Tuesday, July 08, 2014

Nikon V2 In My Bag

I recently purchased a used Nikon V2 with two lenses on eBay for a great price.  The V2 has a small sensor with a crop factor of X2.7, which really increases the length of my longer lenses.  The image quality looks good in the lower ISO range, actually I'm impressed.
I used my Nikon V2 yesterday on assignment shooting for an Oil & Gas company.  The photo above was shot using my manual focus 300mm f/2.8 with a X2 converter.  With a crop factor of 2.7, the focal length equals a 1620mm lens. Here is another image shot at sunset the night before.
My new Nikon V2 has earned a spot in my camera bag. Here is another image with just the 300mm on the V2, effective length of lens is 810mm.  This was shot from the ground looking up to the deck of the drilling platform.


Sunday, June 29, 2014

UPAA Symposium

I was recently invited to speak and conduct 3 mini workshops at this years UPAA symposium.  It was held at Samford University in Birmingham, Alabama.  The photo below was created to show how to produce a proper bounce technique.


The flash which produced the bounce was placed behind the subject on camera left. With a set of barndoors on the Nikon flash, I aimed the flash over the subject to the wall camera right.  I allowed a small amount of light to strike the model, providing a small amount of rim.  I also placed a flash at the end of the hallway we were shooting with a orange gel.

Monday, January 06, 2014

High Speed Sync


My Austrian friend Eric turned me on to this interesting fact. If you use a RadioPopper JRx receiver and a RadioPopper PX Transmitter together, you can get high speed sync.  The photo above was shot with the following settings. Nikon D800, ISO 100, 24mm, 1/5000, f/2.8. I am able to get high speed sync using my Lumedyne strobes as well as my new FalconEyes SG-100.
I pick up this FalconEyes SG-100 flash while teaching in Europe last month. You can see a complete review on this product HERE.

Here is the lighting set up for the photo at the top of the page. The battery for the FalconEyes SG-100 has two Sony batteries inside the black box.  It gives you a lot of pops.

You can see the RadioPopper Jrx hooked up to the FalconEyes SG-100.  This flash is not as powerful as my Lumedynes, I was able to get high speed sync with the Lumedynes up to 1/8000.  When my power setting on the Lumedyne was full power, 800ws.  At 1/8000 of a second at 800ws I notice a very, very slight shading at the bottom of the frame.