Using Strobist Techniques for Tricky Lighting at Weddings

This past Friday (July 3, 2009) I shot a wedding at The Berkeley Church in Toronto. The location is beyond great for wedding photography, as it's an 1800s restored church turned into a banquet hall/event venue. The place where the couple held their wedding ceremony is lined with stained glass windows which created severe backlighting. The challenge was in lighting the couple without having the flash wash out the whole scene and killing the light coming through the windows. After trying a few setups a couple of hours before the actual ceremony, I finally settled on an SB-800 fitted with a HONL Speed Grid. positioned at 25-30 degrees camera right, triggered via Nikon's CLS. Here are a few of the resulting images:

Toronto Wedding Photographer: Angela and Sunny's Engagement Session

This past Saturday (June 13, 2009) we had the pleasure of doing an e-session for Angela and Sunny. Probably the most easy-going and nicest couple I've met to date. Angela decided on The Brickworks as the location was very familiar to both of them, and quite frankly the surrounding area is pretty much ideal for an engagement photo shoot. When I woke up that morning the sky was overcast, which I thought it would be ideal from a lighting standpoint. However, by the time we met up with them at 8:30, the sky had opened up again and it was extremely bright. It was quite challenging trying to avoid harsh shadows but within the first hour, the clouds moved in again and it made things a bit easier for Shelley and I.

Here are some shots from the session:












For the Strobists reading this post most of the lighting was done using Nikon's CLS with one single SB-900 set to Remote mode and triggered via an on-camera SB-800 set to commander. The first 30 mins. or so when it was really bright, I used Pocket Wizards to trigger the SB-900.

Toronto Portrait Photographer - Headshots and Portrait Session with David S.

This photoshoot was arranged by fellow photographer and friend Jared Wielfaert and he was kind enough to let Shelley and I tag along to help and do some shooting of our own. The model's name Dave and you can find him at Model Mayhem. He was extremely professional and very easy to work with.


One SB-800 camera right (65 degree) at 1/32 power on shoot through umbrella.


One SB-800 camera right (65 degree) at 1/32 power on shoot through umbrella.


AB1600 at 1/2 power on a medium octabox.


SB-800 on shoot-thru umbrella at cam left, 1/32 power.


SB-800 on reflective umbrella with 1/4 CTO gel, high above subject at cam left. WB set to Tungsten

The Beauty of Available Light

While I'm a big fan of the Strobist movement, sometimes the best light is the one that is available, whether it's beautiful sun light or the light coming from a lamp on the ceiling of a greasy spoon diner.

In the following two shots the different sources of light (big windows at the front end of the restaurant and plenty of artificial light inside)in this diner provided for some very interesting colors, which were further enhanced with Nik Color Efex Pro Film Effects.





Then there's always the beautiful light produced by the last rays of the sun before the sunset

Warmer Weather, Sick Again

Well, today is well above the freezing mark and I'm spending it inside my apartment as I've come down sick with a cold again. That can only mean one thing, either go through old shots or do self-portraits. Well, let's just say that I look just like a feel, which is not a good thing. I found a couple of old shots that never made it to Flickr because they needed some post processing added:

On this one I had to clone out a good chunk of a translucent umbrella that was showing up on the left upper corner of the frame:


This one needed a bit more colour and contrast added to it:


I also added more colour and created a blurred background for this one:

More Selfies with Lumiquest Softbox III and Alien Bees

The setup for these shots was just the same as the one for the previous post. The only difference being that the background SB-800 was substituted by a B1600 at 1/32 power with a green gel over the reflector. Both triggered by Pocket Wizards.

Nikon Porn and the awesomeness of fast glass

Last night (Friday, Jan.9th) I attended a an outing of my local camera group (tpmg.ca) non-exclusive for Nikon users. As you can imagine, everyone brought out their gear and were ready to play. I thought I had some decent glass until people started pulling out the big guns and also the small ones but very fast. It's probably the first and last time (until the next meet-up) that I got to play with the very rare Noct-Nikkor 58mm f1.2 or handled first hand a Nikon D3x. People were definitely not messing around when the organizer said "bring your gear". Here are a few shots from the night using said optic pearls:

1. Shot using Noct-Nikkor 58mm f1.2. If you are not used to manual focus through the viewfinder, I picked up a tip from fellow TPMGer Charlie to use Live View when in need of precise focus. It worked every single time.



2. Another shot with the Noct-Nikkor 58mm f1.2


3. This one was taken with a rare Nikon 28mm f1.4 prime. Amazing what fast glass and the clean high ISO (4000 in this case) of the D3 can do with just a tiny bit of available light. This place was quite dark.


4. Shot with another rare piece of glass, a manual focus 35mm f1.4


5. This one was shot with a good old Nikon 50mm f1.4. I tried the new G version and really didn't notice any difference in performance but then again, I'm no pixel peeper.


6. The only D3x at the outing and Shelley wished it was hers ;-)