Tag Archives: Flash

Strobist Workshop

The regular Group meeting at The Midleton Park Hotel on Tuesday 5/11/13 featured a Strobist workshop run by Tom Tattan and Denis Barry.

photo 4Tom gave an overview to the theory and practicalities of flash photography and gave a demo of the use of studio flash while Denis went through the reasons why it is a good idea to get the on-camera flash off the camera and demonstrated the various equipment normally used for this including, stands, brolly brackets, brollies, portable softboxes, reflectors and wireless triggers.

With a model in place (who turned up legless but that’s another story) the theory and equipment was put into practice and with images appearing projected on-screen, as shot, through the minor miracle of tethered capture, the subtlety of minor changes to power output, aperture, shutter speed and placement of light sources was apparent to all.

photo 8The workshop received a favourable reaction and generated much discussion and interest so we look forward to members’ own strobist attempts in the near future.

Thanks to Paddy Barker of Barker Photographic Limited Equipment and Supplies, Unit 18, South Link Park, Frankfield, Cork for supplying some demo equipment for the workshop.

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How I took that Shot by Finbarr O’Shea

Finbarr O’Shea came second in the recent ‘In Costume’ group competition with a beautiful shot of his granddaughter. This is how he took the shot:

“My entry to the costume competition was a picture of my granddaughter, Mikaela, at her Halloween party. She and her friends made a great effort with their costumes and face painting”.

Finbarr O'Shea

“They started with the snap apple game where the first person to bite the apple without using their hands wins. It was during this I got my picture. It was a fun night and a great time was had by all”.

“The shot was taken with a Canon 5D Mark 2 with a Canon EF24-70 2.8L at 42mm, 1/125 sec, f8 at ISO 400. I used an on-camera flash which I bounced off the ceiling. Post processing was done in Lightroom where I made adjustments to saturation and sharpening”.

Well done Finbarr and Mikaela.

Members see the Light!

At a well attended meeting of the ECCG on Tuesday 10/4/13, Tom Tattan, Dave Edmunds and John Horgan delivered a workshop on portrait flash photography using speedlights. As flash photography can be a mysterious practice for the uninitiated, this was a very much sought after event and went down well with all in attendance.

Our secretary, Karen Fleming, introduced some glamour to the occasion by (foolishly?) agreeing to model for the battery of paparazzi who all wanted to test their newly learned skills. Scenes reminiscent of the outside of a celebrity nightclub at 4am ensued as strobes popped continuously. In hindsight a pair of dark glasses would have been in order for our patient model, whose retinas must have been screaming STOPPPP as the barrage showed no sign of abating! Well done to all concerned.
Photos by Denis O’Flynn.

ECCG's online magazine 'Snapshot'PRO, Denis Barry revealed the ECCG’s new online magazine, ‘Snapshot‘ which is available on iOS and Android devices to members and non-members alike here.

Unfortunately these are the only ways in which the magazine can be accessed, a matter which is completely out of our hands but, that said, it is a wonderful experience on a tablet device especially as there are beautiful photos and videos within the pages that really exploit the tablets’ size and capabilities. The display on other devices, such as mobile phones and iPods, etc, while smaller, is also a very rewarding experience.

The magazine will feature articles of photographic interest from varying online sources and will be updated frequently so be sure to check it out often and let us know what you think.

How I took that shot by Gráinne Davies

I wanted to photograph water drops and it’s not as easy as it may seem.

Image-No.-3

The set up I used was very simple……..

  • Put some water into a black roasting tin
  • I used a small home studio kit set up on a table. If you don’t have a studio kit then just use coloured card (depending on what colour you want out).
  • I used a red velvet background.
  • Pour some water into a bottle or a bag (I used a bag) and suspend the water above the tin of water. Just put a pin hole in the bag and let the water drop into the tin of water.
  • Set your camera on a tripod in front of the water drops.
  • To find a focus I used a pencil and placed it directly where the water drops were falling and focused manually. This will ensure your drops are sharp.
  • Set up a Speedlight flash on a tripod or a flash stand and aim the flashgun directly at the background (not at the water). Set flash to manual and drop the power of the flash as required depending on the exposure of the shots.

Image-No.-3-beforePhotoshop changes – The original was shot in RAW and I changed the colour in Photoshop to give the purple colour. I just tidied the image up with some erasing and cloning and cropped the final image.

 

Technical Details:
Canon 60D
Canon 60mm Macro lens
ISO 200
F10
1/200