Tuesday, March 13, 2012
Snowy Owls
This winter, or the lack there of, has been a bumper year for Snowy Owls here in Southern Ontario. Native to North America's Arctic these beautiful birds have made their way south due to a low cycle of their primary food, lemmings. Arctic lemming populations are on a low cycle and this forces Snowy's to expand their range in search of food. Truly our gain. I am going to miss these magnificent birds when the return to there home range.
Monday, January 23, 2012
Even more Speedlites for Ice Hockey
Not quite perfection, but definitely good enough.
Over the past few years I have freelanced around the Ontario Hockey League and submitted images for use by In the Game trading cards.
When I first started, I was using a Nikon D70s, soon followed by a D200. All these images were taken at maximum ISO and at relatively slow shutter speeds. All the images required some form of noise reduction in post processing. Noise Ninja was my friend. These days I am packing a Nikon D3. This is the camera that revolutionized high ISO photography. Yet there is something about images from under arena lights that doesn't appeal to me. This is what fuels my desire to strobe ice hockey.
Every arena is going to have it's lighting difficulties. For me, nirvana is off axis cross lighting with all sorts of silver insulation on the ceiling to bounce off.
In Owen Sound, at the Bayshore, that is just not the case. After less than perfect images on Wednesday thanks to another futile attempt at direct lighting, I arrived at Saturday's game nice and early. I was on a scouting mission. After staring at the west side for several minutes, I had to succumb to the conclusion that there weren't any good options to bounce on that side. The east side is normally the side I shoot from. It is also the side that offers more opportunities for lighting placement. The east side has private boxes that reach out over top of the normal seating. This past Saturday I used the I-beams under the boxes to secure my flashes. This allowed me to get closer to the silver insulation that only covers the ice surface. I was then able to simulate a light source much larger than my flashes and a light source that is over top the rink, not back in the stands. The result is nice soft light with less fall off.
It's not always about the gear, but sometimes a little technology can go along way.
Enter the new generation of Pocket Wizards. The TT1 Mini and the TT5 Flex. Together they offer off-camera flash with iTTL/eTTL capability. But, that is not the feature that caused me to purchase a TT1 Mini. For me, it's the Hypersync technology that has me so excited. Hypersync is a timing feature that allows cameras to sync to flashes at speeds higher than traditional x-sync speeds.
On the Nikon D3 the native x-sync speed is 1/250th of a second. Try shooting any sporting event at 1/250th and brace yourself for some motion blur. What Hypersync has allowed me to do is sync my flashes at 1/400th, sometimes 1/500th in certain conditions. At first glance, one would say that is not that big of a deal, but what that does is it allows me to overpower that ambient arena lighting with less lights and forces my exposure more on to the flash duration. With my Nikon flashes set to 1/2 power the flash duration is 1/1100th. That is a big deal!
Hypersync is a whole other post on it's own. I will say slower flashes and smaller chips have allowed others to achieve much faster sync speeds.
The set-up:
Camera - Nikon D3, ISO 500, f/5, 1/400th
Lens - AF-S 300mm mkII f/2.8
Radios - Pocket Wizard TT1 + (2) Plus II,
Flash - (2) SB-900, (2) SB-800, (4) SB-26 zoomed to 85mm, 1/2 power
The results... (click on each image to see a larger version)
Over the past few years I have freelanced around the Ontario Hockey League and submitted images for use by In the Game trading cards.
When I first started, I was using a Nikon D70s, soon followed by a D200. All these images were taken at maximum ISO and at relatively slow shutter speeds. All the images required some form of noise reduction in post processing. Noise Ninja was my friend. These days I am packing a Nikon D3. This is the camera that revolutionized high ISO photography. Yet there is something about images from under arena lights that doesn't appeal to me. This is what fuels my desire to strobe ice hockey.
Every arena is going to have it's lighting difficulties. For me, nirvana is off axis cross lighting with all sorts of silver insulation on the ceiling to bounce off.
