Thursday Update On 600EX-RT’s and Photoshop World Las Vegas

Good Morning Everybody,

What a day yesterday!  Whew!!!  After a 16 hour day we finally made it back to the hotel room at 10:30 PM. This is about the busiest convention in the world for LaDawn and I.  Pre-cons, programs, and booth demos really fill up the day fast.  I was really happy to hit the sofa in our hotel room last night.  But, after a good night's sleep, we're raring to go again today ;~)

A Quick Photoshop World Update

Canon 600EX-RT Speedlight Update:

One of the highlights of the trip for me was after spending 3 weeks with Canon's new 600EX-RT speedlights, I think I finally have them totally figured out.  It was at my wedding shoot out that I received the inspiration to try one more thing to see if I could get them working the way I had always expected they should.  Oh, it was also re-reading the manual one more time and discovering one sentence that pointed me to the solution I needed to have all things come together ;~) 

My goal was to see if I could get the speedlights to work as room lights at a wedding reception or any other event for that matter.  The photo above was a good first try this past Sunday.  Were they powerful enough?  What happens if they lost connectivity during the shoot, could I get them reconnected quickly?  How long would the batteries last?  Was recycle time going to be fast enough?  All these questions and more needed to be answered before I could rely on them for my next big job.

This weekend we have a family wedding where I'll get a chance to try them out again under some pretty challenging conditions.  With what I discovered on Tuesday, I'm super optimistic how they will perform. Be sure to stay tuned next week - I'm planning a full follow up report on how to get the most out of the new speedlight entries from Canon.

My Lightroom 4 Program Went Great Last Night Thanks To A  Super Crowd

Last night I had one of the last programs of the day and I was beginning to slow down after the long day.  Something happens though when you get to the room, get the computer set up, meet with several of the attendees before the program – somehow, the adrenalin kicks in and I'm ready to go.

Last night I couldn't believe the crowd we had in the room - it was one of the largest I've seen for my Lightroom program.  I personally want to thank all those who came out to be part of the fun.  The time passed quickly and before I knew it, I was running out of time - YIKES!  I still had time to cover the most important points, give away two door prizes, and visit with several of the attendees after the session.  Thanks again everybody.

Time To Party

After my program it was a quick dash over to the Peachpit Authors reception.  We made it just in time to catch a Mexican adult beverage at Borders Mexican Grill, a favorite hangout at Mandalay Bay.  We also got a chance to visit with some of the new authors like Scott Valentine and Teri Campbell.  I come to find out that Teri, who has just completed his first book on food photography lives in Cincinnati, OH - right in my neighborhood!  We decided to hook up and visit once we both got back into town.  Heck, maybe I get him to do a guest blog post at DigitalProTalk.com.  Stay tuned.

After the Peachpit party we headed over to the House of Blues for the big convention party.  The place was packed!!!! Everybody was really looking forward to another blow out performance by Big Electric Cat, Scott Kelby's band that has played at most of the PSWs these last several years.  They kicked off their set at 9:00 PM and rocked it for over an hour!! They were a huge hit with the crowd. 

After my Lightroom session, LaDawn headed back to the room to drop off computers and cameras and I knew I was in trouble when she showed up in her dancing' pants.  I'm whipped and she wants to party!  What's a guy to do - heck join in the fun, right?  We had a great time with the other PSW revelers dancing the night away, well, at least an hour of the night anyway ;~)

Today is a much slower day for us.  I’m presenting at the Peachpit booth and also have my last program scheduled for 6:00 this evening.  That will wrap the convention for us.  Then we're up bright and early on Friday to catch a flight back to Cincy.  After landing we unpack the bags, recharge the batteries, and head to Dayton, OH for the family wedding.  Whew, what a week, but still a kick!

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Hey everybody, that's it for me today.  Since we're on the run most of tomorrow, let me wish you a terrific weekend and I'll plan to see you back in Cincy bright and early on Monday morning.

