Joe McNally

May 16

Google!

In Seminars & Workshops, Thoughts at 1:21pm

Was graciously invited by Google to lecture at their campus yesterday. Took me about .5 seconds to say yes. Googler Mike Wiacek sent me an email a while back and mentioned that enthusiasm for The Moment It Clicks was high within the organization and was there a chance I might be in the neighborhood some time or other?

Cool! Got a chance to relax and float around in the foam cushion thing filled with plastic balls. (Photo by Brad Moore.) Evidently some folks relax in here with their laptops.

The nap module was already occupied.

Made the stop on my way to my favorite DLWS location, the Redwoods. (Ahh, the mighty Redwoods! It stirs my soul! I don’t want to be a photographer anyway! I want to be a lumberjack. Leaping from tree to tree as they float down the mighty rivers of British Columbia! The giant redwoods! The larch! The fir! The mighty Scots pine! The smell of fresh cut timber! The crash of mighty trees! With my best girlie by my side!)

I digress. It figures there are photo enthusiasts everywhere in the halls of Google. Can’t imagine a better place to plug into the fast paced world of digital shooting, the discussion threads, the new tech and gear, than the home base of this internet powerhouse.

Thing is, it doesn’t feel like a big company. It feels very human. It feels like a place where people (and their pets) are valued. The array of food options (for free) is astonishing. There are more cafes and eateries per square yard than Little Italy in NY. Seems management figured out it is cheaper, happier and more productive to take care of their employees and create a positive work environment than to burn them to a crisp, make them afraid of the future, and send them off into the highways and byways of California in search of a Taco Bell for lunch.

Enlightened management is tough to find these days, but I do know of another distinctly wonderful workplace. Scott Kelby and the folks down there at Kelby Media and NAPP are a bunch of happy campers, to be sure. Hmmm. Both these places are forward looking, innovative, very creative, and use the newest of technologies. And, they value their people and treat them well. And both outfits are doing gang buster business….Geez, I wonder if there’s a connection?

There were about 100 folks at the lecture, and Google beamed it out to 8 of their other locations, domestic and international. My buddy Bill suggested that in return for doing the lecture, I simply ask Google to change a few lines of code, you know, couple of minor alterations, nothing truly significant. That way, he said, anytime anybody in the world Googles, “photography,” they get sent to my website. Just a few tweaks in the codes, and, when you type in “Ansel Adams,” it comes up as “joemcnally.com.” Or, “Moose Peterson.” You get “joemcnally.com.” If you type in, “I’m a client with a huge budget and I wanna spend some big ass money on pictures,” it connects you directly to my cell phone.

Way cool day.

9    comments

May 12

Long and Winding Road

In Travels at 3:57pm

Just got back from what for me, nowadays, is a long trip. Three international locales, total of 20 days on the road. It’s different now, of course. Road time used to be counted in weeks, not days. First international story I did for Geographic in the late 80’s was 17 weeks, split into just two trips. Crazy. Lived in the East End of London for all that time, in a little flat on the Isle of Dogs, which is a big loop (above) in the River Thames. Had my own local, the Tooke Arms Pub.

This photo took three weeks to shoot. Let me explain. I wandered into the Tooke, which was friendly enough but pretty rough around the edges, as estate pubs in working class neighborhoods tend to be on the East End. No one spoke to me. Had some terrible bar food and a pint of Ruddles. Walked out.

Came back the next day. And the next. Jeez, the food was horrible! I was getting the eyeball, to be sure, but not much else. Kept going. Kept at it. Finally, somebody got curious enough to strike up a conversation. That’s all I needed. Somebody broke the ice, and eventually I was accepted, albeit as an oddity. The pub became my watering hole, a listening post for what was going on in the nabe, and a wealth of potential ideas for photos to pursue.

Shot a young lady’s East End style wedding there, a riotous affair, to be sure.

Also met Robbie there, a wild and crazy Scot, and the driver of the tallest crane in Europe, working over the Canary Wharf site. Wanna come up? Sure!

