It's begining to look a lot like xmas!!!

The decorations are coming out at our house.


Merry Christmas!


Light Cipher

FIREWORKS!!!

July 4th in the United States means fireworks! Like many others we went to our local show.

Some of the shots gave me light on the crowd below. I really wanted that effect. I feel it gives the display some "grounding". I still had to do some editing to really bring them up. But I think they worked for many of the shots. Here are a few of my favorites. To see more, just click on the images.Of course I had to include some closer shots. This one was pretty cool.

Details on the settings are included on my web site. But the basics are a sturdy tripod, "mirror up", cable release, a small aperture (large "f" number), a longer shutter speed (~2 seconds for most of these), focus set at infinity, and timing. I think I got the timing pretty good on these since I could see the "shells" going up and started the shutter when I saw the burst.

Enjoy,
Light Cipher

Correction regarding the 1966 Corvair

I got some of the facts wrong in the previous post. My father had this to say after reading it...

"I'm not up on this "bloging" but what I see, I like. As to the car, it is a drivers side remote mirror. It also has: automatic trans, bucket seats, wooden steering wheel, air conditioning, 140 engine. (Stock with 4 carbs, two primary and two secondary. It has lots of zip."

It is a very nice car. Thanks to my parents for helping me get this shot.

Light Cipher

Happy 4th of July USA!!!

So I went home for my 20th high school reunion... Man do I feel old... So my parents have some classic Corvair cars. One of which is a 1966 4 door Corsa which was used on the Chevy proving ground. Among other unique features it has a passenger side remote control mirror; something rare in 1966. As it turns out my parent actually purchased their house in July 1966. So I thought this following picture was pretty appropriate...

July 4th 1966...


Happy July 4th to the United States!

Light Cipher

ED4 Safety Clinic

I belong to a lot of clubs. I have a hectic life and I am always on the move. I just bought a netbook and verizon wireless card be able to keep up with my online life while on the move in my "real" life... But I digress...

This past weekend I shot an event which I have been a part of for many years. Esprit De Four, a Silicon Valley OHV (Off-Highway Vehicle) club puts on a biannual Safety Clinic.

This one day class presents students with a morning of classroom instruction followed by an afternoon of hands on driving experience. Since I love photography so much I have been dubbed the club photographer. To get to the photography for at least a bit in the post... I tried something new this year which I would have never tried before reading Strobist and Joe Mc Nally's 2 books. This year I threw on my SB-900 to really make the shots pop in the morning and afternoon sun... This turned out quite well. I know I could have done better but I did not want to take too many chances. Even though this was not a paying gig, I wanted to treat it as such so the students and club members could have some good shots to share. So far I have not heard any complaints!!!

Anyway, if you are into getting out into the back country and you want to take a lot of camera gear OHV (Off-Highway Vehicle) driving, and Esprit De Four's class, might be just the thing for you. The day starts off with registration and vehicle inspection. Here students learn a little about their vehicles, what equipment is really necessary for a basic day run, and prepare a bit for the day by airing down their tires. Airing down is very important off-road to really grip the various types of terrain you encounter.
















After inspections the students enter the class room for some lecture. Esprit De Four is very lucky to have Kelly Swanson as one of our instructors. Kelly was a contender for the US Camel Trophy team.

He is the best spotter I have ever met and is definitely the guy you want to have on trail with you. In addition to the classroom lecture, the classroom instructors demonstrate popular off-highway equipment such as Hi-Lift jacks, winches, straps, and lockers. The locker demo in particular is very informative.


After the morning classroom session the students get a quick lunch and drivers meeting. Here they meet the Esprit De Four members who will be guiding them on the practical trail exercises. Once again we have excellent guidance on trail. Here we see Ellen get "baby" air while demonstrating the "ravine".

So that brings me to one of the obstacles we have set up for the students; the "ravine". The ravine is... a... well... ravine. We have the students drive up it. This is really more intimidating to look at then to drive.
This is the place where we can get some really good photo ops. So since I am the club photographer. I get stationed here. Some times I feel bad I am not helping much with spotting vehicles but the students are in good hands with Kelly.

This year we had a special treat. The Palo Alto fire department sent some of their driving instructors to our class. They were very cool and took their F450 through everything. Here are some of the better shots.


With the changing conditions the SB-900 really helped to balance the dark trucks shady side. The spot I am in for this shot is the best for getting the vehicles if they get a tire in the air. Unfortunatly the setting sun is backlighting the trucks. So the SB-900 did a good job of just filling in the side of the trucks.

