We are busier then you could probably imagine, and we have weddings every weekend for a little while. These weddings deserve our full attention so if you email me on a Friday, Saturday or Sunday please bare with me as I can’t respond while trying to focus on the wedding during the weekend, not to mention sometimes we just need to relax!

So I just wanted to let everyone know, that YES we are super dooper busy. No we aren’t avoiding you and we don’t hate you! We are just really trying our best to keep everything going and take care of about 50 people at one time in a timely manner as well.

We love our clients so please know that everything will be worth the wait. We are great at what we do, the magic just takes a while to warm up! ;)

Good news is that all our weddings are freaking awesome no matter WHAT nature or people throw at us, we are still awesome! ;) This is why we should be your photographers.

Plus we bought a really expensive lens that does this! That means it’s super mega ultra wide.

We have a wedding coming up this weekend in Lodi, Ca… aka wine country! First one there it should be amazing. Next we are coming home for a couple days and heading right back out for a long weekend wedding on Hilton Head Island in South Carolina. This also will be EPIC. Then one more in detroit, which I am super pumped about because of their awesome engagement session which I have yet to post.

Ok I will try and blog much better then last season, since we have about 4 spectacular weddings coming down the pipe!!

There was $9,238 of lenses, $11,000 in Cameras, $2,000 in lighting and a whole lot more contributed by the couple and their families. It had pillars, beauty, more good light, tilt-shifting, blue skys, happy people, an amazing and kind couple, good food, and goooooood  good photos! I don’t say that lightly either! ;) It even had a point where the whole bridal party jumped in the dang ol’ pool! So we had fun until the security guy from the hotel got teste … get it?

Never thought I would say, “This is going so well” as I did for this wedding. That means a LOT. thegaupers… that’s us! We tend to have some bad luck which means as hard as we try I am nominating us for the hardest working wedding photographers! Whether it takes 1 hour or 4 hours to scout the area pre shoot, we are GOING to find some good spots in good light. Do we get paid for it? Technically no… Although it does make the clients very happy when we take them to a pallet yard and pull magic out of our… pockets.

Anyway my main point is, we needed this one man…This could fight Hope and Even. Our reigning favorite couple for this year. And dont go being so vein and thinking this song is about you. You do don’t you! Just kidding, we realllllly love this year’s clients. I don’t like to dirty my nose, but seriously, we really lucked out with the clients we got and this year has been crazy awesome – mostly in part to you.

Thank you to everyone that has worked with us this year. We are so grateful for the referrals and fans that tell everyone about us. You really don’t realize how much we appreciate that. This is our only source of income for Holly and I people spreading the word helps us to do what we do for the people who really want what we do.

Keep up the comments on the blog! Ya know, google likes when you link sites to your site or even when you leave a website in your comment. Google knows and it likes when we do that! ;)

Ok I kind of got on a tangent so here is a sweet sweet slow mo for your eyes to feast upon.

We have run out of cards again so I thought it was time to design something new. It took me a whole day of thinking and bad ideas to come up with this. I have been wanting to bring in the stripes more since it’s such a huge part of who I am so I am pretty happy with it. I’m really excited to see how the back of the card prints since it’s such a teeny tiny mosaic. :)

I love how our brand grows. It is nice to have a vision for it unlike a couple years ago. Having a clear vision of what I want our business to look like really helps to keep me motivated and on track with how we grow our style with our photos as well. Having a strong brand that I’m confident in really does change the way I shoot/edit and feel about myself. It’s weird, maybe I’m the only one who thinks like that, but whatever works!

I also designed some sweet thank you cards to send out to our clients as well. I am really happy with the design but the printer messed up the paper so I have to get it fixed before I can thank our clients for being so mindbogglingly awesome. :) I have a lot of pieces to the brand, the stripes, stitches, dots, green, curly flower graphic, logo, ect. So I’m trying to make it all work together so it all feels complete and makes sense. I don’t want to really limit it so much that everything is identical since thats just not our style but I know there are some things that are not exactly cohesive but i’m working on it. :)

I am just now finishing up my last two weddings in our summer season. I then have about 2 weeks before fall wedding season starts. We have had a pretty slow summer compared to most probably but are booked solid this fall! So I hope to finish everything up next week so I have a few days to just not work and relax before all the madness begins!

