Category Archives: Tips

Some things you should know about photography lighting,techniques and photography matters

Tips

3 Best On Camera Flash Diffusers

July 18, 2009 – 9:00 am

Many times when I shoot indoors-family or my little boy Eitan I don’t like to setup flashes and want to be spontaneous .After knowing that the direct on camera flash shooting option is the last thing to consider,I started to look for an on camera flash gadget that will improve the flash diffusion and make the pictures look more alive.

Here are my top nominees:

1.Opteka Universal Soft Screen Flash Diffuser

As I’m used to buy stuff from amazon (started with books and finished with almost everything) I noticed for their home brand Opteka.This on camera screen diffuser will diffuse your pop up flash and prevent red eye with the handy Pixco pop-up flash diffuser. Quick and convenient to put on & take off. This is the answer to most on camera flash problems. Light loss is about 2/3 of a stop. Fits most Canon, Nikon, Sony, Olympus, Kodak, Pentax & Fuji Camera’s with Pop-Up Flashes.

opteka diffuser 2 opteka diffuser 1

2.LumiQuest – Instant On-Camera Soft Screen Diffuser

This one is the well known LumiQuest brand on-camera soft screen diffuser.As a good costumer of Lumi’s products I have to say that although their products are a bit more expensive they compensate with great building quality and long lasting.LumiQuest’s Soft Screen Diffuser. This diffuser is designed for the built-in pop-up flash of many digital cameras and 35mm SLRs. This device serves to diffuse, distribute and redirect the light for more precisely illuminated subjects under a variety of circumstances. Softens Harsh Shadows Reduces Hot Spots Attaches in Seconds Fits Most Popular Cameras Application: Pop-Up Flash Diffuser.

lumi diffuser panel

3.Professor Kobre’s Lightscoop

This one is probably the most expensive on-camera flash diffuser in this group,but it also has a warmth filter and looks the strongest thing in this competition.This one also won the American Photo Editor’s Choice 2008.Professor Kobre’s Lightscoop, a bounce device for the pop-up flash on most 35mm DSLRs with interchangable lenses, slips over your camera’s pop-up flash and allows you to bounce the flash like professionals bounce an expensive external flash. The Lightscoop is the inexpensive answer to natural-looking bounce flash and digital photography lighting. (Even professionals like it for casual shooting!) No more harsh shadows, bleached faces, red-eye, or cave effect from direct pop-up flash.

Professor Kobre's Lightscoop

4.Gary Fong Puffer Pop Up Flash Diffuser

Gary Fong’s products are very popular gadgets in the lighting department.THE PUFFER mounts in the hot-shoe slot of digital cameras with a pop-up flash, greatly softening and enhancing the quality of light. It’s great for portraits, grab-shots of people and closeups of objects (great for e-bay photos!) It packs up nice and small for convenient storage in your camera bag (or pocket!) and has eight different mounting positions for the perfect fit for any popup flash camera. If you use your popup flash with a wide angle lens and shade, you’ve probably seen a really weird half-circle dark shadow at the bottom of your image. That’s the shadow from your lens shade. When you put on the Puffer diffuser, the shadow is nearly eliminated. Provides professional-style diffused lighting from your camera¿s pop-up flash Softens camera¿s harsh direct flash Reduces harsh shadows Ingeniously mounts via the camera’s flash shoe Adjustable for center positioning of any pop-up flash regardless of size Works in any camera mod.

gary fong diffuser

If you tested or used another on camera flash diffuser element,please let as know about it!

Tell as what you use in order to diffuse your on camera flash.

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Tips

580ex II master mode does not appear to work? -good master/slave post at fredmiranda.com

July 17, 2009 – 11:32 am

In this post a member of the fredmiranda.com forum had a problem setting his Canon 580EXII as master to the Canon 420EX.There is some good tips and pictured explenations on how to solve this problem and set the 580EX master for the 420EX.

The link to the post.