Got my way to the cab of this massive jib crane, and climbed into a wire frame bucket mounted to the side rail of the jib (no OSHA, no safety belts…toughest part was actually walking out to the bucket. Round, painted steel, just a few inches thick. Crane moving in the wind. Wide, spread legged steps. Robbie called to me in his best brogue. “Now you’ve got your arse in the breeze,” he said, laughing. Said my usual prayer to St. Jude, patron saint of lost causes and photographers everywhere.)

Robbie ran me out to end of the jib in this contraption and started slewing me back and forth over the site. Got to be fun. Pictures never ran, cause they sucked, basically. Just record overviews of a bunch of girder work and dust. Best part was the ride on the jib, and then driving the crane afterwards. Robbie just cautioned me not to hit the emergency brake as the rig would crumple like paper. Okay!

Then back to the Tooke for pints.

Met a bunch of former dock workers who kept up the tradition of taking a weekly steam. Can I come along? Chuckles all around. “Well,” one old salt said. “We’ll all be in the nude!”

I said fine. Kept my Leica wrapped in a towel. Always joke I shot the whole job on one roll of film. (Had no pockets.) Also shot this.

There was considerable discussion about these pics at Geographic. One of them was gonna run big, but there was hesitation about the steamy junkyard, and ultimately the more demure photo won the day.

Time is compressed out on the road now. Which is a good thing, as far as I’m concerned. This recent trip was painful. Missed home a lot. Missed Annie a lot. Enter RC and Jen.

They were in NY for the Kelby Training Days at B&H, and had made arrangements to see Annie for coffee and a bite. Annie was expecting me home that day, but not until late. The real deal was that I was landing at JFK at 8:30 in the am. Called RC from Abu Dhabi airport. Dude! Make sure you get Annie out to see you guys. Make sure she sits with her back to the door.

Landed and hit NY. Got a new shirt, socks and underwear. (14 plus hours in a coach seat…my buddy Bill at Geographic calls it “chicken and goat class.” Let’s put it this way, I wasn’t very huggable.) Went to the gym. Showered and shaved. Gussied myself up as best as this bedraggled bag of bones will allow.

Got flowers. Great guy at the market. Pulled a whole fresh bunch for me. Sat down in the bus stop at 34th and 9th tried not to go to sleep. Eyeballed the front of B&H. Called RC. All set?

Natch. RC had done the very smart thing of getting Jen to call Annie that morning and swing the deal. You see, Annie and Jen know each other really only for a few hours but it’s like they’re sisters. They know about each other’s families, inner thoughts, secrets, childhood, education, favorite foods, workout routines, nail polish, camera pointers, etc. I mean they’re women, and they’ve thoroughly embraced the gift of speech.

In between hoots, clicks and grunts, RC and I have gotten to the point of agreeing the Knicks are a mess and Isiah Thomas is an asshole.

Kidding, really. RC is a great talker and storyteller, and is an over the top, giddy, soon-to-be father. He’s also a terrific shooter, and he had his D300 in front of him, teed up and ready to go. The three of them were chatting away, at the Skylite Diner on 34th, and I slipped up behind the table. Leaned over and said, “I believe the lady ordered flowers?”

It’s been a long and winding road, to be sure, but it led me to Annie…….

Photos by RC Concepcion.

29    comments

May 7

Basic Dubai Shooting Kit: Hi Speed Sync & a Hoodman Loupe

In Lighting at 6:28am

Just back from the Middle East, Spain and Italy in reverse order. Up at 4:30. Time for lunch!

Got some blogs and bits and pieces coming from the trip. David Hobby and I threw together a desert shoot at the last minute that mixed in a bunch of SB 800 units, one lovely lady from the Czech Republic, a makeup artist from China, an assistant from India, two wild and crazy desert drivers manning Land Cruisers, a bunch of camel dung, and, when it comes to David and I, two overcooked imaginations that could only be produced by hours and hours in detention hall.

That’s David on the 50 cal! They were closing in! We were low on ammo and fuel! We went to SU-4 mode on the SB units!

Really dating myself here, of course. The Rat Patrol ran for two seasons back in the (gulp) 60’s. Funny what sticks in your head. I mean, you know, my head. Oh, well…..more tk on the adventures in the dunes.

