Getting Started with Manual Flash

Don't you love Spring? I do. I love the weather, the flowers blooming, the birds singing, etc. I have been pretty busy lately, but have had a few chances to get out in the back yard lately and take a few shots most afternoons.

I recently purchased a new Nikon 24-70 f2.8. While I haven't done any "serious" photography since I bought it, it has been on my D300 and I bring it out to use it every chance I get. It's a sweet lens.

And don't think that I have abandoned the Manual DSLR project - Year Two. What I am doing now is getting used to the controls of my Nikon SB600 speedlight. Has this ever happened to you? You pull out a piece of equipment that you use a fair amount to find that you don't quite remember how to get it off of commander mode? That's as simple as a reset of the settings, but my goal is to be as familiar with its controls as I am with my camera's controls.

If you are new to manual flash like I am I have an exercise for you. Place your flash on full power and point it toward a dark area in your house. I pointed it down a dark hallway in which a photo is hanging. Test fire the flash at full power to see how much light it puts out and how long it takes to recycle. Then cut it to 1/2 power and do the same thing. Then go down to, say, 1/16 power. Continue doing this until you get to its lowest power setting. For the SB600 that is 1/64 power.

You should learn two things. First, you should get an idea of how bright your flash is at various power settings. Secondly, you should understand how much faster the flash recycles when at a lower power setting. This should reinforce the philosophy of using two speedlights at half power or four speedlights at 1/4 power instead of using one at full power. Kerry Garrison, at Camera Dojo, got me thinking about this after hearing one of his recent podcasts. It makes sense, and after comparing the flash and recycle time at various power settings, I'm convinced that's the way to go.

Now if I can find my old Vivitar flash that I have had for years...

All the best...Mike

New Year = Do Over

Hi, everyone. If you follow this blog you can see that the Manual DSLR project has been neglected over the past several months. While I did a lot of photography and blogging in 2010, it was much tougher to do so in 2011. A number of factors contributed to this, but the two biggest factors were this:

We closed one business and opened another, which means that we totally changed our business structure, but not much else changed. We still do the same thing, but we now operate as a corporation instead of a sole proprietorship. On April 14, 2011 Kennamer Media Group, Inc. was incorporated. We are currently working on a number of projects that will release in 2012. If you want to check out what we are about, visit our website at www.kennamermediagroup.com.  

At just before 7 am on April 27, 2011 our home phone rang. It was the county's Code Red service, which warns you if there is a weather emergency in your specific area. We had heard the day before that we might have some storms that day, but nobody could have predicted what happened. That first call was for a tornado warning. Though we did not know if until days later, a small tornado passed (in the air) at the end of our street and then touched down about a half a mile past our house. We lost a few trees, one of which landed on our son's car. It was parked just outside of the garage and the tree barely missed the house. Trees were down on our (dead end) street so we used our chainsaw to clear the street and then went back to our house to cut the tree off Cody's car. But that was only the beginning of what would be a very rough day. By the time the day was over, our county had been hit by 6 tornadoes and 33 people were killed. The largest tornado was an EF5 which varied from 1/2 to 1 mile wide and cut a path of destruction for 28 miles.

This is one of the sheds we built for tornado victims.

We have done some disaster relief work before. We were in Biloxi, MS three weeks after Katrina hit and went back to help with relief work later on; we also helped with flood relief in Iowa. But it is different when it is your community and your neighbors who are devastated. Through our church and our denomination's Mission to North America Disaster Response organization, we put together a team of people from our church that would organize work and host teams from out of town to help with the recovery work. In the months since the storm, 29 teams have stayed at our church and worked in the community doing debris clean up, chainsaw work, and construction. We had teams visit from as far away as Delaware, Maryland, and Iowa. We even had a group from Delaware that we had met when we were in Iowa to come work with us twice for three weeks at a time. This experience has been a great blessing and we met dozens of great people, but it took a great deal of time.

So photography has been on the back burner this year. Phase two of the Manual DSLR project did not quite get off the ground. But a new year is a great time to start fresh and that is my plan. Look for posts on lighting and manual flash during 2012. 

My other photography related activity is writing iPhone and iPad app reviews for www.currentphotographer.com. Since late 2010 I have been writing a weekly review of an app or accessory for the iPhone or iPad. If you have suggestions about apps to review, let me know. 

If you are unfamiliar with Current Photographer, check it out. There is a wealth of information regarding the art and business of photography. And be sure to check out my app reviews: http://currentphotographer.com/contributors/mike-kennamer/. 

Don't you love do-overs? Sometimes we need them.

Please feel free to interact as I reembark on this journey. 

All the best...

Mike

Using Someone Else's Lighting: Shooting a Theatrical Production

In the last posting, I discussed natural lighting and how to use the light you have to produce the best results. That same day I had shot a The Prince & the Pauper, produced by Blackberry Little Theater in Fort Payne, Alabama. That will be the subject of this post.

I have shot other plays before, both live as they were happening and in a series of staged shots that the director wanted photos of. The latter is, of course, easier. But shooting a play as it happens is always interesting. The main disadvantage is that you don't have an opportunity to move to various locations as you shoot.

My first suggestion is that you see the play before you shoot it. Since our youngest son was in the play, we had the opportunity to see it before I shot it. I decided to shoot the Saturday matinee and opted to shoot from the balcony to assure that I didn't disturb others. Be sure you obtain permission from management in advance, so that you don't break any theater rules.