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Tips

A Must Visit Site-Dave Black Photography

July 15, 2009 – 7:48 pm

Dave Black is educated in graphic design and drawing,but he is better known for his photography skills and specialising in high speed sport photography.

In his site you’ll see many of his work,as well – and thats the good stuff- the “workshop at the ranch” section:full of detailed tutorials on how to shoot sports!!!

Dave uses for his outdoors photography mainly Nikons speedlights flashes,so its always nice to see how to use them for pro high speed photography.

Dave puts another article each month,so there is a lot to learn every time.

Highly recommended and a must have on your bookmarks!

Dave Black Photography

Workshop at the Ranch

dave black homepage

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Tips

10 Great tip for shooting fireworks

July 14, 2009 – 8:12 pm

After I read a list of tips about shooting fireworks and how to shoot fireworks in the fremiranda.com forums (My favorite forums site).I decided to put my list some pf the points in that list written corockett (username) .SO here are the tips I have to give you.

Bey the way I have to menttion that the tips you’ll read here are good for any long exposure night photography and will do great if you are shooting lightning during a stormi night.

It’s really quite easy and it sounds like you have it down.

The key 10 tips for shooting great looking fireworks:

Tripod-as you are going to get long exposures you should have the best tripod you can get.
Shutter Release-to prevent any camera shakes while you press the shutter release.If you don’t have one go for the timer option in your camera.
Bulb Mode – you’ll want to expose as long as the fireworks occur.
Manual
Small Apertures – will allow you to get this long exposure right.
Turn of your camera flash-so it won’t confuse you camera exposure and WB settings.
Try to find the best location-some of the best fireworks are taken when there is some water reflection in the frame (lake,see ect.) you could make it interesting by shooting fireworks while they reflect on a big building’s windows.
Come early and test the exposure-This will get you ready and not guessing when the real thing will come.Start from here ISO 100 Bulb f11 and change the exposure as you go on.
Fill up your batteries as long exposure on digital cameras will quickly bring that annoying blinking battery icon in your camera screen.
Low ISO will make your pictures more noise free.Try to go for 50-100 if possible.

The hard part is framing. Don’t think you need all that “L” glass, take what you have to cover a nice range. I’m taking my 11-16, 17-55 and 70 – 200 to cover anything that comes my way. The 70-200 is probably totally unnecessary. But just about any glass will do because you aren’t going to need tack sharp perfect images, even if you eventually print the shot large.

I think the shots where you see some of the landscape make better shots; i.e. bridges, flags, cityscape, etc.

When you here the “thud” of the firework leaving the launcher, hit the release and hold it down until the firework completes (about 4-5 seconds) counting one one thousand, etc. Chimp and ride your aperture up or down until your exposing nicely. Once you have aperture set. Then you just repeat:

Press shutter on rocket release.

Release shutter on completion of firework expansion.

The biggest surprise for most is they think they need to be at some wide aperture. f8 to f16 has always worked best for me.

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Tips Uncategorized

Photo effects with manual zooming your flash

July 4, 2009 – 9:00 am

One of he options for controlling the size of your flash light beam is using a snoot or a grid.Both of those methods will be introduce to you in very simple DIY projects that will improve your photographic creativity very fast and easy.But there is another way to control the size of your flash beam and it is controlling the flash zoom manually.Here is a quick example to the change in the beam size as you change the zoom factor.The camera Canon 40D on the wide side of the Canon 17-55 IS (27mm film equivalent):

flash zoom 105mm

105mm

flash zoom 80mm

80mm

flash zoom 70mm

70mm

flash zoom 50mm

50mm

flash zoom 35mm

35mm

flash zoom 24mm

24mm

You can easly see how the flash cover changes as you change the zoom of the flash.

How to use it for your photography creativity?we’ll load some photos soon!

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Tips

6 tips for amazing extreme macro photography

July 3, 2009 – 8:00 am

Tips from extreme macro photography.

