too fuuny

I just tried to add a new blog entry about how I haven't been blogging and it didn't save for some reason. Just one more reason why I am not blogging. Lets try this again. Here is a random photo I took recently.

To Flash Or Not To Flash.

I love shooting bands and I love getting my flash off camera. Shooting my good friends band at a small club gave me a chance to experiment with options and to see the different results. Shooting at larger venues doesn't allow you any option but shooting the first 3 songs with no flash but with pretty good stage lighting (which helps a ton).



This first shot was taken of Preston Furman with my 580 EX II rigged up to a Home Depot clamp that was hanging upside down from the ceiling. The power was set at 1/8 and I had the ISO at 400 so I could get some good recycle times and not kill the batteries too fast. I went bare flash instead if using my stofen omni bounce just to see how it looked. The flash was out of the way of all the people there to see the show and nobody really seemed to be bothered by it (or at least never said or did anything about it). I wasn't too sure if it would be wide enough to get all the guys lit up since it was pretty close tot he stage already and the guitar player on the right was pretty far. I thought it worked out fine. The only thing I did when I was only shooting him was adjust my aperture to let a little more light in. I stopped down when shooting the guys individually that were closer. I stayed at 5.6 when I was shooting the whole band. I kind of liked being able to capture people rocking out without any blur. Kind of neat since my shutter speed was sometimes half a second. That let a bunch of ambient and got me cool light trails from the x-mas lights that were strung up. My biggest complaint are the shadows that were cast by the speakers hanging from the ceiling and the shadow the bass player cast on the drummer. Maybe using a second flash could fill in some of those shadows. I will just play around with one flash for now and then figure out how I can incorporate a second light later.



The next picture was taken with the same setup but no flash was used. The lighting at this bar was real bad so I had to crank up the ISO to get as much as I could out of the camera. The ISO was at 1600 and I'm not sure of what the shutter speed was. I had the aperture opened up as big as it would go. These shots are drastically different but not bad either. First off, no shadows. The natural lights look great. Even shooting at ISO 1600 the noise wasn't that bad. I ended up setting the white balance on my shirt since it was gray. I might need to start wearing that same shirt to other shows when the lights don't change. My new little secret/tip for anyone who stumbles upon this blog. The bad part but good part of these natural light shots is the blur. I think it ultimately it works in the end but I could see some people being turned off by the way these look. Nobody comes out perfectly sharp, but I think that once you go blurry you might as well let it go all the way like these did.

I bought the new 18-55mm 3.5-5.6 IS Canon lens....

and I love it. For the money ($165- through Amazon), you can't beat it. When I first bought my 400D I bought the 50mm 1.8 to go along with it. I used it a ton at the beginning since it seemed to be so much better than the kit lens. I used the kit lens every now and then but never really liked what I saw. 3 months after getting my camera I bought the 28-135mm 3.5-5.6 IS and started using that a ton. It's a great a lens but I'm not sure if I knew how to use this lens but it was supposed to be great so I tried to figure it out. After a while I decided to go back to the 50mm 1.8 since it was so sharp and you could get some great DOF with it. I worked that lens for a while and felt like I really understood it. I used it to shoot a bunch of rock shows and was real happy with the results. The only problem with the 50mm 1.8 is that all my rock show shots started to look the same. Since my kit lens wasn't fast enough, I picked up a used a Sigma 24-70mm 2.8. I thought I had finally gotten the perfect lens to shoot bands. I tried it out and loved the wider angle I was getting but I hated how soft it was at 2.8. No point in really using the lens if it wasn't sharp so I returned it. I ended up trying to use my 28-135mm 3.5-5.6 IS. I had always heard you couldn't shoot a rock show with anything slower than a 2.8 lens. I figured I had nothing to lose since I really couldn't afford anything better at the time. I ended up getting some great results with this lens and switched between it and the 50mm 1.8 when I photographed bands. At some point I really started to figure out how great wide angle shots were. I started using my kit lens for everything just so I could get a little wider. My shots weren't tack sharp but they looked so much better. I didn't really take the lens off my camera for about 2 months. I really felt like I learned how to use the lens and get the most out of it. Once I heard that Canon was releasing this same lens but with IS I knew I had to pick up a copy. The 18-55mm 3.5-5.6 IS is super sharp at 5.6 and is great for photographing people.


I also used it for photographing "The Kooks" (British rock band), and was blown away with the results. I finally have a lens that is fast enough to shoot a rock show, and wide enough to get some amazing angles.

Dallas Airport

I haven't been good about keeping up with my blog so I am hoping to do better. This is a picture I took at the Dallas airport on my way to Cabo San Lucas. I stole this idea from a picture I saw on flickr but had to try it anyway. It took me about 5 attempts to get this one. I kept going back up to the top of the escalator and waiting till it cleared out to where I could take photo. I learned quicly that you really need to cross your legs for this shot. I only had my little tripod with me so I used my 18-55mm lens and tried to figure out how it needed to be pointed to get the shot I wanted. I like my little tripod because it fits in my camera bag and weighs next to nothing. It has come in handy a few times now.

It's On!

I have started a blog. If you find this, you have been surfing the web way too long. I hope to use this to post some of my photography work and anything else that is interesting. Keep checking back for new things along the way.