The NIKON Thread (Talk About Nikon Stuff here) - Page 342

I'm looking at a Nikon D5100 - Would you guys keep the 18-55 zoom kit lens or sell it and buy a prime one? If so which prime would you get?

sweet, i can pick your brain :)   I'm getting some  shots with my D600, but I'm realizing I still need a flash.  I have a couple baby shoots, a few engagement shoots, and possibly up to two weddings coming up this year (I just started).  So far, I just got a cheap speedlight YN-560 all manual (actually the neewer tt560 rebrand), and RF-603 wireless triggers.  I plan on adding one more flash.....should it be a big one?  say, an SB-800?

I planned on using the cheap flash in manual mode on a stand with an umbrella box and possibly using my main TTL flash like an SB-800 on-camera or hand-held.  I also probably need some sort of diffuser for that as well, but perhaps the built-in reflector will be good enough..

Quote:

Originally Posted by hyogen 

sweet, i can pick your brain :)   I'm getting some  shots with my D600, but I'm realizing I still need a flash.  I have a couple baby shoots, a few engagement shoots, and possibly up to two weddings coming up this year (I just started).  So far, I just got a cheap speedlight YN-560 all manual (actually the neewer tt560 rebrand), and RF-603 wireless triggers.  I plan on adding one more flash.....should it be a big one?  say, an SB-800?

 

I planned on using the cheap flash in manual mode on a stand with an umbrella box and possibly using my main TTL flash like an SB-800 on-camera or hand-held.  I also probably need some sort of diffuser for that as well, but perhaps the built-in reflector will be good enough..

You will get a lot more responses, especially from pro's who actually shoot events, if you post your question here:

http://www.flickr.com/groups/strobist/

I don't know if you've actually tried to shoot an event like a wedding, but if you plan to use things like light stands, you will want an assistant.  If you plan to shoot all speedlites in manual mode, there is no need to spend the big bucks on something like SB800, which would be wasted placed on camera.  I would try to get at least 2 speedlites off camera, and if you want one speedlite capable of i-TTL on-camera for chasing kids, Yongnuo YN-568EX is a nice choice at good price.

Quote:

Originally Posted by hyogen 

sweet, i can pick your brain :)   I'm getting some  shots with my D600, but I'm realizing I still need a flash.  I have a couple baby shoots, a few engagement shoots, and possibly up to two weddings coming up this year (I just started).  So far, I just got a cheap speedlight YN-560 all manual (actually the neewer tt560 rebrand), and RF-603 wireless triggers.  I plan on adding one more flash.....should it be a big one?  say, an SB-800?

 

I planned on using the cheap flash in manual mode on a stand with an umbrella box and possibly using my main TTL flash like an SB-800 on-camera or hand-held.  I also probably need some sort of diffuser for that as well, but perhaps the built-in reflector will be good enough..

I can honestly say Flash on camera for the most part looks unprofessional, unless you have no other choice I would avoid it. Also when working with student in school via the alumni the biggest issue most new photographers have is getting a grasp on light as a tool, so using it on purpose instead of just adding more light to flatten the image. I would say try doing some lighting patterns on friends with your strobes (loupe, paramount, rembrandt, and split) are some of the main lighting styles. if you google for example "rembrandt lighting pattern" you can see some examples. Try to replicate those and you can really improve your control over your lights. Then from there try playing with the ratio between highlight and shadow, make a really small ratio so they are fairly close and then a large ratio where the shadows go very dark. See and know how to do this will help improve any photographer.

As for event stuff like shows you dont have much choice on lighting so bring a strobe and use it where needed. I honestly dont do allot of music events because the money sucks and I like to enjoy myself instead of working them haha, but a good deal of my friends shoot journalistically like that.

http://ryanbuller.com/#/singles/singles6 thats one of their sites, if you look he rarely uses anything other than existing light.

And for weddings if you're doing portraits setup lights and do something nice, but for anything else moving stands around is going to suck. The last wedding I did was on the beach, and I just had one of the little 14 years in the family who liked photography hold a bounce card and used that for fill light which is much easier than strobe because you can see it.

hope this helps :P

Ps: when shooting people try having them put the weight on their back foot (furthest from the camera) and watch how much better they look.

Just an example of what you can do in 5 minutes with photoshop. Obviously this completely depends on if your monitor is color correct or not, but if you were to print correctly it would look normal.

Skin tones are always determined by the numbers, highlights are always equal parts magenta/yellow and cyan is always 1/3-1/5 of those in the highlight. If colors dont look correct it's due to an improperly calibrated monitor. (every single screen under 1000$ will be off, and some by a massive amount.) When most people calibrate their monitor it appears green and flat because monitors are naturally too magenta/blue for the most part.

It seems odd, but unless you are looking for a specific style this is literally how all professional color is done. You also have to remember that a good amount of photographs loose allot of data in the red channel when photographed under an improper white balance which causes some strange color shift due to the red being blown out. I cant tell if that is causing issues without the actual file.

Sb-800 has a GN of 125

Yungnuo is a GN of 34

So the sb-800 is roughly cable of 8x the power. (doubling the GN require you to quadruple the power, Via the inverse square law)