Second, you should select the right lens. I used a Nikon 80-200 f2.8 to shoot the entire play. If I owned a 24-70 f2.8, I would have used it. But alas, I have not bitten the $2000 bullet yet. Even so, the 24-70 2.8 is very high on my wish list. While the 80-200 was good for some of the close-up shots, a shorter lens would have been handy as well. As is always a good idea in photography, use what you have in your bag to get the job done.

Now for the camera settings...I set the ISO on my Nikon D300 at 3200, to take advantage of the low light performance of the body. Using Shutter Priority, I set the shutter speed at 1/250 sec, which is the slowest speed with which I thought I could handhold this lens. Here are a few of the results.

This shoot yielded 269 useable, non-duplicated images.

I had intended to post a great deal more by now. However, we have been knee deep in tornado relief work, so this project has been pushed to the back burner. As the summer is almost over, I expect that our teams and work will decline and I'll have more time to work on this blog.

Thanks for reading. I always enjoy your comments.

All the best... Mike

Lighting 101: Using What You've Got

When I first started the Manual DSLR project the first thing I did was to turn my camera to "Manual" and start shooting...experimenting. So where do you start when the subject changes to lighting? I guess the most natural place to start is with natural light, or sunlight. So let's talk about a shot I took recently using natural light and no modifiers (reflectors, diffusers, etc.)

Our youngest son was involved in a children's theater production this summer. Performances were Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights with a matinee thrown in at 2 pm on Saturday. This meant that we had a couple hours of free time between the first and second shows on Saturday. So what do you want to do? I don't know...(repeat, repeat, repeat). But alas, we both had our cameras, so I suggested driving over to the old Davis Mill. This is a great old building that I've been driving by for the past 20 years but haven't ever really stopped and looked at it. Once a booming sock factory, the mill is now an antique mall. They had just closed when we arrived Saturday, but we did get to walk around outside to take some photos.

The first photo you see is my favorite from the afternoon, with Trisha leaning against the frame of an old garage door. I wasn't sure if that was poison ivy at the time, but did caution her against touching it (although I later determined that it did not match the photos of poison ivy that I found on Google Images). With only natural light to play with, I had to make sure that her face would be out of the shadows. It was about 5:30 in the afternoon, so the sun was low in the western sky. However, we had just gotten a pretty good rain shower, so the sky was a little overcast. This door is located on the west side of the building, so what we got was a diffused sunlight coming in from about 30 degrees to her left. If this had been a planned shoot with an assistant I would have likely used a reflector or perhaps some fill light, but for what I had in my hand, I felt pretty good about how it worked.

My goal for this phase of the manual DSLR project is to train my eye to see the light and to learn how to best use the light I have available (whether natural or controlled) to make the picture. I hope you will join me in this journey and let me know what you think.

The other shot is an HDR image of the building. I didn't have a tripod with me so this is 5 shots (2 above, 2 below) taken while sitting on the edge of the railroad track that was just behind me. It gives you a good idea of the layout of the building (that side is facing west), and how cloudy it was, which gave me a nice diffused light.

By the way, I took photos at the theater, using only stage lighting. Look for some of those in the next post and a discussion of how I chose to shoot it. And yes, I'm going to whine that I really need that 24-70 2.8 for just that type of shooting situation. Well I do...

All the best...Mike

Storm Update

Here a team from Lexington SC is working on electrical and finishing drywall.

Hi, Folks! It has been a crazy past several weeks, and while I have had the chance to shoot and write a bit, I didn't have a chance to bring both together on this blog.

As many of you know, our area was hit by severe storms on April 27. According to the National Weather Service, six confirmed tornadoes touched down in DeKalb County on that day and 33 lives were lost. Hundreds of homes were destroyed.

This is one of the portable showers at our church.

Much of our lives since April 27 has revolved around relief efforts to help our communities recover from the storms. Our church is hosting teams from all across the country who are taking vacation time to visit our area to help with the relief effort. Working with our denomination's Mission to North America organization, I am serving as the initial contact for groups who come to our area and my wife, Trisha, is coordinating the work once the teams get here.

To date, we have hosted teams from Delaware, Iowa, Georgia, Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina, Missouri, Alabama, Florida, and a couple of full-time RVers whose home is wherever they park their motor home. It has been great to meet these good people who donate their time and expertise to help their fellow man. There is still much work to do and we will be here working and hosting teams as long as there is work to do and volunteers keep coming.

We have made some new friends and renewed some old friendships. For example, we went to Iowa for flood relief in 2008 and met two couples from Delaware. After the tornadoes hit here, these great folks called and let us know that they would be here to work for three weeks. And work they did!

A partial completed Shed For Hope stands among the rubble.

The work has been anything from debris clean up, chainsaw work, house repairs, helping to build houses, and building Sheds for Hope. Sheds for Hope is a project started on the Gulf Coast after Katrina where storage sheds are provided at no cost to those who have lost so much in storms. The sheds provide storage room for those who are living in temporary housing, like FEMA trailers. An 8' x 12' wooden shed costs about $600 and takes 2-3 days to build. While it would be more efficient to prefab these buildings off site, part of the value of working in the storm area for 2-3 days is the contact with the families and their neighbors while the shed is built.

As a rural community, our area has not received a lot of press coverage. Even so, I am heartened by the outpouring of support that we have received by our sister churches across the U.S. The children in Vacation Bible school at Perry Presbyterian Church (PCA) in Perry Georgia raised more than $1,200 to support our Sheds for Hope project. Thanks to these children, two families now have a building to store their belongings.


Enough for now. My next installment will actually be about photography and the most manual of lighting situations: natural light. We will start there and move into reflectors and modifiers, hot lights, and flash. All the best...Mike