Reporting in from QLD

It’s been a long time, and I’ve been so busy with so much different stuff going on, including a couple of cosplay meets and the biggest shoot of my life – Manifest – but I wanted to give a quick update.

I’m currently up in sunny Queensland with Naomi, visiting her parents. I’m up here for 5 days, and Naomi is staying for 10. I have a lot of photo processing from Manifest waiting for me when I get home :)

The first night here, Nomes and I went to watch the sun set from a nearby park, and I couldn’t help myself but take a few shots. I spiced them up a bit by adding some off camera flash. Pics below followed by how I took them.

• Camera: Canon EOS 5D MkII
• 1/200sec, f/6.3, ISO 100
• Canon 580EX on 1/4 power, with orange gel to camera right

I wanted to get a portrait shot of Nomi enjoying the beautiful sunset, with the sun in shot. I knew, however, that this would put Naomi into silhouette and stop any features from showing. I could possibly have used a reflector to get light back onto her face, but I went the easy (and more expensive!) option of an off camera flash. I stuck my 580EX on the plastic foot and put that on my tripod (I didn’t bring any light stands on the trip) and put it at about 45 degrees to Naomi to the right.

A few test shots were used to change the settings on the camera and the flash to get the balance right, and I added the CTO orange gel to warm up the cool blue flash light to match the warm setting sun. The result, even though the angle for the light is wrong, looks quite natural.

For the last shot above, I simply put the flash on the picnic table there and shot it up into the tree to make it stand out against the sky.