In Owen Sound, at the Bayshore, that is just not the case. After less than perfect images on Wednesday thanks to another futile attempt at direct lighting, I arrived at Saturday's game nice and early. I was on a scouting mission. After staring at the west side for several minutes, I had to succumb to the conclusion that there weren't any good options to bounce on that side. The east side is normally the side I shoot from. It is also the side that offers more opportunities for lighting placement. The east side has private boxes that reach out over top of the normal seating. This past Saturday I used the I-beams under the boxes to secure my flashes. This allowed me to get closer to the silver insulation that only covers the ice surface. I was then able to simulate a light source much larger than my flashes and a light source that is over top the rink, not back in the stands. The result is nice soft light with less fall off.
It's not always about the gear, but sometimes a little technology can go along way.
Enter the new generation of Pocket Wizards. The TT1 Mini and the TT5 Flex. Together they offer off-camera flash with iTTL/eTTL capability. But, that is not the feature that caused me to purchase a TT1 Mini. For me, it's the Hypersync technology that has me so excited. Hypersync is a timing feature that allows cameras to sync to flashes at speeds higher than traditional x-sync speeds.
On the Nikon D3 the native x-sync speed is 1/250th of a second. Try shooting any sporting event at 1/250th and brace yourself for some motion blur. What Hypersync has allowed me to do is sync my flashes at 1/400th, sometimes 1/500th in certain conditions. At first glance, one would say that is not that big of a deal, but what that does is it allows me to overpower that ambient arena lighting with less lights and forces my exposure more on to the flash duration. With my Nikon flashes set to 1/2 power the flash duration is 1/1100th. That is a big deal!
Hypersync is a whole other post on it's own. I will say slower flashes and smaller chips have allowed others to achieve much faster sync speeds.
The set-up:
Camera - Nikon D3, ISO 500, f/5, 1/400th
Lens - AF-S 300mm mkII f/2.8
Radios - Pocket Wizard TT1 + (2) Plus II,
Flash - (2) SB-900, (2) SB-800, (4) SB-26 zoomed to 85mm, 1/2 power
The results... (click on each image to see a larger version)
 |
Seth Griffith - London Knights |
 |
| Greg McKegg - London Knights |
 |
| Daniel Catenacci - Owen Sound Attack |
Sunday, December 4, 2011
More Ice Hockey with Speedlights
I must tip my hat and acknowledge that Dave Black (www.daveblackphotography.com) has been a large inspiration to my current foray into capturing the perfect ice hockey image.
Don't you dare click his link yet!
You see, when I first found Dave's site, I was blown away with the wealth of knowledge that he was sharing regarding arena strobes. I was soon hooked on his monthly updates.
Don't you dare click his link yet!
My problem was I didn't have several thousand dollars worth of arena strobes. Also, I didn't want to lug around the many pounds of gear that is several thousand dollars worth of arena strobes. But, he did plant a seed in my head. "Why not several speedlights"?
With the advent of digital and iTTL and eTTL technology there are a whole bunch of flashes out there that don't provide Auto exposure with today's cameras. They still put out great light, you just need to be able to and want to deal with manual exposure. Soon eBay became my friend. I picked up 4 Nikon SB-26s for less than I payed for my single SB-900. That is the fun part.
My early efforts were very low cost. A pair of SB26s and a SB800 clamped in the rafters with plastic wood clamps. Not enough light, back to eBay. I now own four SB26s, a pair of SB800s and a SB900 and I still keep looking for that 8th flash.
Dave's site then got even more interesting to me when he went speedlight, when he started producing amazing images with these awesome little lights. Dave is backed by some pretty major sponsors, so he has all the latest in technology. My approach is slightly different. But, it was nice to see that I wasn't crazy and that this is doable. Or I am getting closer anyway.
Don't you dare click his link yet!
In my previous post regarding hockey you can see long shadows falling off the players and the background is slightly underexposed. This is the result of trying to light from just one side of the rink. Physics dictates that light intensity will diminish with distance. The Inverse Square Law. Also, as hard as I tried by getting the lights up high and separated from each other and the camera, I still ended up with that criss cross shadow. There are no catwalks at our local rink.
So, I took my problem to the Flickr Strobist group. Surely, somebody else has tried this and will help me out. Welcome to the land of the Flickr Pro. What a joke! Anyway, after fending off a couple real jerks, plus a rather questionable forum moderator, a fine gentleman from Quebec joins into the dialogue and offers some of his experience with small rinks. Even goes so far as to send my a private email. What impressed me was this guy weighs into a somewhat hostile thread with limited English skills. All hope in humanity has not been lost, there still are good people out there.