I put myself on a pretty intense editing schedule so I can keep up with things and not get behind and it’s fairly stressful. However, I believe when its november and I’m done with everything, it will be worth it. It also makes our brides really happy to get their photos back insanely fast! So if you all want to just pray for me this fall that would greatly appreciated. Just that I can stay motivated, stay on schedule and keep my sanity..and possibly find some time to spend with Ryan too. :)

So, thats all for now. Back to editing the best wedding EVER! I cannot wait to blog about Hope and Evan!

Have a great week everyone!!

]]> http://www.mudeyes.com/new-cards-and-keeping-my-sanity/feed/ 0 http://www.mudeyes.com/seriesdont-fear-the-flashequipment/ http://www.mudeyes.com/seriesdont-fear-the-flashequipment/#comments Sat, 17 Jul 2010 18:37:14 +0000 Ryan http://www.mudeyes.com/?p=1905 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!

This has been a long time coming! We finally finished all of our 2009 work and now have the time to give our attention to our upcoming road trip and workshops! We just put up all the information for them on a website which as a more detailed PDF you can download as well. All the links, prices, dates and a map are available there. Click on the image or just go to www.GAUPERphoto.com/BREAKfree to view everything. It is coming up fast and we are only allowing 5 people per workshop so if you want to fill a spot be sure to email us as soon as you can! Ryan@GAUPERphoto.com Each workshop is being customized for those attending. We will be in contact with you so we can focus mainly on your areas of interest or things you struggle with.

Unfortunately we are going to need to cut of a good sized leg of the original trip so a couple of the big cities are going to get missed this time, sorry guys!! BUT I still want you guys to tell me who is interested because you never know if we get a free weekend we may just come down there just for you! And if not don’t worry we want to make it to more of the east side of the country soon so hold tight.

The main reason we had to do that is for one, it was just a little too much planning, and not enough time. We have learned this year to not overextend ourselves. However, please let us know if you are interested and your state is not one of our 5 that we are stopping at. We may throw in a few more dates if the interest is there!

Another reason was we got an opportunity to visit my mom in China! She has been living over there since last august so we have really been wanting to get over there and visit with her, as well as start on the photojournalism photo-books that we have been wanting to do for so long. I had been talking to her about giving her and the people she works with a better way to show those back home what they are doing over there. This is crucial when they are back in the states trying to raise support and get people on board with their vision. So we have been in contact with her organization she is under; the Jian Hua Foundation. We will be flying around China for 10 days with another couple specializing in video to mix with our photography for this project. So after that we are going to do a little extra curricular traveling with my mom and maybe visit Hong Kong and some southern regions! Which is good since they dont have heat near beijing after march or so. =)

Since we are going to be flying right by hawaii…I figured it would be a shame not to take a well deserved vacation after pushing for so long and so hard! Can ya blame us?

Plus I have some YWAM friends that I would really love to catch up with. I really miss hawaii…. We are so blessed to be able to do that!

So that is where the gap in time is coming from … we will be flying out from SFO and then when we get back we will do a couple more workshops,  ….. and then we shall go have a sleep.

The next week, wedding season starts!! yaaaaaaay hah. :) We are actually really excited for a new year to do everything better than the last so I think this years weddings are going to be a lot of fun.

We can’t wait to hang out with all you guys! It’s going to be amazing!!

We know you guys love us… come on… admit it. No don’t admit it to us! Admit it to other people!

Our business is in large part made by word of mouth so if you love us and want to keep seeing the awesome you gotta tell some folks!

mo’ money mo’ money mo’ money!

Right now GAUPERphoto is offering 5% to anyone who gets us a wedding or portrait session! (that’s up to $285 for you!) Offer ONLY until New Years!!

All referral checks will be paid as soon as the client you refer is paid in full. Help the GAUPERs and the GAUPERs will help you!

