tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-86745616199813704332012-01-08T11:33:42.565+11:00SS Buchananhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01347804274222486097noreply@blogger.comBlogger191100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8674561619981370433.post-78186737791820118252012-01-08T10:52:00.002+11:002012-01-08T10:55:41.530+11:00

Some people don't realize there are torque specs for just about every bolt/nut in a car... even the little ones! (Of course, finding those specs isn't always easy) This is what happens when an overzealous repairer over tightens one of the nuts. A broken battery terminal clamp. Next to it, a big fat, serious mutha of a replacement cable just waiting to take over! The before shot, taken in a

SS Buchananhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01347804274222486097noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8674561619981370433.post-79690268392611975442011-12-18T23:52:00.001+11:002012-01-08T11:33:42.576+11:00

Sometimes, a camera just captures a process. 1. Turn the flush buttons piece 2. Remove the buttons 3. Take off the top of the cistern Now inside the cistern, the float valve is accessible, it just needs to be unbolted. Turn off the water first, then flush to empty the cistern (and put down some old towels because water will spill). Spotlight with an LED torch. First take the nut off, then the

SS Buchananhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01347804274222486097noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8674561619981370433.post-818397461090526212011-03-10T22:20:00.000+11:002011-03-10T22:20:00.843+11:00

My mate Ed is selling his 70-200 f/2.8L, and graciously *cough* cheap sales pitch to try and sell it to me *cough* lent it to me to try out over the weekend. So here's a quick comparison between the Tamron and Canon. Price The Tamron will set you back about AU$1000-1100 new, best price, where the Canon will cost more like $1500 for a grey import, and increasingly upwards for Australian stock. So

SS Buchananhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01347804274222486097noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8674561619981370433.post-66585573521481793962010-11-08T11:11:00.000+11:002010-11-08T11:11:02.432+11:00

Yesterday I was lucky enough to help out Brent Pearson with his Off Camera Flash on Location workshop. Where Brent leant towards a lightmeter, I ran the students through working out an exposure without one. Here's a quick re-cap: Use your Camera as a Lightmeter I set the camera to AV (Aperture Priority) mode, and picked an appropriate working aperture. We were in full sunlight, so I knew I'd

SS Buchananhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01347804274222486097noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8674561619981370433.post-90332048485437980242010-11-01T22:20:00.006+11:002010-11-06T10:07:41.970+11:00

... or how I learned to stop worrying, and love da bomb! The Problem I have a Canon 40D that I've been very happy with, but some of it's limitations were starting to bug me enough to upgrade: - Poor low light/high ISO performance (3200 is noisy) - Not full frame (always feels like I'm wasting my L lenses) - No video (no big deal, but it's nice to have) - Less than ideal battery life (for a full

SS Buchananhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01347804274222486097noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8674561619981370433.post-92018331034649640102010-05-16T22:16:00.001+10:002010-05-16T22:17:13.265+10:00

Don't be afraid to get close with your lights. It makes controlling the light much easier. I started this shot with a 50mm lens and a Ray Flash for fill, but at the 2+ metres away I had to be for a nice framing, the Ray Flash was pumping light everywhere, even to the back wall several metres away! Switching to about 35mm, allowing me to get to about half the distance (and dropping the fill

SS Buchananhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01347804274222486097noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8674561619981370433.post-23836104808631045912010-04-13T22:25:00.000+10:002010-04-13T22:25:11.978+10:00

Here's some final scattered thoughts on my (short) experience with the PiXeL Knight TR-332. I'm sending them back soon, without having given them a full test run because I just haven't had the time... Range Today I attended an Orbis workshop out at Canon in Sydney, so while there, I hooked up the TR-332 receiver/trigger combo and a 580EXII with Orbis. Took about 10 shots, doing a quick range

SS Buchananhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01347804274222486097noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8674561619981370433.post-25188269340754525452010-04-11T22:54:00.001+10:002010-04-11T22:57:11.167+10:00

Knights After having some troubles with reliability on my first real test, I decided to hook up the 580EXII flashes via OC-E3 (off camera cord) to the TR-332s... It's well known that with the PocketWizard TTL range, 580EXIIs have issues due to interference (from the flashes themselves), and I was having enough trouble with the TR-332s to warrant trying something else... No extremes this time

SS Buchananhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01347804274222486097noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8674561619981370433.post-75537742129205994172010-04-01T07:24:00.010+11:002010-04-11T22:45:40.181+10:00

Elvis aka elv0000 was kind enough to pass on a set of the new PiXeL Knight ETTL triggers for me to give them a test run, which I finally got around to over the Easter long weekend. Build These seem very professional and built fairly well. They come with a nice plastic cover over the screens so they arrive shiny and unscratched. A metal hot-shoe on the trigger, and a nice weight makes them seem

SS Buchananhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01347804274222486097noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8674561619981370433.post-42239650540827057222010-01-16T12:41:00.006+11:002010-01-16T13:02:40.650+11:00

