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On our trip to Cyprus I brought a book written by Joe McNally, The Hot Shoe Diaries: Big Light from Small Flashes.

A book about the use of small flashes (Speedlights). Joe McNally describes how he uses these small flashes in real life situations. He has a pleasant way of writing and seems to have more than enough experience to deal with most problems which you can encounter while in need of light during a photo shoot.

For me this was by far the best book I’ve ever read on flash photography. Written in a very educating way, while it keeps you very well entertained, so you are hungry for more.

Are you into flash photography? Then you need to have this book in your collection.

Paperback: 320 pages
Publisher: New Riders Press; 1 edition (March 13, 2009)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0321580141
ISBN-13: 978-0321580146

To visit Joe McNally’s website follow this link

Flowers August 2009

I have been playing with water and flowers (again). I love how these little water drops act as lenses.

Equipped my Canon 5D with the MP-E 65mm and handheld the 580EX mark II connected to my 5D with the new E-TTL off shoe cable.

Got the plant spray and started to spay some sunflowers. Behind the sunflowers I placed some Spanish daisies. Everything ready to go.

The trick is to make sure that you get enough light on the flower that you are looking at trough the water drop while you also have sufficient light to light your foreground. Focus trough the water drop and your done. Be aware that the drop actually acts as a lens so everything will be upside-down. And they act as a wide angle lens so make sure you get your background cleaned up. (Something I tend to forget once in a while)

In the gallery you will also find some other shots from the same session. Hope you like them.

HDR Cyprus 2009

While we were in Cyprus I was looking for a subject to test my new mini travel tripod from Redged. This little tripod is only 20 centimeters when folded and is strong enough to hold my 5D with battery grip. I bought it with a mini ball head which is also strong enough for my 5D.

But the question was still unanswered, what to do?

On Cyprus there are many locations that have a rocky landscape or even caves. Also many monasteries and churches can be found. All good subjects for HDR.

So I tried some different locations, some worked better than others, but I had some good results. My main issue is to get the right settings in Photomatix and Adobe Photoshop. Sometimes I get it completely wrong, and once in a while (when I am lucky) I get it right. So I still need to practice more.

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When we returned from our holiday our house was invaded by insects. (my mom likes to leave all the doors open). Even the toilet was occupied by a new little friend.

A weevil decided to start living there. I managed to capture him and held him till the next day. We had some sunflowers on the kitchen table and I just bought an E-TTL sync cable of 2 meter to time to play.

Took my gear – Canon 5D, 580EX II Flash, 100mm macro 1x, and the MP-E 65mm.

I placed the weevil on the yellow petals of the sunflower and started to experiment with the position of the flash. My little friend didn’t took long to gain enough energy to become very active and after a while he started to look for a new house between the petals. So hard to light with the 580EX. But I still managed to get some good shots.

I was just wondering why I always manage to get yellow backgrounds when I photograph weevils…..? Dunno, maybe I just like the color combination of weevil brown and yellow. This reminds me; make sure you never forget to pay enough attention to your background. It is very simple to use the color of nearby flowers or the blue of the sky. If it is not possible to use these you can always use colored paper or anything else with color. Personally I prefer a bright color instead of the black background you see most of the time in close-up photographs.

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While I was packing for our trip to Cyprus I doubted if I should bring my 100mm 1x Macro lens. I’m glad I did, because in the area surrounding our apartment there were a lot of mantises.

I never had seen one before in real life and at first I was real careful, not knowing if I would scare them or if they would scare me…

As soon as I approached them, they would turn their head into my direction so I had to move slowly otherwise they would flee. I was amazed by their appearance and it was a joy to photograph them. Especially because it looked like they were looking you straight into your eyes.

I only brought my Speedlight so no macro flash. So the lighting is not what I hoped for.

The only option I had was to equip my omni bounce and hope that the light would spread enough. This was not always the case but luckily I also had some good results.

[Canon 5D, 100mm f/2.8, no flash]

Travel

Finaly I took the time to update my travel gallery. Almost everything is in there dating back to 1988. Just follow this link to see the gallery. I still need to update 2007 but that will be done soon.

Untill 1994 it’s all black and white, and from there on I started to use color. I actually can’t remember the moment when I decided to make the switch but it is cool to see the difference, and also the switch to digital in 2000 (first compact and later DSLR(2004)). All memories….

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Last week I did some editing on old photo’s of Nicki, and I decided to combine them in a collection on the site. (Just click on the photo to see the collection.) I did not much editing, just transformed them to black and white with Adobe Lightroom. For some I used the Silver Efex Pro from Nik Software