Anyway, after discussing my approach, he convinced me to try bouncing my flash off the silver insulation covering the ceiling. Then, after taking another look around the rink with a different mindset, I found that this offered me a chance to do some cross lighting and hopefully get rid of those ugly shadows. I may loose a bit of overall light intensity, but the quality of light should be better.
And here are the results of Week 1 of light bouncing...
Don't you dare click his link yet!
You see, when I first found Dave's site, I was blown away with the wealth of knowledge that he was sharing regarding arena strobes. I was soon hooked on his monthly updates.
Don't you dare click his link yet!
My problem was I didn't have several thousand dollars worth of arena strobes. Also, I didn't want to lug around the many pounds of gear that is several thousand dollars worth of arena strobes. But, he did plant a seed in my head. "Why not several speedlights"?
With the advent of digital and iTTL and eTTL technology there are a whole bunch of flashes out there that don't provide Auto exposure with today's cameras. They still put out great light, you just need to be able to and want to deal with manual exposure. Soon eBay became my friend. I picked up 4 Nikon SB-26s for less than I payed for my single SB-900. That is the fun part.
My early efforts were very low cost. A pair of SB26s and a SB800 clamped in the rafters with plastic wood clamps. Not enough light, back to eBay. I now own four SB26s, a pair of SB800s and a SB900 and I still keep looking for that 8th flash.
Dave's site then got even more interesting to me when he went speedlight, when he started producing amazing images with these awesome little lights. Dave is backed by some pretty major sponsors, so he has all the latest in technology. My approach is slightly different. But, it was nice to see that I wasn't crazy and that this is doable. Or I am getting closer anyway.
Don't you dare click his link yet!
In my previous post regarding hockey you can see long shadows falling off the players and the background is slightly underexposed. This is the result of trying to light from just one side of the rink. Physics dictates that light intensity will diminish with distance. The Inverse Square Law. Also, as hard as I tried by getting the lights up high and separated from each other and the camera, I still ended up with that criss cross shadow. There are no catwalks at our local rink.
So, I took my problem to the Flickr Strobist group. Surely, somebody else has tried this and will help me out. Welcome to the land of the Flickr Pro. What a joke! Anyway, after fending off a couple real jerks, plus a rather questionable forum moderator, a fine gentleman from Quebec joins into the dialogue and offers some of his experience with small rinks. Even goes so far as to send my a private email. What impressed me was this guy weighs into a somewhat hostile thread with limited English skills. All hope in humanity has not been lost, there still are good people out there.
Anyway, after discussing my approach, he convinced me to try bouncing my flash off the silver insulation covering the ceiling. Then, after taking another look around the rink with a different mindset, I found that this offered me a chance to do some cross lighting and hopefully get rid of those ugly shadows. I may loose a bit of overall light intensity, but the quality of light should be better.
And here are the results of Week 1 of light bouncing...
 |
| Nikon D3, AF-S 70-200mm, ISO 400, 1/250th, f/6.3, WB 5250ºK |
 |
| Nikon D3, AF-S 70-200mm, ISO 800, 1/250th, f/7.1, WB 5550ºK |
 |
| Nikon D3, AF-S 70-200mm, ISO 400, 1/250th, f/6.3, WB 5600ºK |
 |
| Nikon D3, AF-S 70-200mm, ISO 800, 1/250th, f/7.1, WB 5300ºK |
Now, I am not going to pretend that all is perfect. That last shot has some soft spots that I would attribute to ghosting.
The quest continues...
Go take a look at Dave Black's website now.
Sunday, November 27, 2011
Unigirls Behind the Scenes Video
Back in August I was selected from a casting call to perform a shoot for Unigirl Canada (www.unigirlcanada.com). The whole time that I was there, there was a pair of videographers capturing all of the aspects of the shoot.
Here it is. All cleaned up and put to music.
Sadly, I did not get much face time. Those girls are such camera hogs! hahaha
Here it is. All cleaned up and put to music.
