Traveling the East Coast

Our tentative travel schedule.  

We've made it safely to the mainland for the Holidays.  We'll be spending the next 3 months on the mainland visiting friends and family.  The only amendment to the map above is we'll be spending a day in Toronto as well.  

If you're near this route and would like some photography done leave us a comment and let us know!  We'll let you know when we plan on being in your area.  

We wish you all a safe and happy holiday season!  Take lots of photos :)  

Using Off Camera Flash and What Gear To Buy

Someone facebook messaged me recently and asked for some help with adding an off camera flash to their set up. So here's a blog post about what off camera flash can do and what gear I use and would recommend.  Using off camera flash is a little advanced, but  if you're up for it keep reading :)  

These two photos were taken in the same location less than two minutes apart.  The photo on the left, shows you what the scene looks like with natural light.  The photo on the right shows you what you can do with an off camera flash.  Using off camera flash opens up a whole new world of possibilities and when used correctly, can add depth and drama to any photo.  

I was introduced to off camera flash from the strobist website.  Then, through Stanley Leary's teaching on studio strobes in my school of photography, it all came together.  

Flash

I'd recommend having one flash that works on your camera and is reliable. So if you're only buying one flash I'd honestly recommend one from the same company as your camera.  That way you can use it both on your camera and off your camera, if you have a way to trigger it.

I use the canon 580 ex which I bought with my original dslr.  They don't make the 580ex anymore but they have replaced it with the 580ex II.  

If you're a canon shooter there is a whole list of canon flashes that you can use.  

If you're a Nikon user, here's their list.  I don't know anything about Nikon's though.  

Ready to buy an off camera flash for cheap?  

If you're looking to add an off camera flash to your set up for CHEAP, I'd recommend getting a yongnuo flash.  I will hopefully soon be adding two YN-560's to my set up soon.  Yongnuo flashes are Chinese made knock offs of your name brand flashes.  

I read a 2010 review from Strobist saying he can't recommend them.  But for me at $70 a pop, versus adding another canon flash to my set up for $500+... right now, it's either add two more flashes or none.  

This is why I recommend that you have your main flash be completely reliable.  I can't recommend using these as your only flash if you're doing work where you need your gear to be reliable. 

David from David James Visuals turned me on to the yongnuo flashes and speaks very highly of them.  

Trigger

A trigger is a device that will signal your flash to fire even though it is off camera.  

You can trigger a few different ways.  This post is already getting way to long and detailed so I will address what these various ways are, and the pluses and negatives of these in a future post.  

1.  You can use a sync cable.  
2.  You can use infrared signal.  
3.  You can use an optical slave.  
4.  Or you can use a radio signal.  

I use pocket wizards plus II's.  They are also discontinued, but you can still find them.  They have been replaced with plus III's.  

I went with the radio signal and bought the industry standard.  Again, I was looking for reliability, and reliable they are.  I was the second shooter for a wedding in western NY and the main photographer was firing her flash at the front of the property working with the bride and groom while I was at the back of the property in a barn doing guest portraits.  We happened to be on the  same channel and every time she took a photo, my flash went off even though we were on opposite sides of the property.  

There are other cheaper triggers that have good reviews, I've just had no experience with them.  

There are a few accessories that you might want and need.  Such as light stands and light modifiers.  But I will also address those in a future post.  

If you found this post helpful we'd love it if you did two things.  Share this post with your friends on facebook or twitter.  And if you're going to buy anything, buy from the links within this post and we'll get a commission from amazon.

Are you ready to take the plunge into using off camera flash?  Leave us a comment and let us know!  Confused?  Got questions?  Ask them in the comments and we'll do our best to answer them.  

Oahu Entertainment Photographer | Jeremy Joseph

Jeremy Joseph contacted me while he was still in Hawaii and needed some promotional photography done.  Jeremy is a rapper from Switzerland, he's returning there soon to record a full length album.  

Thanks Jeremy for choosing us as your photographer!  Best of luck on your upcoming album!

What's your favorite photo or photos?  Let us know in the comments.  

All Asian People Look The Same pt 2

Last week I posted a blog post of these three girls and asked our viewers to guess where each girl was from.  Here are the answers.  

This is Ayumi, she is from Japan.  

This is Jane, she is from Korea.  

This is Hetty, she is from China.

Maybe I should do portraits of Scandinavians next?  :)  Did you guess right?  Let us know in the comments.  

All Asian People Look The Same

I've heard it said that "all asian people look the same."  Here is a blog post that is going to put that theory to the test.  These three girls, are from different countries in Asia.  I want you to guess WHERE each girl is from, and let us know in the comments.  

