..I am shooting portraits, at the Royal Agricultural Winter Fair at the CNE. Like this – except this one is of me, not by me:
Two studio lights, shot into umbrellas with a Nikon D2H on a synch cord, and tethered to a PC. (the show’s sponsors do not want Canon equipment used, so I cannot use my own camera).
But I did manage to get a snap of Miss Ohio, contest winner.Here she is:
A recent Cat picture, taken with the 7D. The camera is at f/8 and 1/125th second with bounced flash.
Taken with the 16-35mm f/2.8L lens at 30mm.
And view it at the larger size to see how incredibly sharp this is.
…can be achieved by setting our lenses to a low aperture value (a large aperture) like f/1.4 (if you don’t know how to do this, you could use your camera’s Portrait Mode).
But that is not the only way to get these blurry backgrounds. The effect can also be achieved or enhanced by reducing the distance between us and our close object. Because it is the relative distance between the close and the far that determines the far object’s blurriness.
So if I move my hand really close, as close as I can focus, then even at f/5.6 I can get dramatic blurring in the background. And that is what is happening here:
Canon 7D, f/5.6, 1600 ISO
Remember that whenever you want blurred backgrounds: get close to your object, and/or zoom in on it.
From the Royal Agricultural Winter Fair, where I am shooting portraits all week.
Shoot your lunch tomorrow. One snap.
I’ll start off. Seelochnie at Henry’s in Mississauga this weekend, when I was teaching photography there, made me some food – and she brought in some truly delicious snacks for all:
Yummy.
Now I’d like to see your lunches!
Cool pics? Use wide angles, and get close. Wide, like 10mm on a crop factor camera, or 16mm on a full-frame camera.
And combined with a large aperture, like f/2.8, that gets you images like this:
Tip of the day: today a tip that will save you money.
Get yourself one (or a few) of these.
$1 at the dollar store will get you several. And you use them to keep dust and sand off the camera, off your lenses, and away from your camera’s switches and openings. Dust that is not on your camera will not get into your camera.
And like a cleaner drives more smoothly (proven fact), a cleaner camera takes better pictures.
…included me shooting a ball for a hospital charity, and then a meeting with Elizabeth May, leader of Canada’s Green Party:
1/60th sec, f/2.8, 800 ISO, 1Ds MkIII, 35mm lens.
I can tell you that leaving aside politics, on which I have no comment, Ms May is an extremely nice person, and one who is also both extremely intelligent and observant. I am genuinely impressed. It is rare that you see such a combination of nice, intelligent and observant. I am not sure whether most people in the room even realised how intelligent this lady is.
1/60th sec, f/2,8, 800 ISO, on 1Ds MkIII with 16mm lens
Reader Len recently asked:
A while back you said “one major reason I bought a 7D: I can now, just like the Nikon users, drive my external flashes from the popup.” But your studio setup includes strobes (non Canon) plus two pocketwizards which are not cheap. Is this still your recommendation? Or would you now revise this to include Canon flashes driven by the popup flash and do away with the pocketwizards and strobes?
Good question. Yes, it is still my recommendation, but only to be flexible.
I have the speedlites (580exII, 3x 430EX) for reasons of portability, independence of power outlets, light weight, and TTL system flexibility. A speedlite (small flash) system like that is the first system I would recommend to anyone, and with the great range of Honl modifiers (snoots, grids, reflectors, gels etc) this gives me an incredible portable system. And it may be all you ever need. You can do studio work with this, for sure. And I often do.
But I still have my studio lights as well. Those are less essential: I could do it all with the small flashes. But the studio lights do give me benefits for typical studio use, such as:
Len adds:
BTW, FlashZebra sells cheap (but good quality) 30ft extender cords that allow you to place your flash some distance from the camera and yet retain full ETTL functionality. That works perfectly for me, with a 50D, 580EX and 430EX flash. What’s the advantage of using strobes and pocketwizards? Is it just more power and no cables? Or am I missing something fundamental?
Yes, Pocketwizards free me from having to use cables. So it’s just that preference – indeed cables are a possibility, but whether in a studio or outdoors, I prefer to have fewer cables rather than more for people to trip over.
So all that said, I almost always use speedlites and TTL outdoors and on location, and my studio strobes and manual in a studio.
Don’t forget the wide angles! Here’s a snap taken the other day, using my 16mm wide angle on a full-frame camera (so if you have a crop sensor camera such as a D60 or Digital Rebel, to get this you would have to use a 10mm lens):
Can you see I like the diagonals to go into the corners? That is my preference.
Photography becomes a lot of fun when you start to develop your own preferences.