Tuesday, July 17, 2007

Frog photos with double off camera flash (SB-800's) and video

This frog was so cool. It spent hours calling out in to the night.

I took photos of him on three nights in a row, and quickly setup to remote flashes on the first night and went to town. I triggered the flashes remotely with the on camera flash on commander mode. I experimented with TTL and manual modes on the flashes and mostly shot in manual mode at outputs of about 1/8th to 1/2 power. It wasn't until the last night that I moved one of the flashes towards the front of the frog. I also tried shooting at the higher power on the flashes and lowering ISO to still get a good exposure, and decent shutter speed and f/stop. I realized if I am providing all the light for the photo, and I am shooting under-powered flashes and higher ISO I am doing something wrong! Why shoot at 1/4 power flash and ISO 400 when I can shoot at 1/1 (full power) flash and ISO 100 and get the same light and exposure?! So I tried some light that. After a while I raised the ISO in favor of wearing down the batteries on the flash unit any more than I already was and I was swapping batteries a lot over the days I shot these.

From the 3rd night of shooting this frog (+video)



Some lighting shots. My brother's pond is maybe 12 feet wide and 9 or 10 feet deep. Mostly I had the flashes near eachother and behind the frog on the right and left.

Frog/Pond - Lighting

2007_0706_D200_87336

For some I used the on camera flash too as a third light source, it may be the source of the reflection on the frog here
Frog - Pond in Maine

Here's one with the side lighting
Call of the wild

And finally here's a 5 minute video of still shots and the audio from the pond and the frog's calls. I didn't take the time to synchronize the images of calls with the sound of calls... The sound is just for that added flavor or feeling of the frog and the pond.



-Jon

Tags: Maine, ME, Pond, Frog, Water, Video, Audio, Flash, Lighting, Nikon, D200, SB-800, CLS, wireless, remote off camera flash.

Monday, July 16, 2007

Here's a video of the shooting action!



-Jon

Monday, July 02, 2007

Humpback Whale - Whale Watching in Maine - 7/2/2007 (odysseywhalewatch.com)

I went on a whale watching boat ride today, and we saw Whales! I got some good shots, and had some fun. A great day.

I took a boat out of Portland Harbor. Visit their web site here:
www.odysseywhalewatch.com/

Here are the two shots I've decided to post so far, while still on vacation and having limited access to editors, etc.

Humpback Whale - Maine - 7/2/2007

Humpback Whale - Maine - 7/2/2007

-Jon