The sun in Dubai obviously kicks your ass on a regular basis. Comes up big and nasty. It’s a good opp to explore Auto FP Hi Speed Sync. (Say that 10 times really fast.) I’m guessing (and could be real wrong, here) it’s a mode many folks don’t pay a lot of attention to, especially when trying to get acquainted with other, slightly less exotic features of the SB flash. You’ll see it come up in the back lcd panel, next to TTL and BL settings.

“FP” refers to focal plane shutter, and what happens in hi speed sync mode is the flash pulses through the slits of the shutter, and essentially stays “on” for the duration of the exposure. Thus the entire scene sees the flash as the shutter travels, and you don’t get that black slash of unexposed area that you would traditionally see when you exceeded the standard upper level of flash sync speed on the camera, which nowadays is commonly 1/250th. In the Nikon system, you can permanently enable the Auto FP feature by going into the custom menu under “bracketing/flash” and seek out the flash sync speed option. Move the camera into 1/250s(AutoFP). That’s it. You can tell it’s enabled when you look at the flash sync speed option in the menu and you can see a tiny asterisk there. Boom, you’re good to go.

So here’s the catch. (Hey, it’s photography, there’s always a catch.) You lose power. To make this hi speed sync deal work properly, you gotta move the strobes in close.

The specs on the above read out at 1/8000 sec at f4. The lights are slightly back of the subject, the ever cool Salim, giving him a hot rim of light, and skipping some angle of incidence/angle of reflection highlights off his form. Think of it as playing air hockey with the light.

Here’s the lighting rig. Turned and caught a local soccer team wandering through our set.

A closer look involves Sid, our Gulf Photo Plus assistant, doing the old make believe you’re adjusting the light deal. “Not you, henchman holding wrench. Not you, henchman arbitrarily turning knobs, making it seem like you’re doing something.”

Why multiple flashes? If you can gang ‘em, they will compensate for the loss of power. That, along with closeness of the light sources to the subject, definitely helps. You can pull more power of course by yanking off the dome diffusers, and zooming the throw on the strobes from wide angle to 105mm. That gets you some extra punch.

Of course you can do it with just one direction to the light as well.

Zied here looks like he’s levitating effortlessly. Only indicator he’s traveling upwards off a trampoline is the up kick of the tag on his swim suit. Was looking here to fly him by the sun, and would have wanted one of those Arabian sunsets we have all read about, but never got one. The dust and the haze gave this sunset all the pizzazz and energy of a turd that just dropped out of a tall cow’s ass. So I hyped it a bit in Capture NX, and pulled in a small amount of color.

And of course, wouldn’t have known what the hell I was getting without the Hoodman Loupe. Essential for blazing light conditions like this. In fact, it’s just plain essential. Goes with me everywhere now.

More tk.

20    comments

May 3

Beam Me Up, Scotty!

In Seminars & Workshops at 1:57pm

DAVID! CHASE! HAVE YE GONE MAD!? THE ENGINES’LL NEVER TAKE IT!!!!!

You unlock this door with the key of imagination. Beyond it is another dimension - a dimension of sound, a dimension of light, a dimension of mind. You’re moving into a land of both shadow and substance, of pixels and ideas. You’ve just crossed over into…the Dubai Zone.

Dubai. This just may be the final frontier, indeed. It is 3 parts Vegas, one part planet Tatooine, and 6 parts oil money. Mix in a pantload of concrete and rebar, every luxury brand name store in the world, some very gracious people, a rampant interest in digital photography, one of the best faculties I’ve ever been honored to be associated with, and BOOM! Gulf Photo Plus springs up out of the desert heat right along with the skyscrapers.

(I realize in the first 10 sentences I’ve just mixed up together a whole bunch of sci-fi adventures.)

This is an amazing group of instructors. I mean out there. And the best part has been, even though we have been working hard, we’ve been able to hang a bit, too. You know, like hang out, like at the neighborhood bar. Except in Dubai, one of the neighborhood bars just happens to be the Skybar at the Burj Al Arab, touted as the finest hotel in the world, possessor of seven stars, and a monument to reserve and understatement. David Hobby, the wonderful, over the top genius of strobe, and Chase Jarvis, photographic visionary with an incredibly open and giving spirit, above, are just about to beam out of the bar and back to the planet earth, where presumably you don’t have to take out a second mortgage to buy a beer. (Note to Kraj Diesel…I would not buy you Johnny Walker Blue here!)

