Main light? A mirror!

That's right, the main light I have used for this shot is a circular mirror where I bounced the light of an SB800. The reason for this is because the snoot that I have doesn't give me a perfect circular rim of light and most of all because not long ago I watched an interesting video about lighting a product with mirrors and it looked pretty interesting to me. Interesting and challenging I add, in fact it is all about studying the angle of the light, a study that I believe most studio photographers had to go through at one point in their career. Since I don't use continuous lights, I had some trouble in finding the right angle to achieve the shot I wanted, it costed me a bit of batteries life through a bunch of test bursts until I figured out where the circle was going to sit for my shot. Hence, contrary to the appearences the speedlight is on camera right gridded it with a Honlphoto grid to control the light spill as much as possible, and it bounces the shaft against a circular mirror that becomes the main light and lit the three lures. Everything has been controlled with the Nikon CLS system. Camera Nikon D7000 with Nikkor 60mm f2.8 micro lens.

Andaman Islands, India. Red Snapper (Lutjanus bohar) caught with a stickbait. SB800 through Orbis Ring Flash

Andaman Islands, India. Red Snapper (Lutjanus bohar) caught with a stickbait. SB800 through Orbis Ring Flash, a photo by Nicola Zingarelli on Flickr.

The Orbis Ring Flash sure is a great light modifier for my fishing portraits, is just a tad bulky to carry on a suitcase full of lures, reels and all kind of tackle. Fort this reason I not always bring it with me, but when I do I never regret. She is pretty, has a gorgeous smile and can perfectly hold a fish, a great plus for a fishing photo. I love the specular ring on her sunglasses, is a kind of brand signature of the Orbis.

SB800 through Orbis Ring Flash triggered with Nikon CLS

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….

First test of the 70-200VR I and Kenko 1.4 extender

I recently got myself a second hand 70-200VR I f2.8, the "old" version of this famed lens. Since I sold my 18-200 I was a bit lost on the long distance stuff and I needed to find a replacement. As soon as I could I went for a short test in a park near home, not far from sunset hor the light was not so strong and I had the chance to concentrate on what interestd me the most, the VR system. Being a used lens I just wanted to make sure it worked properly.

In the following images, not fancy, not nice, just plain ugly (but the subject was in the right place) you will be able to see the difference between the shots with th VR on and off, and those with the Kenko 1.4 converter. I took all these shots sitting on a bench to help me support the camera at 1/8 sec. The distance between me and the subject is always the same and the exposure too.

Nothing new, I know, just a reminder for those who are still confused when it comes to buy a new or used lens: VR or not VR?

Nikkor 70-200 without VR

Nikkor 70-200 with VR

Nikkor 70-200 with kenlo 1.4X and VR off

Nikkor 70-200 with Kenko 1.4X and VR on

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.

Dpreview.com tests the new Nikkor 16-35mm 1:4G ED VR

This is how the review of this new Nikon lens starts in Dpreview, probably the best web page about digital photography in the net:

Our lens review starring the world's first optically-stabilized ultra-wide zoom: the Nikon AF-S Nikkor 16-35mm 1:4G ED VR. Conceived as a relatively inexpensive alternative to the highly-regarded AF-S 14-24mm 1:2.8G, this lens features Nikon's latest 'VR II' stabilization unit in a high quality magnesium alloy body. We've put it through our usual battery of tests to see how it performs.

Read the whole review in this link

Lastolite Umbrella Box 40"

Lately I have red many good things about the Umbrellas with Diffusers so I decided to treat me to a brand new 40” Lastolite Umbrella Box. I had the choice for a larger one but I knew I couldn’t use it with small speed lights so I had to quit on the megalomaniac idea.

Kirk Tuck, in his latest book mentions a lot the Photek Umbrellas with diffusers, he suggest they can deliver a light almost as soft as a very expensive Octabank and uses a lot the 60” with Alien Bees or Profoto 600W lights. This is where I got the inspiration for my purchase and decided to give it a try the minimalistic way.

It would not be fair to say that I run a very extensive test, in fact I didn’t. Just put together a background, two stands and the D90 on a tripod to take some shots at my new baby reel, a Team Daiwa Bradia 2000, a tiny little jewel. I left the diffuser dome in the SB800 and had to pump it to ¼ power in manual and 200 ISO to achieve this f11 at 1/200 seconds. The Lastolite Umbrella Box was positioned right on top of the reel. The second light is an SB800 with diffuser dome on through a LumiQuest Softbox III, a small yet powerful light diffuser. This was feathered a bit towards the background and flagged with a small gobo to avoid light spill on the reel. The power of this light was set at 1/32. Both flashes have been triggered with Nikon CLS in separate groups

For the sake of it also have a look at how the light works with different modifiers. For the following images we got rid of the second light and just used the SB800 on top of the reel, see the difference:

SB800 with diffuser dome only

SB800 through LumiQuest Softbox III

SB800 through Lastolite Umbrella Box

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.

