Portable mini studio

Ever considered setting up your own home photo studio, but gave up the idea due to lack of space and hard earned cash?

Well, it actually doesn´t have to cost you an arm and a leg, plus it is easily stored away in a camera bag. With just a few extra accesories to what you probably already own, you can achieve lightening as with these images below.

I just went out to get myself a nice 2in1 black/white collapsible background from Walimex, so that I could achieve a nice and uniform background when shooting portraits at home. It turned out to be just awesome: it takes 20 secs to unfold and 60 secs to fold back into its case again!

Here are some samples:

The lightening in these images is as simple as it gets: one speedlight placed at a 45º angle relative to the baby to achieve this kind of dramatic shadow effect on the one side of the face. I aimed the flash in the opposite directon of the baby and used an Westcott umrella placed slightly above the baby´s head, to bounce back and embrace the model with a soft, even light.

The images were shot at 1/125 sek, F/4,5-5 and ISO 100-160.

Tip: Start out with the flash turned off and take an image - e.g. with the settings above. The models should hardly be visible and you want the background to be black (no window lights should lighten up your nice, black background). Now, turn off your flash, set it to manual at a low setting (e.g. 1/64 of full power) and adjust the power up or down if you are way out of league. If you are almost there, but the image is a little to light, you can go from e.g. F/5 to F/5,6 - or the other way around if its too dark.

 Here is an overview over the setup and how the flash/umbrella were fixed:

The cheap, but great, Cactus duo V5 radio-triggers were used to fire the flash off camera, and the Wallimex background did its job to eliminate any distracting elements behind the models.

Equipment used (bying equipment via the links below supports maintenance of this site):

Canon EOS 7D
Canon 17-55mm f/2.8 IS USM Lens
Canon Speedlite 430EX II Flash
Westcott White Satin Umbrella
Umbrella Mount Bracket
Slik Compact Lightweight Tripod "
Cactus V5 Wireless Flash Trigger
Walimex collapsible background, black/white 150x200 cm

Diving the Similan Islands

A few days have passed since we came back from our home away from home, Thailand. Loads of pics to go through, some of them will soon find their way to the blog.

As I brought my underwater housing all the way, I just had to try it out in open water (for the first time). I booked a 1-day trip to Koh Bon at the Similan Islands, where Mette and I had been diving with a dozen of manta rays in 2008 (same time of the year). So I hoped to capture the scene!

Unfortunately, the mantas have not really been seen at Koh Bon in recent time, and nobody knows why they have disappeared. We jumped into the water and enjoyed the life at the reef - however, we were a bit surprised how crowded this dive place has become. As in OVER CROWDED! Divers everywhere, many of them not paying attention to where they kick their fins. 

It was saddening to see how much the corals have been damaged within a few years - by ignorant divers grabbing onto this and that. Well, what a surprise that the mantas were all gone...

Anyway, as we swam around I had time to play a bit with my camera and shoot this video:

The video was shot with a Canon 7D + Sigma 10-20mm in Hugyfot underwater housing, at 1920x1080p with 30fps at F/4.0-5.6 at 1/60 sek and ISO 320. Post production in Adobe Premiere Pro.

I was so obsessed by shooting video that I totally neglected taking photos. Only a few frames made it to the memory card:

Curious moray eel peeking out from its hide, F/9.0 at 1/50 sek.

School of yellowfin goatfish, F/9.0 at 1/80 sek.

As you saw in the video, the reef was absolutely packed with fry, F/16 at 1/25 sek.

Giant puffer hovering over the reef, F/10 at 1/60 sek.

All together, a great day under the surface even though we did´nt get to see the mantas :-( So I´ll post a few pics from our 2008 trip to the exact same spot...

Manta photos shot with Canon s70 in Canon underwater housing

Phi Phi Paradise

I´ve written another article about diving and coral reef conservation issues in Habitat, the e-magazine of the Danish Zoological Society. This time it about the paradise of the Phi Phi islands, where I have spent quite some hours underwater working as a Dive Master in 2008.

A paradise like Phi Phi attracts gazillions of backpackers, party animals not to mention divers. Locals are able to make money on their small businesses, new hotels and guesthouses are shooting up everywhere and dive-operators want a bite of the cake as well. However, it all comes at a price, and the absence of governmental intervention in protecting the ecosystem is detrimental for the fragile coral reef and its inhabitants

Find the article on page 40 - Sorry to all you who do not speak Danish! (but there are some nice pics ;)

Splash´n´kajak vol. II

Got a few video clips from the photo session with k-polo.dk

I still have a lot to learn about shooting video with a DSLR, so I hope I get the opportunity to capture the Kayak guys once again!!

The video below is the exact same, but in a higher quality..

The video was shot with a Canon 7D + Sigma 10-20mm in Hugyfot underwater housing, at 1280x720p with 60fps (that could be slowed down to 30fps for slowmo-effect). Most of the video was shut at F/4.0-5.6 at 1/160 sek and ISO1600. Post production was done in Adobe Premiere Pro and After Effects.

Splash´n´kajak

It was about time to try out my new underwater housing for my Canon. So my work colleague, Rasmus, arranged a meet-up with his Kayak Polo Team at the local pool. Equipped with mask, snorkel, fins and obviously my camera, I got down beneath the surface...

 

...only to realize how vulnerable I (and importantly my equipment) was when surfacing for air. Basically, I was trapped in a boiling pot of foaming, paddle-fighting maniacs, so I soon found myself back on the dry and safe edge of the pool again. 

That being said, how cool is this sport!?! A fast paced team game, where brute strength, technique and tactics culminate in a boat-borne battlefield of splashing water.

Visit their webpage to learn more and get exhausted while having a blast!  

Københavns Kajakpoloklub      

So most of the shots were taken from the pool edge, holding the camera down in the water to obtain the surface/underwater split shots.

Equipment used: Canon 7D with Sigma 10-20mm lens in Hugyfot underwater housing. As no flash was used, I had to push the ISO all the way up to 640-1600, leaving the images a bit grainy. Shutter speeds at 1/60 - 1/-120 were used to capture the action without freezing the image completely. To get as much as possible out of the light, I used apertures between F/4.0 and F/5.6. 

 
Thanks to all the polo-folks for a great day at the pool! I´ve uploaded these and a lot more images from the day here: Ze über cööl Kayak Polo Gallery

I´ll upload a video from the day as well, so stay tuned...
 

End of season

Two weeks ago we headed to Frederiksdal skov, a lovely forest just north of Copenhagen, to absorb the bright and warm autumn colors.

For some reason several tree trunks were labeled with this vivid pink spray. We thought it looked pretty cool in the midst of all natural colors..
  
All portraits were shot with the Canon 17-55mm f/2.8 lens at 1/80s and f/5.6 (or f/7.1 for the image above), ISO 320. We used a very subtle fill flash (Canon 430ex II at low power set manually) to make the model stand out a bit.



We spotted this lonesome tree in the middle of the shades and gray trunks of a pine tree forest. It almost glowed as if it was on fire when the penetrating rays of the sun fell on its leaves.  

To capture the dark mood of the scenery, I underexposed the image by 2,3 stops. Shot at 1/100 sek; f/7.1, ISO 800



We thought that our little son would enjoy the idyllic scenery, but he fell asleep 5 minutes after we got out of the car..and we had to wake him up three hours later, when we had to put him back in the baby car seat again. Anyway, I think all of us enjoyed the trip..