GAUPERphoto &raquo; michigan wedding &amp; portrait photographers. Out with the old and boring, in with the awesome!

July 22, 2010 - 4:19 am

katie - fun pictures! looks like a great day!

Nate+Leah :: 7.10.10 :: Adventures with nature and mountain dew…

Tuesday, July 20, 2010 Posted in posts by holly, uncategorized, weddings

post by: holly

So let’s just start this out by saying I’m human and I don’t assume everything will always be the most awesome ever. I sure do try my hardest to make things as good as possible, but sometimes you just can’t rise above situations. That totally makes this sound like a bad wedding, doesn’t it? hahha

I love a good misleading introduction!Now, to be serious, I adore these people. They totally have the love and are super easy going so I really couldn’t ask for better people to work with. They also really trusted us to just do our thing which I very much need so I was pretty happy about that. People will cool personalities are always our favorite. Having a good, fun personality in front of a camera changes everything. However, I was not so much excited about the nature and did not assume it would be the most awesome. Thus, I was preparing myself to work really hard for it…and I did. I don’t remember too many specifics about the afternoon anymore as I am fairly certain I was a maniac for half the day after leah’s mom gave me mountain dew when I had not had any pop for about a month. Soooo yeah I was pretty high for the rest of the afternoon until I crashed and got all weird feeling.

Anyways, back to the nature… You see, they love nature and live on a farm out in amish country. We don’t really do a lot with nature because it’s hard to get variety and it just hasn’t been much “our style” especially when its not “magic hour” but I knew that was what they wanted so I was certainly going to kill myself to do a good job for them and still be proud of my work.

So, we arrived a day early and spent about 3 hours driving around New Phileldelphia, Dover and out to the reception site and Leah’s house to make our plan for the wedding day. Making a plan, marking all the spots in the gps and knowing exactly what you are doing the next day is so important. I want the schedule of the day to be a smart use of time. Having a good schedule can make or break the day and photography in my opinion. Luckily, they understood this and gave us enough time to get some pretty cool shots. Since we drove around the night before, we found some spots that were still us to provide more variety than just nature for everything. I feel it’s very important not to lose yourself and style in anything you do.

In the end, our plan worked out really well. We ran about 30 minutes behind schedule but had planned a nearly 2 hour buffer time so running late wasn’t stressful and everything worked out beautifully. PLEASE take that tip if your a photographer, wedding planner, or bride. Buffer time is your key to not being stressed on your wedding day and still getting photos if your running late.

Everything was great, well, except experiencing the hottest weather of my life! ….and did I mention we always seem to wear black to weddings? …and that I decided to wear leggings and boots as well? Yeah. I about died. We shot in direct sunlight for most of the sessions too. Thank goodness we had our flash.

So I really love a lot of these and since I have slacked on doing wedding blogs for so long, this one is gonna be beeeefy!

Also, make sure you check out their album design since I spent forever on it.
www.theGAUPERS.com/bebout

No flashing please.

The big reveal!

I found this spot under the deck of leah’s house where they were getting ready. I was so excited about it! I love tiny

We found these AWESOME big round things but they were fenced in and there was no way to get to them. Inside the fence there were oh so many magical things, I could have done the whole session there… but alas, we could at least shoot on the outside and do the best we can with what we have.Leah is a graphic designer and had the cutest theme! I love when people have a personality and are able to show it in their weddings. Too many weddings are identical. If you want people to remember your wedding, do things differently!
I am not really a huge fan of trains on dresses, but my gosh her’s was so different and beautiful! Just in general, her dress was amazing. One of the best.

We stopped on the side of the road on the way to the reception to get a few shots in the good light since most everything else was earlier in the day with the bright sun. This was well worth the stop but I soooo wish we would have had more time in that light with the awesome sky!

The second one in, the ones that look like truffles…ok so those are cake bites and possibly the MOST DELICIOUS thing I have ever eaten. At the end of the night there were some left over so I put a handful of them in a napkin and brought them back with me. Then…I forgot them at the hotel! ARG!

by Holly

no comments

drooling over vintage tool…

Monday, July 19, 2010 Posted in Albums, posts by holly, weddings

post by: holly

I think beth is awesome. I have loved working with her so much. Her wedding day was amazing and she didn’t change hardly anything in my album design (which I really quite enjoy. haha) and she has been awesome through everything. We shot her wedding in May and just got her album in!

