Dialing In The D90 and SB900 for Party Snaps

Or, the Easy-Breezy Mostly-Well-Lit Happy-Snapper

Here’s something a little different from trees, guns and 4-wheeling. First of all, I don’t take much in the way of happy-snaps when out with friends. Second, I will steal and claim credit for these photos, but they were taken on my D90, which I handed to a rather outgoing girl who knows her way around a Canon AE-1. Third, there are tons and tons of much better lighting related websites out there, but devoted to much more serious pursuits than happy-snaps, but hey lighting is lighting. I don’t want this to come off as a Strobist-wannabe tutorial post, but I have a lot of friends interested in this stuff, so I’ll gladly introduce them to it, then point them in the right direction (i.e. someone else!)

When I first started photography, oh, five years ago, the first thing I tried was shooting on auto, with straight on-camera flash. Not too flattering, so I QUICKLY moved onto available light with a 50mm f/1.8. Great lens, but I still wasn’t happy with the result though I still shoot available light some times. Then I got an SB800 and fired that on the ceiling, but didn’t like the tell-tale bounced flash look with the dark pockets under the eyes, and relying on a low white ceiling. Safe, but boring. Speaking of SB800, everything here I am doing on the SB900, I did with the SB800. I presume the SB600 would work just the same.

I’ll talk about how to do this on the Nikon, and while I don’t want to make any assumptions, I will venture a guess one can do the same thing (with a few accessories) on the Canon, but I don’t really know how the exposure and flash systems work on other brands of cameras. First thing to do is to enable to camera to trigger the flash remotely.  There are tutorials on how to do this on the Intrawebz, as well as Joe McNally’s great books, and the Bob Krist and Joe McNally lighting DVDs. Then set your SB600, SB800 or SB900 to fire on that same channel. I know I am skipping a whole lot of details here, but your manual and other sources out there explain it way better than I can.

Next, I set my camera to manual exposure and dial in a baseline ambient exposure. I think McNally, according to his book, fires on aperture priority and sets the ambient using his exposure compensation, then dials his flash power back up. I tried this method but was unable to get predictable results and I prefer going manual exposure with the ambient, then shooting with zero compensation on the flash.

Here we are at ISO 400 at f/4 for 1/20th of a second.

I decided I liked it around here at ISO 800 at f/4 for 1/15th of a second. The ISO, f-stop and shutter speed don’t matter as much as it Looking About Right.

I handed the camera off to a friend to fire while I held the flash… Actually ALL these photos (other than the two test shots above) were taken by her with my D90 + 16-85VR + SB900. As for me, I was too lazy to go around shooting and I been spending more time with my camera than I have with people these days. I just brought my camera in with me since I didn’t want to leave it in my car parked out on the street.

Here’s what I did—I was a flash-monkey most of the night

I also wanted to emphasize that once you got this stuff dialed in, you don’t have to stress out a whole lot about the lighting setup. If you have a camera that can trigger a strobe, dial that bad boy in and you’ll hopefully get good results, too. It’s just a flash in your left hand. Granted it’s not as simple as bouncing off the ceiling or going available light, but I personally like the end result better. Your mileage may vary.

Pop a flash and here we are. Notice how Malia on the right is a tad brighter than the others? I should have gotten the flash at an equal distance from them. At spitting distance, light falls off rather quickly.

I’m off to the side here but am standing farther back to try to get a more even amount of light on the subjects. Notice the spotlight effect gradient on the wall here on the wall? That’s from the edge of the cone of light coming out from the flash. I kind of like the natural vignette, but you may not; there are tons of options for lighting your subject, this is just the most convenient for me and I tend to like the result.

Again the spotlight effect of the flash. Notice that there is little light falling on the hands of the left and right subjects, and the gent in the background, due to the lack of light falling on him, is not the visual clutter he would be if we shot with available light or a bounce flash due to the evenness of light caused by those methods between foreground and background. Also notice the green light in the back, yeah that’s fluorescent light! You can control the amount of stuff not being hit by the flash by adjusting your shutter speed.

Presumably you will be shooting in incandescent/tungsten indoor lighting. In general, at least. I put the amber gel on my camera, and set my camera white balance on incandescent. While I sometimes like the separation from mismatched color balances, that night I wanted to stick to all tungsten.

