Fall and the light

Fall is here, this week we had the first severe whip of the season after some beautiful days around 21C. My daughter came back home with a bunch of fallen leaves and she is pretty serious about painting them: “Before you paint them – I asked her – wouldn’t you like to take some photos of it?” She happily accepted and helped me setting up a transparent tray with a flash underneath it. To get a more even spread of the light, I put a Lumiquest Softbox III and on top of the flash a white piece of paper on top of the diffuser.

Nothing especially fancy of complicated, a very basic backlit studio set, just what I needed. I took the D90 with the Tokina 100mm f2.8 A-TX Macro and a small ladder and started playing with the light power on my CLS control. My daughter eventually lost interest in what I was doing and anyway had to do her homework, and the little old kid started shooting. The result is here, a “group” shot and a lone leaf, enough before we had a blackout and had to light up some candles to fix dinner….

LumiQuest Softbox III for fishing portraits

At last I could use the Lumiquest Softbox III for my fishing photos. I took it to Ireland and to be honest it really worked wonder. Compared to the sort of light I can get from a bare speedlight, this small softbox delivers a fairly radical change, providing a much softer light with less harsh shadows and certainly a way more interesting atmosphere.


It's compact, lightweight and foldable; it only takes less than a minute to mount it on the flash, quite some advantages when handling a fish on one side and the camera in the other, well quite literally.

From the pictures I've done in Kerry and Cork there is one that I favour over the others, and for one simple reason. Apart from the light which is nice, what strikes me is the reflection of the small softbox in the fish's eye, something, in my humble opinion, which works pretty well and is way cool.

On the next trip I will try to bring the Orbis Flash too, this time it wasn’t possible due to luggage overweight problems. I’m very curious to see what kind of reflection will leave in the fish’ eye.

Video information about Nikon CLS

Since it took me a bit to understand how the Nikon CLS system worked, I think it could be of some use for those willing to master this powerful tool to watch these videos

The "Commander" use is for me the #1 choice both when I'm indoor and outdoor, especially when using the SB600 or the SB800, very reliable and powerful units. You can trigger your flashes either with the pop up flash of your Nikon or using the SU800 commander. The important thing is that the receiver, which normally is on the lower right end of your flash, can actually see the light from the pop up or receive the infrared signal from the SU800.

These videos are not new, they've been out for a while, as well as the CLS, but they are still of much use.

Flash among the ruins

Last week I was in Rome with the family and decided to go with the wife to Villa Adriana, a magnificent ruin near Tivoli, not far from the capital. The Villa was built as retirement place for the emperor Adriano, around II ac on an area of 300 hectares.

This is a magnificent place. Simply amazing, I'd say. I highly recommend anybody visiting Rome or Italy for that matter to spend an afternoon there.

Of course there's a lot of monuments, ruins, lakes, pools, gardens to see and photograph and during one of the least inspired days of my life I came up with some experimental shots. At least experimental for me. First I decided to use the flash as much as I could in order to handle a bit the major exposure difference I was finding from a spot to another. Then, for the same reason I placed a Graduated filter in front of the lens. Even though sometimes in a different manner. Tripod was left at home.

This first shot is an arch opening to a beautiful pool surrounded by columns. This is called the Teatro Marítimo, one of the most outstanding areas of the Villa.
As you can see from the first image I exposed for the sky with the result that the arch is dark and underexposed. Image straight from camera RAW

In this second image I took the SB600, put it off camera and fired it through the CLS. The arch is now properly exposed and the sky as well. There was people looking at me when I was taking these photos and they were pretty puzzled by the fact that I was lighting a piece of history with a small flashgun. To be honest with you I felt weird too, but driven by my experimental mood, I proceeded. The flash was handheld camera left and pointed upward with a slight angle, the maximum allowed by my arm's lenght. Image straight from camera RAW

As far as the Grad filters is concerned I used it in this other situation where the pavement was well lit and the roof too dark. In this image you can see the straight result, with no filter. Image straight from camera RAW

Then I placed the filter upside down, darkening the floor and correcting the exposure difference. Nothing to rave about, I think many photographers have been using this for ages but it was fun for me to try it and the results quite pleased me . Image straight from camera RAW.

Maybe I repeat myself but this is not the blog of a professional photographer. I know about shooting a guy with a fish but everything else is a learning curve for me and what I share with those who wants to read me, is simple day by day field work. I'm glad if I can help but is sure not my intention to "teach" anybody, in a straight manner.