Shooting Weddings with Lightsphere

This week, I received a great email/photo of a wedding group, so I though I'd take some time to talk about shooting weddings with a Gary Fong Lightsphere.



The Lightsphere, currently, comes in two models -- the Lightsphere-2 and the Lightsphere-Universal. Both also come in Clear and Cloud versions. Previously, I've done videos showing the differences and giving my recommendations.

The differences between the Lightsphere-2 Cloud and Clear:



The Lightsphere-Universal:



First, I should say that the above videos reflect my opinion and are just guidelines -- your goals and shooting style may lead you to other opinions.

I'd like to share two group photos.



This image appears on Gary Fong's website and was shot by Anne Ruthmann. Here is a post that Anne made, in answer to how she captured the image.


===
http://photo.net/wedding-photography-forum/00HYH3

Anne Ruthmann , Aug 07, 2006; 11:36 a.m.

I'm pretty sure my settings were manual mode, ISO 800, Shutter 1/60, f2.8 on a 5D with at 24mm.. handheld. The flash was pointed straight up with no dome on the Lightsphere and the flash on E-TTL. However, because I was leaning downward toward the guests, the flash was actually pointed at a spot on the ceiling over the guests (think: angle of trajectory). It really was fairly dim lighting and I believe I was slightly underexposed without the flash.

Why f2.8? Because of the lens angle of the subject distance, this was really all I needed... plus I wanted to allow the maximum breadth of light in order to reduce vignetting. ISO 800 with flash doesn't show any noise to speak of, and the shutter speed was for hand holding. Getting everyone into the aisle and taking the shots took about 5 minutes. :-)

===

The second photo comes from a really talented landscape shooter, making his first foray into wedding photography -- Tom Vadnais.


===
Hi, Paul –

I had never shot a wedding before, and was more nervous than the bride and groom. To make matters worse, I was faced with a large wedding party in dark church with can lights in a black ceiling on a rainy day. I used my Lightsphere II for every flash shot over two days. The attached image was made with the Clear Lightsphere II on my SB-900 on my D3 at ISO 2500. The only things I have done to the Raw file are a slight increase in contrast in the shadows and a little bit of sharpening. I have done no lightning or darkening of any portion of the image. I am blown away with the uncomplicated even lighting.

The D3 camera settings were: 1/40 sec at f/5 at ISO 2500. I used the
Clear Lightsphere II with the white dome, pointed straight up on a
hotshoe-mounted SB-900.

Tom Vadnais Photography
www.tomvadnais.com
===

Finally, I'd like to share an album -- it was shot with a Lightsphere-Universal-Clear, on a Nikon SB-800 (some shots may have been with a SB-600), and a Chromedome -- the Chromedome was generally used when the light was about 10 fee, or more, from the subject -- on the indoor shots.

OK - you can buy Lightspheres directly from garyfong.com -- of course, I'd appreciate it if you bought from Adorama -- links are in the right margin :-)

Running Your Business in Today's Economy

It's been an interesting couple of weeks. If you are concerned about how to best run your business in today's financial environment, take a look at this video and then visit these sites:

Gary Fong

Dane Sanders

The [b] school

Also, check the archive on this blog - about April or May of 2007, for some ideas on how to get your photography business on line.

4th of July and Narrow Depth-of-Field

We got up this morning and walked down to the beach for coffee and a muffin. There was a heavy marine layer, so it was cool to the runners and walkers.

This was shot with my wife's Nikon Coolpix P5000 point and shoot, on program mode. I fired the built-in flash through a Gary Fong Delta Diffuser. I really didn't need the flash, but had it turned on from some previous shots, where I wanted some fill, because of the overcast.

I love the P5000. Actually, I'm a big fan of P&S cameras for casual use. There was no way I was going to carry a DSLR and lens on an early morning walk, but the P&S just goes into a pocket. I'll paraphrase, but someone once said that the best camera is the one you have with you when the image appears. This was about 7AM, and getting myself to the PCH (Pacific Coast Highway) was hard enough, without carrying a heavy camera.

About mid-morning, I decided to shoot some of the local parade. I was mainly interested in shooting narrow depth-of-field portraits of participants, as well as viewers alone the parade route.

I love to have the image jump off the blurred background. For those who don't know, long focal lengths and wide apertures are the key to limited depth-of-field photos.

In most of the above, I shot at f:2.8 and near 200mm. The lens was a borrowed 80-200 -- non-VR. On a few shots, I closed to about f:11. I put the camera on Aperture priority, because I wanted to maintain the wide aperture, to guarantee the narrow DOF. The sky was nice and sunny, by about 10AM, so I knew that my shutter speeds would be very fast. I put the camera, a Nikon D70s, on a monopod. The monopod was not needed to steady the camera. It's just that I knew I'd be standing along the street for a couple hours, and the camera and lens would be getting heavy.

When you click on the image, bellow, you'll be taken to a Picasa Album. There are a couple photos of helicopters and jets flying by. You will probably notice some spots on the image. That's an indicator of a dirty sensor, so cleaning it will be my next project.

Happy 4th of July!!

4th of July, 2008

Nikon announces D700: Full-frame dSLR for $2,000 less than flagship D3

If you've been droooooling over the Nikon D3, but couldn't get one without your significant other noticing that you skipped a couple mortgage payments, then this is for you. Nikon, yesterday, announced a full-frame camera using the D3 sensor, but in a D300 body - sort of.

Retailers don't expect to have them in stock until the end of July, but you can pre-order your, here.

Here's the DPReview.

Get yours here, and help me keep this blog active.

The above is for the body. If you want it with my favorite lens - the Nikon 24-120 (It's my main lens), go here.

The Gary Fong Lightsphere Universal Clear

I have photographed 175 weddings with the Gary Fong Lightspheres, since 2002. Most where with the Lightsphere-2 Cloud and Clear. I loved them - still do. Last year, the Whaletail Reporter and Studio appeared. They are very versatile diffusers. I shot about a dozen weddings and many other types of jobs with them. However, recently I have been experimenting with the Lightshpere-Universal. I have also received lots of user feedback.

On the weekend of May 2-4, 2008, I had to go to El Paso. The main reason was to cover a Quienceañera. If you are familiar, this is a coming of age event tied to the 15th birthday, in the Hispanic community. Living in Southern California, and traveling to Texas, most of my experience is among Mexicans. These are beautiful events, much like a wedding: A religious ceremony, photos in a park, dinner, and an evening dance/reception.

In this case, we went early to spend a day shooing the birthday girl, then some evening photos with family. On Saturday, there was the service at a church, followed by the other events, mentioned above. The result was an album, at link to which I'll provide at the end of this article.

Since I was flying, I had to pack everything into a hard-sided carry-on case. That meant, I couldn't just run out to the car to get another piece of equipment. I decided to take the LSU-Clear and the Chromedome insert (I had my wife pack as LS2 Cloud and Clear, just to be safe, but I didn't use them).

Here is a little video, where I talk about the Universal.



This is the link to the album -- all images with LSU-Clear.

Albums #4

The 4th in a series - scroll down for the previous episodes, and watch in sequence.

Albums #3

This is the third in a series. If you haven't watched the first two episodes, scroll down and watch them in sequence.