You also want to be cognizant of whether your light is hitting the subject in the first place, since it’s being held presumably in your left hand, or by a bystander who may or may not know much about lighting. Yes, buckshot spreads, but working at these distances, you still need to aim a shotgun. It’s the same thing with a flash. At first it can be a bit much going on at once, and really when you are shooting with flash, you are doing two things at once: shooting an ambient exposure and shooting a flash exposure.

When it does work, though, you can use it to highlight, so to speak, someone who is the center of attention and let the light instead of (or in addition to) captions, the people’s expressions, etc. guide you to the subject.

Back to what I said earlier about light falling evenly on the group, I held out my flash so it was more or less equidistant from all the subjects. Easier said than done due to the kitchen island being in the way.

The shooter shifted locations, but due to the light still being in the same place (ah, the marvels of modern technology), we have the same repeatable lighting solution for different compositions. Yeah it’s dark and I could have fixed it with some dodging and burning, but all these are more or less straight out of camera. I did have to correct the preset (my camera lives pretty much dialed in for landscapes) in post-processing. For people, I like sharpen and undersaturate slightly. Since I’ve gotten nerdy enough, for you Nikon shooters, my sharpening is at 6, contrast is on auto D-lighting and saturation is at –1.

Most cases I would have touched this up, but I wanted to show the out-of-camera results since most folks aren’t going to want to fine-tune their party snaps. I sure as heck don’t.

Final cheap shot. Rick, my friend here, is a Canon shooter, and this is my ‘don’t you wish your camera did this’ face. But he’s saving his pennies for a 7D, which if you are a Canon shooter, you should take a look at.

I hope this has been of use to some of you who have taken an interest in lighting but not sure what it can do for you. If not, hopefully it at least serves as proof I actually interact with other humans.

Though I still talk to the cactus when no one is around.

The Altoids Survival Kit (Skunk Edition)

I’ve been wanting to do a series about equipment and stuff I take into the field for travel, photography, everyday carry, business, etc. etc. etc. I’ll get started on my Altoids survival kit, which isn’t nearly as awesome and hardcore as the one here on Field and Stream’s website, but what I’ve cobbled up based on my needs and preferences with spare junk I have laying around.

I’ll have a permanent place for all the equipment-related posts later for easy reference, if nothing else, then as a visual travel checklist for myself.

Skunk’s Altoids Survival Tin (last revised Sep 2009)

Contents:

* compass

* LED light

* bandages

* antibiotic ointment

* tweezers

* das magnesium scrapensparkenfirestarter

* stormproof matches

* tinder (made from Vaseline and cotton balls)

* safety pins (for repairing gear, improvised arm sling)

* needle (for use with dental floss for sewing)

* tube containing Ibuprofin (ex. Advil), Acetemophin (ex. Tylenol), antihistamine (ex. Benadryl, handy for long flights and jet lag), all wrapped in duct tape (1001 uses incl but not limited to securing gauze bandages, improvised moleskin for blisters, improvised Ace bandage, fixing stuff)

* water purification tablets (yuck)

* signal mirror

* whistle

The survival tin in a 1-quart freezer bag along with hand sanitizer, bandanna (improvised gauze, water pre-filter), cough drops, trash bag (improvised poncho) and baby wipes (not pictured; for bathing and toilet paper). The freezer bag is also handy for collecting water, improvised glove, and keeping little stuff dry.

So This Is Where That Left At Albuquerque Goes

I had a business trip to Albuquerque last week and it just so happened airfare plus car rental would have been a lot more expensive than just driving out. Boo hoo.

There are a couple neat stops along the way, like the Painted Desert in Arizona, just off the I-40.

So is Meteor Crater, which is a big stinking hole in the ground and probably a snowboard park when it starts snowing.

Just another Arizona sunset.

El Malpais National Monument in New Mexico, near Grant, about an hour and a half out of Albuquerque.

La Ventana arch, one of the bigger accessible arches in New Mexico.

Cactus of the Day!

After work was done, it was time to drive back to Los Angeles the long way…via Colorado, passing Shiprock along the way.

The Red Mountain Pass, connecting the two towns of Ouray and Silverton, Colorado.

Along that road, there is a turnoff to Ophir Pass Road, which connects Red Mountain Pass with, you guessed it, Ophir.

The road tops off at almost 12,000 feet.

The road when dry is navigable without a 4WD as long as one has decent ground clearance.

There were marmots, but I didn’t leave my car around long enough for them to chew up my radiator hoses.

Pika, too!

Coming down off the pass.

The road leads through a few aspen groves.

