All posts by Passy

Nature

Autumn With My Nieces

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This Autumn in Melbourne photoshoot was done on Mothers Day when my Nieces were visiting for Lunch.

The idea was to get some Autumn Leaves shots, as well as try out the Sony A-77 Multishot function, with the girls throwing leaves into the air and doing Star Jumps.

The pictures were taken late in the afternoon around 4:30pm, to obtain nice skin tones on the girls, as well as have maximum sunlight shining through the leaves.

The leaves pictures worked well, but with the multishot for the Star Jumps, about every third picture was blurry and looked out of focus. Maybe this was because the daylight was getting weaker, or perhaps I did not have something set up properly on the camera for the Multishot.

 

A full Flickr Gallery of the Autumn Pictures can be viewed here:

Flickr Photo Gallery of Autumn Leaves and My Nieces

 

EQUIPMENT:

Sony Alpha A-77
Tamron 24-70mm F2.8

This was my first shoot using the Multishot Function on the A-77, and apart from some photos which blurred, the results were reasonably good.

Multishot is something I need to experiment with a bit more. It might work a lot better in full daylight conditions.

The adjustable to all angles LCD screen on the A-77 is brilliant. I used it to photograph looking upwards to the sky through tree leaves on some shots. For my Nieces Star Jumps I was able to have the camera sitting on the ground, and then fully compose the shot in the tilted LCD to produce maximum jump height effect.

For the Autumn Leaves, it worked really well to shoot these in the late afternoon, when the sun was shining through the leaves on the trees, producing nice full colors.

Pictures were taken in fully Automatic Mode, and the camera produced pleasing results.

The photo taken looking directly into the sun was tricky, and it took about four attempts to get the right amount of flaring.

The vibrance of the color produced by Sony Cameras is awesome, and this is one of the main reasons I love shooting with Sony Equipment.

 

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Enjoy,
Passy

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Cover Bands

Shazam at Beaches

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Shazam are a brilliant party band who gets everyone up dancing. Talented musicians with a great repertoire of crowd pleasing covers.

This was our first photoshoot of this Band, and our first shoot using the new Sony HVL-F43M Flash unit.

A full Flickr Gallery of Photos can be viewed at this link:

Flickr Photo Gallery of Shazam at Beaches

 

Further information about Shazam can be found at their Facebook Page:

Shazam Facebook Page

You can also check out Shazam’s Website at this link:

Shazam Melbourne Website

 

EQUIPMENT:

Sony Alpha A-77
Tamron 17-50mm F2.8
Sony 35mm F1.8 Portrait Lens
Sony HVL-F43M Flash
Stofen Diffuser.

In this shoot I followed the general approach I am currently using for shoots at Beaches. Everything is shot as JPEG, and mostly in full Manual Mode.

Step 1 is to get some low light no flash band pictures using the 35mm F1.8 fixed lens. About 1 in 6 of these shots work out, but I use the good ones in the middle of the final photo album to break things up a bit. I am still getting a lot of “Martian” and “Smurfs” photos from this, but these are real images of what the lighting was really like at the gig.

Step 2 is to attach the flash and diffuser and do some more band shots, as well as “Party People” shots of venue patrons for the Beaches Facebook page.

Most band shots were taken at ISO 1000, with shutter fixed at 1/125th or even 1/250th. Party People shots were taken at ISO 1000, with aperture priority used, so that aperture of 4.5 or 5.0 could be used for group shots to try and get everyone in focus.

For this gig, I tried using the EVF viewfinder, rather than the LCD screen for “chimping” (eg. for checking shots). The pictures looked great in the EVF, but when I loaded them onto the laptop the next day, they were a lot brighter than I was expecting.

The new Sony Flash has zoom lens adjustments, such as 24mm, 50mm, 110mm. I am assuming these govern how wide the flash beam goes out, and also focuses its power on a small area at 110mm?

