PocketWizard

Wireless flash triggers can make photography a lot more creative, and therefore, a lot more enjoyable. Truth be told, there is only so much that you can do with a flash on top of your camera.

Getting that flash off of your camera, and placing the flash wherever you want it can be exciting! I think your images will improve beyond your wildest dreams, once you start using wireless flash triggers!

Wireless, or remote, flash triggers are usually sold as a "Trigger and slave" set. One transmits a signal (trigger) and one unit receives the signal (receiver). The transmitter attaches to the camera in a couple of ways. One way is to attach a cable from your cameras sync to the transmitter. Another common way is to attach the transmitter to the cameras hot shoe. The hot shoe is where a flash unit usually attaches. The receiver is attached, via cable, to the flash head, or flash, far away from the transmitter.

Here is what to keep in mind as you look to purchase wireless flash triggers.

Battery style.

"AA", or Double A batteries are rechargeable. They are cheaper than almost all other batteries. Wireless flash triggers accept all types and sizes of batteries. Keep in mind that smaller batteries may be easier to carry around in your pockets, but they will cost you a lot more in the long run.  This is not the most important factor when shopping for Wireless flash triggers, but it is up there.

Distance.

How far away can you be and still make the flash go off? This is a big concern because you want remote capabilities, right? I suppose how remote is the question. Check with what manufactures say on the packages, and then erase that from your memory. They will never produce a flash, over and over, at great distance. I don't care what you read, or what you have seen. The further away you get, the less accurate they will become. Find some that rate very good, at reasonable distances.

How do the Wireless flash triggers fit on your camera?

There is only so much real estate on your camera top. Will your new Wireless flash triggers fit vertically or horizontally? Will your new Wireless flash triggers get in the way? Will you hit your eye with them each time you shoot? This is very crucial, and you need to consider this factor. I have thrown away a set of Wireless flash triggers just because they kept creeping down, into my face.

Can you fire more than one flash from a unit?

Some "slave" units will have a hot sync of some sort built in for passing the triggered flash on. This hot sync is for a second or third flash. So, having one "trigger" and one "Slave" you can fire multiple flashes. Very key in most types of photography. Plus, less slave devices means less remote flash failures. Truth is, they simply will not fire every time, no matter the brand or type of Wireless flash triggers.

What type of sync do they operate with?

Some triggers will have a sync, and some will have a female, mono 1/8th jack. Knowing which chords, chord ends, and adaptors you will want is important. What do your flashes require? That is what you need to convert your Wireless flash triggers to accept.

With that all said, the PocketWizard brand is my all time favorite remote wireless flash trigger period. I have tried a lot of different types and makes of wireless flash triggers, and PocketWizard always out perform, in each category, time and time again. I have accomplished a lot of great photography, and my PocketWizards have never let me down.

Here is what I love, love, love about PocketWizard.

PocketWizard accept AA size batteries. I use this battery to be specific, below, because I only need to purchase them once. Rechargeable batteries make sense, and in a bunch of ways.

PocketWizard are sold as separate pieces, or as transmitter and receiver pieces. PocketWizard are also now sold as transceiver units, which is all in one. These, newer units can transmit or receive, hence the name "transceiver". The preference is yours.

PocketWizards will hold their resale value, and for years to come! There is no other brand that will sell for almost the exact same price that you paid for them. PocketWizard brand will do just that!

 

One light images

Just the other day I was in the mood to shoot some long over due images of our son. I used one softbox with one strobe, off camera, suspended above a black felt fabric. This "one light set up" is so easy and quick to set up that it can be done in under 30 minutes. The fabric also became a backdrop for the mother and child images.

Liam Donald

This is not a post about photography, per se, instead this is about our new arrival Liam.

These images are snapshots, some of which are cut in size, but the need to post is heavey! Liam was 8 pounds and 9 ozs. Born on Oct.13th too!

Having a newborn at age 41 has proven to be very intoxicating and amazing. Here are some snap shots, some cut in size, and by no means art photography.

Grad night, 25 years in the making!

