ThinkTank Gear and free stuff

Hi folks,
Remember when you use the link to the left to order ThinkTank gear online, you will receive a free gift from ThinkTank.  The free gear includes the Cable Management 20, the Pixel Pocket Rocket memory card holder, the Modular Pouch, Camera Strap, and the Security Tag.   ThinkTank makes the best camera bags and modular systems out there, quality is second to none and they have killer customer support.  The sidelines are full of ThinkTank gear.

Protecting your gear

Since it's been pretty nasty in most of the country weather wise, protecting expensive camera gear from the elements is probably on most sports shooters minds.  There are a couple of companies that make rain covers for camera's and lenses such as Kata, Aqua Tech, Tenba, etc.  Some are inexpensive and some are not.  The best way to choose is to see the cover in person and see if you find it easy to use the camera, see through the lens, work all the buttons, etc.  Keeping dry is important but if you can't get the shot you might as well just come in from the rain, unfortunately you probably won't find a good selection in your local camera store, they will usually carry just one or two brands.  I have the Kata system, it works okay but I've found it a bit bulky, so I don't always carry it with me since it doesn't really fit in my bag very well. I also find it a bit difficult to shoot with, hard to see through the eye piece, so it has to be pouring for me to bother with using it.
ThinkTank has come out with a rain cover that looks very promising.  Reviews have been good and it has a ton of neat features that show a photographer was actively involved in it's design.  I use the ThinkTank modular belt system and have been really pleased with the it, every bag has it's own rain cover.  Their new rain cover system looks a lot less bulky than the one I'm using and I like the fact that there is a place for the camera straps.  Here's a link to the ThinkTank Hydrophobia .   If you are looking for a roller bag, The ThinkTank Airport Series seems to be the bag of choice among most pros. 
As you may have guessed by now I am a big fan of ThinkTank bags, they're well made, well thought out and their customer service is second to none.

Great interview in Photo mag

One of my college buddies was interviewed in a photography magazine.  I'd never heard of this magazine but it's a great interview anyway. :)  So here's the link to a PDF of the magazine, his name is Chris Walters. Enjoy!

HDR

This isn't something that you would use shooting sports but I've been playing with it a bit and using it for my work lately so I thought I might share.  I'm no expert, far from it, in fact if anyone has any tips for me I'd appreciate it.   But you can make HDR images quite easily in photoshop.  I do a simple 2 stop bracket (set AEB in camera and shoot in motordrive mode) I shoot 3 images, one at 0, one at +2 and one at -2.  Then it's just a matter of going into photoshop under File>Automate>Merge to HDR

 

 pick your 3 images

Photoshop will automatically merge the images into one.

You really need to use a tripod, if the images are not exact it will show.  If you're shooting a person they need to stand very still.  If they move during one of the shots it will have ghosting or be blurry.  This works great for landscapes and architectural stuff.

Here's an example of an interior shot I did using this method.

 

The effect is subtle, with the HDR image I get a lot more detail and texture in the dark rug and in the shadow areas and the windows are a bit brighter. It was a dreary Seattle late afternoon, so the light was really that blue outside. 

Raffle day is here!

I took all the entries across the street to my neighbor Evelyn so she could draw the winner.  Drum roll please, and the winner is.............John Rowland!!!    Congratulations John, I'm sure you will love your new ThinkTank bag.  Thanks to everyone who entered and special thanks to Brian Erwin at ThinkTank for donating the bag for the raffle.  ThinkTank not only makes great bags, their customer service is second to none.

It's here!

Big box on the front porch when I got home tonight!  Camera and lens not included.  :)  do you have your "Ticket" # yet???  Only 3 days left!!!  Anyone can enter, do it today!!!!

Learn how to use the tools of the trade

Okay, why is it some photographers sound so proud when they tell me they never use flash?  Flash is not the tool of the devil, people.  It's a really handy photographers tool, if you consider yourself to be a professional photographer then you darn well better be able to bust out some light when needed.  It's a real dogfight out there these days and if you want to survive then you had better be able to use your tools.  I have several images in my portfolio that I used a flash or strobe and I'll bet you wouldn't be able to pick them out.  The light is subtle but essential.  If something looks "flashed" then you're doing it wrong.  You don't need to spend thousands on studio lights or monolights, most of my stuff is shot with shoe flashes, even the architectural stuff.
I had to shoot a mall in Houston, no real budget for an assistant, they could barely afford to hire me. :)  I flew out with all my gear as carry on, no time for the airlines to lose luggage, this was an in and out in one day job.  So I threw in a couple of shoe flashes and some off camera cords.  No light stands, no room. Most of the mall was fairly well lit and I was able to shoot ambient, but there was one shot that just didn't work, the guest services kiosk was too dark, no light near it and bright lights behind it.  I really wanted that shot, so I grabbed a flash and held it up and out.  Just enough to put some light on the front of the kiosk and balance the other lights.  I had the tools to do the job. It's one of my favorites from that day, I like the motion blur of the woman behind the desk.

I know, it's not sports, but I've written so many articles on why flash is essential for shooting fast moving sports at night or indoors.  I thought maybe an example of other uses might make my point. Learn to light!!!!  Here's a tutorial on using flash and lighting techniques.

Win a ThinkTank Speed Racer Beltpack!!!!

The good folks at ThinkTank are sending me a Speed Racer Beltpack to raffle off to my blog readers.  How cool is that!!! Not sure how to do a raffle online but I guess what we could do is everyone who wants to enter send me an email to this address: juli@tallino.com.  I'll will email you back with a number that will go into a bowl.    I'll have someone pick the winning ticket on January 11th, 2010.  That will give it a month to run.