When you want to shoot macro-getting close into the objects,one option is to use a macro lens.I use the canon 100mm f/2.8 macro.The macro lens allows you to get very close to subjects and gets you 1:1 magnification.

If you want to get extreme closeups you could use the reverse lens approach.What you do is using a len that you have,but you attach the lens reverse.You could use an adaptor to do that but there is also an easy DIY way.

In this shootout I used the canon 100mm macro and hand held the canon 50mm in revrse.

Here it’s how I did it.

Tips for extreme macro photography,using the reverse lens method:

Focus both lens for infinity.
Move them to manual mode,at least the len that is attached to the camera so it won’t try to auto focus while tyring to shoot.
Use you elbows as a human tripod.
Focus the the wanted area by moving your body backwards and upwards.
Try to get the shutter speed as high as possible.
Try to use contrast backgrounds to add surprise elements into the frame.

Here as some examples off photos taken with the reverse lens macro photography approach.

Show us your photos and share your tips with us!

Now go out and shoot!!!

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Tips

4 Lighting gadgets you should consider for your off camera flash

July 2, 2009 – 2:34 am

In case you don’t like to do some DIY (I don’t know why cause it a fun thing to do),here are some gadgets for your hot shoe flash.I can promise that some of them will appear in the following weeks us DIY projects section and I promise to total cost will be much much much less.

HonlPhoto 1/8″ Honeycomb Speed Grid for Shoe Mount Portable Flashes

Thw 1/8 Speed Grid has a 1/8″ honeycomb cell size to effectively narrow the beam of light from your portable flash unit, producing a small circle of light on your subject.

Fits most any shoe mount and most handle mount portable strobes, including Canon 420 though 580 and Nikon SB24 though SB800. Attaches quickly and easily to Honlphoto’s Speed Strap mounting system (not included, sold separately).

Usable honeycomb area is 3.5″ x 2.25″ (appr. 89mm x 58mm)- simply measure the front outside dimensions of your flash lens to assure fit. Rugged ABS/polycarbonate construction. Patent pending design.

Opteka Universal Studio Soft Box Flash Diffuser for External Flash Units

A dramatic, eye catching photo can mean dramatic profits. Getting a well exposed photo is extremely important. Photographers often turn to a flash to help light the scene. The problem is that flash can cause harsh reflections or glare spots or create deep shadows that distract viewers. This little, portable universal external flash diffuser will prevent those problems when using a flash. Simply put the unit over the camera’s flash, point and shoot. The light will be softened and your photos will be well exposed, without the harsh glare spots.

Lastolite LL LS2438 15 x 15 Inch Ezybox HotShoe

The new 45cm x 45cm Ezybox Hotshoe coverts your battery operated tilt head flashgun from a harsh directional light into a soft light, that can then be mounted onto either a light stand or a camera bracket. The Ezybox Hotshoe folds flat in the same way as the other Ezybox models, but does not collapse.

Interfit Photographic Strobies EFX Kit for Shoe Mount Flashes, with Snoot & Honey Combs

Interfit Photographic Strobies EFX Kit for Shoe Mount Flashes

The EFX kit is the perfect addition to the Portrait kit. By adding the additional items in this kit. You will soon create drama inducing side lighting to your portraits by using the two honeycombs with the Flex Mounts to create highlights on the side of the face of your model. The snoot or bounce tube can be used as a hair light to produce unlimited effects and light on the back of the hair. The Velcro strap with the Honeycomb could be your background light. For a smaller spot light on the background why not use the “Velcro on” Honeycomband bounce tube together. For Product photography the EFX kit comes into is own by using the snoot you canhighlight the smallest details which can be used with or without the front honeycombs to guide the light forward. In addition you could use the Flex Mount honeycombs to create a wide area spot concentrated on the background or the subject.

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Tips

Quality of light-some example

June 28, 2009 – 10:52 am

Quality of light-simple example.