Speaking of aspen,

Might as well get it over with…

Last one, I promise.

Once in the town of Ophir, there was a neat little Post Office shack…with three Subarus parked in front. I guess I had to stop and take a snapshot.

Leaving Colorado we missed the turn off to Moab and drove up Highway 141 to Grand Junction, which added at least an hour and a half to our travel time,

but passing through some of the most spectacular scenery of the trip along the Dolores River. I wouldn’t mind planning a trip back out to these parts.

Exotic Eats in China–Sea, Air or Land

I alluded to the exotic eats last post, here is what transpired. I went out for hot pot one night which was pretty good, including the sketchy looking fish, or at least by Western standards. Looked just fine to me, shiny halved heads notwithstanding.

Us ethnic Chinese remind the rest of the world that the whole critter in front of you on the table is proof you’re actually getting pig, chicken, or, you know, whatever you ordered. Not beef, because that’ll be a darned big table.

So thinking I escaped Korea and China without eating anything that would make most Americans vomit, Air China did not let me down. See Exhibit B, or their breakfast porridge. It was so disgusting looking I just had to try some. It tasted like sandy cardboard and had the texture of, um, well, crappy porridge you get on an airline.

Surak Mountain, South Korea–5,686 Miles from America

As has become tradition on my trips to Korea, I try to get some semblance of something outdoorsy done.

One of the great things about Seoul is that there are quite a few very good hiking opportunities on the same trains that serve the metropolitan area.

That day’s destination was Suraksan, a ‘relatively easy’ hike, according to the guidebook.

I’m used to park brochures calling trails for dog walking to be ‘moderately strenuous’ so I figure this would be a cakewalk. Not really…but the terrain in Korea is pretty rugged so on second thought this would be ‘relatively easy’ for out there.

As mentioned in a previous post, the average hiker in Korea aren’t exactly youngers but they are tough as nails. The Five Ten approach shoes are pretty popular out there, as the mountains near Seoul are similar to Yosemite, with lots of steep granite.

To give you an idea how hospitable the folks are in Korea, I slipped off a boulder at the summit and some hikers noticed I was bleeding all over my elbow and knuckles. I tried to tell them I was ok and that I had my own first-aid-kit (we had the language barrier to work with), but they grabbed my hand and patched me up before I could even have a chance to drop my pack.

Since I couldn’t read the signs, I hiked with another younger guy, who never took an English class, but rather learned all his English from watching TV. He was pretty up to date with US news and politics and the celeb stuff. He probably knew more about mainstream American culture than I do, which isn’t saying much but I still feel pretty lame. He hiked with me all the way to the top, then all the way down with me. I’m glad he did, as I may have walked down the wrong side of the mountain again.

I had all of two and a half days in Seoul, then went to China for four days of work. Did I eat anything gross? Maybe… I’ve been so busy I haven’t managed to get my photos online in a timely manner, so stay tuned for the nasty…

Southeast by Midwest: The Epic Appalachian Roadtrip

Last week I meet up with a friend I met in Indiana, and we drove down to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park on the Tennessee/North Carolina border. Other than a hike and scenic drive, we didn’t have much in the way of plans and just winged it most of the week. We drove in circles and ended up seeing way more than we had expected, including more bears in a morning of hiking than I have ever seen on the trails of California!

The view of the Smoky Mountains atop Shuckstack Tower along the Appalachian Trail.

Our dispersed campsite in the Nantahala National Forest.

A shaft of light coming through the trees the next morning.

What’s camping without gratuitously large blades?

I’m not quite sure what this is, other than I found it in my boot in the morning.

The view from Clingman’s Dome, Tennessee’s high point at 6,643 feet.

The not-so-rugged trail up to Clingman’s.

I heard of Gatlinburg from Johnny Cash’s A Boy Named Sue and it bordered the park, so we checked it out despite warnings it was quite the tourist trap. I’m from California—and heck, I’m an Asian tourist—but this was pretty ridiculous.

Looking for dispersed campsites in the Cherokee and Pisgah National Forests, which border the National Park. Hunting for a spot to camp became a nightly routine, time consuming and frustrating at times, but we saw much of the surrounding area this way.

A wild turkey along Cades Cove scenic drive, which had somewhat become the theme of our trip…heh heh.

We finally broke free of the traffic on Cades Cove and got on Parsons Branch, a nice little one-way gravel road.

The road is not quite out of the way, but since it isn’t paved it doesn’t see as many visitors as the other parts of the park…

…which made it easy to stop and wander around as we pleased.