Sadly, I did not get much face time. Those girls are such camera hogs! hahaha
Wednesday, November 16, 2011
Speedlight Ice Hockey
 |
| Nikon D3, AF-S 70-200mm, f/8, 1/250s, ISO 200, WB6100ºK, +1.85EV added in raw conversion |
 |
| Nikon D3, AF-S 300mm, f/3.2, 1/640s, ISO 1600, WB 3850ºK |
Wow, the depth of field, the lack of noise, the rich colours, the sharpness.
Why??? It's the same camera. It's the same arena. To make things even more confusing. The first image was taken from the penalty box with no glass to shoot through. The second image was taken through the glass.
What's the difference? It's the light. In this case, 7 of them. I brought my collection of Speedlights and clamped them up in the rafters and fired them remotely with Pocket Wizard Plus II radio triggers.
 |
| Nikon D3, AF-S 70-200mm, f/8, 1/250s, ISO 200, WB5700ºK, +2.45EV added in raw conversion |
 |
| Nikon D3, AF-S 70-200mm, f/8, 1/250s, ISO 200, WB5650ºK, +2.65EV added in raw conversion |
 |
| Nikon D3, AF-S 70-200mm, f/8, 1/250s, ISO 200, WB6200ºK, +2.55EV added in raw conversion |
The red team is my daughter's novice house league team and I will be shooting them a fair bit this winter.
More posts to come...
Monday, October 24, 2011
Birds of Prey
Sometimes the weather just won't cooperate.
I have been waiting for this past weekend to come for, well... a lunar cycle. You see I have been dying to get out and shoot some time lapse movies with stars passing over some interesting landscape (I am not telling yet). But, we have been covered in clouds for at least the past week. Saturday afternoon was starting to show potential for the evening. So, I gave Ethan (www.ethanmeleg.com), who lives closer to my photo location a call. His weather observation was the same as what I was seeing, still partly cloudy. Just not good enough.
While I am on the phone with Ethan, he says that he and Craig Blair are heading out on Sunday to shoot some captive birds of prey and asks if I wanted to come too. So, I am thinking why not. I am in.
Not long after confirming, my cell phone starts buzzing. It's a post on my facebook page from Craig. Craig owns Lens Rentals Canada (www.lensrentalscanada.com). It says, "You want any glass tomorrow"? "Yes please"! was my reply. Bring me something BIG!!!
Instead of shooting stars, I went and played some hockey Saturday night and guess what??? The clouds cleared and the stars were awesome.
Birds of Prey.
I met Ethan and Craig in Arthur and the three of us drove down to the Mountsberg Conservation Area together. We are to join the Brampton Photo Group (www.bramptonphotogroup.com) for a club shoot. Shooting in large groups has its perils, but I can say this was a pleasant group to shoot with. There may have been 9 or 10 of us all together.
The agenda for the day was to meet at the Raptor Centre where one of their bird handlers will provide us access to their birds for a couple hours. We may have pushed that time allotment a little ;-)
We got to shoot Screech, Barn and Great Horned owls, American Kestrels, a Merlin, a Peregrine falcon, a Red-Tailed hawk, a Turkey vulture and a juvenile Bald eagle. All the time, I am enjoying using the biggest glass that I have ever used.
Everybody loves owls, myself included. What shocked me on this day was the colours that the falcons possess. I have never got a chance to study them at such close range before. Not only are they impressive in flight, but they are also quite beautiful birds. I have had the pleasure of being around Bald eagles at close range before and every time they startle me with their size. Even as juveniles, these are truly powerful birds!
Here are some 'selects' from over 500 images taken on the day:
 |
| American Kestrel Nikon D3, AF-S 500mm w/TC17eII, SB-900, ISO 200, f/6.7, 1/40th, Ambient -1/3stop, WB adjusted to 5200K. |
 |
| Merlin Nikon D3, AF-S 500mm w/TC17eII, SB-900, ISO 200, f/6.7, 1/60th, Ambient -1 stop, WB adjusted to 5400K. |
 |
| Great Horned Owl Nikon D3, AF-S 500mm, SB-900, ISO 200, f/4.5, 1/250th, Ambient -2/3stop, WB adjusted to 5600K. |
Edit:
I can't help myself. Here are some more shots.