See you then,  David

Quick Hit Monday: PhotoPro Expo 2013; My New Lighting Rig; & Shooting Eye-Fi To iPad3

Good Morning Everybody,

We just wrapped an easy weekend with our friends, Kent and Sarah Smith, from Columbus, Ohio. It seems all four of us were feeling a bit frazzled these last couple weeks so we decided to spend a relaxing weekend together here in Cincinnati, Ohio.  Kent and Sarah headed south after their last portrait session in Columbus and landed on our back deck around 8:30 PM Friday night. It was great to catch up with old friends.

On Saturday, after a slow-moving morning, we headed to Cincinnati and checked into the beautiful Cincinnatian Hotel – one of the best hotels in the city.  We spent a relaxing afternoon enjoying an adult beverage or two, walking the downtown area, saw an entertaining play on the Showboat Majestic, and wrapped with dinner at Morton's Steakhouse.

Sunday included another leisurely wake-up call, a relaxing breakfast at the Palace Restaurant, followed by a trip to the ball game to see our first-place Cincinnati Reds play the St. Louis Cardinals. I haven't been to a ball game in a number of years and it was kind of fun to get caught up in all the excitement. The Cincinnati Reds are fielding a good team this year (even though they lost Sunday’s game) and the fan excitement was everywhere. After the game we sadly said goodbye to our friends who headed back to Columbus – all of us still feeling a nice glow of a great weekend together.  LaDawn and I headed back to the Cincinnatian Hotel for one last relaxing night’s stay.

Personally, I think it's a good idea to take that occasional breather from the day-to-day pressures of our studio operations. Whenever we all get together, not only is it good times with lots of laughs, it's also a rich experience sharing ideas, techniques problem solving…. that further help both Kent and I enrich our studio’s growth.

Announcing PhotoPro Expo 2013 - The Best Photography Event In The Midwest!

I know that I've been MIA for the last couple of days with lots of projects I needed to get completed before the weekend. The biggest project on my plate was launching PhotoPro Expo 2013. PhotoPro Expo 2013 will be the largest photographic event in the Midwest happening next February 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 2013. 

Our talent lineup is unbelievable. Already confirmed to appear are Joe McNally, Julieanne Kost, Rick Sammon, Zach and Jody Gray, Kent and Sarah Smith, Alex Buono, Kevin Kubota, and nearly 20 additional speakers making next year's convention one of the most ambitious educational events available anywhere. PPE13 will also be the largest photo trade show in the Midwest with over 100 booths to visit. Mark your calendars now and plan to attend this exciting event.

The cost for this photographic extravaganza is only $129 until September 30, 2012. After that the price will revert back to its $179 normal price. If you want to take advantage of the biggest and best photographic event in the Midwest please head over to the PhotoPro Expo 2013 website right here where you can get all the details. The site is about 85% complete at this time but I plan to have it finished by the end of the week. Still, don't hesitate about registering for next year's terrific convention. I'll fill you in all the details as the days pass by. If you have any questions, you can call our Executive Director, Randy Fraley at 606-571-1908.  He'll be able to answer any of your questions.

Check Out My New Portable Lighting Rig

That's right, I'm completely revamping my lighting rig for shooting weddings. As you know, I've been experimenting with Canon’s Speedlite 600EX-RT these last couple weeks and I'm slowly getting a handle on how they work. I used them to photograph a small wedding about 10 days ago and everything went great. This coming weekend I've a huge 12 hour event in which I  plan to give these three little speed light gems a real workout.

Hopefully, over the next few days, I’ll finish testing the high-speed sync characteristics of the Canon speed lights. I plan to have some news later in the week.

Because of the capabilities of the higher ISO camera I'm using  –  the Canon 5D Mark III – I know I'll be able to get by with much less light output than what I would normally need. That should make the 60 watt-seconds of power I get from Canon’s 600 EX – RT speed lights adequate for most of the photography I'll be doing.

