Normally.. when guys chat.. it’s always a story of “mine is bigger than yours” kinda thing..

Everybody says that their more handsome lah.. better in bed lah.. got anaconda lah.. 3 hours lah.. etc…

But when pressed to show.. semua lari… Hahahahhaaa…

Anyway, I’m not like that. If i say “I’m hensem and 3 hours..” it’s true. :p

Okay.. so what’s this post about then.. Well.. recently, we had a teh tarik chat and we started chatting about whose car is faster. It’s a never ending story of “my car got this exhaust.. got this intake.. got this sticker (stickers are known to add horsepower..hehehe) and so on and so forth..

To settle it.. we decided to drag and settle the problem.

Nice kan the picture?

Eh.. wrong.. DAMN nice kan the picture???

Hehehe.. Seriously.. Jokes aside.. this was an impromptu decision and it was done very quickly. Because of my skills and terrerness, we managed to wrap up the session within 2hours..

Well.. here’s a few more of the model.. The lighting was only the street lights as it was raining and my sb800 (flash) decided to just sleep after it got wet

Thanks for viewing and hope to see you all again next year.. Hahahahahahaha…

First, thought of playing with some colors backlighting but it was too ambitious in my tiny small room. Change the plan and me them all white instead.

Setup:

1 X Nissin Di622 for head light, behind left.

1X Nisson Di622 for Side light from the model’s left.

1 X Sb800 Shoot thru umbrella @ the top front with reflector below the model.

Photographed by DenzilJr

I’m very lucky we invited Cynthia for this activity, she’s not often doing modelling but she’s one of Taiwan’s popular TV artist and we really had very good times with her as she’s very kind, pretty and professional model.

– License

Model: Joana

The above picture is one of my favorites in the whole sequence. Apart from the slightly burned stain between the eyes from the too powerful softbox it is still the most naturally looking portrait. The problem with strobe light in my opinion is that once you exercise with it you want everyone to see that you actually used it, which is of course wrong. The softbox should only fill the light where it is missing as gentle and equal as possible. This is what I’m aiming for … and hopefully in the near future skin tones and structure will stay visible and not disappear as below. Please let me know your opinion about this.

Model: Joana

Model: David

Luan’s PortFolio Shoot in Galway

Luan had to complete an assignment for her current photography course and asked me to join in to assist with technicalities and as a location scout around town. We did not have o go far and shot most of the images behind Riosin Dubh and Monroe’s car park. It was a very wet undertaking and we could not have chosen a more miserable day. Everybody was in good form and we got quite productive. I snapped along on the side but wanted to share these few images with you anyways.

Joana’s photographs were taken with a small softbox and an Nikon SB800, David’s shots were taken in natural light. All images were worked on in Adobe Lightroom Beta 3.0. Even if it does not look like it on the pictures it was a very dark afternoon and I had to push the ISO up to 500. Wait a minute will you think … ISO 500 is nothing considering the latest release of Nikons D3s. I’m very sensitive when it comes ISO and try to stay as close as possible to ISO100 with my current Nikon D300. An upgrade is necessary I think

Here are some of photos captured during their wedding day, hope both of you will love them

# The lovely couple and the photographers, Susan (right) and me (left)

For more photos, please go Here.

For the movie clips, please go here:  Video Clip 1 | Video Clip 2

** Special thank to Susan for her hard works to create these 2 lovely video clips with great songs

~ all photo are capture by Nikon D700, Nikon D300, Nikkor 14-24mm f/2.8, Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8, Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8, Nikkor 50mm f/1.4, Nikkor 85mm f/1.8, Sigma 10-20mm,  SB900. SB800 ~

Nikon D300s + AF-S Micro Nikkor 60mm f/2.8G at f/18, ISO200 1/200 Second / SB900 (camera L) +1.7EV, SB800 (camera R) -0.7EV

We have some lovely orchids in our bathroom that recently bloomed, and Bridget’s been after me to take a photo of them. Seeing as I’m still getting over this nasty cold that I’ve been fighting all week, which has been keeping me indoors and preventing me from heading outdoors for photography, I decided today was a good time to make an image of these flowers.

Until I started getting more comfortable with hot shoe flashes, I relied solely on natural light for flower shots (or any kind of still life for that matter….or any kind of photography for that matter….). The sun had already set when I started shooting the orchids, so natural light was not an option. Sometimes, you just gotta roll your own light! This shot was taken using the pop up flash on the D300s set to command an SB-900 high on camera left and an SB-800 low on camera right. Both flashes are firing first through dome diffusers followed by a light tent that is housing the flowers. I shot in manual so I could set a shutter speed that would prevent ambient light from effecting the exposure while setting an aperture that would give me long depth of field for this macro shot.

