PBPhoto

Scary., originally uploaded by paggre.

So friends let me borrow some more flashes. And this is one that I captured. He told me that this is a superhero face. Scary I think. So I had a bare 285HV camera left @ 1/16th, bare SB600 camera right @ 1/16th power, bare Sunpak 411 for background @ 1/2 power. Took a while to get the background useable. The Sunpak 411 is an old flash and I didn't have any modifiers made for it. It is hanging off of a floor lamp post with a bungee tie. This is the first time that I have tried side lighting because, well, until now I have only had one strobe. I like the look. I would like to have had some rim light from behind if I had another strobe. I can see where this would get addictive.

Nice Socks, originally uploaded by paggre.

It isn't great processing but definitely a learning step for me. I don't normally process pictures other than maybe a little crop. I really liked this pose and outfit of my little guy so I worked on getting rid of some lame stuff in the foreground (my lightstand) and background (a poorly lit ottoman and couch). I used the clone tool in the gimp. Then added a little sharpening and increased the saturation because I like vivid colors. Also whitened his little snaggly teeth a bit with a lasso select and curves.

You Can't Catch Me!, originally uploaded by paggre.

What a cutie! I put this one up because it is ISO1600. This one of the first few shots at that high ISO that I have taken with my EOS 40D. There is noise but man it is a useable photo. The eyes are crisp. I didn't even need to use it as I got 1/400 at f1.8 on this one. He was in a shaded area just before this and I was struggling to get 1/60th @ f1.8. So then he ran from me saying "I don't want a picture. You can't catch me." For Daddy that is just issuing a challenge.

Dude, where's my tooth?, originally uploaded by paggre.

This is a shot that, when I took it, I thought 'that's decent'. But when I brought it up on the big screen it really stood out to me. I don't know how he got so close to the flash as to make it almost on axis. Oh well. I still think the expression and the lost tooth make this a nice one.

It is dangerous being around a kiddy pool with camera gear. I have an EOS 40D and it has some weathersealing but I don't trust it to get too wet. The flash I'm not so worried about. Thankfully it is not an SB900 or something.

I really did not want to wake him up for this shot. But he had the velcro tabs on the tent door fastened. So he started rustling when I opened that. This gave me a short amount of time to hide the flash and I was only able to get two shots. This one came out good I think. Thankfully it looked fine at the exposure that I had set 1/60th @ f5.6.

Heavenly., originally uploaded by paggre.

This is a look that I have seen in the strobist pool and just now tried it. It takes a lot of flash power to overcome the daylight. This was 1/2 power I think on a bare flash. And I had to play with flash-subject distance to make it look like I wanted. I took a few shots to determine a good background aperture and then brought the flash up to meet that. This is something that I want to investigate more. Keep a look out for a cool looking sky and then shoot some portraits.

Lantern, originally uploaded by paggre.

Here is a shot of a candle in a lantern. I used the WB trick where you set your camera's WB to tungsten so that any light that is the temperature of daylight gets shifted to a nice blue. So I have a bare strobe on the background that has been shifted. Interesting, I took a lot of shots of this thing. It was for a photo challenge themed light fixtures on http://www.photochallenge.org. I included the entire lantern as you can see on my flickr stream. But I found this to be the most interesting photo.