ICJ's photography thread

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Re: ICJ's photography thread

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Re: ICJ's photography thread

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OK, everyone go ahead and start shutting up, I got a remote wireless adapter so I can do off-camera flash now. What is off-camera flash?

You know that flash module that pops up when you do certain modes with your camera? It's a giant "look at meee" wad of light blanketing everything in white. I rarely want dead on light, in fact, I don't believe a single photo I have posted in the thread has made use of a flash. I have taken 21,875 photos so far this year and I've used the flash my camera came with for very few of them. Maybe 10 photos total.

I bought a cheap-o speedlight flash a few months ago, but didn't like it much. With the speedlight, it has some settings to allow me a little more control and I can rotate it a bit, but still - it's coming from the dead center of camera. Most of my studio pics have lights that aren't dead on. Enter the wireless trigger.

NOW what I can do is take that speedlight and attach half of the wireless component to it. The other half I attach to my camera. When I take a photo with flash enabled, the remote sends a signal to wherever the remote speedlight is, and I get a nice band of light coming from a specific angle. I am hoping to use it as something that gives a bit of dramatic lighting as a hair light next time I am in a studio. I do need a tripod for it. But the speedlight and I are talking again. We are bros.

The speedlight flash was cheap. I can't remember exactly, maybe 30 bucks. The remote trigger was $12.99 or so. It adds up but it's not too bad over the course of a year.
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Re: ICJ's photography thread

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I had a session where I tried to learn some stuff tonight. I DO need a tripod for my speedlight as it fell twice off a chair that I had propped it up with. :(

I spent a lot of time setting up lights for a 3 light shoot using the sun as the main light. I went outdoors at about 7:00PM .... and got the best photos of the night in terms of lighting.
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Re: ICJ's photography thread

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Ice Cream Jonsey wrote: Tue Sep 04, 2018 9:58 pm I bought a cheap-o speedlight flash a few months ago, but didn't like it much. ... Enter the wireless trigger... When I take a photo with flash enabled... I get a nice band of light coming from a specific angle... I do need a tripod for it. But the speedlight and I are talking again. We are bros.

The speedlight flash was cheap. I can't remember exactly, maybe 30 bucks. The remote trigger was $12.99 or so. It adds up but it's not too bad over the course of a year.
I have noticed the biggest issue is light; the problem being even my older eye that needs more light than I used to is still a lot more sensitive than any camera I can afford to buy. I have a desk lamp with a 26w CF 1600 lumens, which is about 100w incandescent equivalent but can still be too dark for filming. In the room the ceiling has two 13w LED about 1500 lumens, giving me about a combined 190w incandescent equivalent. That will work, but as you've discovered sometimes that's too much light, and lamps with directional aiming capability can be much better for some applications.

Your $43 cost is a capital cost, you consider it as a net "cost of doing business," as opposed to supply costs, which outside of standard batteries photography has almost none, since we're not buying film, a $5 cartridge can hold a combination of up to 10,000 photos or 3 hours of video, and almost no photos get printed any more.

Tripods also should be considered cheap, I buy them myself for when I want stable shots and Amazon has them in the 50" size for under $11 for Prime members.

The switch to digital photography has caused a massive reduction in costs as compared even to video tape photography. Good quality in VHS was still running about $2 an hour when good quality consumer cameras came out. Yeah, the recording cost on an SD card now is similar, except it's a one-time cost as you dump the video/snapshots to even cheaper hard disk space once the card is full, then wipe the card and reuse it.
Ice Cream Jonsey wrote: Thu Sep 06, 2018 9:06 pm I had a session where I tried to learn some stuff tonight. I DO need a tripod for my speedlight as it fell twice off a chair that I had propped it up with. :(
And for $35 Amazon has 75" tripods, which is probably useful for setting up lights since that gets you 6' 3" above the floor.
Ice Cream Jonsey wrote: Thu Sep 06, 2018 9:06 pmI spent a lot of time setting up lights for a 3 light shoot using the sun as the main light. I went outdoors at about 7:00PM .... and got the best photos of the night in terms of lighting.
As with anything, the only way you get good at something is to go out and practice, perhaps daily.
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Re: ICJ's photography thread

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What just happened?

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Re: ICJ's photography thread

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AArdvark wrote: Fri Sep 07, 2018 2:43 am What just happened?
From what I can tell, ICJ is Paul's alt account.

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Re: ICJ's photography thread

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AArdvark wrote: Fri Sep 07, 2018 2:43 am What just happened?
Image
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Re: ICJ's photography thread

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If Paul finds me a cheap tripod on Amazon that will allow me to attach a flash via a hot shoe to it, I will do him one favor.
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Re: ICJ's photography thread

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Ice Cream Jonsey wrote: Fri Sep 07, 2018 8:19 am If Paul finds me a cheap tripod on Amazon that will allow me to attach a flash via a hot shoe to it, I will do him one favor.
Amazon search tripod with flash shoe using the search box on Firefox will produce inexpensive shoe adapters - some as little as 2/$5 - to connect to a tripod. Standard 50" tripods, again, are under $15.
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Re: ICJ's photography thread

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Yes, it's funny you said that - after I wrote my post, I remembered that there was another piece of plastic that came with the flash. It's a stand. And it screws into the flash and has a screw hole itself. And the size of the hole is the exact size of that of my camera, which fits my tripod.

I owe you one favor. Let's hear it!
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Re: ICJ's photography thread

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Wish for X-ray specs that really work!

