Photo and Film Expo Shoots, 2012
Thanks to all for supporting Neil Kirby, myself, the Singer Photographic crew and the incredible dancers at this year’s Photo and Film Expo at the Coca-Cola Dome. Was an honour to work with such a diverse group of talented individuals.
Neil and myself did shoots on the Tamron lens stage from Thursday 18 to Sunday 21 October using Tamron lenses, Elinchrom flash kit, PocketWizard Radio Slaves and and assortment of Manfrotto and Gitzo tripods. Always cool shooting with such amazing kit. Makes a photographer’s life much easier when you have the coolest technology at your fingertips. The ever-so-slightly-attractive dancers may also have helped facilitate the images…
Was super impressed with the new PocketWizard Plus 3’s. When shooting on location where there are often many photographers doing demo shoots, stray radio signals often activate your own slaves/flashes, wasting the Quadra or Ranger pack power, resulting in missed shots of packs that haven’t recycled after such annoying activation. The PW Plus 3’s have 32 standard channels, leaving you with a decent selection of frequencies to choose from, just in case other slaves are interfering with those of your PW’s! (Plus 3’s also have ZONE CONTROL technology and enough other features to turn this blog into a Tolkien writing…)
Of much interest during and after these shoots was the number of people who approached me for advice on how to freeze dance or simply general action. Most folks suggested having endless nightmares freezing action with their own brands of flash/strobe kit. The common theme suggested that the flash duration of their flashes was simply to slow to make for crisp action photos. This is where the Elinchrom Action heads REALLY make a difference – be it the Quadra or Ranger System, Action heads offer super short/fast flash durations, making them indispensable for any photographer wishing to freeze moving subjects.
AND, before those with S (Standard) heads have a nervous break-down… There is hope for you guys and gals out there!!
Using Elinchrom S heads with the PocketWizard TT1’s and TT5’s with their built-in Hypersync technology, owners of Elinchrom S flash heads can achieve flash sync at speeds well over 1000th/sec, using the correct setting/SLR combo’s.
This was my first shoot with the new Tamron SP 24-70mm F/2.8 Di VC USD lens. When shooting the dancers, i tried to set focus points for them to stay as close as possible to, in order to achieve a decent amount of in-focus shots. When these paramaters were met by myself and the dancers, i could not fault the sharpness of the Tamron 24-70. I shot the full 24-70mm range and resultant in-focus shots were superb. The attached low res images may be low res, but sharpness is still evident in them so be sure to go check out this lens for yourself.
Thanks for taking the time!
-Ben