Tar Fest

Tiyona Osorio hoops with her husband Michael Osorio during "Tarfest" at the La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles on Sunday, September 25, 2011.

Strobo

With apologies to Harold Edgerton (and with a little help from Mrs. Documentary Photography) here's a little stroboscopic experiment.

The setup: a Nissin 466 with a red gel on was set up to light the background, then a Metz 58 AF-2 in stroboscopic mode provided 5 flash pops at a rate of 20 Hz. The exposure was ISO 100, f/11, with a shutter speed of 1 second. (The metz was at 1/128th power.)

"But what about the purple and blue?" you ask.

The Metz was fired through a snoot to control where it hit, directed at the ball and the left side of the frame. It puts out light that is at a color temperature of about 6000K, so by adjusting my white balance setting to about 3000K I was able to shift the light to blue -- and it turns purple where it mixes with the red light from the Nissin.

Wait, "Fauve" Means Wild Beast?

Why, yes, we were discussing Chip Simons, why do you ask?

Nissin 466

I'm teaching a unit on bounce flash techniques, so I needed a snap of my little, teensy-but-useful Nissin Speedlite Di 466.

(Yes, they make them for Canon and Nikon and they even have a Micro Four Thirds model in White.) Inexpensive, powerful enough, very lightweight in the camera bag, and a Gary Fong Collapsible Lightsphere fits on top.