…in spite of conventional wisdom. Conventional wisdom has it that the Canon 7D is not the best for high ISO shots. And that you need twice the lens length, so 50mm on a crop camera needs 1/160th second..
So you could not possibly do a shot like this at
Cat, 3200 ISO, f/2, 1/40th sec, Canon 7D, 50mm
Yes you can. Hand held, slight noise reduction applied in Lightroom.
Look at this, from yesterday’s pic:
The Canon 7D can direct other flashes with its popup – unique for Canon, and that is what I was doing in this portrait (the main flash is a 430EX with a Honl reflector).
But when you do this, even when you turn the popup flash off (it only commands the other flashes), there’s a tiny residual glow! Every time. That is the little white dot.
Tip: cover it with your hand when shooting (or use Photoshop).
Here’s an impromptu portrait I took on Tuesday, of a lovely student who kindly volunteered to be the subject, in the Flash for Pros course:
And here’s how I did this:
And how I used those flashes:
Another student that night wrote a blog post, here, where you can see a few pics with some of the modifiers I used.
So it’s actually quite simple: now you go try. It is amazing what you can do in just a few seconds with just a couple of flashes (speedlites) and some small, light, convenient modifiers.
I shot a school Sunday: “Photo Day” portraits at a music school.
My colleague Anita and I used strobes, backdrops, and Canon cameras: 40D, a 7D and a 1D Mark IV. A few interesting observations:
The 1D is the pro workhorse, of course, and it performed great (redundant memory card included!), but I must say, the 7D was a real pleasure to use. Especially at low ISO (100-400, say), I see no reason not to use it for pro studio work.
A few tips for those of you who shoot ceremonies.
Ceremonies are important to people. Whether this is a graduation, a wedding, a signing of some sort: there will often be a hushed silence.
A silence you do not want to disturb. So today’s tips are about blending in and behaving appropriately at such venues.
By using these common-sense precautions, you can give yourself and all other photographers a good name.
One common sexy model look is the “look over the shoulder”.
Like here, in this shot of Nemo, a somewhat Rubenesque but nevertheless pretty model:
In an “over the shoulder” pose women can look over either shoulder, but for men, if the shoulders are angled, avoid them looking over the higher shoulder. This is a feminine look.
As so often with available light portraits, in the shot above I used my Canon 7D with:
Yes, you can take pictures on a 7D at 2000 ISO and have them look just fine.
Bright pixels are sharp pixels, but also, bright pixels are noise-free pixels.
(And you know to focus accurately, using one focus point, aimed at the closest eye, right?)
Backgrounds and sharpness and white balance: oh my!
I thought I would chat about some of the things that go through my mind when doing a portrait, like this one last night:
Questions like:
That’s all there is to a quick snap like this, which took a few minutes – if that.
A recent photo featuring… circles.
Technical details: Canon 7D, 1/50th second at f/5.6, 400 ISO, with an on-camera 580EX II flash bounced off the ceiling/wall behind me. Using the 16-35 f/2.8L lens.
Here is my Canon 7D with a few of my speedlights (pro speak for “flashes”), pocketwizards, and cables:
Sometimes I use them for standard lighting. Sometimes I use effects -more often than not colour. Here’s four of them firing at once, with some of those excellent (try them) Honl gels:
I try to add a splash of colour every now and then. Like here in this outtake from a recent shoot (see the slight green on the subject’s left, our right?)
And I recommend that you try this, also. Recommended.
This season, think “red ” and “green”. Seasonal family pictures, but add some splashes of green and red light to the fun.
For this, I would use manual and pocketwizards. But here’s the key: I would still use TTL for the main (bounced-off-the-ceiling-behind-me) flash. So the normal flash is on the camera (or with the 7D, off the camera), while the “effect” flashes are fired with PW’s from the x-synch socket, and set manually to, say, 1/4 – 1/16th power.
That’s what is happening th that “four flashes side by side” shot above: the two left flashes are fired by the 7D’s popup flash using e-TTL, while the right two are fired by Pocketwizards that are driven by the sender PW on the camera’s x-synch contact. Yes, that works fine!
How to shoot an aircraft?
If you are a terrorist, use whatever guided weapon you have. If, however (as I assume since you are here) you are a photographer, you want to do something like this:
There are four key points:
I hope that helps and am looking forward to seeing your pictures, if you happen to live near an airport (and not be male and bearded like me).
Oh and the fifth key point? I am showing the big aircraft’s trail in the background, creating a bit of a huxtaposition.