As I finished making a soon to be published DIY 20cm*20cm Gird Softbox (this will be a good one!!) I found out that there is a couple of minutes left before Eitan’s bath to toy with my white umbrella.This is an example of what they say about the bigger the light source is the better quality of light it will produce.You could checkout for yourself with one is better (quality of light matters):

bad_light_quality good_light_quality

In the right picture is we have the Canon 550EX on a tripod shooting with its omny bounce diffuser on.You could see how bad the shadows looks all over the frame.

On the other side we have the same flash,same position and same power (I only changed the exposure) shooting through a white umbrella and what a difference!!!

Share your experience with quality of light.Who do you prefer?

Enjoy!

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Tips

Getting as much ambient light into your photo.

June 20, 2009 – 9:57 pm

When you wonder around photography forums and looking for tip on how to shoot party/wedding/indoor photos,you probably here the common tip and its something like that:”try to get as much ambient light into your photo”

Well my tips is as you can guess:”Try to get as much possible ambient (natural) light into your shots”.

How you can do it?

If you are shooting a good lit place,try shooting without flsh,or you your flash only as a fill in flash.
if you are shooting outdoor in a poorly lighten environment and you use an off/on camera flash,you can drug you’re shutter,by getting low shutter speeds (you can see an example bellow)

This pictures was taken with flash as fill in flash as shutter speed of 1/15sec,800ISO and f/3.5.This setting allows a lot of natural/ambient light into the picture.Even though the picture took place in the night during some kids party its looks natural.

d7a2d799d79cd799_0267

Share more tips about how you are getting your photos to look more natural!

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Tips

Introduction to remote flash options

June 18, 2009 – 4:06 am

Remote flash basics:

If you want to improve your lighting ability,one of the most helpful methods is to move the flash from your lens axis and by that you will create more 3 dimensional photographs.There many many ways to control your off camera flash,in this post I’ll cover the basic three,each one of them will deal with a different situation,the basic assumption is that you have a digital camera and an off camera flash unit.

Your camera don’t have a hot shoe adaptor and no pc sync output:

in this situation you can attach Infrared Flash Remote Trigger for Digital Camera.This remote trigger will trigger your flash any time it “see’s” a flash fired in its direction.

ir-remote-trigger

Pros:costs less than 8$,size is small and wheights nothing.
Cons:in many digital cameras,the fires a series of pre flash flashes in order to help the camera focus on the desired object.This simple remote trigger see’s those flashes and then trigers the off camera flash unit.
Tips:you can buy a more expensive remote trigger like this one (it is called Wein) wich can notice if the flash fired by the camera is pre flash(and ignore it).If you still go for the cheaper remote trigger,after you focus the camera,wait a couple of seconds for the off camera flash to recharge and then shoot the picture.

Your camera has an hot shoe adpter or pc sync output:

in that case you could go two ways:

connect the flash to the camera via a pc sync cable.Thats the easiest and cheapest way to do the job.If your flash don’t have a pc sync input,you could get an pc sync (input) adaptor for another couple of bucks and you are fixed.

The other way is to use an “expensive” Wireless Flash Remote Receiver Trigger and that will fix you for long distance remote flash too.

Method number three is also the most expensive method in that group is using two flashes that have the ability to work master/slave couple.You could do it with canon speedlite flashes (550EX,430EX,580EX and more) or Nikon units (SB800 SB900 and more).

If you have any questions,or want to share your thoghts about that post,PLS COMMENT!!!

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Category Archives: Tips

3 Best On Camera Flash Diffusers

580ex II master mode does not appear to work? -good master/slave post at fredmiranda.com

A Must Visit Site-Dave Black Photography

10 Great tip for shooting fireworks

Photo effects with manual zooming your flash

6 tips for amazing extreme macro photography

4 Lighting gadgets you should consider for your off camera flash

Quality of light-some example

Getting as much ambient light into your photo.

Introduction to remote flash options

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