I am madly in love with the leather she picked. Wow…black vintage tool you have stolen my heart! Ahh! I loved the sample but my gosh, it’s so much more awesome in person. It even feels awesome.

There were so many awesome pictures from her wedding, I maxed out the pages the printer allows a book to have so this thing weighs a bazillion pounds. We didn’t do albums in any of our packages last year and almost all of our couples this year get albums so things have changed a lot.

I really love being able to design albums that follow the day instead of just letting people do it themselves and (heaven forbid) just put 4×6′s in a traditional album. Each photo doesn’t stand on it’s own like that, they are part of a story and It makes me feel like I’ve really completed something when I can hand off a beefy album like this.

If you want to see the inside pages, you can view all of them here: http://www.thegaupers.com/maes

by Holly

2 comments

July 26, 2010 - 3:46 pm

Betsy - This is beautiful! Where did you order it from? I’ve been debating on a couple places and wherever this is from might just win Thanks!

July 27, 2010 - 9:46 am

Ryan - Black River Imaging =)

Series::Don’t fear the flash::equipment

Saturday, July 17, 2010 Posted in business, post by ryan, recommendations, technical articles

Alrighty then! This topic seems to be well discussed and asked about. I know we have bought and returned a ton of flash accessory crap so it takes a while to figure out what works for you. And I can tell you that a Gary Fong tupperware modifier is NOT the best option. Please use the links to see what I am talking about, and if you use that link to rent from www.borrowlenses.com it helps me do these kind of posts!

Hopefully you guys enjoy it and get all the info you need to try some flashing…

Let’s start by identifying sand explaining our equipment we use. Here’s the big boy:

So this is an Alien Bee B1600 which is the most powerful cheap manual flash they have and retails for $359.95. Comes with everything you see including the cone. So here’s a breakdown.

1. This is the power slider. Pretty self-explanitory, just slide for more or less power. Recycling time is 2 seconds after a full power discharge. Considering it’s *about 4 times more powerful then a 580EX II, that’s pretty darn good. Also if you didn’t know, the less power you need the faster it is to recycle. This means if I use the AB1600 at 1/4 or under the recycle time is basically instant which is a huge plus! Especially when Holly and my trigger happy fingers are shooting from the same light.

2. This is the model lamp toggle. #7 which is the actual bulb that lights up for constant light. This is mostly for studios where they turn down the lights to cut down on unwanted ambient light. This way the light stays on like a lightbulb in between flashes so you can see your subject and auto focus. The track button dims and brightens the modeling light depending on the power slider, and the cycle button lets you know when you have full power. After a big flash the model light dims, then gradually brightens until you have full power again. If you are using the vegabond portable battery it is recommended you don’t use the modeling lamp as it degrades the battery very rapidly which I learned the hard way.

3. These tell you what’s going on with your light. the OK light is red until full power is ready to go, and is green when full. The dump button lights up when you turn the power on but that power is not discharged yet so your flash will be brighter then intended. Just hit Test to discharge a flash quickly or just to make sure it’s working. The sync plug is where your MM1 sync cord goes to your pocket wizard.

4. this little hole is for an umbrella stalk if you chose to use one.

5. This cone is the standard attachment that comes with the unit. Not too soft, but small and works when you don’t want to drag out the softbox for a quick shot… Works ok in a pinch.

6. These little pinchers compress 4 little clampers so you can slide on a light modifier and then lock it in by releasing the pinchers.

7. This is the main blub that is putting out all the power (and it’s a lot of power!

(note to self) If the flash unit it on, look away when connecting or disconnecting a Pocket Wizard as it will flash since the sync cords make contact. Being flashed in the eyes that close is really not a good idea and you will be blind for 1-30 seconds =)

One downfall to the AlienBees set up is that you need portable power when an outlet isn’t available. So that means you have to lug around one of these: Vegabond

Here is the softbox we use that was purchased from Paul Buff who makes all Alien Bees and White Lightning products. It’s called the FSB2436 Foldable Medium Softbox

(24″ x 36″) $119

It is very quick to expand and clip on, and has been pretty durable. Just peel back some of the velcro and attach the two pieces. Balance is not an issue with the AB since it sits back unlike the White Lightning which has the stand attachment in the middle of the longer and heavier unit creating balance issues. With any light modifier you have a loss of light (which is why a more powerful flash always comes in handy) This softbox is rated for a 2 stop loss (i think) some modifiers lose more but that’s pretty standard.

