A photo more!
 

Well, I have been sick all week and my Strobist setup finally showed on Wednesday all I could do was sit and look at it, so finally on Saturday night I was still feeling like crap but I couldn't wait. I told ilive2win on Thursday I wouldn't be able to shoot I am glad I did, I wasn't able to stay for more then a half hour which really killed me... but I did pull off one! Ugh colds suck!

C&C welcome.

Gear used
2x - 430EXII(wireless triggering via PW)
2x - 8' Light stands
Canon 50D w/ 50mm 1.4

Dirty car was also used, maybe hard to believe. I couldn't believe it either.
1.

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/2992813/IMG...R75%20copy.jpg

2. Re-edit also found down a couple posts

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/2992813/IMG...001_EDIT_3.jpg

nice shot, like you said can't believe car is dirty :) ...comment, did you tweak this w/ photoshop or aperture b/c I notice a pinkish type hue on rims & headlights??

I like the shot, I would like it better without the gate and its shadows on the right side of the pic. Good work tho, I need to start shooting with flash

Yeah, i tweaked it in Aperture, and then i dumped that into photoshop just to crop it and put my name on it... there is a little pink/purple in the img I liked how it accented it though...might have to take it out...

Thanks for the C&C

Thanks! Shooting with flash makes life so far in my one shoot more fun, and it makes it a lot easier!

I agree, great shot. Easy enough to fix the crop, though :D

Thanks, I have been in class otherwise i would have done it! Thank you again! :tup:

awesome photo! great job!

Thanks!

Off-camera lighting's the way to go. Good job! The speedlite you set up on camera right is producing a strong shadow of the gate. You could reduce or eliminate that by repositioning the flash closer to the car (and thus higher above the gate...changing the direction and size of the shadow), and/or diffuse the light source with a variety of methods (diffusion panel, light box, etc.) thus softening the shadow itself. Not trying to take away from your shot...just like discussing photography. The strobist techniques can be difficult at first, but does get easier. Helps when you have lots of time to tweak, but you were sick that day too.

well, to point it in the direction of the re-edit of the pink i didnt catch, and a different cropping.... brings a different feel to it that is for sure. The strobes will most likely be getting some use this weekend, and bring some more hands on time.

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/2992813/IMG...001_EDIT_3.jpg

nice shot!wish i could do this also.

Well, it all depends on how far you want to get into it both $ and time wise, these were all edited after the initial shot, not much but enough....

the big three programs to use for post processing are
Aperture
Light Room (Adobe product)
and Photoshop.

As you can tell by my car i've neglected some mods in place of gear...suspension, wheels, and a whole lot of other things i want to do...so that i can persure the idea of capturing a moment in time...But in the end if i had to for some reason sell my gear i would be able to get close to face value for most of it, whereas with car parts your lucky to get 50% of the value.

The picture looks good

Nice shot!

How easy is it to work with the Canon Speedlights? One of the biggest draw to me going with Nikons was the easy flash setups, especially wireless.

Hi, some more suggestions to think about...the driverside mirror looks lost behind the black bumper on the docking bay edge, change f-stop to blur background more and change angle of flash as to reduce reflection off steel door in background b/c it's distracting.

This was a kinda rushed shoot i shot it at f/2.2 could have defiantly changed the DOF a little more so the mirror isn't lost and brought it down to a f/1.8 or if need be lower.... As for the light I didn't realize that it reflected so bad, haha. Things you learn when you have other people look at your work...it is distracting!

Thank you!

So far it is all i know, they are fairly simple. Couple buttons on the back easy to switch to manual mode and ge rid of the ETTL set up, I noticed if i let the camera decide the power with the 2 flashes, it would over expose, and so i had to just switch them over to manual. i believe i ran them at 1/8 of the power.

I would say that so far learning them, and lighting in general is pretty interesting, it hasn't been overly complicated either. The only time i have had any miss fire is when im running in high speed shoot after about 6 frames on 1/8 power you will either loose one or both strobes as they struggle to keep up. at 1/16 you can go for a while.

Nice shot! IMHO, it would have been better in HDR.

ugh :facepalm:

shot looks pretty good but to me it looks a tad out of focus. if you were shooting in very low light, the lens might have had a tough time trying to determine the focus distance. i keep a flashlight in my camera bag for just that reason. i will put my camera on "ONE SHOT" AF mode, light up what i want to focus on (usually the front badge or headlight) then turn off the flashlight and pull the trigger the rest of the way. it's a little bit cumbersome but not bad. also, on my alienbees you can turn on soft light bulbs to help with focusing, they kill the vagabond tho if you aren't plugged directly into a wall

Thanks for the flash light tip, i tried using my phone one night with the led flash turned on like a flash light just wasn't enough, It was a no light situation, so i had my g/f hitting the test button on the PW to try and get a focus! haha. It was funny to watch her do, she is 5'1" and the light stand was at about 8'+6" for the umbrella fold mount and everything. (umbrella left off)

Can you recommend the one you use or do you think something else would be better?

6MT, you are not going to get me to shoot in HDR anytime soon, I'm glad that you like HDR so much! Thank you for the complement, but I wont be shooting in HDR, not my thing; most likely never will be.

So thanks again for you compliment, but im not shooting HDR.

(thought i would say it a couple times since you have said it to me a couple times in a couple different threads, and i have told you it wont happen.)

the...........what? flashlight? just a good ol' maglite... also speedlights aren't really that good for lighting a car unless you have a ton of them. larger lights like alienbee's can work wonders

I meant Flashlight and good old maglight sounds good, I looked into the AB's but i thought the portability of the speedlights would work better in terms of space. I will have to look into those again.

Thank you!

yea AB's definitely take up more space but they make up for it in results:

Porsche Photoshoot 3-7-10 - JPMcG Photography
Mike's 370Z Photoshoot - 5/7/10 - JPMcG Photography
ZdayZ Photoshoots '10 - JPMcG Photography
Tony's 370z Quick Shoot - 9/23/10 - JPMcG Photography

I've been conviced, hah, Damn... Quality shoots! Thank you again, for providing some pointers and guidance!

One more question which AB light setup would you suggest from your experience?
B4-8-or-1600 and would my PW's be able to trigger them or am I hosed?

i do what i can :tiphat: that was all just with 2 AB800's. i'm going to pick up 4 more next week for a total of 6... :woot:

Damn! and thank you!

Just say no to maglites!

Consider something from 4Sevens - 4Sevens.Com like Fenix or 4Sevens.

6 AlienBees! thats gonna be an expensive setup you got there, not to mention all the accessories you'll probably want for each. I'm sure its gonna be well worth it though. Between the Z and other expenses, I really wish I could set aside more funds for photo gear. I'm sure this is more of a business expense for you.

^^ exactly, and when you find someone that needs to fire sale their gear so they can fix their car... it's all the cheaper :)