Taking it easy and making the truck do most of the work this whole time, we went on a short 8 mile hike to Shuckstack Tower, a fire tower that provides 360-degree views of the area.

This is bear country, and we saw quite a few, in fact, more than I have ever seen that morning than I have seen after years of hiking in the California backcountry!

There were a few treed bear cubs and I saw mama bear right on the trail in front of us as I turned the corner. She did not seem amused and I backed away without firing a shot from my brand spanking used D700.

We scared her off by singing Take Me Home Country Roads horribly off key and she cleared off the trail, and we scooted underneath the treed cubs while I squeezed off a few shots at them. I only had my 35 f/2 so these images are horribly cropped. I don’t think I’ll go into bear country again without a telephoto.

We finally made it up to the tower and climbed to the top for an epic view.

It rained on us on the way down, and I had a thunderstorm pass right by me while pooping near the peak. Talk about having the $#!7 scared out of me, literally. We made trashbag ponchos and hoofed it down the hill.

We made an impulse trip to Asheville, North Carolina, and saw this band called Silver Dagger play at the Fiddlin’ Pig. They were incredibly talented and I can say I saw them before they become world famous. Of note was banjo picker Grace Van’t Hof who was insanely good, but I guess I’m biased

We drove up the Blue Ridge Parkway just east of Asheville to try to get to Mt. Mitchell, which is North Carolina’s high point…

…but it ended up being a night of epic fail in terms of trying to find a campground.  We tried to get back to Asheville so took 26 West thinking it would take us west, but it ran northeast (???) up to Johnson City, Tennessee. Oops.

Off to Nashville to go banjo shopping.

And apparently this is the place you can shop for the latest top Country hits

Next stop was camping at Mammoth Cave National Park, but didn’t tour the cave system. Still, the camping was great.

We also toured a bourbon distillery, learning some of the fascinating history behind Kentucky bourbon…

…then swung by Louisville for banjo shopping part two. Dan picked up a Deering Goodtime, adding to the numbers daily all who were being saved. Reeehaw!

We made our way back up to Indiana, and what kind of loser camps out in Indiana?

It wasn’t all bad, but a bit crowded compared to what we were doing over the last few days, still it was novel having an outdoor experience in a state where the high point is just over 1,000’.

Dan showed me all there was to do in Indiana like have breakfast at Bob Evan’s and look at toys at the Bass Pro Shops. It was a great trip, we logged lots of miles, pooped in lots of holes, saw a few bears, finished a bottle of Wild Turkey and even managed to take a shower or two.

Why wish upon a star when you have thousands of them, plus the Milky Way?

Australia: Drop Bears, Hoop Snakes and Sheep Brains, Oh My!

Greetings from Australia!

The sun rising in Williamstown, a suburb of Melbourne.

We drove from Melbourne up the coast for three days, to Sydney. It can be done much quicker, but we took the scenic route.

Along the way we stopped off in Metung and went out on the Gippsland Lakes.

The boat turns 100 years old next month!

The afternoon was a bit wet, but when the clouds came through the clouds, we had some pretty nice rainbow action.

Across the lake from where we were staying, is an island loaded with roos.

Or wallabies…I can’t tell the difference….

Little pellets everywhere!

After pulling back to town, we went out to grab some chow. As my loyal readers know, I try to do something outdoors and eat something I can’t find back home on every business trip.

Beauty and brains. Sheep brains, that is. Like the Japanese eating whale meat, the earlier generations of Australians used to eat sheep brains after the war when times were lean and protein was hard to come by.

Since it rained on us the afternoon before, we went back out again the next morning.

Saw some dolphins out there on the lake,

and they even came right up to the boat!

After that we got back in the Toyota and drove up the coast just to the town of Eden.

…arriving just in time to watch the last of the light fade from the sky.

The next day we made the big push up to Sydney, passing by Pambula Beach, then heading inland through some smaller towns and ranches. The terrain reminded me of my favorite parts of California, but with cars on the wrong side of the road, and lots and lots of sheep.

A mirelurk in Sydney’s Chinatown where I found out what a ‘dim sim’ is.

For those of you think my travel is all fun and games, here is the reality of how my life on the road is actually spent. But being stuck at a trade show in Sydney beats the heck out of being stuck at one in Las Vegas!