Girl 1

Girl 2

Girl 3

Let us know in the comments which girl you think is from what country, i.e "I think girl 1 is from... girl 2 is from... girl 3 is from..."  I will post a blog next week telling you, who is from where.  

3 Steps To Better Inanimate Object Photos

One of our blog readers The Moldy Cannoli asked us how to take beter photos of inanimate objects for blog posts.  If you look on her blog, her photos look good already.  But here are some tips for others that might be useful.  

The other day Jess found a snail shell outside, so I'm going to use that as my example.  I took the two photos below with my iphone 3gs which is not a good camera at all.  I purposely choose to use this "camera" to show that you can achieve decent results with any camera.  

The first example is the snail shell on a dining room table.  It's a snapshot, the object is placed in the center of the frame and you can sort of tell what it is.  But lets talk about what makes this photo  a not so good photo.  

1.  The first thing is that your eye is always going to be drawn to the BRIGHTEST part of the photo.  That happens to be the glare from the sun on the table.  So automatically my eye is drawn away from the subject.  

2.  The piece of junk mail on the table in the upper left hand corner is also distracting.  

3.  Lastly, you can't see much detail in the shell and the lighting is rather flat.  

For the "better" photo I took the shell over near a window.  The shell is actually on an afhgan hanging over the back of the couch.  The shell is probably about a foot away from the window which is to the left.  Window lighting is ALWAYS flattering, it's soft lighting because its indirect.   It won't be soft lighting if the sun is beating directly into that window though, so pick a window on the side of your house that the light is indirect.  The side lighting gives the shell more "shape" because of the light and shadows.  (Not flat like our last photo)  

For this photo I moved in closer which does TWO things.  It allows you to see more detail, AND it eliminates a distracting background.  I should have cropped this photo at the top and bottom so you were really focusing on the shell.  The folds in the afghan at the top are distracting.

I also positioned the shell in a way that was more flattering.  I remember someone who was hired to photograph some jewelry and instead of laying the pieces flat on a table he found a small peice of drift wood and hung the earrings so that they would display more in their natural state.  Sometimes simple adjustments to presentation will make or break your photo.  

So three steps to improve your photos of inanimate objects are...

1.  flattering lighting
2.  positioning the object in a flattering way
3.  non-distracting background


Did you find these tips helpful?  What other advice would you give?  Let us know in the comments!

Protect Your Camera From DUST

Honolulu Color Run 

Saturday Jess ran in the Honolulu Color Run.  I took our Canon S100 point and shoot to document.  I didn't think it through very well... 

8 TONS of color.  That means 8 tons of colored cornstarch filling the air.  

The photo above was one of the last photos I took before my camera just stopped working.  

Now it won't start back up saying it has a lens error.  I'm sending it to Canon tomorrow.  I don't think its going to get repaired for free when they take it apart and a lot of colored dust comes out... 

Moral of the story.  Protect your camera from dust.  I should have put mine in our underwater housing.  

Have you ever had to have a camera repaired?  Share your story in the comments.  

Shut the BEEP UP!

Emily from my school of photography. 

Want to know a simple way to improve your photography?  

Mute the volume on your camera so that when you turn it on, it does not make that annoying start up sound and won't beep every time your camera focuses.   

Silencing the beep will help you get better photos.  To get better candid shots you want to try and blend in.  Camera sounds don't help that cause.  When people hear that beep they know someone is taking a picture, so they are going to awkwardly scan the room to see who is taking their photo and there goes your "natural" moment.  
I was in a meeting recently and besides the person speaking, the only other noise was someones camera making digital shutter sounds.  Please don't be that person.  :)   

Have photographers ever been a distraction to you?  Do you need to go turn your camera beep off?  Let us know in the comments.  

Oahu Landscape Photographer | Sunrise

Here is another Oahu sunrise photo!  The original location we wanted to shoot at got rained out, so we drove home and saw this on the way.  It's currently my desktop background.  I think it's one of my favorite photos.  :)

What do you think?  Let us know in the comments.  

*Prints available for purchase.  Contact us for details.

Oahu Photography | Honolulu Cityscape at Dusk

  

It's rare that I go back to the same place to get a similar shot, even though it shouldn't be.  But after shooting Honolulu's cityscape at night, I wanted to go a bit earlier so I could the sky to be blue instead of black.  (Click here to see the original version)

Which crop do you prefer?  1 or 2?  Let us know in the comments!  

*Prints available for purchase.  Contact us for details.