.... night shoot with a single flash?

After having not done portraiture or portraiture-like shoots for such a long time, I decided to plan a shoot with a model.... she can only make it late afternoon so I decided to do something that I have not actually thought of doing so soon, a night shoot.

Armed with my camera, a 24mm, a 50mm and a 135mm... one hotshoe flash and a lightstand; we started our journey to the location of the shoot ==> Putrajaya.

The difficulty in this shoot was to:
1) get at least some background which was lit by the existing streetlights and bridge lights at location, the reflection on the water
2) get the flash output just right as to not overpower the subject
3) control & visualize how the flash is going to light up the subject

(1) was not that difficult, I just basically metered the highlights at +2 and set exposure level to something that I can still shoot handheld reliably, have the background suitably out of focus which actually meant I was shooting wide-open with the fast primes that I brought with me.

(2) is actually the most difficult aspect, shooting at f/1.2 or f/1.4 at ISO400, shutterspeed of around 1/30 or 1/50; the hotshoe flash that I brought is actually way too powerful for most shots, unless I were to place it 10-20feet away from the model. In order to place it that far, I would have to control the light precisely so that it doesn't light up the entire area spoiling the mood. I have even intentionally placed a diffuser on the flash head but that is still not quite enough... I have learnt a lesson this time, next time I shall have some "ND filters" for my flash.

(3) is basically achieved by educated guesses and a couple of test shots as hotshoe flashes do not have modeling lights to work with. By adjusting the height of the lightstand and the zoom manually on the flash head, I was able to achieve most of what I wanted to achieve in terms of light coverage.

Would you like to see more? Please visit my Flickr gallery to view image #2, #3 and #4 for this series of shots.

Canon City Expo 2007

Armed with my trusty 20D and not much to do in the morning, I thought I'd drop-by at the Canon City Expo 2007 at KL Convention Center...

Never did I imagine such a huge crowd when I arrived at 11am+, I was thinking... I would probably the only guy around, cold aircond and such with some 5-10 Canon staff loitering at the exhibition hall. And boy was I wrong!

Wasn't expecting to see the Canon International Brand Ambassador, Mr. Simon Yam as well... but I did see him and yes, in person he looks as gorgeous (I have only said this once about another man :P) as he is on TV or the newspapers. He was there for the opening ceremony, together with the Japan Ambassador to Malaysia and Ms. Ella, a local celebrity.

Anyway, as expected, Canon fielded each and every model of their digical cameras from the beginner digicam, the Powershot A460 right up to the newly announced 21MP-wonder, the 1Ds Mk.III. All of Canon's DSLR lenses are on display and available for testing as well up to and including the 600/4.0L IS.

All in all, it's a nice event... I might drop-by again tomorrow for some seminars... till then... goodbye and hope you enjoy the photos! :)