pixelens photography » self-portrait

The Wedding Photographer

Sorry I haven’t posted much the past few days, but I was stressing out because I was gearing up for my first wedding shoot. Needless to say, the stress wasn’t all that warranted, and I survived relatively unscathed! I rather enjoyed it actually, I rented a 24-70 f/2.8L lens from Pro Photo Rental - I HIGHLY recommened them, they are US based but had no issues sending me the lens across the border into Canada. FedEx on the other hand - they need to get their act together.

Anyways, I shot the wedding with 2 Digital Rebel XTi/400D’s. One had the 24-70 f/2.8L on it, the other I slapped on my 75-300 f/4-5.6 USM. Managed to snag a 430EX from the maid of honor so both XTi’s had external flashes as well which made a huge difference. Also took my laptop along, was a great idea - offloaded one card after the shooting at the bride’s residence in the morning, and then some from the afternoon shoot in between the ceremony and the reception. Good thing too because all said and done I ended up taking 1897 images, I’ll keep you posted as to how many I show the bride and groom in a week or two. I’d love to show you some of the shots but I told the bride they’d be the first to see them, and I think that’s the way it should be. So that’s why you got a shot of me above with that sweet piece of glass… I don’t want to send it back tomorrow!

Oh yeah, here’s the MOO cards I had made up from the pre-shoot which were placed at every setting at the reception. Great little piece of MOO-vertising if I must say so myself!

Tags: 24-70, 24-70mm, B&W, black and white, canon 24-70 f/2.8L, L series, moo, photographer, photography, self-portrait, wedding

27 Jul 08 | Miscellaneous | Read on | Comments (0)

Strobist: Lighting 101

Good set of articles over at Strobist.com with regards to off camera flash use and lighting…

Been having fun with the 430EX I picked up for the wedding shoot just over a week from now… been learning a lot as well! The image above I actually used the pivot features on the Speedlight and bounce it off the wall slightly up and pretty much right behind me… definitely makes a difference over the on-camera and straight on flash.

Tags: 430ex, bounce, external, flash, light, lighting, photography, Portrait, self-portrait, strobist, Tips, Tutorials

17 Jul 08 | Tips, Tutorials, lighting | Read on | Comments (0)

10 More Tips for Stunning Portrait Photography

To follow up the 10 Ways to Take Stunning Portraits post from the other day, DPS has posted 10 more tips:

11. Frame your subject
12. Go with a wide angle
13. Play with backgrounds
14. Change the format framing
15. Hold your camera on an angle
16. Take unfocused shots
17. Introduce movement
18. Experiment with subject expressions
19. Fill the frame
20. Find an interesting subject

Seems I’ve managed a couple of these in past self-portraits, good tips for the future!

Check out the 10 More Tips for Stunning Portrait Photography for more details!

Tags: DPS, Portrait, self-portrait, Tips

11 Jul 08 | DPS, People, Portrait, Tips, self-portrait | Read on | Comments (0)

Ghetto lighting…

I often receive comments and questions about low lighting in my self portrait shots. The Ghetto Lighting group over on Flickr defines ghetto lighting as:

If you use desklamps, your window, candles, whatever else I have not mentioned, then you my friend, use ghetto lighting.

I never really thought of this as “ghetto lighting” when I first picked up my Canon Digital Rebel XTi/400D back in November of last year, I was just using what I had on hand. Because of the season and the early sunset I really had no choice but to use what I could, and my favorite weapon of choice was, and still is, my IKEA Expressivo desk lamp. And it’s cheap!

Initially, the basic process I followed was to set up my shot, take a couple shots on the default setting to see what the camera “thought” I should be shooting at. Based on that, I’d crank up the shutter speed and/or the aperture setting until I received the desired level of dark/light that I was after. In other words, if the default settings took the shot at 1/8s at f/1.8, I’d adjust the shutter speed to 1/20s and go from there, increase to 1/30s if needed or decrease to 1/13s as desired.