Hi ISO

Day 55

 Tonight I went to Circular Quay/Darling Harbor to check out a restaurant that I am going to shoot a party in. It's a real nice joint in the the Harborside centre. I was mostly going to check out things that will effect/ruin my chances of getting goods images... and there's a lot of those :) The dinner is to be held on the balcony. If the weather is fair, the event will be held with the roof retracted, which means no roof to bonce flash off. There is only 1 wall, and it is a glass window :)

So this leaves me with a mission to find a way to reliably and pleasingly photograph a couple and their guests, in less than ideal lighting. As will always be the way. The other fun thing is that until 7:30pm, the sun will be reflecting off the city opposite (or behind me in this photo above), meaning the light behind most of my subjects will be super-bright, and I will have to find a way of matching that artificially. There's a "magic" half hour where the sky-light is beautiful, and the ambient light is JUST enough to shoot and get nice images.. well, at least on my 5DmkII. The 60D will struggle. After that magic 30 minutes, it will be dark with no roof.

Of course, if it rains I will have a roll out white roof. But it's no fun for a family to choose such a beautiful spot if it rains, so I can hardly "hope" for that.

Above is a single shot at high ISO of 3200, f/4, 1/10s. I really should have increased the iso and closed the lens aperture a bit, but this image surprised me anyway - such depth, and no noise correction software used at all. The 5D might be an oldy, but is surely is STILL a goody.

Just a handheld snap of fireworks. Some motion blur, oh well.

Mmmmmmm

Day 35

This is health-food-Sunday. I think amongst all that cheese, saturated fat and high GI pizza base there might be a hint of tomato...

Today was a stinker. Probably the first day in 25 years I have put on shorts and a beater and just sat at home. No Sunday Bunnings trips or anything like that. Thanks to Vids I got a bit of a sleep in, but the bed kicked me out, and I still needed more sleep. The plan is to go to bed a little earlier everyday... ie sometime before 1am would be a big step in the right direction.

Vivek has been good all day. He went to Balvihar classes this morning with kids heaps older, did his stuff and came home. Spent most the day lounging and chatting with us. We were both flat, so we were very happy that he was entertaining himself. The iPad helps a bit too. For dinner we decided to get some Pizza - something we rarely do. Sort the icing on a lazy day.

No complaints from the boy, as you can see.

Softboxes at 10 and 2, silver reflective brolly at 5, high. Bare flash at wall with blue gel. All flashes YN460II triggered by Phottix Strato

neighborly chef - Day 13

This is Sarva. He's a good mate and a neighbor. Today we had the pleasure of his company, along with the company of his family.  Our boys get on real well, so having these guys over is a treat for us all. Sarva is an awesome guest, and he loves to cook. And boy he can cook some nice tucker. This photo I managed to get some OCF gear into the kitchen, take about 4 pics, then bail out. Sarva cooks without recipes, and purely by his nose. Some of his dishes are heavenly. The rest are damn wonderful.

Softbox 10:00, softbox 4:00, bare flash bounced off roof at 2:00. This was taken after 3 glasses of wine, so image-stabiliser was working overtime :)

Canon EF 24-105mm f/4L IS at f/8 I think. Some PS to bring up light in background and sharpen details a bit. Tried a bit of a comical "super-real" effect here. Like it :)