I still would have liked the background darker.


In the following shots especially the truck needs to be a stop or 2 lighter. However, I was working fast and had the flash set to fill, and when a 14,000 pound truck starts to put a tire in the air you go into the dark shade and start shooting. Next time I will think to crank the flash a bit as this angle further up the ravine had a much brighter background... ;-) I still think the shots work though.



















At the end of the day the firefighters had a lot of water they had been hualing around all day... That just had to be emptied. The kids got a real thrill out of that...


Until next time,
Light Cipher

Bags...

So how do you get 25 pounds of gear to the end of Point Lobos? Read on...

So after my last post you would think I would be done looking for gear... Well...

"Photographers and bags are like women and purses..."

I don't know what happened first with my camera gear; carrying so much crap around; or getting a bigger bag to put it all in... Somewhere along the line I learned that equipment X can do Y and if I want to do Y I better have X. So I have a Bag that now weighs 25 pounds!!! 8-0 I find solace in the fact that many other message boards are filled with photographers facing the same problem.

Searching places like dpreview.com have revealed what looks like a good solution but I don't know just yet. Think Tank Photo makes a "Modular belt system" which seems like a good idea. They have 2 dealers near me. (Camera West and Bear Images) I checked them out one weekend and decided on the modular system.

This worked out very well down in Montery and Point Lobos.

The only problem I had was where do I put my camera when I am eating or if I have to hike over some particularly difficult boulders? This is a problem with the belt system when you are hiking. So I ended up with the Streetwalker Harddrive. This is the perfect companion for me. Some might think that this bag is too big for walk around photography... Well you just have to have a place to put the reflector and other flash modifiers. That is what I put in the laptop slot when I am not traveling. It works great with a 24" reflector in there!!!

Thanks go to both Camera West and Bear Images for helping me with this decision. They were both very helpful!

Light Cipher

Source to Sensor (It's all about the LIGHT stupid!)

So I read and hear so much about camera equipment these days...

I admit, I am a gear head. I have more equipment for more hobbies than you can shake a stick at. I have nice gear, new gear, old gear, used gear, DIY gear, and store bought gear... However, every endeavor eventually boils down to some basic principle, which when applied in complex ways makes you seem like a god to those around you. And so it is with Photography. But for some reason I don't think people say it enough so here it is again.

"It's ALL about the LIGHT stupid!!!"

I have been taking photos for 20 years and have just started a photography business and yet once in a while I still have trouble deciphering the light... This happened recently with a simple product shoot I was doing for friends. This was not a paid gig, just something I was doing because I though the effect would be cool... (Maybe I missed it because I was just "playing around"?) Never the less, I completely misread the ambient light. The photos turned out just fine (laser) but about 1/2 way through the shoot I realized the ambient overhead light was contributing a lot to the photo.

All the years of shooting photos, all the reading on Strobist, all the books I have read, all the online communities I browse, and all the classes I have taken, none have explained this in simple, basic terms. The best source thus far has been; "Light, Science and Magic". The lack of this knowledge is proven by my friends who ask me about taking photos and they talk about being confused by aperture, shutter speed, ISO, WB, etc... These things are only controling the light from the front of the lens to the sensor! What about everything else?

There are resources such as strobist who are a wealth of information about light placement and how it hits the subject. But the fact is that even if you do the exact same light placement you will not get the same photo with out the exact same scene! Yes David discusses ambient a lot but what is ambient? It is everything coming into your lens from the surroundings. This could be from a lamp, window, or perhaps it is flash bouncing off a wall. Wait, what are you talking about Ira? Flash is not ambient? Well that is true however, if you don't think about where that extra flash light is going it just might come back in at some wrong angle and POOF you have weird light affects in your subject. What about light bouncing off the wall from the lamp in the corner? How does it fall on the subject? Is it contributing to light which is coming in from the window? If so it is the wrong WB or color? Light is all over and bouncing in all directions off of everything around you. I think most of the people who are reading forums and posts like this are in smaller spaces, less controlled spaces. And therefore they have trouble deciphering the light. So lets start with that. Find the light, decipher it, then, and ONLY then can you cipher it into digital 1's and 0's...

Now don't get me wrong. I am not giving up my expensive gear. I will probably buy, build, and create more. But my focus, and yours, must always be on the LIGHT all the way from source to sensor.

Light Cipher