PS: If you are going to rent the White Lightning unit (which is basically the same as an AB) make sure you get a MP1 sync cord or you won’t be able to connect it to your pocket wizards.

You can find other things to use on their site, but this has been the quickest for us which is ideal since we move around a lot. I also want to try a beauty or moon dish.

One thing that is essential for bouncing off reception ceilings is a snoot. They have ones you can buy but they are expensive and you loose a lot of power. I made one myself and while I am not done yet, it’s much better then nothing. Pretty easy to make. Just took two thick pages from Holly’s sketch book, cut out the top and bottom for a snug fit, and painted it black so no stray light spills out of the front making unwanted shadows since I stand in front if it. I will eventually make a metal one with a grid inside to direct the flash even more but this does the trick!

The other flashes we use are 2 580EX IIs and a 430EX II when the others are taken up.

We don’t believe in shooting in the standard eTTL mode so when I turn them on i hit the MODE button and go right to M for manual. usually for receptions I start at 1/4 power and adjust from there. If I am bouncing I usually set it to 70 to 105mm to keep the beam focused until it hits the ceiling and disperses. The Pilot light is just saying when it’s ready to fire at the set power amount. To test batteries for this unit I set it to 1/1 (full power) and hit the button. If it’s not recycled within 4 seconds, the batteries are best to be replaced. The front contains the ever helpful AF assist beam and the infrared triggering unit, which I find way too inconsistent since you need a line of site for it to work. I am trying hard to figure out a way to make an AF assist beam work with the Pocket Wizards… more on that later.

This is the connections on a 580EX II. 1. is a booster pack connection for the thing on the right. It houses 8 extra AA batteries which will cut down on your recycle time considerably. We bought 2 before we bought the AB. So we are actually selling them both! See some details here. 2. Is just the sync cord plug which the Pocket Wizards actually come with. The only beef I have had with this is that the cord sometimes has a hard time staying on, or connecting enough to fire… sometimes you have to put pressure on it, but I have put tape on the cord keeping pressure and it works ok. 3. is a threaded connector, that I haven’t found a use for yet but I am sure it’s useful for something! =)

The benefit of buying a 580EX II over a 430EX II is 1. More power and faster recycling. 2. 580EX II has booster and PW connections. With a 430EX II you need a hot-shoe sync cord adapter for about $50. 3. The 580EX II flash head swivels more ways which is very helpful for shooting details, downward with the flash backwards and up.

If you can spend the money, the 580EX II is very worth it. But a 430EX II should do fine and is better then nothing!

A good tip for the 580EX II while using it on a stand: Set the custom functions to no auto power-off as it can be very frustrating if you go more then 5 minutes without a trigger. Just make sure you turn them off at the end of the night or it will be dead by morning. Just hold the C.Fn button and go to C.Fn 01 and use option 01 to disable.

Here are our triggering apparatuses:

The Bottoms are our Plus IIs (of which we have 3.) Also our Mini TT1 . While the Plus IIs can be used as both a transmitter (on your camera) and receiver (on your flash) The Mini TT1 is for on camera transmitting only. As for pocket wizards, I think the whole TTL features are stupid since we decide what flash output we want so the Plus IIs will be fine for everyone and everything. They are pretty simple though, as long as your channels are the same and you are within 1600 ft. you should have no problems!

Above is the Canon ST-E2 which uses canon’s Infrared triggering system which as I said earlier, is way too inconsistent for me. What IS sweet is that it has the AF assist beam which I despeatly need in many receptions. Problem is the pocket wizards don’t offer that. So I am working on how to get the best from both worlds.

I bought the Mini TT1 both because it is smaller to mount on my camera, and for hope that I could use with the above Canon ST-E2 which has AF assist. I am still working on that but here is what it looks like together.