It also has easy to access Power Levels in fractions as 1/1, 1/2, 1/4, 1/16, 1/32 etc, as light intensity in physics follows an inverse square relationship. I understand the maths, but I have not figured out the optimal settings for people pics yet. A lot of the People Pics were way too bright.

Another interesting thing is that I am shooting my people pics at 1/125th of a second, but several YouTube videos and Forums say to do nightclub people pics at super low speeds of 1/10, 1/20, or 1/30, as the Flash in manual mode will freeze the action. I will have to try out these low shutter speeds, and see what happens, even though it does not feel quite right.

This is the first time I have used the Sony Flash, and I set it tilted up at 45 degrees, with a Stofen cap diffuser from my old Yongnuo flash on it, since Sony do not provide you with one.

Sony also do not provide the hotshoe adapter needed for the A-77, and so I had to rush out to the Sony Shop in Nunawading to grab one of these a few hours before the gig.

I reckon Sony should give you a Stofen diffuser with the flash, and throw in the adapter as well. Even cheap Chinese Yongnuo give you everything you need with their flash.

I am still to try out my Gary Fong Light Sphere, and the Gary Fong Blade Card Diffuser, but hope to give them ago as soon as I get the opportunity.

It is challenging at the moment with Flash photography, trying to get the settings and diffusers right, but once I figure it out, it will hopefully become a set and forget.

The next step will then be to get a copy of Adobe Lightroom, and start shooting in Raw; as all the professionals say that Raw + Lightroom is the way to go. It sounds like Lightroom has the ability to make adjustment presets, which greatly speed up post processing and touch ups.

 

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Enjoy,
Passy

Venue Photos

People at Beaches

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Everybody loves having their photo taken by Passy !

Currently Photos by Passy has ongoing work doing Venue Photos for Beaches of Mornington.

The brief is to get plenty of Party People pictures for the venue’s Facebook page, in between doing Band Photos.

Beaches is a nightlife venue in Melbourne, and has an older crowd who love to listen and dance to live music.

Most people are happy to have their photo taken, and many of them have a great eye for the camera, and require no posing, which makes getting the shots easy.

Where all the work is when the Photos are post-processed, and a lot of air brushing, and removal of background items and people is required. This is very time consuming, but the results and the thanks we receive from people next time we see them at the Venue makes it all worthwhile.

 

A full Flickr Gallery of Photos can be viewed at this link:

Flickr Photo Gallery of People at Beaches

 

If you find a photo you would like to download or save from the Beaches Flickr Album, then click on the following link for step by step instructions on how to do this.

How to Download and Save Photos from Flickr

 

Further information about Beaches can be found on their Website:

Beaches of Mornington Website

 

EQUIPMENT:

Sony Alpha A-77II
Sony 16-50mm SSM F2.8
Sony HVL-F43M Flash
Gary Fong Gamma Blade Diffuser

Adobe Photoshop CS 5.5

Party People shots are taken at ISO 800 to ISO 1600, with aperture priority used, so that aperture of 4.5 or 5.0 or 5.6 can be used for group shots to try and get everyone in focus. Individual or Groups of two shots are taken at an Aperture of F2.8 or slightly higher.

There is very time consuming post processing in Photoshop removing wrinkles, crows, feet, sunspots and freckles, as this is an older age venue, and flash is very unforgiving. In addition there are often photo bombers, or drunk people being very silly, who need to be blurred out or removed from the background of some photos.

 

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Enjoy,
Passy

MelBdayFeature836x463
Birthday Parties

Mel’s 18th Birthday

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Recently we did the Photos for a young lady’s 18th Birthday party.

The event was outdoors and indoors with a great Marquis area setup for sit down eating, complete with Popcorn and FairyFloss Maker.

This made for some great color and photos.

 

A full Flickr Gallery of Photos can be viewed at this link:

Flickr Photo Gallery of Mel’s 18th Birthday

 

The full photo gallery can also be found on the Photos By Passy Facebook Page:

Photos By Passy Facebook Page

 

EQUIPMENT:

Sony Alpha A-77
Tamron 24-70mm F2.8
On Board Sony Flash (for fill flash)

Most shots were taken with the camera set to an automatic “Portrait Mode” using the SCN setting on the Sony A-77.

