Photography Bay

Digital Camera News, Reviews and Tips

Do-it-Yourself Tungsten OmniBounce

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Do-it-Yourself Tungsten OmniBounce

Originally uploaded by carpe icthus.


This popped up on a recent “strobist” search on flickr. I’m constantly surprised by the ingenuity of the strobist clan.

Notes from the photographer:

I had to shoot a giant gala tonight — close to 500 people. I knew most of the action would be happening in a place with very little light and a ceiling far too high to allow bounce flash. Furthermore, whatever ambient light there was would be VERY warm, about 2500K. And all I had was my no-frills SB-600.

So I went all McGuyver. I took the back of a reporter’s notebook (which would provide nice, warm bounce light to match the ambient), cut it down and fastened it to my flash with a sturdy rubber band. This is basically an industrial-strength, warm-light version of the old index card trick.

But I wanted a broad flash that would cover the frame, so I needed the top to fan out. I ran down to the coffee shop and got a few wooden coffee stirrers. I cut them to match the notebook and fastened them to each end with clips.

It looks silly, but worked marvelously.

[tags]diy, howto, flash, photography, strobist, nikon, sb-600[/tags]

 

Learning Adobe Lightroom

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If you’re like me, you love Adobe Lightroom. If you’re not like me, you should give it a try. The learning curve is easy. The controls are intuitive. It blows through RAW files as seamless as iPhoto does with JPEGs. It’s not quite the power hog that Aperture is either.

I feel rather comfortable in the Lightroom world now that I’ve been tinkering with it since Beta 1. However, I think I’m a little too comfortable. I don’t push the software to do all the things that its capable of. Why? Part of the reason is that I don’t have the time to mess around with the volume of images I shoot. I’m still plugging away at shots from the Tour de Georgia in April, not to mention all the family and friends stuff that I’ve shot since then. I just need to get through them.

I need something different though. Something to spice things up.

That’s why I just ordered The Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Book for Digital Photographers by Scott Kelby. I haven’t read a single review about this book, but I trust Mr. Kelby to deliver nothing but the best and inspire me to take my Lightroom processing to the next level.

Why such blind trust?

Well, last year, I was looking for a window into the intimidating world of Photoshop. I picked up a book call The Adobe Photoshop CS Book for Digital Photographers at my local book store and found that window. I shelled out my $40 (I know, don’t rub it in, had I bought it at Amazon it would’ve been about $26) and opened the world of Photoshop to my images. Granted, I’m no master at Photoshop, or photography for that matter, but I can use Photoshop somewhat effectively now. Prior to Mr. Kelby’s book, it was simply too daunting of a task to navigate those menus.  My earlier thoughts of Mr. Kelby, among others.
So there. I gladly invest my $26 in Mr. Kelby’s new Lightroom book. Maybe something new and inspiring will come out of it . . . . I expect that to be the case.

I’ll let you know what I think of it after giving the book its due consideration. Don’t feel that you need to wait for my opinion though. If it’s anything like his prior books, you should get yours now if you use Lightroom.

[tags]adobe, lightroom, photoshop, scott kelby, book, review, deal[/tags]

Macro Lenses

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Step into my parlour…

Originally uploaded by swifty_mcvey.

What should you be using?  A dedicated macro lens or a close-up filter?  I dunno.  But you’ll find a great article over at Lonewolf Online that gets into the details.  Check it out.  They’ve got some great sample images comparing a variety of different setups.

[tags]macro, lens, macro, digital, camera, close-up, filter, review[/tags]

Camera Tossing

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Camera Tossing (3 of 3)

Originally uploaded by hawridger.




I’ve been reading the Camera Toss Blog for some time now and admiring all the great abstracts that camera tossing produces. Until last night, I hadn’t tried it myself.

I was more than pleased with my first effort (above) at camera tossing. What’s more, it’s addictive like crack! Seriously, I blew through half an hour just getting warmed up.

It’s easier than it might look. Be warned though, you should take a browse through the beginner’s guide and Mini How-to over at the Camera Toss Blog (take note on the disclaimers stating that you can break your camera) before jumping full throttle into camera tossing.