For some reason I can’t get the pair to trigger all the units on the triggered channel, and being higher then it was designed for, the aAF beam is slightly above the center focus area. For example if I wanted to focus on the flower and the center AF point was on it, the beam is too high to be seen. So I am working on a fix for that, but it sure is a problem that needs to have a solution!

Here is a good thing to help your PWs stay on your lightstand. You can get one here. This is also pretty cool to get some different flash colors for creative lighting (Gel Filters) Just put it right over the flash and you have some color to work with!

Lightstands are pretty generic, I wouldn’t spend much more the $60-70 for a sturdy one.

Also for good softboxes you can use for flash guns like a 580EX II or Sb800 check here for what I know to be for the best option.

That’s all the equipment knowledge I can think of for now hope it thoroughly swelled your brains enough to wait for the next post about using flash with your other settings and how to get a look impossible with natural light!

P.S. If you want to keep me motivated to keep doing these technical articles then you are going to have to help ME help YOU that means anything you buy from the links you click including the one below helps me have time to do what I do! So spend all your moneys! But seriously borrowlenses.com is the only place i rent equitment and has been great from prices to customer service. Please give them a try and you won’t regret it!

by Ryan

no comments

Series::Don’t fear the flash::Shooting backlit flash at a reception

Wednesday, July 14, 2010 Posted in post by ryan, technical articles, weddings

I have been really wanting to do some technical articals that help you people learn some cool new stuff that you can get excited about! Since the biggest change and growth in our skills has been lighting I thought I would do a whole series on what we do, how we do it and why you shouldn’t fear or hate flash like we once did!

We like a lot of people started out as proud natural light photographers. I am not knocking that at all because we still do some really awesome stuff without the flash and I have seen other people use ambient light in amazing ways. But the problem with that is sometimes you can’t control the light and you are faced with a great challenge of making images that look like you should be paid to make them. Like it or not, it’s my opinion that you have a responsibility to your clients to be prepared in every situation whether there is good light to work with or not. Besides, it’s really not as daunting as you think =) I promise I will break you in gently.

My first topic is something I have been experimenting with the last few weddings to get a different and more interesting look at receptions, but it can very easily transfer into our portrait work especially now that I know what things are going to do.

Shooting a reception can be a daunting task if you expect to do a good job anyway! That has been some of the most stressful times during a wedding because there is so many obstacles and sometimes literally 5 minutes to figure it out and make it look epic. The upside is once you know what you are doing and have some cool techniques up your sleeve you can get some mind blowing shots! This portion of our flash series focuses on this technique called backlighting. It’s actually pretty simple to do once you get used to it, but I ran a whole load of tests to see how you get the best looking back light and how to get the most out of your flashes battery capacity and recycling times. Here’s a few cool shots we’ve gotten thus far:

So let me show you how I am setting up these shots:

See the sweet reception venues I get to shoot at? How could I not get awesome shots?!

Anyway, so I have a 580EX II on a stand, an Alienbee 1600 (pointed up at around 45 degrees with a paper snoot attached) behind me both triggered by pocket wizards. We will have another post with all the flash stuff we use so just hold your pants on for now!

So when I scope out a dance floor for shots I look for the most appealing backgrounds, hopefully with some little twinkly lights, or candlelight… So knowing I want to shoot in that direction, I set up my main flash behind me and bounce it over my head for some very soft fill light. Then I just set up the 580EX II across the dance floor so I am for the most part shooting right into it. If I can help it, the backlit flash looks the best when its slightly clipped by someone so the light is cresting them, but it can take a few shots to get it!

See it’s not too hard, just takes a little bit of practice! now lets see what different settings and lenses produce when you backlight.

First let’s test the flash’s intensity effect when I bring up and down the iso or flash output (which after testing both is exactly the same)

For this test I used a 50mm f/1.4 at f/8 increasing power in full stops which for flash would be 1/128th, 1/64th, 1/32nd, 1/16th ect. So in the flashes manual settings if I were to use 1/1 power I would be using the maximum flash power available. So 1/16th power would be, well 1/16th of the flash’s maximum power output.

For ISO, full stops come in 100, 200, 400, 800, 1600ISO ect. So I could change either of those settings alike to get the same results in this aspect.

