If you go to a party, what could possibly be better to bring than your SD15, the 17-50 2.8 OS and a couple of strobes? I asked myself the same question and came to the fantastic conclusion that  - nothing could be better! if you find some of these shots a little bit “smoother” than usual – then you’re correct and what I did was using a new plugin that I felt I needed for another mission – a skin fix thingelebing.. Imagenomic Portraiture. Amazing software, if you ask me.

Now taking a picture in a mixed light situation like here you really need to think twice about how to place your subject and what you use as your background. I personally love the warmth that light bulbs provide when used against the colder flash – but in order to get the effect wanted you need to meter for the background – in this case here my iPhone light meter gave me 1/8s at ISo200. (Some are ISO400 as well) – and as you understand, using 1/8s would be a No No if there was any light in the subjects face you would end up with a smeary result with mixed yellow / bluish tones.

Lucky enough, I was able to stand in another room with the light turned off – and if I took a picture without using any strobe, you would see the person almost as a silhouette. My Friend Josef Johansson, a photo entusiast, helped me by running around with the smaller Sigma 530 strobe as a “head light” – I really like when it hits hard as with Elin’s portrait below – but it does take away some of that contrast..

added explanation.
But having a headshot without light wouldn’t cool so I placed my Quadra with a tiny amount of flash, in an umbrella over my right shoulder – Powered at something like 25-40Ws (full power is 400Ws) – and because there is no ambient light in their face, all light comes from the flash which gives a very pure coloristic and a VERY warm background.

Now, how can I possibly shot with such a super slow shutter speed hand held and still get away with it? Well, the trick is dual – First, the Sigma 17-50mm 2.8 OS which has a fantastic optical stabilizer gives me the opportunity to freeze the background enough even with speeds as low as 0,3s – normally if it was a persons face I would have had him / her to stand completely still in order to freeze – but that isn’t possible, people move, it’s in their nature.

So why is the face so sharp and even looks like it’s sometimes in the middle of an emotion which sugests movement. The answer is that because the face isn’t lit by anything except the flash, the flash exposure overtakes the cameras exposure. So the shutter speed in these photos is in reality two different ones in one. The face is exposed with a very short flash duration of something like 1/8000s and the background which isn’t touched by the flash with it’s 0,3s..

Pretty cool really. :)

As a skin fix show – in this case it’s kind of stupid to use it, but it gives you an understanding of what it does. the foveon sensor does catch a tremendous amount of information and in a portrait situation, some of that info just is a little too much. :) So, we could call this a forced bayer / nutella effect.

All images was developed with Sigma Photo pro 4.2 (Mac) and then post-processed and uploaded to flickr using Lightroom 3. All images can be found in their full glory at my spring 2011 set.

yes, after lots of time - dissecting one of my 500GB Wester Digital book drives – couldn’t find the right power adaptor (I have lots of external drives and I never know which has what adapter) – it was the last drive that could have the “lost” wedding images in – so I ripped it open. it took me some time and now it’s in a more – say, mobile format. :) Less plastic. I have this e-sata reader that can connect naked drives and it worked perfect. I found my lost picture too and I couldn’t help myself not processing it instantly.

So here’s the result. Compare to old post with the “old” process. :) And yes I took the car away in LR – fast and dirty. Added some vignette again too. Should be around ISO35.

(original size)

here’s the original, unprocessed. :

I could save some of that highlight but not all. Still I’m happy. Maybe I’ll rediscover this shot when SPP 5 comes out? :D The beauty of RAW!

Some shots I recently took of my sister Karin and her husband and daughter. :)

Sigma SD14, 10-20 (first shot) and 70mm. And yes, the Sigma 530DG flash is used from a distans – would be better if I for ones started to use some colored gels.. but, no. Not yet. :)

Today I’ve been very busy taking pictures like the ones above – my dear mother paints for a living and sells reproductions in a huge amount of different frames, and sizes. She has an online store today but the images there is un-buyable and I decided to help her out and make it a little bit more welcoming. The empty frames could be filled with whatever selected art in the online store (at least that’s my thinking – that’s my next headache)..

Sigma SD14 – Sigma 70mm and Sigma 530 strobe.

I was at my sisters home yesterday (her birthday party) and I was kind of bored so I shot her son outside. It was pretty cold and the sun was just about to go to sleep – but before it did I took these shots using the SD15, 17-50 OS + polarizer and a Sigma 530 on a tripod. The 530 would have been much more useful if it had some colored gel on it but hey, nobody’s perfect. :) LOTS of X3 fill light was used on the three bike shots and well, the fourth on the blue container too.. It was pretty difficult to adjust power of the flash and at the same time make sure that he didn’t fall OR the flash. :)

All Sigma Photo Pro, except for black and white photo which I added some vignetting on in Lightroom.

Anyways, enjoy.

Above: No flash.

All images available in my Fall 2010 set.