So if the Burj is so frikkin’ fancy, why’d they let us in? Thanks to Mohammed Somji, who worked a connection, they let about 15 ragtag photogs and friends in the joint. I’m sure today a memo went around banning point and shoots.

More tk.

7    comments

Apr 30

Happy Birthday, Jen!

In Birthdays at 2:14pm

I know, I know, a day late and a dollar short. Or several days late. Sigh…story of my career. The Jen in question is Jen Concepcion, wife of RC, of Kelby Media, that over the top Klingon we all know and love. Jen and RC are among the sweetest, most decent people my wife Annie and I have encountered in this business. Jen is also a terrific ballerina who helped us out on a recent shoot. (Helped us out? Try, saved our lives.) She agreed to come to the beach in dance togs at the last minute with the sun screamin’ for the horizon and us desperate to get a shot for our first video training session on lighting we did for Scott and Co.

We zoomed out there, threw up an Elinchrom medium Octa to camera right, metered the sky, made a WAG (wild ass guess) about the f-stop and Jen started leaping. Typical of a perfectionist ballerina, she lamented at not being able to gain any height on the soft sand.

Right, Jen. And the rest of us out here who jump like we’ve got lead in our shorts, what are we supposed to do?

On another shoot dedicated to SB 800 speedlights, we went to an old theater in Clearwater, and did some more ballerina type stuff. This went off with a 3×3 Lastolite panel camera left above Jen, with 2 speedlights into it, and another SB off a Lastolite white diffuser on the floor next to her, camera left.

Happy Birthday Jen! And congrats on the coming baby! Even though you are pregnant, trust me, you can still out leap just about everybody.

In Dubai….more tk.

10    comments

Apr 28

Venice Has Legs….

In On Location, Seminars & Workshops at 11:32pm

Leaving beautiful Venice. Great week, as one would expect in this incredible place. Last year, when I taught here, we wandered in as a group to the Ostaria Sora al Ponte, a small eatery at the foot of one of the myriad bridges. I literally can’t recall laughing that hard, that long. The gentlemen who run the place, Marino and Mario, should take their more than slightly tipsy act to Vegas. They would be headliners in a heartbeat. Marino runs the front of the shop, Mario cooks. Collectively, they tipple their way through the day, laughing, tweaking, debating and generally disapproving of their customers if said customers appear cautious, quiet, sober or don’t want any dessert. If you are wise, you go with the flow and get into the spirit(s) of the establishment, and kiss your sobriety goodbye almost immediately. Last year, I barely ate, though I remember drinking a lot and laughing even more.

Well, we did it again.

Jonathan and Marzia of the VSP Workshops and I threw caution to the winds and wandered in there. About the same time, a lanky redhead walked in with short shorts, legs long enough to get an NBA tryout and killer stilettos. Marino immediately began telling her his legs were better than hers’. Naturally, photographically speaking, I joined the debate.

Of course, Marino insisted on further comparisons.

Photographically speaking, I figure my legs are about plus 3 EV. (Photo by Jonathan Maher) Recalled a time, many, many moons ago, when a bunch of us were in Las Vegas for the Larry Holmes-Jerry Cooney heavyweight bout. What you did back then was shoot film tests, soup it at the local lab, and eyeball the results before the fight. We were all hanging around poolside when the test Ektachrome arrived, and various shooters pulled out their loupes and wanted to use my back for a light table. Ouch!

The observers of all this silliness were of course the regulars. I believe I remember these faces from last year. In fact I’m not sure any of them have ever left the bar.

Next morning, up at dawn and in the Piazza San Marco, where we photographed a decidedly more beautiful pair of legs, those belonging to the lovely ballerina, Francesca.

Many thanks as always to Jonathan and Marzia of the VSP workshops, who create a wonderful environment for a workshop. Also, a huge thank you to Marco Tortato, who represents the photographic division of Vitec here in Italy. He helped us with everything from Gitzo tripods to Manfrotto grip equipment to Lastolite diffusers and Skylite panels. Our class was stylin’ to be sure, thanks to him and his generous support.