The light, the jaws and the studio photography addiction

What follows is all about being hooked by those small portable lights, that give you enormous creative possibilities.

We had some boring days in Madrid. Outside is snowing and inside (my chest to be precise), is cold. Darn cold. I mean, I have a cold that could slam a horse to the floor. Yeah right, for once that I have the chance to go out and photograph some beautiful white snow, I'm jailed into my own hose.

Well, to get the best out of the situation, after swallowing a couple of Ibuprofen pills, just to get back to life for a couple of hours, I start putting together the circus to start the light(n)ing session. One flash here, another one here below, one behind ... no, let me change that ... a tad higher and a tad closer and so on. The options and countless, the results can be numbered in thousands, but eventually, even for a complete dork like me something comes out.

Here, the main light (SB600 at 1/8 through umbrella) is on camera right, a tad higher than the jaw. This is placed on top of a translucent sheet with another SB600 lighting from below: this flash is set at 1/32.

For this take I didn't use anything else rather than the above mentioned lights. This is basically the outcome from the RAW image with just a bit of sharpening

In this second image we used a reflector on camera left to fill a bit the shadows. Still the outcome of the RAW image with a bit of sharpening

Eventually here we have an edited version of the second image, with a B&W conversion and a more menacing look.

Setting up the "studio" takes time and it can be a bit of a drag, especially if wife and daughter arrive home a tad too early than expected. Yet, once you start working is tough to quit. This is quite an addictive thing, and even more for somebody like me, totally new to the game. When I did this session I could only count on 2 SB600, now I have a third one and a Metz 54 and I think I'm getting closer to the proper minimalistic lighting bag.

Painting with flash

Last week I was in Bermuda, what a beautiful island and incredible fishing ! It is also plentiful of photo opportunities, and I spent a lot of time behind the viewfinder of my D80. By the way, before my departure, I made the mistake of cleaning the sensor myself... I wish I have never done it ! Since I started working on the images I spent more time cleaning the photos rather than editing them.


Back to the photos, very close to shore there was a subject that caught my attention and I wanted to portrait in various manners, a wooden boat. Among the exposures I took, my favourite came out at night, slightly after dark. I put the camera on the tripod and choose an aperture of f8. I could have opened even more but I'm not too happy with the CCD results with the too long exposures (a lot of noise) and also, since it was just an experiment, I didn't want to keep waiting 15 minutes before closing the shutter. So 185sec was the right time, it came out after a couple of tests and I was happy with the way it looked. The Sigma 10-20 allowed me to place the camera very close to the boat and yet have a lot of background in the image. I also put the WB setting to Tungsten to achieve that deep blue sky, and since I was going to use the SB600 to paint my subject, I put a CTO gel to warm up the light and counterbalance that specific WB. During the time the shutter was opened I hopped around the boat flashing the light 1/64. I wish I could have excluded completely the grass to make the boat stand even further, but I couldn't. Next time.

New Nikon relase, the D90

I am a happy owner of a D80 which served me well for almost two years now. After I bought it I regretted a bit. I thought I would have missed the faster continuous shooting mode of the D200 (which I eventually did) and the tropical sealing. Thus, the D80 survived the most severe environment you can think of, a boat in the middle of an ocean, many times per year, for many days in a row. No, I cannot complain about my low budget purchase, with the money I saved at the moment I bought myself the 18-200VR (the lazy man lens), a nice 35mm f2 and other gimmicks. Well, truth to be said, overall they costed me more than the difference between the D200 and the D80 but we know how these things work.

Now the D90 hits the market. Looks like it will be some 600€ cheaper than the D300 (at least in Europe) and still offers some very good technical specifications. If you like to read a preview see what the guys at Digital Photography Review (a very serious web) have to say about it http://www.dpreview.com/previews/nikond90/ . My only worry at the moment is that once again I will have to think whether to fly low and save money or finally go for the better machine hoping that the expense will pay itself in the long run. You are right, is not a big deal of money and eventually I kind of "work" with the camera, she brings some money home too, but since is not the camera that takes the picture and that you don't need a great camera to take good photos, wouldn't be a cheaper and more humble D90 be enough for a humble photographer like myself?