As long as we are on the subject I just wanted to thanks everyone so much to this point for getting us all the work they have we are well loved and blessed so all joking aside we wouldn’t be where we are if it weren’t for a lot of you peoples out there!!

Free hugs for trying =)

P.S. mudeyes.com is now theGAUPERs.com!

We started the mudeyes blog in March of 2008 right after we got engaged. In fact, thats the first post on the blog which you can see here: Engaged!

I wasn’t really sure how to do much with it so I just chose the cleanest template they had available which was just terrible. The space for images was terribly small and it was just a mess. Yesterday I decided it was time for a change. We have not written much on here lately simply because it was so stupid looking and uninspiring. That has come to an end! Isn’t it terrible?

There are a couple pages I want to add along the way and Ryan has yet to write anything about himself in the about section but I wanted to get the word out there that we have a new blog now. We are also re-branding this winter so there will be lots of new things to come. This time its going to reflect who we really are as people, artists and photographers. I am so excited for it!

VERY IMPORTANT: If you are connected to our RSS feed from the last blog, the name has changed. On the first one it would not let me put it on just www.mudeyes.com so I did a sub-domain of blog.mudeyes.com
This blog is is fact www.mudeyes.com so please update your RSS to this blog as this is where we will be updating everything from now on.

Hopefully we will get time to post things about this past year as we tie all the loose ends from the crazy wedding season we just had. So keep checking back. :)

Also, if you just follow the blog thats cool but you should be our friend on facebook! We update our work there the most often.

RANDOM THINGS:
- We got our tempur-pedic bed today! It is glorious! It is a king size and pretty outstanding. I am so excited to sleep on it for the next 20 years! :)

- We just finished all the episodes of Flight of the Conchords. If you have never seen that show, well, you need to go rent it now because its awesome. They have CD’s too which are pretty great. I told you I was freaky is our new favorite.

- I stayed in my house for a couple weeks trying to not get sick since everyone in kalamazoo seems to be dying. Just when I felt like I was safe, I went to GR to go shopping with my mom and now, I’m sick. I’m pretty sure its just a bad cold right now but I am not leaving the house for a while as to not infect more innocent people such as myself.

- I have 6 weddings to edit and I am done editing weddings for the year unless we get a last minute one (which would be fun, bring it on spontaneous people!) so that is both exciting and a daunting task since I want to be done by thanksgiving…but I can’t do it!

- It’s officially Christmas in my world. Ghirardelli peppermind bark chocolate squares are back in stores! YES! BEST EVER!

Thats enough for now. More updates coming soon! :) I hope you all enjoy the new blog-beauty! :)

Ryan Richard Gauper | Create Your Badge

Upcoming Blogs:

Video blog for The Maternal Lens about what other then lenses! Primes of course =)

Video blog about the time money and stress we take on for potential wedding clients, and why we are worth the money!

And maybe even some 52 updates since we are on like week 24

Check back in a while, don’t lose us!

Check out my earlier post for the rest of their engagement pictures but they are a super fun couple that made it really easy to get great images. I have really bee trying to explore all my options to get them a good wedding photographer but with no luck. One of the problems is they don’t have a ton of money, and can’t go much past $1,000 for photography.

Also they are in Memphis. If anyone out there is interested and is willing to throw them a deal please let me know and I would be willing to maybe throw a favor your way as well!

Like I said please read their engagement post to get to know them a little better. But trust me if you have a way to get down there it will be a great time and they know a lot of people that I’m sure you could get a lot of work from!

Thanks guys!

IN ALL SERIOU…Sorry, in all seriousness, we have a buttload of stuff to sell and now we have some more motivation (as if we didn’t have enough)

The Image is Found announced a ‘shootshop’ the day after we arrive in LA this august so we decided we HAVE to go to… They are going over a lot of the stuff we need the most and also we basically want to BE them. They are way creative and awesome. They were kind enough to let me pay for one spot and give me another week to pay for our second spot (since they fill up in like a day)

Soooo here’s some great gear that we would love for you to have… I mean pay for. I am a photoshop novice and didn’t spend hours on this so go easy on me =)

First up are the biggins. I have been holding on to my D700 because I just love it and didn’t feel like giving it up for butt-cheap so here it is now for butt-cheap because I have to =( I am going to be pretty firm at $2,100 for this thing. It is in very nice shape and was used for about 6 months before we made the switch. It IS a US model, there is nothing at all wrong with it. This is the best Nikon option period. You can read my review side by side with my new camera the Canon 5D mark II here but seriously this camera rules… feels so much better in your hands then my camera.