In Madrid airport now, pre-dawn. (What else?) On the way to Dubai to teach at the Gulf Photo Plus. An amazing workshop with a great group of instructors. (I think everybody in the Strobist community should chip in a buck or two and charter a 747 to Dubai for David Hobby’s classes. In between my schedule, I’ll be slipping into the back of his lectures, Chase Jarvis‘, Bobbi Lane, Ben Willmore….you name it, the list goes on.)

Speaking of Chase, I owe him several beers and a steak the size of Texas. He graciously took over my first class as I am running late to Dubai. After leaving Venice, I have been off the internet and kind of out there a bit in a mysterious land surrounded by a yellow border:-) Many Thanks, Chase!

More tk……

12    comments

Apr 22

Ahhh Venice…..

In Seminars & Workshops at 6:36pm

In Venice currently, teaching at the VSP Workshops, run by Jonathan Maher and his lovely wife Marzia. (Jonathan’s one of those guys, you know, in the club. Married waaayyyy out of his league and wanders around dumbstruck that somebody as nice as Marzia actually said yes.)

Jonathan’s a good guy, and he and Marzia team up to run a wonderful set of workshops staged quite literally around the world. I’ve been blessed to teach two of them here in Venice, and when asked to teach in this most beautiful of cities, I really don’t even bother asking them where their other workshops are, even though they are in some nice places. I just come here and teach. I mean, why go anywhere else?

We go to palaces and villas and theaters and piazzas, and drag along some grip equipment, a stash of Nikon SB 800 strobes, and light up some beautiful places and people. Julia, above, makes a great veiled lady of the castle. She is also a ballerina who will brave the 6 am pre-dawn chill of Venice and come with us to Piazza San Marco on Thursday dressed in a tutu. She is truly a lovely person, and has worked well with both the classes I have taught here.

The above was shot as a class demo with two SB800 strobes firing through a shoot thru umbrella. Key to the deal was the outer skin of the shoot thru was peeled back halfway which is a good trick to use when trying to get the flash to concentrate a bit and gradate down the body. I use Lastolite umbrellas, with an outer black/silver skin covering the standard white umbrella diffusion. You can peel the outer layer back by half, and thus block low spillage of light. Concentrates nice, soft light on the face, right where you want it. Jiggled the hand held camera a bit just to get the edge of movement, which was a cinch cause I had downed about 5 double espressos by that point. The shutter was dragging pretty good for the ambient backlight, but she stays sharp cause the strobe dominates the foreground.

It’s great here. The waterways churn like crazy, gondoliers passing constantly, and I hear accordion music and the occasional “Arrivederci Roma” from my hotel room just over a canal. (Actually wish it was occasional. It’s more like, often, which, depending on who’s singing, can easily verge on too much. From there it’s a beeline to “Jeez, can’t you just shut up and row?”)

Yesterday I saw a guy driving a cargo boat through a busy swatch of water, standing on the boat, arms folded over his chest, sort of swaying back and forth. The boat was turning here and there, and I was wondering how that was happening when he passed us by and I looked back and saw that the tiller was firmly jammed in his butt crack, and he was making course corrections by doing his version of an easygoing maritime rumba. I hadn’t noticed if he was smiling broadly while doing this, but hey, it’s cool. You gotta love your work.

Hard to call shooting pictures in Venice work, but it sure is easy to love.

16    comments

Apr 15

Hold the Phone…

In Lighting, On Location, Thoughts at 7:42pm

Or, maybe just hold the light. Or a bunch of lights. Posted last week and alleged using 53 speedlights of various types on the above. It’s a number that stuck in my head. I kept thinking on it and in the interests of veracity and accuracy and all that stashed up guilt from being raised Irish Catholic, I did some research on it and the official number came back as 47. My bad. The source here is Bill Pekala, the General Manager of NPS over at Nikon. He worked with me on it, as he has many projects in the 20 plus years we have known each other. Great guy, and a mind like a bear trap for all things photographic. A photog’s friend, in a word, who leavens his photo discourse with various down home Tennessee-isms that are part country wisdom and part Nikon manual.