Here’s a short wrap up on how far I’ve come to date. I now actively use my home built opal plastic tube thingi that some of you have seen and I want to thank Ted who gave me the idea (the round shape that was). Also a big thanks’ to all of you that gave suggestions and comments in my “HELP ME” post – for you that missed it, please visit and read. Great comments!

On the right is my original sketch of how I thought the opal stuff could be used and my setup right now more or less looks the same, although I only use three light sources – One from beneath as the picture show and one from the left and the big soft box from right, tilted 45 degrees. So it’s not exactly as the sketch but very close.

Here is the video I made that shows how I built the box.

And yes, it’s very irritating that the video size came up wrong – Mom looks fat! :D I tried to use the built in uploader within ScreenFlow – but as you see it doesn’t cope well with my wide screen iMac. I better export using x264 in the future as well.

I also try to eliminate the need to paint those rings – and by painting I mean using the curve tool and then paint in Photoshop using the brush – which you need to do if you have bad reflections – and with this setup I more or less eliminated any unwanted, unfriendly reflection. The thing that looks like a light source is actually a white paper thing that I put inside to give a shape. (Clive). I’m still experimenting.

In order to make it look as goldish as possible I needed to see gold because these rings are all made out of different materials – and has slightly different tones of metal color – kind of goldish but often not so I have to work on each to make them look kind of the same. Although I do feel that I over did it some on these below. I used this shot / illustration as gold model.

All images developed and edited using Photoshop Lightroom 3 and Photoshop. No painting this time – I might do that with the final thing but I’ll try to avoid it as much as possible. ISO100 used. Might change back to ISO50 as it’s MUCH denser to work with.

I have some left to do, but something tells me that the hardest part is behind me now.

Here’s a second movie about the set in action. :)

Original size. She is lit by Sigma 530! :) (Sigma SD15, 50mm 1.4 at f3,5 1/40s ISO50)

Original size. (Sigma SD15, 50mm 1.4 at f10 1/13s ISO100)
Above shot of the road is an Enfuce test (open source HDR software that I use inside LR3). Shot is made from the same RAW file saved as three different TIFF files with various exposure compensations in Sigma Photo Pro)

Mom, Linn and myself went off a few hours to see if we could find any mushrooms. Equipped with both SD15 and strobes I had very little luck and light disappeared way to fast.. I did get a shot of mom though and the road. It was pretty dark when I shot those but I think SD15 did a great job! hmm.. Autumn is coming way to fast this year. And yes, we got some nice mushrooms with us home!

Developed using SPP 4.1

I now tried so many different setups – and I’m still not satisfied with how my ring shots come out. I do make one or two images here and there that looks perfectly ok but as soon as I change ring with a different shape everything has to be changed / or lots of work in post (PS) has to be done. See video for more info on what I want from you, you could help me more than you think. :)

The opal plastic sheet that I have is 1.5 x 2.5m (about). I have four flashes that I can use, although I think two or three around and one below shining through somehow could be the best solution. (I need it to be a really white background).

Watch it in HD please. :) Also, for my Chinese audience. I have 500MB per week to upload in VIMEO and my limit for this week is up, I will try to post stuff there as well so that you can see videos. If you want any video (like the videos from last post and post it on some chinese version of youtube, then please mail me and I’ll send those to you!.

Now I moved so much away from my initial setup that I feel that I will show you a picture or two of what my current setup actually looks like. Woohoo! I will post some in the comments section.  The above shot is slightly cleaned up – the gold surface was slightly scratched and some dents so I repainted the middle reflection and the bottom left - but other than that it’s the original photo – I’m now very satisfied with how reflections works – and if I change ring reflections still look beautiful. I must say that the pure IQ that the Sigma SD15 gives is extremely high. I’ve been looking at other photographers works with jewelry and once you go closer it just doesn’t look good. This shot is available in full size as well. A bit too full really. :)

This time I didn’t use anything else than LR3 and PS5. The only thing left now is to continue with OOF – and see where I should stop before text is readable. This shot is ISO50, 105mm, f11, 1/160s.

I noticed that it’s more or less impossible to get correct focus at more then one ring at a time (at f7.1) – so I took three shots and combined them in PS.. :)  It’s really late too, I should go to bed. hmm.. This is a Lightroom 3 conversion of SD15 file, not bad – but not as good as from SPP.

I’m pretty much set now with my setup – this last shot had no changes, no painting except taking away a little dust – although getting the background WHITE is time consuming when there is so much blur to deal with. The foremost black corners will also be a little bit less black – one white foam infront of camera is missing.

Final capture for day four: We had a long talk today, me and the jewelry guy. He wanted the text within each ring to be unreadable so we decided that taking each text away using PS would take way to long, but using a wider aperture could work instead. I had to move the light quite a bit (I used lowest power at f20 on those last shots) and now I had to use  a semitransparent white circular reflector in-between the softbox and the “set” . I finally got a working F8. I could go all the way down to f5.6 but then it was hard to see anything exept one or two diamonds in focus.

