Decided that I wanted some practice using my Sigma 530DG Super and my Elinchrom Quadra. Today was a bright sunny day and I was hiding together with my students in the shadows trying to get optimum conditions for photography. I used both Sigma DP1 and DP2 and as soon as you see strong colors around the flash, that’s the DP1 used and It’s me forcing it by placing the light inside the frame (I enjoy those colors tremendously) . All shots processed using Sigma SPP4 and Lightroom 3 Beta 2. (from TIFF)

These above where the very first shots, I noticed that I had to turn on something in order to make it work. :) And as you might notice it has a very strong “flashy” feeling and by increasing shutter speed and lower the quadras power I got a more natural looking light. See below. Also notice that there is no “color” problems as long as light is outside frame.

Zooming by running! Above shot shows how you can get some cool colored light even from the DP2.

ON / OFF, With and without light below. Sigma DP2 used. It was pretty tricky to get a good ambient light in order for the background blue sky to show, but after a few exposures I found a good balance. ISO100 used.

And about the same place a few meters to the side, but this time using the Sigma DP1. And it’s also slightly cropped.

Silly tests below. ISO200. Dp2 and DP1.

And finally, one shot of Johannes who was holding the light most of the time. Shot taken using Dp1 and ISO200.

All shots available as full size, click here if you want to have a closer look.

A house once belong to Surte glasbruk. Surte glasbruk is the glass factory famous for designing the very first Coca Cola bottle. But that’s another story. Now the house has since the last 13 years been the home for people with difficulties – in some cases drugs, some health others money etc. Now, a new road is under construction and within a month the house will be emptied – and luckily for the people inside most of them has a new place to go – probably a better place too – this one has really seen the best of days and were never meant to be lived in at all – as it was built and used as an office.

Now, I’ve been visiting them to help my way and I consider them all close friends. I hardly showed them a camera before mostly because I don’t want anyone to think that I’ve been there because of a shot – but today I just couldn’t hold myself and I went there and took a few pictures. No one had any objections..

I brought the SD14 coupled with the 12-24mm lens and I had my friend Bengt assisting me with my quadra. I tried hard to recreate the light that I felt was in the room to begin with – and often going above 2s exposures. tricky. :)

Also all shots has first been developed using Sigma Photo Pro and then post-processed in Lightroom 3 – mostly adding vignetting and some contrast adjustments.

2 världar and Broshan (names of above guys) is about to release a new album called Hollywood and asked me if I could take their cover shot. Bob and Olga was staying at my place at the time so we decided to have some fun together. With me and Bob dealing with the camera, Olga took the job of running around with the light, light in this case is my beloved Elinchrom Quadra. It was difficult to find a good spot that was dark enough because we were limited by time – (we had about 30min). Actually we took what was closest at hand, beside the very parking lot that we were at. :) But it worked out great! Olga did a great job of light painting. (above shot is taken with a Nikon D700)

I also went to Brålanda taking this shot of one of my students there – this time using a small LED lamp that someone lent me. and then ending the whole thing with a flash from the Quadra. Above shot is developed using the latest version of Silkypix pro for Foveon. And that shot is a 30s exposure taken with the SD14. Heavily cropped too..

Pretty amazing really how shallow DOF can isolate an object like this. It’s like entering a new world, and I find it very fascinating. Above shot is taken with the Sigma DP2.

Original

As some of you noticed we like mushrooms, and fall in Sweden is like candy store for kids. These mushrooms are called Trattkantareller in Swedish and Cantharellus tubaeformis in Latin. Now you know. And we will dry them and use them during the cold and inhuman Swedish wintertime. See above shot at original size.

Here follows some shots that been on flickr for some time, but without me saying much. These are a bit Strobist as you can see how I did most of them. :) Btw, Everything in this post is developed using Silkypix. I actually learned more on how to use Silkypix since I developed these but they’ll do for now.

Nothing much, just a few shots from todays lesson with my yongsters. We used the Elinchrom Quadra plus a raster (no make light spread as little as possible) plus a big softbox in background (behind photographer) to control ambien light. I just finished developing using Raw Developer and made final changes in Aperture with 16bit tiffs. In RD I took away all noise reduction and all (almost) sharpening to get as neutral result as possible.  See my latest youtube video for more info.

These last two black and white shots are actually developed as color and later processed using Silver Efex Pro in Aperture (plugin).

Just wanted to share two late shots taken during the session that you saw previously and they’re both taken with the Sigma 120-300 at ISO50 and SD14. It was a VERY bright sunny day so  stayed in the shadows under some huge trees – Tried to equal the light so that my elinchrom quadra wouldn’t be too noticed, used a white umbrella and without a meeter I had to test shoot some before setting the correct power and exposure. But I never really used a light meter before so I’m not sure it would make things faster. As long as my assistant was staying on the same distance exposure would stay about the same. My biggest problem was that clouds would come and go, so light would change LOTS in a couple of seconds – and so would exposure. Lots of shots trashed because of this.

Raw Developer used for these. :)

…Right now. Or was, now it’s time for bed. These images are screen dumps taken from within Sigma Photo Pro, will deal with them later in Photoshop I think. Or play some using ACR too just in case. ;) I already tried some of these in RD with good result. Especially for BW’s. Oh well. These are all SD14 images, with the cokin on (as you see on some) and the lens is my wide 10-20mm. It’s really a sharp nice lens. I do want a 12mm f1.2 that is sharp from corner to corner and very perfect in all ways including beautiful bokeh.. oo aaaa I want that!

btw, I used ISO50 with both SD14 and DP2 – only – not my smartest move to date. Highlight did clip a little to often. Sun was really in and out a bit to often. Oh well. I got myself lots of keepers too, more than enough so I’m happy. Elinchrom ranger quadra used on all these shots.

Alright so here comes two shots from yesterday. Not only is it two shots – They’re taken with different cameras  – SD14 and DP2. Now, not only are they taken with different cameras they’re developed using different softwares too – jaij! ACR for the SD14 image (came out better) and SPP for the DP2 image (came out more thick).. I used my Elinchrom quadra for this and well, it was so easy to use and setup – weather was really tricky but for these staying in the shadows helped. :)

Alright, I just got my umbrella replaced (got a one that didn’t fit and HAD to buy Elinchrom’s own – which is four times more expensive). grrr. Alright so I took some test pictures in my kitchen today – to see how good it could do with low power (there is two connections and the second one will give 8W to 135W – and that’s very cool for indoor use) – so here’s a before and after shot:

Original <– Do this!

And below you see the setup (you don’t see the power pack but you have it on the first picture in this post) – And power is not very high, remember I’m shooting wide open here at 2.8 just the way I like it and that’s not easy with any flash really. I guess it’s set at 2.2 – 60W output or something.. Not sure, not recorded in the exif. ;) All images taken with the Sigma DP2. Oh, you’re all so surprised! All pictures developed using ACR. ;)

Original <– Not a bad idea!

With a little shorter shutter speed you get a slightly more flashy look, but still nice I think – perhaps because Linn is who she is! (she’s a bit flashy too you know).. Also I use the same technique with this flash as I did back with the “club photos” -  without a meeter you do need to take more shots to get good light. It does take time. Think I will get myself a little light meeter too. hmm..

Oh, and a last one of Linn posing like a movie star! (or kungfu panda or whatever) :D – Oh and here you also see the flash in action without umbrella or anything. It’s tiny!