All photos taken with D90, 16-85VR, 35 f/2, Fuji F200 and Blackberry Storm

LA to Monterey County via the California Backroads

This weekend I decided somewhat last minute to spend the 4th of July with some friends in Salinas. Being that it was a three day weekend and the heavy traffic that comes with it, and there were some areas I wanted to scout out in the hills, I decided to drive to and from Monterey County while avoiding the main freeways as much as possible.

I checked out some camp sites near the Nacimento-Ferguson road that connects Fort Hunter Liggett near King City, CA along the 101 with the coastal city of Lucia on Highway 1.

The Forest Service allows dispersed camping which means no running water and no toilets, but it is free and no reservations are required. Did I mention free? And I could see the coast from camp.

After selecting a camp site, I went for a little hike up to Cone Peak, which had great views along the coast and if the sky is clear enough (it wasn’t) one can see the Sierras.

The hike was timed so that I could watch the sunset from the peak, which meant walking the two miles back down in the dark. It’s not a big deal unless you are afraid of the dark or you manage to lose your Really Right Stuff BH25 ballhead on the trail. That’s going to leave a mark in the checkbook….

The next morning I drove up Highway 1 which is a rush if in a turbo AWD vehicle before the traffic heats up. Unfortunately there isn’t much room to pass other vehicles and there are some inconsiderate souls who drive well below the speed limit and fail to use the turnouts despite the pack of cars stacking up behind them. What a buzzkill. I passed the usual attractions and parks, and some of the campgrounds were so crowded there were vehicles parked along the highway! I’d hate to be camped out there.

I celebrated our Independence Day with friends in Salinas, picked the banjo with some of them on guitar and we all sang some Country, Gospel and Folk songs. The next morning we visited Taylor’s church where he and his Blues band were playing at a church fundraiser barbecue for summer camp events. Taylor is the older brother of Bailey, one of the teen girls in my slumber party post back in February.

The last thing I wanted to do was get stuck in traffic getting back in Los Angeles Sunday night on a three day weekend so I took the opportunity to camp two hours out of town with the intention of driving into work first thing Monday morning. That would leave me all afternoon to drive down the coast and get to camp.

I took Highway 198 which runs between King City and Coalinga, then veered off on a road that runs through the coastal ranges and a some ranches in the hills.

Driving I-5 or the 101 can be a pretty mind numbing experience for me and I like sticking to the country roads in between those two major freeways even if the journey ends up taking much longer. It was very scenic, at least by my standards, but I suspect such a drive would bore the heck out of most people.

The roads can be very desolate but I consider it a privilege to be in the middle of the metropolitan cities San Francisco and Los Angeles yet be in the middle of nowhere at the same time.

Other than crossing Highway 46, I only passed eight other cars since leaving Highway 198. If you break down, you are on your own for a while, but I had a mostly full tank of gas, a 9mm Beretta and a week of food and water. No worries.

I arrived at the Carrizo Plain National Monument, a BLM park off Highway 58 just about sundown.

Being BLM land means you pretty much can do whatever you please so long as you pick up after yourself. I cruised around some dirt roads until I was starting to run out of light.

I ran out of daylight just as I found a nice spot to camp tucked behind the hills. The night time temperatures were at room temperature, there were no airborne bugs and likely no other humans for about a 15-20 mile radius. Free camping and no red tape. I couldn’t have asked for a better night out.

Monday came around too soon and it was time to break camp and get back into the office! I took the opportunity to drive out through the hills via a road I had not taken before. Which is all fine and well until you attempt to take what ends up being a trail through a dead-end canyon…

A Woman’s Proper Place is Behind a Suppressed Beltfed Machine Gun

“This past weekend, Hero-Gear and well known photographer Oleg Volk were proud to host an industry only/invite only event in the beautiful mountains that run along the TN/AL border.

The purpose of this event was to bring a select group of firearms industry members, writers, bloggers, radio personalities, photographers, and videographers together to share ideas, fellowship, and to have a good time.

Over 60 participants from places like CA, TN, GA, AL, MN, WI, OH, CT, NY, and IN ensured that a wide array of equipment and ideas would be shared over the weekend.”

–Joe Lundberg, Hero Gear

Old Korean People Can Kill You

Last Friday I left Korea for the fifth time. Most of my readers know that when in a foreign land, I try to do two things–something outdoorsy and eat something that I can’t find here at home.

I jumped in the subway and headed to Namhansanseong, which is a few miles outside of Seoul to the southeast, but is close enough to hit for a morning hike.