Sometimes it is the free jobs that I enjoy the most. Rick Bineau was injured his senior year of high school and did not get his diploma with his class. 25 years later, and with a STANDING OVATION, he proudly got that diploma!

I can’t express just how moving the entire night was, and how emotional we all were. I bet that I got more out of this photo adventure than the family got. I, of course volunteered for the job weeks ago, and was so happy to be chosen for the job. Thanks so much! Congrats Rick, and warmest wishes for each and every day! Well done!

A Wedding party!

Congratulations to Steve and Suzannah!

The weather was fine for a wedding, fine for some shooting, and then toss in a lobster bake, many pies, and dancing too! What a great time we all had! Here is a few images that I could not wait to share with you all. I simply “put a rough edit” on them, and wanted to post them!

What I wanted to detail, was the fact that I got a little carried away. I saw a chance to have some lighting fun, and I took it. I had three flashes firing, one handheld, one with a red filter, and one with a blue filter. This was to darken the sceene, and to add a sense of fun and action to a lively party!

Stock images

I just can't beg everyone enough to consider using your images as stock images. Getting permission, and a release, is not always an issue. Look through your collections, get permission and releases sighned, and enter them.


Just last weeks photo shoot, and some more stock images up for grabs!

Spring has sprung!

You know that it is spring when the daffodils poke through, and then bloom to a nice yellow and white. Here is the latest photo shoot, just tonight, and at 7 pm. Got to play with my new fisheye lens too, and I like what I am getting with it. Next, a wedding awaits…….

Congratulations Doug and Jen!


Best wishes for the future!


Thanks for a great time too!

Corvette fever!!!

I was recently asked to photograph a friends Corvette. I invisioned trying to pull off what I had seen done over at Strobist, where I had watched this video at You Tube. Looked easy enough, so off we all went to a dark and empty lot.

Taking specific images, of the front, side, and interior for each “pose”, I then layred them up in Photoshop. Added a reflection to some, and then made the Three view image below. Thanks Strobist!!!

Lightning image

After many failed attempts, I managed to capture a streak of lightning. I held the camera against a window and my face as to delete camera shake. Set the aperature at 2 seconds, f-stop of f-11, and continued to shoot in rapid sets......

Happy Fouth of July to all of you!

This image is a "click and burn" image. My girl and I had one of our first dates here, on this bench, with the fireworks as a bonus. So, I set up two flashes, with snoots, and left the shutter open for two seconds. I took the liberty of adding some extra firework explosions from the night, but you see the idea for a fun and sentimental image. Get creative, and enjoy the Fourth!

Congrats to Denise and Brett.

Think about making the biggest possible final sale before you even shoot!

Recently, I found myself returning to my old haunt of DownEast Maine. I was there (both) attending and shooting a wedding in the warm spring sun. The weather could not have been better, the family could not have been more welcoming. Everything was great. Shooting in the direct sun was a bit troubling, but not impossible.

The point of todays post is that I remembered some great advice as I drove five hours to the wedding. This advice is that we should shoot as if we are trying to make (and sell) the biggest package possible. Portraits are a no-brainer, but what about mail out cards, thank you mailings, wedding albums, ect? Thinking about what you need to make the most possible items is the way that I treat every event that I now photograph.

The only images that we can't sell are the ones that we don't take.

This means paying attention to even the smallest of details, as they will come in handy as backgrounds in albums. Albums that you can now make for the family, and eventualy sell. These details become “faded page overlays”, and run throughout albums and mailings as themes.

Here are some details from this wedding. I am posting these images mostly because they are at every wedding, and observing them will pay off. Plus I just loved the “Dead head” grooms cake.

More long exposure images.

Long exposures with a mamouth telescope....

Lastnight, I was invited to observe the night sky with a new friend of mine named Wayne. I jumped at the chance, as I love all things photography. Little did I know just how mind blowing this night would be. Please take a moment and check out his site, HERE, and look at his awesome images before returning back here.