Dunno why 53 stuck with me. It might have come from chewing the fat with Bill, over a couple of beers, and doing the old, “Remember when we lit up that KC-135 with like 50 or so flashes….” type of thing. I’m sure some day in the home, on the porch, in my wheelychair, it’ll be up to 103, and somehow the entire mission would have mysteriously acquired an element of danger. “Remember all those flashes? They ran on steam, remember?! Damn dangerous! Had to wear a bomb suit just to handle ‘em!” This conversation would of course be attended to by the rolled eyes of those who can hear me say anything, the odd cackle or two, and the more than occasional fart.

Light doesn’t have to be hard, or a lot. True, every once in a while you get confronted with something, you know, like Everest, and you just climb it cause it’s there. It ain’t fun, I tell ya. One of the first stories I ever did for the National Geographic was about the then soon to be re-opened Ellis Island. The first part of the coverage was a blast. Just me, Kodachrome 25 and rising morning light. I would get onto the island in total darkness, roughly 4 am (it was Nov-Dec) and start walking the halls of the deserted section of the island.

It was kind of creepy. Lots of folks died out there. They have the remnants of the medical area and the old crematorium. I’d have my tripod and just to keep myself company, I would push open a door with it and stir up a flurry of pidgeons. Then I would call out, “Freddy? Jason? You in there?”

Too many movies.

It was a revelation. No PR people hovering (they flutter just like pidgeons, by the way, so I felt right at home). No plug ugly subjects, no light hearted bullshit banter at the camera, no real timetable except the sun striking an object.

Came up with some of my favorite photos. No people, just rust and ghosts.

Of course I wasn’t stupid enough to think that Geographic gave me this wondrous job to wander around abandoned hallways in rising light. Lots of folks better than I am at that. No, no. The job had a wrinkle, as they often do. At one point in the coverage, I was gonna have to light Ellis Island.

Not the whole damn thing, just the museum portion, which is a biggggggg building. At the time it was a construction site with very limited electric power. Had to drag my own genny truck out there. Quick $1000 under the table to the union rep (I love NY!) and voila, I got my own power on the island.

Next, the lights. Woe to a shooter trying to rent strobes that week in NY. The shot below is done with about 50-60 power packs (2400ws, some 48’s) plugged into roughly 100-120 flash heads. We spent 4 days or so wiring and testing and shooting this rig. Killer sked. Shoot sunrise, run the film to the lab. See all the mistakes, run back to the island. Make adjustments. Shoot sunset. Run the film to the lab. See the mistakes. Back to the island. Make adjustments. Sleep in the car for a couple hours. Shoot sunrise. Go on another mistake finding lab run. This went on for 4 days.

Crew of 4, I believe, and they were all ready to tie some Speedotrons around my neck and dump me in the harbor. “Where’s Joe?” Splash. “Dunno. Haven’t seen him.” (One member of the crew came by the studio personally to pick up his check and assure me that lighting Ellis Island had been the worst experience of his life.)

Triggered the system from 3 vantage points on the ground, and tried some stuff from the air, with line of sight flash triggering. (Clamped Hensel Porty heads to the open door of the chopper and flew that baby in close to rooftops where we had slave eyes on light stands. (Sounds antediluvian but it was, you know, like 1989 or so.)

We got a pic, and the flash pop was easily viewable from Brooklyn or New Jersey. Got on the WINS traffic report on the last day cause the reporter and his chopper pilot were drawn to the explosion of light in the harbor. Never forget his opening line for the traffic report: “And there’s lightning over Ellis Island this morning as National Geographic lights up the island for a story!”

My day rate at the time was $250 per day, which made me far cheaper to rent than the strobe system. But it was there, you know? I had to climb it. More tk.

29    comments

Apr 11

Nigel and Me….

In Advice, Lighting, Thoughts at 7:19am

When Nigel gets hungry, he won’t let me work. He’ll just come up to my laptop and rumble and purr and generally get all sorts of adorable. If that doesn’t work he just starts walking back and forth in front of my computer screen, stepping on random keys. Last week he sent an email to 7 people at the National Geographic. Had to finish that one quick and follow up, lest the venerable editors there thought I had resorted to incomplete sentences with no sign off.

SOME RESPONSES….FIRST OFF TO KEN…..