If I need more power I picked up an Interfit Tri Shoe Adapter that will hold up to three of the speed lights. The three Canon speed lights used in conjunction with each other will give me a total of 180 watt-seconds of light. That's actually even more powerful than my Quantum T5d that I've used for many, many years.

My thought is that when I need a powerful off-camera flash, all three of the Canon 600 EX – RT speed lights should fill the bill for me. For most of the reception shooting I'm confident that I can get by with one flash on camera and two other flashes set up to illuminate the dance floor as I described at DigitalProTalk in a recent post [link].

The challenge for me in using these new strobes is the learning curve. Not only am I looking at nearly a dozen buttons on the back of the new strobe, there are now four separate menus to also scroll through to take advantage of the full functionality of the Canon speed lights. But, it's like anything else – once you get the hang of it, the operation is really quite efficient.

Using Eye-Fi Card, Canon 5D Mark III, & iPad3 Almost Magical

One thing I love about my Canon 5D Mark III camera is the fact that it accepts a SDHC card in the second card slot of the camera. I've been using the 32 gig SanDisk card as my backup card for all of my photography sessions. I picked up one of the Eye-Fi 8 gig SDHC Pro X2 wireless cards last year and was hoping to be able to make it work in my Canon 7D camera. That never really came to fruition so the card is been languishing in a drawer in my office. I've talked with some other photographers that have reported decent success in making the Eye-Fi 8 gig SDHC Pro X2 work in their Canon 5D Mark III  so I’ve decided to also give it a try.

My intention is to shoot with the Eye-Fi 8 gig SDHC Pro X2 card and have it transmit images to my iPad 3. This is extremely useful for photographers, particularly high school senior photographers or family photographers, because you can hand off the iPad 3 to your client and have the client see exactly how the session is proceeding. The process offers a great sizzle factor to any photography sessions. My early experiences with the Eye-Fi 8 gig SDHC Pro X2 card have been mixed. Once I get the Eye-Fi card to pair up with the iPad 3, everything seems to work just fine. It's simply getting the Eye-Fi card to pair up that has been the problem.

I purchased my iPad 3 from Verizon so I would have the capability of having the iPad 3 act as a hotspot. Having a hotspot functionality built into the iPad 3, I felt would make it easy for the Eye-Fi card to pair with the iPad and easily transmit the images into  the ShutterSnitch application I have installed.

As I said, the pairing of the Eye-Fi card to the iPad 3 has been a bit problematic. The problem occurs in trying to get the hotspot to go “live”. My workaround, so far, has been to use my iPhone first to see the iPad hotspot and then connect to it. This takes a few tries – I think the problem is the wireless we have in the studio jammed the iPad 3 hotspot.  The connection is not immediate, it has a few second delay, as I would like it to be. But, after fiddling with it for a while, and after several tries, I finally get my connection with my iPhone.

Once a hotspot is activated and working, it's quite easy then to get the Eye-Fi card to pair with a hotspot and transmit the images directly to the iPad 3. I plan to be working with this hardware/software combination at Photoshop World next week during my Wedding Pre-Con. I'll provide additional details as they become available on how to make this potentially very useful scenario work for you as well.

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Hey gang, that's it for me today. I want to get back to work on the PhotoPro Expo 2013 website so that you have all the details when you check it out. Everybody have a great rest of the day and I'll see you soon.

Adios, David

Technique Tuesday: Happy B-Day & New Orleans Wedding Shoot – Part Two

Good Afternoon Everybody,

First off, let me thank everyone for all the birthday wishes that came pouring in from around the world.  I read each and everyone of them and really THANK YOU all for the very kind thoughts. Yes, it’s another year older for me today – should I try that box of Grecian Formula or not ;~) All joking aside, a person is as old as they feel and I really don’t feel as old as I’m suppose to be.  I think it comes down to how one embraces life, always looking on the bright side, and always embracing all the new challenges that we sometimes must face.

