Holidays! (Blog won't be updated for a while)

Travel Essentials

After what seems like ages, we are finally heading off on holiday. We leave for Europe in a couple of days and needless to say we are really looking forward to it. Apart from a new circular polariser and an extra 8GB memory card, I've not bought any new equipment for the trip. I've got an extensive shot list and if I manage to get half the shots I'm after, I'll be happy.

Unfortunately while I'm away I will not be able to update the blog. I will get back to it as soon as I return. Last time I was away I got back with around 70GB of images. I have a feeling I'll exceed that this time and as a result have a whole heap more to share here.

Read on for lighting information for the shot above.

The lighting for the shot was actually pretty straight forward. I fired a Canon 430 EX, gelled with a full CTO, from just behind the camera at 1/8th. It was fired into a white foam core board placed just out of frame on the left hand side of the image. The entire shot was lit with light bounced off the foam core board.

If I was to take this shot again, I would use a reflector (probably a piece of white A4 paper!)  to light the area below the lens. I think that part of the image is a bit too dark. I'd have to place the piece of paper just out of the frame on the bottom right hand corner of the frame. The area would still be relatively dark but more detail will be visible.

Travel Guides

Two travel guides for Europe

We are in the middle of planning a trip to Europe for September and have spent a fair bit of time, over the last month or so, looking for accommodation, travel options and deciding what we want to see and do. With everything finally booked up, I can't wait to leave. We still have two months of work to get through before we finally get four weeks off. Time has been passing fairly quickly so hopefully it won't seem like ages before we leave.

I've been thinking of taking this shot of a couple of travel guides for a while and actually got around to taking it last night. Read on for lighting information.

Before reading the lighting information, try reverse engineering it by looking at the image above. Pay particular attention to shadows as that will help you identify where the strobe was positioned.

I placed a white foam core board on the right hand side of the subject and fired a Canon 430EX (also camera right) at 1/16 into it. A second foam core board was positioned camera left and angled to reflect the bounced light back onto the travel guides. I used a 1/2 CTO gel to warm up the light a little.

The flash was triggered by the inbuilt wireless trigger on the 7D. I used a Canon 24-105mm lens to take this shot.