Joe
I am using the pop up on the D300 in commander mode.
HELP
Leaving the USA on Sunday.
I have (3) SB 800’s, D300 and I am lost….
What I know.
1. Can set them up to all fire wireless using the pop up flash on the D300
THATS IT
What I don’t know or what is the step by step (SB 800 for dummies) how to set up one to use as fill, add power to one less power to one,etc…
I see in the D300 to do this, ok. But to navigate thru the SB800 back and the manual. I just don’t get it……..I write this after 10 t o 12 hours and $20 in batteries. I read the strobist,etc,,,,,,,.
Do anyone know of a blog, book, web site that can give a picture and tell or plain simple (remember SB 800 for dummies) to help me??
A quick response is most welcomed.
Simple in Kentucky

Okay….here we go, as best help as I can be. First off, on the SB 800, if you ever get totally lost, simultaneously depress the mode, and the on/off button and keep ‘em depressed for like 3 seconds. The unit factory defaults back to a straight up TTL setting. Can’t tell you how many times that has saved my butt.

The key to the SB800 programming is the SEL dial in the middle of the back of the unit. Depress that for 3 seconds and you’ll get a 4 box grid. (Don’t do this with gloves on. You’ll just mash away and the unit will do nothing. Get your digit square onto that puppy and push.) Toggle right to the upper right box with squiggle lines and flash symbols. Very artful.

Tap SEL again for a split second and the up/down cursor arrow goes live. You can go through options here, and the ones you are concerned with are MASTER and REMOTE, presumably the latter cause you have the pop up in the D300. Toggle down and highlight REMOTE. Depress SEL again for 3 seconds and the REMOTE info panel comes up in the lcd. It says REMOTE in capital letters. You know when you are there. Upper left is channels–double check this against your setting in the pop up. You gotta be on the same channel. Hit SEL again and you highlight the groups box in lower right. A-B-C. You got three flashes, so choice of group is up to you and where you position them. (Note!!!! Just got this straight from Pete Wilkinson below–no C group with the D300!)

Now check your pop up menu. Go to custom option for built in flash…comes up usually as active in the TTL mode. Toggle down to Commander mode. Toggle right. Commander mode comes up, and the pop up is active as a flash, which I will presume you don’t want. (Why would you go to all this trouble and still have the damn pop up active, which is the size of a dime and gives out just as cheap a quality of light? Dunno, except as maybe you put it to minus 3 EV and use is as a wink light fill type deal.)

I digress. Highlight the little box that says TTL. Then toggle downwards ( I believe it is downwards, I don’t own a D300.) You will run through the options, including auto mode, and manual, and then you get to a flat cursor. Ta Da! The pop up is now off as a flash. Will still act as a commander, and still flash. But the flash is a monitor pre-flash, an informational burst of light that occurs milliseconds before the real exposure. Don’t sweat it. It is not gonna register in your real exposure.

Then just zip through with the toggles to A , B or C groups, making sure they are reading TTL. The box to the right is the plus/minus EV area, with you can dial in to your desire. That will drive the power rating of the SB800 remote strobe you just programmed. YOU DON’T HAVE TO PROGRAM A VALUE INTO THE 800 UNIT ITSELF. IT GETS IT’S COMMANDS FROM THE POP UP PROGRAMMING YOU HAVE JUST SET UP! You don’t have to do anything else to the SB800 except make sure the receptor dish is unobstructed. that is the little recessed circular area about the size of an M&M right near the battery chamber. If you use the 5th battery add on chamber, be aware you are cutting the angle of reception this sensor has access to, and therefore may occasionally have trouble tripping it. If I am ever feeling like the remote is in a tough spot to receive the master signal from the pop up, I take the 5th battery chamber off so the sensor’s field of view is clearer.

Make sure when you program the pop up commander menu, you hit OK on the back of the camera. If you don’t, when you close out the menu option, all the settings you just programmed will disappear. Sucks. So remember to hit OK.

OK? Helpful on any level?