It comes with everything you see… I dont have the screen protector but there is no scratches miraculously enough. I also dont have the strap but if I dont sell the one below and you need one I will throw it in. The battery still reads new. I charged it after every use to keep it happy. The sensor is pretty clean as far as I can see. This thing is spotless.

The fisheye is the last lens I have with it… It’s a DX lens but it still looks really great even with the reduced resolution. Pretty fishy fisheye and it was one of my favorites… it is a great lens. Pretty much flawless as far as I see. Never dropped. I am asking $525 for this one and I don’t have the cap. Lost it at a wedding. Adorama retails it at $700 so I think thats pretty fair. If you want one you can get the cap here. It comes with a soft case that I never took out of the bag.

My last Nikon item is the Battery grip for either a D300 or D700 This is a must with this camera if you are holding it for any amount of time. It feels great and matches up with the build quality of the D700. You can even get 8fps with this grip and the right batteries. It has a little bit of paint rubbed of exposing some metal but otherwise never dropped or anything. You can buy it new for $260 so how about $185.

Another biggin is our basically brand new Canon 70-200mm f/2.8 IS L Telephoto zoom. It is just too expensive for us. We have too much to buy to make it worth it. But if you are in the market for one you know how great this lens is. For a zoom lens the sharpness doesnt get much better then this. The IS works amazingly at 1/20th of a second my shots are consistently sharp even at 200mm. This lens is also flawless and retails for $1,800. So I thought $1,400 would be very fair especially since we have used it about 2 times.

I wouldn’t be selling this if I didn’t have a second, nor would I if I didn’t want a TS-E so bad! So I am selling this amazing lens for $375 as it retails for $500. Again this Sigma is mint. We have used it since early this year and since we had 2 it stayed in the bag most of the time. We had no problem shooting this lens wide open for a whole wedding. I actually prefer this lens to the Canon version. Sharp focus every time unlike the canon. If you have a f/1.8 50, trust me this is worth an upgrade. you would have to shoot at f/3.5 to be as sharp as this lens, and you get a lot more background blur and speed. Check out all my images I have made with this one! flickr w/ 50mm

Since Holly and I bought the same computer right before we met we have always had 2. Now that we have a MacPro, iMac and 2 MacBook Pros, it might be time to trim down. This one is mine.

You can see the stats but it is a 2.16GHz dual with 2 gigs or RAM and 120gb HD. I used it for all my editing until we got the iMac about a year ago. Now if we do use it at all it’s when we travel. It shows signs of wear as you can see but really besides the battery needing to be replaced there’s not much wrong with it. Everything is cosmetic. It does not have any AppleCare and it runs with the Leopard OS. A new battery is like $100 bucks and I am asking $900 for this. Still runs very well and is completely capable (especially if you are upgrading from PC) ;)

Next I have an older surround sound system that I bought a few years ago. I didn’t use it a ton and the speakers sound great and the sub sounds well if you are fairly nice to it. I am not sure of the wattage and don’t have a box but it gets pa-ritty loud and sounds great with action movies and music. I am asking $75 for this.

Last is a few random items.

A neoprene strap $10
A couple Lens pouches you can strap to your belt. $8 (each)
Legal Forms $10
And a Gary Fong Lightsphere Cloud P2 or C2 it fits the bigger 580EX $30 and I will include a stofen or whatever flash diffuser.

Sooo hopefully you guys wanna give us all your moneys so we can go and learn how to get even better so that we can feed the fever for the Gaupers =)

Please email me at ryan@GAUPERphoto.com or call me at 269.929.8777

All items will have shipping tacked on if you arent local so we can work that out when you contact me. Thanks guys!!