Home studio setup, a more detailed guide

As I was reading back on my post about my daughters 2nd birthday party I realized just how vague I was with regards to my setup. So for todays post I am going to link to each product used, I know how confusing the world of off camera flash was for me when I first started looking into it. So this is what I used:

Backdrop: A piece of fabric hung from two tripods, simple enough.
Flash: Canon 430 EXII, a speedlight that works both on the camera and as a slave off.

Flash Controller: Canon STE2, you need line of site with the flash but it has never failed me. Newer models like the 7D have a controller built in, how nice is that!?

Flash Stand: Manfrotto 74" Stand. Super light, super portable, I love this little stand. It's a little light and needs some weight to hold it down in even a bit of wind, but its a breeze to setup and take down.

Shoe Mount: Multiclamp, generic brand. This was the most confusing part for me, trying to figure out how to attach the flash to the stand, this does that and also leaves a place for a shoot through umbrella!

Umbrella: Generic white. Diffuses the flash and spreads the light more evenly, makes the flash much, much less harsh. I rarely use my off camera flash without it.

When it's all said and done its a pretty sizable investment, even for one flash but I think one of the smartest investments you can make for your photography. You get away from having the flash on your camera casting incredibly harsh light and creating harsh shadows as well. If you are just starting out in the world of "off camera flash" photography, I would suggest you do two things:

1 - Visit strobist.com, spend some time looking around and watching the videos. An awesome resource and a little overwhelming, but well worth your time.

2 - If you have a local photography store, go visit them! I am lucky enough to have two awesome local shops, one of which I frequent quite often (www.pixelsfoto.com), it has been so nice to have that resource available as well.

Happy 2nd Birthday Ansley! (Simple home studio)

My little family celebrated our oldest daughters 2nd birthday over the weekend, we had such a good time. The little girls and their moms did some fun crafts and for my portion of the party I set up a little photo studio, had them dress up as little rock stars and took pictures. I thought I would go a little more in depth on how I achieved the look in the photos.

This was a simple one light setup, something you will often read about from me. I had one 430EXII speedlight camera right on a stand with a shoot through umbrella, it was fired remotely and ETTL by a STE2 on my camera. I moved the flash around while I was shooting the girls but it primarily stayed on the right, either even with the subjects face, or just below.

The background was just fabric with sequins and glitter draped over two tripods, sadly I didn't have enough fabric to make it seamless, so I resorted to using a white fabric for them to sit on, not ideal, but it worked.

On to the pictures!









There are at least a dozen more shots from this little shoot that I love, I will be putting them up on my flickr account in the coming days. As I have said in the past, taking pictures of children is not an easy task, but in the end it is one of the more rewarding types of photography, for me at least. I loved being able to capture a different side of the kids, I know I wont soon forget the birthday party :) Happy 2nd Birthday Ansley, you will always be my little Girl, I love you.

The simple moments in life...

My daughter Shirley turned one month a few days ago, as tradition would have it we tried to capture her and a little emotion. I did manage to capture her and one of her sweet smiles, but I think this picture best describes our little sweetheart, a simple yawn letting us know she is ready to go to sleep. She has been an absolute joy and has brought such feeling of "family" to our house, even our oldest Daughter Ansley can't help but smile and clap when she see's her.



Exposure: 0.017 sec (1/60)
Aperture: f/1.8
Focal Length: 50 mm
ISO Speed: 200

We were in a darkish hallway so I stopped my nifty fifty (50mm F1.8) all the way down to 1.8. The area that will be in focus is so small at 1.8 but I think it worked out nicely in this shot. Also, I framed her in the left half with some "negative space" on the right, makes for a more pleasing picture. The B&W conversion made for some softer tones and really added an interesting and serene mood to the photo :)

It's about time!

It has been quite some time since I just took off with the purpose of taking pictures... in fact, I don't even recall the last time I went out, yikes. I decided that I wanted to head out to the Great Salt Lake at sunset (I know, I know) and spend some time out there. To my surprise the road out to Sunset Rock was easily accessible and there was no one out, rarely, if ever happens. I parked my Truck and started out across the somewhat frozen and snowy lake, its always fascinating to me to be out at the lake during winter, if you haven't been, you need to. I walked out a few hundred yards and found an interesting spot that I thought had some neat textures and would help make an ordinary sunset picture something different.

The clouds weren't amazing by any stretch of the imagination, but there were still enough that it helped create some nice tones and colors in the sky, I'm sure the gross inversion we are having right now helped as well. All of these shots were taken on a tri-pod and triggered using my wireless remote, something I have discussed in the past :)







I also wanted to point out the different way you can take pictures of essentially the same thing, and how different they can turn out. The first picture is simple, little processing, my favorite of the bunch. The second is a six shot panorama, and the third is an HDR image taken with my wide angle lens. All three shots taken from the same spot, pretty amazing, right? Always looks for new angles, new styles, new vantage points, you never know what you will come up with :)