This past weekend, after all the trials and tribulations of dealing with 3 cancelled Delta flights, and all the frustrations in trying to get my daughter, Elizabeth into town, I can happier report that we all had a great weekend even though it was much shorter than expected.  The highlight of the weekend had to be the trip to Kings Island and the marathon riding of the coasters. 

I remember a few years ago, I mentioned to LaDawn that I felt my coaster days were over. I was heading into that 6th decade of my life and felt like I was needing to slow down.  Part of those feelings were due to the extra weight I had put on and an overall felling of losing some of my never-ending energy. 

But about 4 months ago a few students in my Master Class and I were discussing getting and staying in shape. They convinced me it was my time to take the “bull by the horns” and do something about how I was feeling. The following week I began my journey to do just that. Now 4 months later I’m walking 7-8 miles a day, eating sensibly, and am currently 50 pounds lighter than I was at the beginning of my journey 4 months ago.  I felt alive again – and ready for the Kings Island coasters!!!

Now you have to picture this.  I am quite literally the “most senior” person in all the coaster lines.  I read with trepidation all the cautions about riding the coasters with bad backs or necks, high blood pressure, and the myriad listing of ailments that I probably have to some degree or another.  But, none of that deters me away from a great coaster ride. And, I want the front car too!!

Anyway, this weekend showed me that I have a few more years in me to ride the great coasters of the world and I can’t wait!!! Alright gang, time to get back to our regularly scheduled feature – Technique Tuesday.

Technique Tuesday: New Orleans Wedding Shoot – Part Two

As I’ve previously mentioned, we had a great time in New Orleans a few weeks ago. My wedding shoot-out was a kick because I got the opportunity to shoot with the new Canon 600 EX-RT speedlites and I really put them through their paces. In my first post about my shooting experience [link1], I covered a lot of details about the strobes. I also posted two other very informative articles covering my use of the strobes that you can find right here - [link2 and link3].

In today's shoot I will walk you through several more images from that session. As I review the series of images I’ll discuss the lighting, the exposure, and the compositional challenges we faced during that shoot. I was thrilled with the results that I was getting.  During that class-time, the bride had her mother with her, so I shared all the images with her mother as well as with the bride.  The bride and her mother were both ecstatic over the results.  

Why not hit the PLAY button below and let me share a few more those images with you here today.  I think you'll enjoy the show.

Other links discussed in today’s post:

Quick Hit Monday: My First Day With Canon 600EX-RT Speedlights–WOW!

Technique Tuesday On Wednesday: New Orleans Wedding Shoot - Part 1

Bonus Post: Canon 600EX-RT Works Great For Reception Photography

Canon 600 EX-RT speedlite info: [link]

David Ziser’s 42” Zumbrella: [link]

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Hey gang, that's it for this Birthday Boy today.

Have a great rest of the day and I'll see you soon, David

"Big Easy Afternoon"

"Big Easy Afternoon"
© David A. Ziser

I love this image of our bride photographed in the hotel lobby.  The large lobby offered a great space for this very elegant bridal portrait.  The challenge was with the lighting.  I wanted to still pick up some of the color in the sky you see in the distant window and had to be careful to select the exposure settings that would not blow out the detail in the sky.

I also knew I had some software solutions up my sleeve that might help achieve my goal. Yep, Lightroom 4 could be called upon to help save the day so I made the exposure knowing I had LR4 in my back pocket to help me get to my finished result.

The initial exposure showed a way too dark background.  I decided to add an accent light coming in from camera right and slightly behind the subject. The added light and slowing down the shutter speed helped opened up the background.

The lighting on the bride coming in from camera left and the other lighting considerations above gave me a very simple, yet elegantly portrait of our beautiful bride.

Camera specs: Canon 5D Mark lll fitted with Sigma 12-24mm lens at 24mm, F10 @ 1/50 second, ISO 200.  Enjoy!  David

Quick Hit Monday – New Canon Flash News; Another New Camera??; Inspirational Photography; and More!

