When you travel give yourself a little time to acclimate

Nikon D4, 14-24mm, ISO 100, ƒ/8, 1/500

I am teaching a class with two of my friends Jeff Raymond, from ABWE, and James Dockery, ESPN, this week in Lisbon, Portugal. Our first day of class is Monday, which is today.

Yesterday we let the students shoot around the area just to get acclimated to the time zone change. These photos are while we went around Lisbon and nearby to just take in some of the sights.

Nikon D4, 14-24mm, ISO 100, ƒ/8, 1/500

I shot this one of the palace while we drove by it. Keeping my shutter speed pretty high helped me not worry about the camera movement due to the van we were in at the time.

Nikon D4, 28-300mm, ISO 100, ƒ/4.5, 1/800

I would always suggest a little time to acclimate to the location before diving quickly into the story. One of the reasons is if you have never been to that part of the world you are getting to feel the location and not just react immediately as you would be doing while telling the story.

Nikon D4, 14-24mm, ISO 7200, ƒ/8, 1/100

Here is James Dockey, an editor for ESPN TV, that is enjoying conversing with the lady at the coffee shop and some of the students in the class we are teaching. One of the best ways to acclimate is to eat the food and enjoy their coffee.

Nikon D4, 14-24mm, ISO 4500, ƒ/8, 1/100

Here James is with the ladies who served us and the espresso and some pastries. While this was James' food I got the same. WOW that was delicious.

We are now all rested and adjusted to the time zone and ready for diving into our storytelling on Lisbon for the rest of the week. Stay tuned for some more from Lisbon.

Fashion Show

Fashion Show

These are some of my photos from this past Saturday of a fashion show my daughter participated in. I was there just as a proud parent and took some photos.


I found a seat that I liked the angle from and just stayed put to enjoy the show.

I used my Nikon 28-300mm lens on my Nikon D4 primarily. It gave me the most flexibility to get closeup shots and overall shots of the runway for the models.

I also have my 14-24mm on another Nikon D4 camera, which I just used a few times.

Hope you enjoy the show as much as I did.

By the way this is my daughter Chelle. I think she looked great. She looks so much like her mother.

Can you send me some of those photos Stanley?

Hey Stanley can you send me some of those photos?

The camera phones just were not cutting it for my family while we are on vacation at the beach.

So last night my wife even tweeted: "Can't wait to see @stanleyleary's photos of this moon. http://t.co/AdngV9H0"

It never fails when I pull out my nicer camera I get these comments.

Shot on Nikon D4 with 28-300mm, ISO 10,000, ƒ/5.6, 1/200. I had it on 2X crop mode so this lens is now a 450mm for this photo here.

Shot on Nikon D4 with 28-300mm, ISO 12,800, ƒ/5.6, 1/80.

The moon was shot last night. Now I walk out on our balcony and see the 4th of July Parade forming down the street. How lucky can you get?  All I had to do is find my camera and walk outside on the balcony to get most of these photos.

Before running to get the camera I told the family about the parade. The first response was, "Can you send us some photos?"

After shooting some of the parade I wanted to capture the family enjoying the parade from the 3rd floor balcony on the beach house we were staying in at Ocean Isle Beach, NC.

After getting some photos from the balcony I went down to the street level to shoot a few close up shots showing people's faces in the parade.

What is the lesson from this blog? Always have a camera with you and I want to add to have your good camera nearby for opportunities as they arise.

You see I didn't know about the parade. It was our first time at Ocean Isle Beach on July 4th. We had stayed here numerous times before as a family, but never during the holiday.

Hot Shoe Flash Lighting

Nikon D4, 28-300mm, ISO 200, f/5.0, Nikon SB900, Nikon SB800 fired using PocketWizard Mini TT1 , PocketWizard AC3 and PocketWizard Transceiver TT5.

I enjoying using our backyard as a background. First of all I don't have to light everything and we love the trees.

For this photo I wanted to tie our daughter playing her viola to the outdoors.

This is a wide shot to show the flashes.  They are on Manfrotto 5001B Nano Black Light Stands and the Manfrotto 175F Justin Spring Clamp with Flash Shoe to hold the flashes.

I am shooting in TTL mode and after I take a shot I am using the compensation dials on the camera and the PocketWizard AC3 to adjust my exposure.

In this photo of the PocketWizard AC3 A is set to a +1, B is set to +2 and C is set to a +3 compensation.

The PocketWizard AC3 sits on top of the PocketWizard Mini TT1 in it's hot shoe.  You can also use the Nikon SU-800 to do the same thing.

In the first photo I have the camera at -1 compensation and the flash on her face at 0 Compensation and the hair light at +2 compensation.

You really just have to play with this to get the results you want.

Here we are shooting more in the woods than in the first photo. Here the camera is -1 1/3 EV.  The flashes are at +1 EV.

She is getting some sunshine from the left and the flashes are lighting the shadow side of her face.

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We moved again around the backyard to a different background.  Also changed the lighting a little here as well. The camera is set at -3 EV and the flashes are on the right set at +2 EV and the one on her left at +1 EV.

This is the actual lighting setup for the photo just above it.

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I am using an -1 EV so as to not loose the background but just tone it down a bit. The flash to the right is +1 EV and the hair light flash is +2 to help separate her from the background.

The lighting setup for the above photo.

The idea with the two hot shoe flashes was to use them to compliment the lighting outside.  I used one light to help separate the viola player from the background by putting the flash up high and using it as a hair light would be used in the studio.  I am using the other flash as the main light and using the natural light to control the background.

Because I am outside I am using the PocketWizard radio remote system to be sure the signal is reaching the flashes. 

Once you master the use of the one off camera hot shoe flash and you are ready to expand try this exercise yourself. See what results you come up with using your camera and flashes.