Toronto Wedding and Portrait Photographer: Nikon SB-900 with 1/8 HONL Speed Grid

As promised, here are some of the shots taken with the HONL 1/8 Speed Grid, attached to an SB-900. The speed grid serves no other purpose than to concentrate the beam of light to create more dramatic lighting, as opposed to spilling light everywhere. In these photos, the speedlight was aimed at the model's face, the ambient light was reduced and the flash was set to TTL with a flash exposure comp of -0.7. The SB-900 was triggered using an SB-800 on camera.

Toronto Portrait Photographer: Alien Bees B1600 with Beauty Dish

The shots in this post were taken at High Park in Toronto. I was commissioned for a portrait session about a month ago, and decided to follow the old adage: "Better bring it and not need it than need it and not have it" regarding equipment. Bringing a Kata bag with two strobes, a Vagabond II battery and several stands, along with a foldable octabox and beauty dish requires a certain level of fitness to carry around a park, one that I certainly didn't have. I'm so glad I dragged that stuff around through, because the results were quite pleasing. The following shots were done using a B1600 attached to a 22" beauty dish with a difusser sock over it. The strobe was triggered using Pocket Wizards, and the power was set at 1/8 power for most of them. In my next post I'll put some pictures up of the shots that were done using an SB-900 with a HONL speed grid, which are ideal for creating dramatic lighting.

Toronto Wedding Photographer: Jack & Helen's Esession in Downtown Toronto

Here's a slideshow from Jack and Helen's Engagement Session in Downtown Toronto. The journey started at Brookfield Place, then we moved on to Union Station and from there we walked over to the Skywalk, finishing off at Toronto's Harbourfront.

Dramatic Lighting Using the HONL Grids and Nikon's CLS

Imagine if you came home and this was the scene waiting for you. You don't know who this person is, but he clearly knows who you are, and took the time to carefully break into your apartment, and now is waiting for you at your table.



The idea here is simple, the dramatic mood of the scene is provided courtesy of some dramatic lighting, which was created with the help of HONL's Speed Grids. I had both Speedlights (SB-900 and SB-800) placed at camera left. The SB-900 had the 1/8 speed grid on and was pointed down at the subject, and set to -1.7EV via the on-camera SB-800. The SB-800 had the 1/4 speed grid on and was pointed at the table, set to -2.3EV, just enough to see a bit of the table. You can see the setup shot here:



The RAW file was converted to TIF via Capture NX, with additional use of Nik's Color Efex Pro 3.0.

Beauty and Fashion Photography Setups on Video

Fred Miranda Wedding Photogs Meetup - Toronto

As the wedding season has come to an end for most of us, it was time to relax and take a few pictures just for the fun of it. Sam Obeid rallied the troops on the FM Wedding Photographer Forum, and at least 12 of us answered the call for a chance to network and share stories with fellow wedding photographers.

Oddly enough, the waitress that worked our table last night was the same waitress we had back at our Nikon meetup at the beginning of the year.

Here are some shots from the evening at The Duke of Richmond

1. Sandra and Lauren


2. Lauren


2b. Lauren post processed via Capture NX with some Curves added within the program, and then brought into PS CS4 for some dodging and Nik Filters: Pro Contrast and a toned down version of one of the Cross-Processing filters.



3. Sam


4. Mark and Paul


5. Spencer


6. Aron and Sam



7. The Bill!



8. Our waitress last night


9. Our waitress from the Nikon meet up 11 months ago :-)


Enjoy the holidays and I'll see you all at the next meet up.

ASID CEU Toronto - Chris Hodges on dealing with facility manager clients and green building.

The last event of the Tayco sponsored educational series for 2009 took place at The Gladstone hotel this past Tuesday (December 1, 2009). Chris Hodges presented on evolution of the role of the Facility Manager, and how important it is to understand the needs and objectives of these key decision makers when presenting a project. Here are a few shots from the evening at The Gladstone Hotel.

Chris Hodges addressing the audience




Very trendy ornaments made out of recycled paper, magazines and posters


The audience


Signing certificates for attendees