As far as arraying the units, and then dialing them in for power settings, I can’t say cause I ain’t there with you. I can say it is a game of ratios, or levels, and it all works depending on your eye. There is no right or wrong answer. Just a couple things to remember. Light has a logic. If the unit looks like it is too far to the side, your subject will be side lit. Try not to open up everything with light. Leave room for shadows. Try to reflect the units off of or through something. Remember, these are small flashes, and the game is to get them to behave like big flashes.

FOR CHARLES:

The Nikkor 200 f2 is maybe the sharpest telephoto I have ever used. That’s basically it. And, at f2, the DOF drop off is occasionally really pleasing for portraiture.

Kino Flow Lights….Drug a pair of them out to location the other day. Wanted to see what all the fuss was about, as they are very popular lights indeed right about now. Had a good time, but nothing magical happened. You can see the light, and the quality, to be sure, and that is handy. Kind of missed the pop of a strobe, and the little bird chirp of the recycle though. Small things keep me happy, I guess. Used one 4 tube kino flow on Rick here. Didn’t use both of them cause one didn’t work. Welcome to location shooting. My subject was Rick, who has just an amazing face, and an amazing history.

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Apr 10

Maddie at the Piano…

In Equipment, Lighting, On Location at 7:43am

Or, maybe, Little House on the Prairie? Dunno. Doesn’t really matter, cause I just like the picture. One of those things about being a photog, is that you can occasionally make a notion a reality by making a picture of it.

Let me explain. I teach a bit at the Santa Fe Photographic Workshops, and during the lighting classes, we often go to pretty cool locations, with some models, who are also pretty cool, and try some portraiture and some lighting solutions. We use everything—big strobes, small flashes, reflectors, Octas, strip lights, beauty dishes, and even, when one presents, a lace curtain.

Maddie here is Mawgie’s daughter. Mawgie is one of the loveliest, liveliest people I have ever met, and she brought along Maddie to a class we had recently. Everybody had a ball with her, and being a bit of a ham, Maddie didn’t mind all the photographic attention.

You know how faces stick in your head sometimes? You just see a face, and it hangs around in your photo imagination. When I saw Maddie, I thought, you know, one of these days I might try to get a picture of that kid.

So we were doing one of the Kelby Online Training videos on lighting, and we were pretty determined to get out on location and away from Tampa, where we had shot the first four. Hello Santa Fe! Phone call to Mawgie. Whadddaya think?
Next thing we know, we found ourselves at Eaves Movie Ranch, run by Thomas Wingate, a dear friend and possessor of one of the great all time American faces. Thomas has been the subject of more photos than Carter’s got pills and he deserves every one of ‘em. He honors the lens with an instantaneous combination of grit and dignity that you just don’t run across every day of the week.

At Eaves they have this old ramshackle (actually, everything out there is pretty ramshackle) saloon that always gives up a good crack at a photo. I’ve wanted to do a couple of simple shots in there over time, and never really had a chance, till Maddie sat down at this dust laden piano, which stands by a lace curtain, yellowed with age and dirt. Pulled the curtain over the window, and she dressed in frontier wardrobe, courtesy of another great cowboy subject, Thadd Turner, who’s got this terrific stash of cowboy and cowgirl duds.

Put an Elinchrom Ranger out in the street with a long throw reflector, and just pointed it at the window from about ten feet away. Ran it on the B port of the Ranger, which gives only 30% of whatever power setting you have programmed, hence the light was real minimal, just a small pop through the curtain. That enabled me to shoot it with my favorite telephoto, the Nikkor 200mm f2, wide open at f2, at 250th of a second.

And of course Donald came along. Already blogged a bit about his decency, wit, and presence in front of a camera. Told him I did that, and he was quite pleased, though he hasn’t seen it. He admitted he’s been having a problem figuring out how to turn his damn computer on. He tries to keep things simple. Doesn’t have a cell phone. He did tell me he and his honey complicated their lives a bit this year, though. “We learned a new dance step,” he said, with a twinkle in his eye.

The pix of Donald and Thomas were shot, by the way, with one light. Again, an Elinchrom Ranger, stuck outsided the building and bouncing down into a white sheet, mimicking and amplifying the hard sunlight that was bouncing around out there.

I always say a bad day in the field beats a good day at the office, anytime. Gotta figure out what a great day in the field compares to, cause Tuesday was one of those days.

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