 |
| Red-tailed Hawk Nikon D3, AF-S 500mm, SB-900, ISO 200, f/13, 1/250th, Ambient -2 stop, WB adjusted to 5700K. |
 |
| Great Horned Owl Nikon D3, AF-S 500mm, SB-900, ISO 200, f/6.3, 1/250th, Ambient -2/3 stop, WB adjusted to 5600K. |
 |
| Bald Eagle (juvenile) Nikon D3, AF-S 500mm, SB-900, ISO 200, f/7.1, 1/125th, Ambient -2/3 stop, WB adjusted to 5400K. |
Saturday, October 1, 2011
Unigirl Canada
In keeping with the theme that my photography interests are highly varied...
One of the photography websites that I am a frequent visitor at is designed to be a networking site for photographers, models, make-up artists, clothing designers, etc. As well as having forum sections to discuss subjects relevant to the different groups, there is a casting call section. To make a long story short, Unigirl Canada was in need of a photographer and I was selected from the respondents.
I know some of you are thinking, he shoots fish, birds, flowers, deer, rocks, trees, waterfalls, lightning, hockey, golf, baseball, kiteboarding and... young women in bikinis?
The thing that I like about working with models is that it is one of the rare times that I get to focus more on creating a scene, rather than capturing a moment (blah, blah, blah... young women in bikinis). With just about everything else that I photograph, I do my best to record an interesting/pleasing account of what occurs naturally. For once, I get to choose my background, control my lighting and actually describe to the subject how I want them to stand (blah, blah, blah... young women in bikinis).
I have a hard time buying that story myself. What can I say, it is what I do.
--- --- ---
My assignment:
Unigirl Canada (www.unigirlcanada.com) shoots regional calendars across Canada of university women, including alumni, in their swimwear to raise money for charity (www.cancer.ca). It's not extremely original, but it's a brilliant concept just the same. I wish I was the idea guy and not just the photographer.
What I had waiting for me was a half dozen models in full make-up with their hair all professionally done. And almost as many assistants to hold reflectors, help the girls with posing, to move hair and to adjust bikinis. A limo to take us to our location, which just so happened to be a 54' Sea Ray. All I had to do was shoot. The whole time a couple videographers were working in the background capturing Behind the Scene video.
I know, I still hear it too (blah, blah, blah... young women in bikinis).
One of the photography websites that I am a frequent visitor at is designed to be a networking site for photographers, models, make-up artists, clothing designers, etc. As well as having forum sections to discuss subjects relevant to the different groups, there is a casting call section. To make a long story short, Unigirl Canada was in need of a photographer and I was selected from the respondents.
I know some of you are thinking, he shoots fish, birds, flowers, deer, rocks, trees, waterfalls, lightning, hockey, golf, baseball, kiteboarding and... young women in bikinis?
The thing that I like about working with models is that it is one of the rare times that I get to focus more on creating a scene, rather than capturing a moment (blah, blah, blah... young women in bikinis). With just about everything else that I photograph, I do my best to record an interesting/pleasing account of what occurs naturally. For once, I get to choose my background, control my lighting and actually describe to the subject how I want them to stand (blah, blah, blah... young women in bikinis).
I have a hard time buying that story myself. What can I say, it is what I do.
--- --- ---
My assignment:
Unigirl Canada (www.unigirlcanada.com) shoots regional calendars across Canada of university women, including alumni, in their swimwear to raise money for charity (www.cancer.ca). It's not extremely original, but it's a brilliant concept just the same. I wish I was the idea guy and not just the photographer.
What I had waiting for me was a half dozen models in full make-up with their hair all professionally done. And almost as many assistants to hold reflectors, help the girls with posing, to move hair and to adjust bikinis. A limo to take us to our location, which just so happened to be a 54' Sea Ray. All I had to do was shoot. The whole time a couple videographers were working in the background capturing Behind the Scene video.
I know, I still hear it too (blah, blah, blah... young women in bikinis).
 |
| © Unigirl Canada |
 |
| © Unigirl Canada - photo by Ian Brooks |
 |
| © Unigirl Canada - photo by Ian Brooks |
 |
| © Unigirl Canada - photo by Ian Brooks |
 |
| © Unigirl Canada - photo by Ian Brooks |
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)