Good Morning Everybody,

Hey gang, I'm stoked this morning - we are kicking off my 5-day Digital Master Class/Workshop.  The batteries are charged - mine included,  workbooks are printed, models are ready to go, we've selected all the locations , and my coaches are waiting in the wings ready to assist for another great week.  And, the weather looks like it's going to hold for our shooting sessions too - always a good thing for a workshop;~)  Of course, I'll keep you posted with our progress throughout the week.

Anyway, before I get to class, I've got a few HOT links for you to check out for today's Quick Hit Monday.  Here we go...

Canon 5D Mark III & 600EX-RT Flash Update!

I was doing my web cruise over the weekend and saw that my blogging buddy and good friend, Syl Arena, just nabbed three of Canon's NEW, not yet released in the US, 600EX-RT (for radio control) strobes from his European Canon connection!  Hey Syl, I wish we all had connections like that ;~)

Here is the deal'; Syl ran the strobe units through about every test and shooting situation you could possibly put those "flash puppies" through and reports on his experience in these next two links.  Enjoy!  Hey Syl, can I play with them when you're finished?

-First Impressions: Testing Canon’s New Speedlight 600EX-RT & Speedlight Transmitter ST-E3-R: [link]

 

-Video: Hands-On With The Canon 600EX-RT Speedlight & ST-E3-RT Speedlight Transmitter: [link]

 

Ok, you know how I'm blown away with the High ISO abilities of the new Canon camera.  Check out this video over at YouTube that once again shows amazing results of some high ISO night videos captured with the new camera - amazing!!

-Canon 5D Mark III High ISO Performance Tested at Night: [link]

How About Some Inspiration Photography to Get Your Week Off To A Great Start

40 Gorgeous Photographs of Wedding Couples: Some really nice images and some good ideas too. [link]

Absolutely creative people photography by Elox:  Very exciting and captivating images - worth the trip. [link]

PDN's 30 2012: New and Emerging Photographers to Watch:  Check out each of these photographers - some absolutely amazing images!!! [link]

Is This My Next Camera?

A few weeks ago I blogged about how I shot some HD video at a recent wedding and then used Lightroom 4 Frame Capture feature to nab the best frames - in JPEG, of course.  I then used those frame grabs to design in Lightroom 4 some cool wedding album pages for the client.  The size limitation of the frame grab let's me get, just barely, up to an 8x10 image. [link]

So have you checked out Canon's latest 4K Cinema EOS C500/C500 PL digital cinematography camera announcement? [link]  What’s a 4K camera? It's a video camera that captures 4x the resolution of the 5d Mk 3.  It can output quad full-HD (3840 x 2160) 10 bit RAW video stream.  Now were getting serious!  With that kind of resolution, I suspect you’ll have the ability to output some amazing images from those frame grabs!

Does this mean the end to still photography as we know it? I would think not. But just wait until the price drops and more photographers capture images from video grabs.  Looks like a brand new way of thinking and capturing images to me.    Here is the entire story right here.  What do you think?

Some Cool Lightroom 4 and Photoshop Tidbits For You

Advanced Portrait Retouch on a Male Subject in Lightroom 4 – Part 1 of 3:  This is a hit-it-out-of-the-park LR4 tutorial.  It's well thought out and makes some great points about how to use many of the new features of the recently released Lightroom 4. Definitely worth the trip. [link]

Colorize a Black and White Photo in Photoshop: This is an utterly fascinating tutorial on how to colorize a black and white image.  The walk through of the techniques is definitely worth the visit. [link]

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Hey gang, that should get you going for the week.   Once again we have an international student roster which always makes the  Master Class even more exciting and informational as we explore weddings from other parts of the world.  After the class today, it's back to our home for our Welcome Party.  It's a fabulous way to begin the week and allows everyone get to know each other in a casual atmosphere.  On that note gang, I've got to get moving - class starts shortly. Have a great rest of the day and I'll see everyone tomorrow for another brand new Technique Tuesday.

See ya' then,  David