Photography

If you're a Canon shooter, you better be heading over to Syl Arena's new site and forum if you've always wondered about using flash with your Canon system (of course, other DSLR owners are welcome too).

There's also a big How-to section which will be growing. There's one interesting post which shares 15 tips for using your speedlite, including this gem below:

"1. Understand that the hotshoe is not the best place for your Speedlite.
I know. You paid good money for your camera and your Speedlite. It’s not that you didn’t get the deluxe hotshoe. You did. It’s just that shooting with a Speedlite in the hotshoe is similar to the lighting used to make driver’s license and passport photos. You cannot create interesting light when the main source of light is parked on top of your camera."

But if you've only got one light... don't fret. Here's one article for you too!

You know what's the best things about presents when you receive them? It's not the value. It's the abso-freaking-surprise when it's something you really, really want and that the person went through great lengths to research (blog, twitter, social, whatever) what you really want. So, from the bestest brother ever, I get this awesome little thing of black plastic and magnesium alloy.

It's so awesome but the most hilarious thing is my mom going "like are you sure you're gonna buy this camera expert a camera? It's not even a Canon. It's a Panasonic! He's already got enough cameras (ahem)!" A small camera, just what I need. This is OMG Awesome. Yeah, so Canon, if you're listening, I want an EF-S mount (EF with adapter) body the same size as the GF1. APS-C Sensor and HD Video.

A very different appearance compared to the previous shoot we had. This time round, we were shooting my brother in-law and his family. Despite the clouds and a short drizzle, the weather was hot. Chinese New Year hot. So hot that I got pretty dehydrated before I even got home. Anyways, because of the rain, the lion dance was also pretty tame. In fact, they were mostly going after anyone who waved a hong bao (red packet with money inside I presume) in their face. So tame that even tourists could pose by the lion and take a photo!

On the fourth day of Chinese New Year, we decided that the evening was just the right time to drop by the Thean Hou Temple in KL for a shoot. As usual, it was packed and being the Lunar New Year, it also features a lot of performances and activities that add to the bustling atmosphere. My first time here in the evening and I'm already loving the light or the lack of it. Makes the use of small flashes all the more important but also trying to jostle light to add a bit of sparkle to the already vibrant scene.

With the year of the Tiger, there were many tiger lanterns made from wire and canvas. In the darkness, they glowed beautifully but if you drop by in the daytime, they look faded, dirty and uneventful. Tripods were a challenge in a crowded place like this so I ended up shooting handheld with the McNally grip, high ISO (up to 6400 but mostly on 1600 and 3200), and wireless flash and radiopoppers. We also had another shoot the following morning. I'll post that later and you can see the difference.

Let there be light. And there was light! A one day seminar at Shangri-La KL was packed full with a large group of people already lined up waiting to get into the ballroom. I mean, this is the Shang, with excellent finger food, coffee, tea and all that and people rather just line up to be the first into the room? Anyways, the day started with a short introduction with Louis Pang showing guerrilla lighting techniques for wedding photographers.

More fun was the "krumping" by volunteers and Joe McNally himself as the "father" of the "bride", Evon. The only letdown was that we didn't get to see the shots from Louis' shoot of the krumping. We got cool stuff in our goodie bags and finally snagged my World Tour DVD!

Joe was funny, humble, instructive, approachable, direct, simple, profound and all that thrown in. He doesn't hide a thing, shoots openly for all to see. His thought process laid-bare. The way he approach the subject, the lights, the step-by-step build up, was just inspiring. Joe started with a single speedlight and built up using reflectors, diffusers, multiple speedlights, EzyBoxes, Octas and more. The gear alone was staggering but the information and stuff he showed were all more important. After all, there'll be newer bodies, newer lenses and newer flashes but light is light. If you can see "light" and you can direct it, control it, bend it, beat the heck out of it, you'd be good to go! I think I need one of those paint pole thingies and an EzyBox, and more speedlights!

And here are some shots of the day...

Of course I have to have a shot of us and the Guru of Lights... and of course, he signed both my books! Awesome!

Hey, one can wish right? There's a lot of stuff I need for the house like a new refrigerator or oven or even some new furniture but I think I'll be quite happy if someone would just drop a 1 meter long GlideTrack into my Christmas stocking!

Took my RadioPoppers into the jungles of Pahang over the weekend and they absolutely rock! One time, I had them on two lightstands at a distance of 400 feet and they still worked flawlessly. With e-TTL to boot! They're so awesome I'll be getting another set next month plus a pair of 580s to go with them.

For me, range is not that important, well, anything up to 100 feet is good enough for me but e-TTL is. The ability to have exposure control plus the ability to remotely control the slaves is important. However, more importantly, reliability is the key. The existing Canon wireless system is too dependent on line of sight and is quite easily confused when in bright areas, especially outdoors. I even had problems one time I did a portrait shoot where the left flash unit was fired through a translucent reflector and the right-side flash was bounced off the right wall and ceiling and one of the flashes wouldn't go off 100% of the time. I shot forty frames with that configuration and ended up with 9 frames where one of the flash units did not fire properly. This is indoors with a full height glass wall on one side. Maybe the infrared beams went through the windows but who knows.

In a wooden shack building 40 feet by 70 feet, I had 100% trigger rate no matter where I placed my two slave flashes. I had them outside the building firing through the side windows, left and right of the main hall, anywhere basically and all seventy frames fired successfully!

"What? He's doing video also now?"

That's what my brother-in-law said when he found out I was attending a video workshop. Funny but that's where I was on a Sunday morning. In fact, the workshop ran on till past 7pm! We had a blast.

Why would a stills photographer attend a video workshop? Well, my DSLR has been called a VDSLR but I like what Vincent Laforet calls it, a HDDSLR -- a SLR that shoots HD video. It's also a world apart when working with stills and video. It's not easy but it's something that requires a different kind of planning, approach and all that stuff.

While I'm not sure if I'll be producing a lot of movies, I do believe that no learning is wasted and that if you only stop learning when you die. So, even from the stills photography side of things, movie-making does give you a few ideas and a cinematic approach is not a bad thing to add to your array of styles or ideas.

It was fun to see how things are done in the movies and learn some interesting camera tricks as well. There was basically an overload of information and I think it would be best done as a 2-day workshop as the video project takes time to work out, and do. Also, movie-making isn't a solo endeavor so teaming up is a good approach but time is a biggest factor here. That said, the entire workshop taught me a lot of things, not to mention that if you want a cinema look, try not to use the zoom! That's pretty easy... zooming on a HDDSLR is not the easiest thing to do.

Sorry bout the some of the photos below... I was using my iPhone as the class pace was fast and loaded, making it difficult to reach for the HDDSLR and take notes at the same time! The only thing I wish there was more off would be more examples and sample videos but this is an intro workshop so can't go into such depth. Time to save up for my Redrock Micro video DSLR rig and the Intermediate Video workshop

A fun thing would be to have a Collision Conference or Re:Frame right here in Malaysia.

By the way, I'll post our end result once I get the final copy from Karan.