Due to the bright sunlight, we knew that we would need to do Fill Flash to blast away sharp shadows on People’s faces.

We were set up to go with the Yongnuo Flash and a Gary Fong Lightsphere Diffuser; however Yongnuo incompatibility problems arose and the flash refused to communicate with the camera, and would not flash in any shooting mode, even with forced fill flash turned on.

This meant we were forced to use the Sony A-77’s inbuilt flash, with no diffuser, but surprisingly it did a reasonable job.

Many shots were a bit overexposed, but this was easily fixed during post-processing in Photoshop.

There was a problem with people squinting in sunlight, but we did our best to reposition subjects in their poses to avoid this.

Taking photos inside a Jumping Castle was also a difficult job fraught with danger!

We were very happy with the performance of the Tamron 24-70mm lens, coupled with Portrait mode on the A-77. This combination produced some very nice soft but reasonably sharp portrait shots.

 

For the party someone had made a nice portable painted cardboard picture frame, that people could hold around them while photos were taken.

When we saw this Photo Frame, we thought it would be a good idea to have a dark uniform background to do the frame pictures in, but it turned out that this was a bad idea.

We wasted a fair amount of time and effort trying to setup a good photobooth area to do handheld frame shots in. It turned out that it was better to just wander around the event, and grap people weherever they were and get them to hold the frame around them and snap the shot.

Something else we need to watch out for at parties, are bright yellow power extrension leads draped all ove3r the place. They are very bright, stand out strongly in photos, and are very hard to photoshop out during post processing.

 

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Passy

TwoPhaseFeature836x463
Cover Bands

Two Phase at Beaches

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Pete and Trev, who form the Duo called “Two Phase”, are one of my favorite Friday Night acts at the Beaches venue.

I especially like Trevor’s Nils Lofgren look with bandana, and his guitar solos are smooth and effortless and sound great!

Pete is very thorough with the sound from his PA, and the backing tracks sound just like additional Band Members playing.

This was a special gig, with Pete playing Conga Drums for a few of the songs, such as Lionel Ritchie “All Night Long”.

 

A Gallery of Photos of the April 24th gig can be viewed at this link:

Flickr Photo Gallery of Two Phase at Beaches on April 24th 2014

 

Two Phase have been playing at Beaches for over 20 years, and there is a Photo Album I did in 2013, using my Panasonic Lumix LX7 Low Light Camera.

The Flickr Gallery of Photos of the Two Phase 20 Year Anniversary gig can be viewed at this link:

Flickr Photo Gallery of Two Phase 20 Years at Beaches

 

Further information about Two Phase can be found at their Facebook Page:

Two Phase Facebook Page

 

EQUIPMENT:

Sony Alpha A-77
Tamron 17-50mm F2.8
Sony 35mm F1.8 Portrait Lens
Yongnuo YN460 Flash

In this shoot I followed the general approach I am currently using for shoots at Beaches. Step 1 is to get some low light no flash band pictures using the 35mm F1.8 fixed lens. About 1 in 6 of these shots work out, but I use the good ones in the middle of the final photo album to break things up a bit. Step 2 is to attach the flash and diffuser and do some more band shots, as well as “Party People” shots of venue patrons for the Beaches Facebook page.

Most band shots were taken at ISO 1000, with shutter fixed at 1/125th. Party People shots were taken at ISO 1250, with aperture priority used, so that aperture of 4.5 or 5.0 could be used for group shots to try and get everyone in focus.

The interesting thing is that looking back at the 2013 album done with the Lumix-LX7, I should probably take it along to Beaches Gigs and do some ground level side of stage dance floor shots with it. When I get my black Cargo Pants with a zillion pockets, I will consider doing this.

 

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Enjoy,
Passy