Got married recently. Decided to do a bit of our own photography, and just use a pro for the ceremony, and some shots afterwards.That meant things like the make-up, bouquet, all those 'behind the scenes' sort of shots were up to me.We got married in Hawaii, which meant, I had to use the gear I could carry on a plane. No worries, if anything, strobist has taught us to pack light (not that I

SS Buchananhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01347804274222486097noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8674561619981370433.post-60827031379296091092009-12-07T10:44:00.005+11:002009-12-07T14:18:58.039+11:00

I just had a trip to Hawaii to get married (yay!), and it gave me an opportunity, thanks to Hawaii Photo Rental, to try out some of the AlienBees range.I knew I wanted to fight daylight, so I thought an AB1600 would be a good place to start. Added to that was a 47" Octabox, to get nice soft light, and a Vagabond II since I knew I was going to be out on the beaches.What follows, are some comments

SS Buchananhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01347804274222486097noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8674561619981370433.post-84272892329858871702009-09-04T02:15:00.004+10:002009-09-04T09:24:25.406+10:00

Not long ago, Mr.McNally blogged about High Speed Portraiture. That post co-incidently followed a quick shoot I did using Canon's High Speed Sync (HSS) of the lovely couple below.For this shot, I had to concern myself with:a) Not blowing out the background on a bright morning.b) Not seeing too much detail in the background.To get a nice balance ended up at ISO 100, f/3.5 (for blurry background),

SS Buchananhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01347804274222486097noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8674561619981370433.post-58286965375760233682009-06-09T11:09:00.007+10:002009-06-09T22:21:21.191+10:00

A few nights ago, I was taking shots of a friend, using a slow shutter speed to try and capture some nice night lighting. But (of course!) we had a sword, and hoodies galore, so fast action martial arts was the call of the day. What to do?Use flash to 'freeze' the action. No biggy. But what about the ambient exposure blur during the frame? Well, everyone knows, you just use 2nd (rear) curtain

SS Buchananhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01347804274222486097noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8674561619981370433.post-77047683329925931672009-05-31T02:19:00.010+10:002009-05-31T02:55:54.628+10:00

Today saw me attending the 7th and a halfth (latest, whatever) installment of the Sydney Strobist meet, SYD-SA7.5.Every chance I got - mostly while the other guys in my group were setting up lights (sorry guys) - I'd take out the Ray flash and snap off a few shots... giving the models something to do rather than just stand around while photographers talked softboxes and lighting ratios.With the

SS Buchananhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01347804274222486097noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8674561619981370433.post-41640443874528482892009-05-23T01:31:00.005+10:002009-05-23T02:03:48.399+10:00

Today I decided I wanted to get both 580EXII off camera further than an OC-E3 cable would allow - like 10 metres away from my camera... and I don't have a 10 metre OC-E3 cord.So I tried some wireless wackiness. I grabbed my old Cactus triggers/receivers leftover from my pre-OC-E3 days. But, one receiver is a V2 and the other is a V2s. The V2s doesn't work with the 580EXII, so that was good for

SS Buchananhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01347804274222486097noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8674561619981370433.post-81464058120002755132009-05-17T12:33:00.005+10:002009-05-23T02:04:24.591+10:00

So the other day I had to drive past the infmaous DD on the way to a studio to play around with some lighting. I'd heard the day before that DD had some cheap Rayflash ring flash adapters, so I just couldn't resist stopping in and getting one to play with.I'd heard rumour that it only lost one stop of light compared to bare flash, but I wasn't sure what that actually meant, so I did some testing

SS Buchananhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01347804274222486097noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8674561619981370433.post-28729545637970335832009-01-20T16:18:00.003+11:002009-05-23T02:05:09.049+10:00

Sunday saw me attending the latest (6th) installment of the Sydney Strobist events, SYD-SA6.For those that aren't in the know, many moons ago a guy called David Hobby aka Strobist started a blog called Strobist. This was a place where people could learn to use inexpensive flashes ("strobes") to acheive studio-like lighting results.Little did David know, this blog would spiral ever and ever bigger

SS Buchananhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01347804274222486097noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8674561619981370433.post-55755579403572393092009-01-17T14:09:00.007+11:002009-01-25T19:41:46.112+11:00

Recently, I was lucky enough to be given the opportunity to photograph a mate's wedding.Lucky? Yeah, because he and his wife had hired a professional photographer to ensure that all the bases were covered. And with the Cold War style proliferation of digital cameras amongst wedding guests these days, I could pretty much focus on... well, whatever I wanted, and still got to enjoy the wedding as a

SS Buchananhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01347804274222486097noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8674561619981370433.post-42448934208743494442009-01-17T13:58:00.000+11:002009-01-17T14:04:43.275+11:00

Ever been on a site where there's a rush to be the first poster, the first to leave a comment to a story or a blog article? The first to leave a note saying nothing other than "I'm an avid fan"?Well here's my first post. I'm an avid fan of what this blog may become.I intend this to be an educational tool for photography, because I've learnt plenty from resources online, and now I feel its my turn

SS Buchananhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01347804274222486097noreply@blogger.com1