Speaking of macro, it’s been quite a while since I’ve used my Micro Nikkor 60mm f/2.8G lens. I forgot what an amazing piece of glass it is. Focus speed is absolutely silent and feels instantaneous, even in low-light. To think I considered selling this thing!

Once again, the photo looks amazing in Lightroom and just so-so on WordPress. Can’t figure out why!

Since have some spare time, I did some DIY to complement with my flashes.

Recently, I have a Nikon Sb800 and Nissin Di622 (spare and backlight) flashes. So, I had created 2 sets of gel.  Each set has 3 colors and 3 pieces for each color. Just in case when the color is not strong enough and to mix them up to generate other colors.

Special thanks to Cherry who help me so much in drawing the outline and fine cut the edge for me. I’m damn sucks in using scissors. Okay, basically she did everything for me.

All the materials can easily get from any stationary shops. Here are what you need:

Scissors, something that you comfortable with.

Different Color of transparent film/paper, normally they used to protect the cover page of assignments/projects. They cost about 60-80 cents each.

Ruler, unless you can do well cutting with freehand.

Stofen / something similar. You may not want to burn your flash head. Use the transparent film on the top of stofen and cut the size according to the stofen is always safer.

Heather

Originally uploaded by Elessar

My friend Heather used to be a model. When I met her, I hired her as an intern to do Technical Writing for Sterling Commerce. She was a senior at Bowling Green State University and one of the shyest people I knew. She was a very good technical writer and lately, she’s been a full time mother to twin boys. We’ve kept in touch over the years through Facebook and as I’ve been working on building up my portfolio, I asked Heather if she would model for me. It was a lot of fun watching her pose while I snapped pictures. This was a whole new side to her that I’d never seen. While we were working, she was telling me how she’d been to Paris and Milan to model. I never knew that.

I think that this was one of the best images of the day. I love the way the light plays across her face and her throat. The dress she was wearing was also fantastic.

In addition to mastering off camera lighting, I’ve also been working to build up my skill with Photoshop. I really want my images to stand out. I’m getting there, but I have a ways to go.

Congratulation to Sin Heng and Jing Jin.

Photographers: Censesence and McKenny

Location: Kepong

]]> http://joechiangphotoblog.wordpress.com/2009/11/12/seong-hong-shen-shen/ Thu, 12 Nov 2009 05:23:02 +0000 Joe Chiang http://joechiangphotoblog.wordpress.com/2009/11/12/seong-hong-shen-shen/

Went for a photo shooting in  Taiping and Ipoh last weekend with this lovely couple, Seong Hong and Shen Shen.

Thanks Tat Hui for inviting Shu Shan and me for this trip and thanks for getting everything planned accordingly

We  managed to shoot this couple in two places, one at Taiping Lake in Taiping and the other one at Kellie Castle in Ipoh.

I do learn a lot from this shooting trip where we tried a lot many different thing during the photo shooting (we play around with reflector, remote flash, soft box and flash gel).

Here are some of photos from the trip:

# love the reflection on the lake

# Jenny Sun’s shooting style

# we try some thing new here (new for us ) where we use soft box with SB800 on top right of our model and SB900 with 1/2 CTO (we put on the floor inside the dark room) to light up the room).

For more photo, please refer to Here.

~ all photo are capture by Nikon D700, Nikkor 14-24mm f/2.8, Nikkon 24-70mm f/2.8, 70-200mm f/2.8, SB900. SB800 and Softbox ~

Mijn wide-angle lens gebruik ik meestal voor sport en soms voor architectuur/interieur… maar portret, nee daar had ik me nog niet aan gewaagd. Bij deze trok ik er op uit met mijn sigma 10-20mm… 2 flashes & mijn trouwe Nikon.

Met als resultaat dit:

Wide-angle Portret Tryout

Rarara wie vindt de flits op de foto…?