I also wrapped the whole sets bottom in golden reflective material – and it seams to work pretty nicely. There is a 3000px version of the below image.

Slightly older part, posted this morning: Today I wanted to try something real and off went Linns ring. I told her to clean it carefully because of all the dirt seen by the mighty 105mm Sigma lens. But wow, we didn’t expect this much scratches to be there – and thanks to photoshop and my great painting skills I was able to partly save her ring. :)

This time I added the Sigma 530 DG, snooted from the right – and the big softbox as always from the top, slightly tilted so that I can reach with the Sigma SD15. Developed using Sigma Photo Pro 4.1 using vivid color mode.

After:

Before:

Also, here’s another shot, another ring, this time a fake one – just trying different ways to reflect. This time I’m holding a long hard, white paper above the ring, infront of the flash. Creates a light, pretty OK looking thingi. And don’t look too close on this one, at 100% size it looks horrible!! Sooo much dirt. (although I didn’t upload the full size of this one).

EDIT. Late Evening, day three. Last edit for tonight.
This last one has very strong colors because I selected “vivid” color mode in SPP. No added saturation - actually I pulled it back a bit in PS. The full size shot, with all it’s flaws.

Morning part: The basic setup is taken from www.ImagingPrep.com so I don’t feel right about showing you too much, but you will be able to follow my progress thru the reflections and before after shots. Anyone know where to get transparent white wax that I can use as glue? Now I’m using the yellow bee thingi..

In day two I really felt I didn’t get the shape right, and so I put small pieces of black foam board around until I got the shape that I wanted. Now I did a very quick PS5 fix and no dirt removal (just a tiny bit) and I now understand the importans of gloves! :D

Before

How do you feel? Better than day 2?

Alright, it’s not really day two, but at least it’s first shot! I dealed a little with it in Photoshop and will play more with reflections to get the right feel (but not in Photoshop, but on the set). What do you think? It’s ISO50. I think I will get more black in the corners of the ring, like a black frame somehow. Also it’s a little too tilted. :) But that’s not the important part right now.

Right now, I only play with fake rings – will get the real stuff when it’s time for the real deal. About 200 of them.

Light from above, two paper reflectors on the side. Elinchrom Quadra. Sigma SD15, Sigma 70mm.

Today I had a wedding photo session – used Sigma 10-20 and Sigma 70mm together with my beloved SD14. Linn assisted (I LOOOOVE when she assists!) and on he way home we had a car full of gear, far away from home. What to do? Of course, we stopped and took some shots of each other. Sky was rapidly changing which made everything so much more interesting. :) And just for fun I used my new Chinese equipment. Two speed lights, stand and some transmitting equipment. Shot of me was way overexposed (ISO50) but in monochrome WB there was lots of information in blown areas so I turned it BW. Shot of me is also cropped some.

Btw, the cheap chinese equipment that brought works perfectly well together with the Sigma, (including DP’s) which is really nice! I had my Elinchrom Quadra in the car but – the Yongnuo YN460-II worked great, especially when two put together.

Everything developed using SPP 4.1 and post edited using LR3 (darkening sky some etc). Full size available at my Fall 2010 set at Flickr.

You might ask why I don’t use my Sigma 530 DG Super instead of some cheap chinese ones – well, as you see the light is on a pretty light stand and it’s windy, I don’t dare having my beloved and TTL working 530 on that one without someone being able to save it of it falls. The two in the background DID fall – and one broke but was easy to fix. :)

(Strobist info: Behind blue pillow is a gridded speed light. High left slightly infront of girl is a naked flash shooting at low power directly at subject). Camera: Sigma DP1 @ ISO400.

I couldn’t resist playing some today using my Sigma 530 flash – I brought with me a cheap transmitter from China as well that works pretty well, although not as smart as the one I have already from Elinchrom (Skyport). The Chinese version flashes as many times as it can until shutter is closed – so shooting indoors with low shutterspeeds and using the super fast Sigma gun, you will most likely get a strobe effect – lots of flashes in a short session. Nice if subject is STILL! People hardly ever is.  Skyport never does this – it sends ONE signal not a continues flow. The Chinese version is a 10th of the price of the skyport.

Using the Sigma DP1′s fantastic ability to make colors is a sport in it self! Little sister holding the Sigma 530 and myself holding the second gun. Super simple setup. Without light this picture is totally dead. Camera, the Dp1 stands by itself on my Benro 91M8 tripodded monopod. Used in all shots above. :D

Playing indoors using the same two guns as in above shots. Myself being the tripod for the second gun. Not a perfect shot but still fun. :) (And yes, she was tired. :D)

Being outdoors a dull day as today isn’t always fun – incase you don’t have my gear! Then it’s FUN! One speed light (Sigma 530) with the grid, the tripodded monopod and a 2s delay. hmm.. perhaps it was 10s.

All shots edited using Sigma Photo Pro and uploaded using LR3.