and shoot camera they would not be getting this quality of images. They are different. This is very important if you want to be hire to shoot, because if my images didn't look different than what they are able to make with their own cameras then why hire you?