Wayne had informed me about his “cameras" before. These cameras are unlike anything that I have ever come across. They do not look like cameras at all. These computer operated sensors attach to his giant telescope, and record, over time, what the telescope is pointed at. Long exposures are requried most of the time due to faint light sources of objects very far away. This requires that his telescope “track” the object that is being photographed. This is done, via more computers and a vast knowledge base of both the night sky, and the operating systems of the necessary equipment. Lucky for us Wayne has both.

The digital “super cameras” that are designed to image the night sky through a telescope require cooling systems, capture images in black and white, and come with a steep learning curve. Wayne shoots his images in a series of many. By using different colored filters (red, blue, and green) he gets “color” images. Let me just say that one must really want to take amazing images to go through all of this work.

However, these super digital cameras were not the evenings “event cameras”, as Wayne decided to go with a new Nikon digital SLR for taking long exposure images through his gigantic telescope. This was the first time that Wayne would be attaching his Nikon digital SLR to his telescope, and we were curious about how they might turn out. Would this set up even work? How would the focusing work, and what settings should one even use for this image process? Great questions, simple method for finding out the answers. We would try, and see what we get.

How is this? This image of the Orion Nebula was one of the evenings first images. Not bad, eh? Way to go Wayne!

The above image was at iso 200, taken for about 3 or 4 minutes, with the telescope locked on (or tracking) the nebula.

The night was spent looking back in time, through his telescope, and looking at objects that I never though I would see with mine own eyes. I saw Saturn through the telescope, so good infact that it looked like a fake cut out. The rings were visable as was the shaddow of the rings on the planet itself. We saw some of Saturns moons as well, and I enjoyed this paticular evening like none other.

A very large thanks goes out to Wayne for inviting me and working feverishly through the night so that I could see the sky. I am so thankful, and I will be forever anxious to return.

Local photographer

Although his lenses are a lot larger than most, local photographer of the universe Wayne Karuth sent me some of his amazing images of the moon. Wayne enjoys imaging things that most of us will never even see in our lifetime.

Follow this link over to his awesome site to see some more of his amazing work. Great job!

Star trail image

Digital cameras can be awesome when used as a professional tool. However, as an artistic tool they can leave us unhappy.

Point is that with long exposures digital cameras can contaminate our images with noise and such artifacts, and the batteries do not last as long as we wish they would.

With that said, here is another image that I took while in Arizona. The star trails stop short due to battery life, but what can we do.

Light painting in Arizona

I have returned from my two week vacation in Arizona, and I am just now starting to sort out my images. I wanted to put up one of my light painting images from the night desert.

This image was taken just after sunset, as a long exposure. I “painted in” this cactus using a flashlight. The light had a “gridded snoot” on it as well, just to make sure that two things did not happen. The first thing is that I didn't want to expose the ground, and second, I didn't want to expose the flashlight tip in the image.

More images and information about how I got them to come soon!

Re-touching older images.

As digital photographers, we have all gone through the learning curves associated with our gear and the software. I often times try to use this knowledge for new and interesting ideas. One such idea is to re-touch older images, using Photoshop.

I like to actually take an image of the photograph that needs re-touching, at the beginning of the project. This is better than most scans that I could make because the raw file from the camera will be massive in size. Make sure to pay attention to the white balance to ensure color correction is as perfect as you can get it. I like to use two flashes set at 45 degree angles to the print, by the way.

Next, make the time to select and then try out the right tools for the edits you need to make. For example, cloning (with the clone tool) may work for some details, but not others.

Re-creating any the lost detail is the hardest part of the process. I like to lean on my art background as much as possible, just to make sure that all of the little things look right.

Before...

After...

Valentines day

I have this ongoing image tasking, for a shoot each month of a childs first year.

Being a male, I had no idea what to do for this Valentines Day image session.

What I ended up doing came to me at the very last second, just before the shoot. I took a large peice of white paper, and folded it in half. Cutting out half of a heart, I then opened it to reveal a whole heart. Then, I cut out four more smaller hearts, the exact same way.

Next, I placed a red Honl gel onto a Nikon SB28 flash, placed it behind the cut out, and then dialed it in.

Lastly, I lit the child with two other Nikon SB28 flashes, one high and to the left in a small softbox, and one low and to the left with a grid and snoot on it.