ThinkTank makes some of the best bags out there, I've been using their belt system since 2005.  This looks like a really nice bag, it will hold a full size slr with a 70-200 attached.  I wouldn't mind adding it to my bag collection!  But I can't enter my own raffle, so.......... :(   

Good luck! 

Lighting a high school gym doesn't have to be expensive

Well it's bball season and so I thought I'd put up a post on how to make my cheapo gym strobe kit.  I use Vivitar 285's for my kit, they're inexpensive and powerful, but best of all they will work with a generic 6v lead acid rechargeable battery, no fancy electronics to fry.  I wouldn't hook up this battery to a canon or nikon flash for the simple reason I just don't know where the positive and negatives are in the battery compartment.  I buy the old version of the vivitar's, the new ones they sell at BHphoto have had issues.  I try not to pay more than $60.00.  Other options are sunpak flashes or some of the new chinese flashes discussed here on Strobist.  I have no experience with any flash other than the old Vivitars that I own, so I cannot recommend anything else.  How can you tell what 285 you have, old or new?  Look at the bottom of the flash, it will say made in china or made in japan if it's one of the original Vivitar's, the new ones don't say anything. I have two "china" and two "japan" units.

The Vivitars have a battery insert that makes a great template for the fake battery, I just cut out a wood block to fit the space and use screws to make the contacts.  The cable is lamp cord (18 gauge or 16 gauge) that you can buy by the foot at any hardware store. I actually have reels of this stuff for wiring up my arena strobes.

The other great thing about this insert or fake battery is that you cannot put it in the flash wrong.  It will only go in one way.  Check out this blog for another way to make the fake battery using the Vivitar battery insert.

The + and - signs are pretty self explanatory.  Just be sure you have the same thing on the other end, I end up marking one side with black marker to make sure I don't get the two confused at the battery end.

I found the connectors at Radio Shack, I think they are for RC cars.  You can also just use the slide on connectors directly to the battery like I have it in the first photo.   I like the black and red wires that the RC car connector uses, no chance of screwing up the polarity. 

The batteries can be found at BatteriesPlus or your neighborhood electronics store (think RC cars or other hobbyist electronics), any 6v Lead acid rechargeable will work, keep the amps at 4.5 to 5.   To charge them you can use a special wall wart charger like this....

This will set you back about $30.00 or you can go to your local auto parts store and pick up a motorcycle battery charger for around $20.00.

 

To see how this system works, check out the photos in this article.

For an article on how to light a high school gym with small flashes, someone grabbed the tutorial from Maxpreps website and put a .pdf on their website........here's the link

check out this blog

http://www.diyphotography.net/     I love this kind of stuff.
Here's another great DIY article on bouncing flash.

blog links

I've been going through and trying to fix all the broken links that came with changing the name of the blog. 

flash on the monopod

Folks I've been seeing a lot of well lit legs and torso's but everything above that is dark. I'm guessing it's because some of you have the flash so low you're not lighting very evenly and the fall off is someplace around the solar plexus. So adjust accordingly please.
Thanks

CALIBRATE YOUR MONITOR!!!!!!

Don't let good images look bad, know that your monitor is showing you the right exposures.
Here's an article on calibrating.

Joe McNally

So I'm reading this article in Digital Photo Pro about Joe McNally and his small lights lighting set-up and he mentions that he was having a problem getting enough light from his flash. Turns out he had -2 EV set on camera and didn't change it because he was shooting in manual and EV doesn't effect settings when you shoot in manual mode, BUT it will effect the flash when shooting in ttl! I thought that was very interesting and thought maybe some of you would too.

nifty lighting gadget and other interesting stuff....

Hanashiro had an article on SportsShooter about this and it looks very interesting...
http://lightwaredirect.com/index.html Thought I'd post it here for those of you who don't look at SportsShooter. There's also a great article by Doug Murdock on traveling with gear http://www.sportsshooter.com/news/2259 I particularly was interested in the part where she disconnects the trunk lever by the drivers seat.

Lightroom cropping by Jaime Wooten-click on each image to see it full size

Shooting Baseball Tips

Craig Morley was kind enough to send me this link to an article on how to shoot baseball. Pretty good article, take a look. http://digital-photography-school.com/how-to-photograph-baseball

Don't cut off feet

DON'T CUT OFF FEET AT THE ANKLE. DON'T CUT OFF FEET AT THE ANKLE. DON'T CUT OFF FEET AT THE ANKLE. DON'T CUT OFF FEET AT THE ANKLE. DON'T CUT OFF FEET AT THE ANKLE. DON'T CUT OFF FEET AT THE ANKLE. DON'T CUT OFF FEET AT THE ANKLE. DON'T CUT OFF FEET AT THE ANKLE. DON'T CUT OFF FEET AT THE ANKLE. DON'T CUT OFF FEET AT THE ANKLE. DON'T CUT OFF FEET AT THE ANKLE.

Very good article on SportsShooter.com

Darren Carroll answers a college students question about shooting on spec. He gives some very good advice. Particularly on shooting for agencies for a split of the sales, some of these so called agencies are giving away photos so cheap that it's devaluing photography and making it very hard for those of us who do this to pay the bills to make a living. Read the article here.

Tilted horizons

Please folks no more tilted horizons, it just looks so lame. Save them for the next wedding shoot, okay? I am going to start deleting badly tilted horizon shots, the only sport I know of that has a hill in it is downhill skiing. You can fix a tilted horizon when you crop in photoshop. And while we are on the subject of framing, try not to cut off feet. A big problem since the advent of auto focus. Cutting off limbs at the joints is a basic composition no no.