Remember also that your camera’s distance from the flash will affect the intensity as well. All these shots were from the same distance. I would say the 4th or 5th example would be the sweet spot but it depends on the look you want. So if I wanted the 4th one and my camera was at f/8, 1/180th (shutter speed) and ISO 100 I would need to set the flash power to 1/16th, which is usually what I set it at for this kind of thing (though I adjust my iso through the night)

Next lets take a look at the flash’s zooming function which can be changed on this 580EX II:

Just hit the zoom button and turn the wheel! For this test I did 14mm, 24mm, 35mm, 50mm, 70mm and 105mm. To achieve 14mm you will have to pull out the little diffuser thing. I personally only pull it out enough to get 14mm but don’t flip it down. There’s not a ton of difference but I think 35mm looks the cleanest while still maintaining intensity. The zoom setting is much more useful for bouncing up which I will talk about soon.

Probably the most important way to control how your backlight looks is changing the aperture. Since your lens has 5-9 aperture blades to control how much light enters your lens, when the blades contract they become less round which creates a light leak effect so the light bends around the point where the blades intersect. Thus the smaller your aperture is, the more accute the intersecting angle becomes. At least that’s how I understand it… Even if I am wrong, the results are the same!

For this test to keep intensity consistent I adjusted the ISO to compensate for the smaller aperture. Starting at f/1.4 all the way up to f/22.

Since there is other aspects of your image effected when you stop down to f/22 you have to keep some balance usually unless you dont care about ambient light and have a REAL powerful flash. That being said I would say f/5.6 or f/8 would be the best balance of getting the coolest star shape while not sacrificing the other factors in play. If you are confused by that here’s what I mean: If you are in a normal dim reception with a flash you would maybe need the following settings: f/2.0, 1/60th shutter speed, iso 400 with a flash power of 1/4th. To get f/22 and the coolest star you would need to give up 7 (!!) stops in one of the other settings (or split up) that means you would have to set your iso to 51,200, or bump up your flash to full power and then you could make your iso “only” 12,800 which on any camera looks less then ideal. Since flash output isn’t affected by shutter speed, compensating with that doesn’t so much help. So long story short, if you want cool flair f/5.6 or f/8 would be a good value.

On a side note, If you are using a tripod and just doing other stuff where shutter speed doesn’t matter you can do cool shots like this with super small aperture.

This was my 14mm so cool stars come at “larger” apertures like this one at f/11. To compensate I needed to leave the shutter open for 15 seconds. Partly so I could run around a flash the camera with my 580 while the shutter was open! While we are speaking about different lenses, and their flare characteristics, I did one last test for you.

For this test I set the camera to f/16 and set out to see what each lens looked like when flashed directly. The top image is closer to the flash and the bottom is further back. Interesting how the results change. For some reason i decided to leave it at iso 3200 instead of boosting the flash power, sorry for the graininess. also the further away shot was cropped to match the close shot.

The Sigma 14mm can be fussy with direct light especially in the sun but sometimes it comes though. Sure doesn’t like a close flash though!

The Fisheye also struggles with closer flash maybe because both it and the 14mm were flashed at about 1.5 feet, but when you back up the fisheye has some of the cleanest stars!

The 28mm has always been one of my favorites for flair especially in the sun. It really makes some unique flair and changes drastically through the aperture range.

The 50mm has flair that seems would be ideal in receptions especially for epic first dance shots.

The 100mm Didn’t like it so much until you back up a good amount.

Same for the 135mm (even more so) that lens while ridiculously strong in every other area is very weak with direct sunlight or flash. It’s still good if the flash isn’t in the frame like the bottom right image up top.

Personally my favorite flair machine is still the Canon 28mm f/1.8 which has been an EXcellent wide lens especially for a cost effective alternative to the 24mm f/1.4 II. Check out this image I did with it a while back.

So that’s about it for this part of this series! Next I will tackle understanding flash and how it works with you other settings. Should be a good one so bring your brains =)

P.S. If you want to keep me motivated to keep doing these technical articles then you are going to have to help ME help YOU that means anything you buy from the links you click including the one below helps me have time to do what I do! So spend all your moneys! But seriously borrowlenses.com is the only place i rent equitment and has been great from prices to customer service. Please give them a try and you won’t regret it!

by Ryan

3 comments