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Re: ICJ's photography thread

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Ice Cream Jonsey wrote: Sat Sep 08, 2018 9:40 pm Yes, it's funny you said that - after I wrote my post, I remembered that there was another piece of plastic that came with the flash. It's a stand. And it screws into the flash and has a screw hole itself. And the size of the hole is the exact size of that of my camera, which fits my tripod.
Two really big improvements in cameras: (1) All cameras, regardless of size, if they are capable of tripod mounting, have a standard machine screw hole in the bottom and all are the same size. (2) All consumer cameras are usually capable of recharging their own battery and all use the same standard medium USB cable as a replacement for a battery charger pack you used to have to move the battery to, then plug it in.

All tripods use the same connector so all cameras fit all tripods and all camera batteries can be recharged with the same device, a USB cable, and you never have to take the battery out.

Exception for cameras included in cell phones, those don't support the medium camera USB plug, they use the thinner cell phone USB plug.
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Re: ICJ's photography thread

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I messed up and said it wrong. What I was going to say is all cameras that can be tripod mounted have the same size hole on the bottom as the screw thread all tripods use. What I missed was for camera phones they have selfie mounts to do the same thing the tripod screw does.
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Re: ICJ's photography thread

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I wasn't kidding, you really did help me. I hope you know you are a treasured member of this forum, Paul. You're a good guy and I hope you know how much we all appreciate your contributions.
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Re: ICJ's photography thread

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Let's see if we can snap a photo of the lunar eclipse?

Here's what I found in terms of times:

9:36PM ET: Moon enters Earth’s penumbra.
10:33PM ET: Moon enters umbra.
11:41PM ET: Moon is fully inside umbra.
12:43AM ET: Moon leaves umbra.
1:50AM ET: Moon completely out of the umbra.
2:48AM ET: Moon completely out of the penumbra. The show’s over!
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Re: ICJ's photography thread

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Or you can wait 3 days and catch the moon during it's obligatory phone call.

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Re: ICJ's photography thread

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I want to get this joke but I can't. Can you explain??
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Re: ICJ's photography thread

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Late one night when I was seven or eight years old, I was awakened by a loud sound outside my bedroom window. The window in my room was slightly off track and even when it was locked a good tug would slide it open, so I constantly had crazy nightmares about Bigfoot or the Wolfman or aliens coming through my window to get me. Hiding under the covers would protect you from scary things in the closet and under the bed, but once you heard a real sound coming from outside your window, especially after midnight, all bets were off. I threw my quilt aside like it was on fire and ran as quickly as I could through the house to my parents' bedroom. I even leaped over the edge of the coffee table like I was some kind of track and field star, instead of walking around it like I normally would.

I must have been screaming in tongues while I was running because before I even reached their room, their bedroom light came on. My mom met me in the hallway, and by the time she was able to calm me down and understand my panicked blabbering, she explained to me that my dad was outside taking pictures of the full moon. She even said if I would calm down I could go out there and watch, if I wanted. I went outside, and she went back to bed.

It must have been during the summer because it wasn't cold outside at all. It was the first time I had stood in my own front yard after midnight. The entire neighborhood was still and dark, and the only people awake at that hour were me and my dad. He had both his telescope and his camera set up on their tripods out in the lawn, right next to my bedroom window. Every little sound you made was magnified by the still air. From my bed, I must have heard him clanging the tripods together or something. I remember asking him a question and he shushed me. At the time I thought it would mess up whatever he was doing, but in retrospect he probably just didn't want me to wake the neighbors.

I remember he was using a remote shutter cable, just like the ones the photographers used who took our yearbook pictures at school. He explained to me that holding the button down on the actual camera would jiggle it and make the picture turn out blurry. He was doing extended exposures, I think. While he was taking pictures, he let me look through his telescope at the moon. It wasn't a super expensive one, but it was good enough that I could see some of the moon's details. When he was all done taking pictures he folded everything up and we went back in for the night. If he let me carry anything back into the house, it was the tripods.

Back then after you did something like that, you would have to finish shooting all the pictures left on the roll of film before taking it to have it developed. Sometimes my dad would finish shooting a roll the next day, just taking pictures of us around the house and stuff. If it was near a holiday, he might wait and use the film for that. When you were all done you had to take the film somewhere to have it developed and have prints made. It took patience and money to find out if any of your pictures turned out.

My dad got the pictures back a couple of weeks later, around the time school started. The ones of the moon turned out fantastic. It looked really yellow and gray, and gigantic, and you could see why people used to say it was made of cheese. My parents always had doubles printed of their pictures, so I got a copy of one of the moon pictures and took it to school with me. I showed it to all my friends and told everybody about it. My teacher even let me show it to the class and tell a little story about it.

On the way home from school, I started showing it to kids on the bus. Someone snatched it out of my hands and kids began passing it around from seat to seat and I kind of lost track of who had it. Eventually the photograph made it all the way to the back of the bus where the older kids sat. After they figured out it was mine, one of them ripped it in half and tossed one of the pieces out the window. Middle school football players don't have much respect for astronomy, turns out.
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Re: ICJ's photography thread

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It's funny you say that. I very stupidly brought toys and baseball cards into school. Of course the trash that I went to middle school with stole those items. What bugs me is that I just had to keep learning that lesson over and over again. It probably had some effect on me to this day. I put a lot of value in "things" and having them around. I can't recall if I had an experience of pure psychopathery like you described though.
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Re: ICJ's photography thread

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I had a James Bond car from the Spy Who Loved Me. It was the white Lotus something-or-other, the one that was also a submarine. Made by Corgi, it was super awesome with the fins that came out of the back and everything. I took that to school one day and it never came home, not with me anyway.

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