]]> http://jonathanfleming.wordpress.com/2009/10/27/from-the-hot-shoe/ Tue, 27 Oct 2009 08:15:23 +0000 Jonathan http://jonathanfleming.wordpress.com/2009/10/27/from-the-hot-shoe/

Nikon D300s + Tamron 17-50mm f/2.8 VC at 50mm f/5.6, ISO200 1/30 Second, SB-800 on Camera

Ok, so after we got home from work last night, I was photographing some items for Bridget that she wants to list on Ebay, and I decided “hey, I like your hairdo today, let’s take a couple pictures of you.” After she lamented that her makeup was smudging off and she wasn’t happy with the way she looked, we got started anyway. =)

With a single, ceiling mounted lamp providing ambient light, there’s no way we were going to make a pretty photograph without flash, so I mounted my SB-800. Is it possible to produce soft, pretty light with a flash mounted on the lens’s axis? One of the photos above might make you think not.

The photo on the right was taken with straight, bare flash on the camera set to i-TTL (intelligent through the lens metering). And there you have it: a nearly two thousand dollar camera making a properly exposed, aesthetically disastrous photograph. The harsh, straight light hits my poor wife right in the face, creating hot spots, flattening her features and widening her face, lighting up her ear like crazy (which draws the viewer away from her eyes), and casting unflattering shadows, including a big huge mass of dark ugliness in the background behind her. Yuck. And it’s my fault, not hers nor the camera’s.

Small light sources produce harsh light, and camera mounted flash fired straight at a subject kills depth and dimension. For the shot on the left, I used the same settings in the camera, but tilted the flash head 90 degrees, pointing straight up. Turning the camera vertical, the flash was now firing straight into a large white wall to my left. The camera and flash took care of nailing the exposure for me (though I did dial down the flash power just a tad after a test shot). Now, the light is popping off the SB-800, spreading, then hitting a large white surface, spreading even more, and then coming down and sideways across my subject, producing light that is directional, soft, even, and dimensional. It’s like a big fat soft box, without the soft box.

I guess the moral of the story is….for the love of all that is good, do everything you can to avoid firing on-camera flash straight at your subject! Unless, of course, you’re not particularly fond of your subject

Daniel-1

Originally uploaded by Elessar

I was asked to do senior portraits for my friend’s son (and my friend), Daniel. We’ve planned to do some studio stuff and some outdoor stuff. Daniel is really into music. He plays percussion for the Marching Band and Clarinet for the concert band and saved up money to buy this electric guitar.

He’s a great kid, bright, witty and good natured. I wanted to capture something of that in the portraits, as well as his love for music. When we started with the guitar, I asked him to start playing something. You could see the focus in is face as he started to play. I think that I captured a real part of his spirit in this image. The guitar is black and the shirt and pants are black and white. It just seemed natural to do the whole image in black and white. I believe that this image was the best of the day. Please tell me what you think.

Deze is ook nog van de shoot van gisteren die ik super vond… oa omwille van de regen.

Olivier Bruwiere

Klik op de foto om een grotere versie (& betere) te verkrijgen…

Setup:

Nikon SB800 + Umbrella from the Front

Canon 430 ex + stofen + red color plastic bag @ the Back

LE REPORTAGE COMPLET ICI

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____________________________________________________

Miracle-10

Originally uploaded by Elessar

My friend, Kim Miracle, asked me to come to her house to take portraits of her son, his girlfriend, Kim’s husband, and Kim. I was a little worried about the weather since we’ve had non-stop rain throughout the week. I came prepared to do stuff inside the house as well as outside the house. We lucked out and the clouds parted and the sun shone down. It was still pretty windy, but we were able to take a mix of pictures outside and inside.

This is one of my favorites from the shoot. We were joking that it looked like a senior picture pose, and in a way it is, but I think it turned out to be a really nice portrait of Kim’s son, Bryan, who lives in New Zealand. He was home visiting with his girlfriend, Lisa.

For this image, I used mostly the ambient light available with a little fill light from my SB800 in TTLBL mode. I didn’t want to leave the right side of his face too underexposed.

I didn’t have to do too much post-processing work, mostly some curves adjustments, some sharpening, and the vignette effect.

When I arrived Bryan asked if I did much HDR (High Dynamic Range) work. I have done a little and really liked the effect. I think I need to give it a try with Bryan’s image.

For more photo, please refer to Here.

~ all photo are capture by Nikon D700, Nikon 24-70mm f/2.8 and SB800 ~

Haven’t been on this kind of event for a while and renewing my interest turns out to be a rewarding experience.

This time, the organizers covered 2 Megatrade Halls unlike before which they only had 1. But even though 2 halls are unfolded, still, lots and lots of cosplayers from different parts of the metro have gathered to be part of the event. Not just the cosplayers but the anime fanatics as well.

To make the event more interesting, the organizers have come up with an idea to use your entrance ticket as a raffle entry. But it’s not just that. To gain raffle entry, you need to visit booths, participate on online games and many more. I find the “Costrip Fighter: Extreme Battle” a good source of merriment.

And of course, a cosplay event is not complete with cosplayers who took their time and effort in creating costumes and portraying our favorite anime characters. Congratulations!

Well, nuff said. Here are some of the pics. Enjoy!

^kawaii

^cloud! idol!

^maaaask rideeeeer change!

^i need starcraft 2. now!

^one of the best cosplay that i’ve seen this year. Edea of Final Fantasy VIII

Of course a souvenir shot won’t hurt.

^me & mai

^me & aya

More photos are posted in my Multiply gallery.

—————–

If you need to hire me as your photographer, you can contact me on the link provided below.

I have opened some social networking accounts. Add me up and spread the love.

Facebook: mac_ssnake@yahoo.com
Plurk: http://www.plurk.com/maxiadrian
Twitter: maxiadrian

Cheers!

This is my1st strobist session with Shu Shan and Tat Hui near the Palm Garden. We start around 10pm and finish shooting around 12 midnight.

We went through a lot of test shoots before we able to get the correct light source that we want. Shu Shan and I are both Nikonian and we have no issue setup our flash system using our camera but pity my friend (the only Canon user) which need to manually tweak his flash every time he need adjust the light source.

Here are some of the shoots:

# latest update

For more photo, please refer to Here.

~ photo is capture by Nikon D700, Nikon 24-70mm f/2.8, 85mm f/1.8, 50mm f/1.4, SB900, SB800, light stand and 2 umbrella ~

Fala galera! Desculpem o sumiço, as coisas estão meio corridas por aqui. Gostaria de compartilhar com vocês minha nova aquisição: Depois de ver este post no blog do Renato Rocha Miranda, resolvi experimentar usar um softbox com meus flashes nikon.

Comprei um softbox mako e um adaptador para softbox. O engraçado é que se você ligar para mako e dizer que utilizar um flash de sapata com o softbox mako, eles dizem que não há essa possibilidade.

Tenho uma sombrinha difusora, mas acho que ela perde muita luz e espalha muito.
Decidi então comprar um softbox com recuo.

Minha primeira dúvida na hora da compra foi a escolha do tamanho. Não queria um softbox muito pequeno, queria um fonte de luz maior. Comprei um de 80×60cm. Meu medo era que o Sb-800 não iluminasse toda a área do difusor, entendem? Tinha medo que ficasse uma vinheta, entretanto, como podem ver abaixo, não tive esse problema.

A montagem do softbox é fácil, porém pra quem nunca mexeu, é complicado no início. Mas já peguei a manha, o macete é encaixar as 4 hastes de forma alternada, em diagonal. Ele é leve e possui dois difusores, sendo que o interno você pode retirar.

Possuo um Sb800 e um Sb600 e tenho a possibilidade de usar os flashes de três formas fora da câmera: Nikon CLS (Nikon Creative Lighting System), Sb800 como fotocélula ou via rádio (PT-04). Sendo que esta última é a maneira que mais gosto de utilizar.

Hesitei muito em comprar justamente devido a altura que o sistema ficaria com o uso do PT-04, pois ele é alto demais. Procurei bastante na net mas não achei referências sobre a utilização do adaptador mako para softbox + PT-04.

Reparem que para o uso via CLS e fotocélula, a altura fica perfeita:

Porém a coisa complica um pouco na hora de utilizar o radio flash PT-04. O adaptador dá a possibilidade de afastarmos os dois pinos, assim, você deve inclinar o PT-04 para que a altura fique correta.

Porém ele é frágil demais e não fica muito seguro se você fica mexendo a todo momento no tripé. Para não forçar o PT-04, resolvi afrouxar um pouco o parafuso e apoiar a cabeça do flash no próprio adapatador, deixando-o mais seguro. O cabeça do flash não fica centralizada, porém isso não muda em nada resultado do uso do acessório.

Por enquanto deixo essas fotos como exemplo, e em outra oportunidade farei outros testes.

É um ótima opção tanto para fotos em estúdio quanto para externas, como usa o fotógrafo Zack Arias, então fica aí a dica. Conheço bastante gente que gostaria de montar um set assim, e espero que este post ajude a tirar algumas dúvidas que eu tive antes de adquirir os meus.

Abraços!