LED light review f7 pocketlite fold

LED light review f7 pocketlite fold

Got a chance to play with a new LED light called the PocketLite Fold. I had the previous model F7 PocketLite and here’s a review from last year. I like them both. But, I like the Fold more than twice as much. It has twice the light and a built in control from the phone APP DeSal Lite which you can download to control your lights at no additional charge.

Having a small, powerful light is a good thing to have in your kit. This will work super as a fill light, a special effects color light and creative tool. If you are not at a far distance it will even serve as a main light. I measured 1/30th of a second at f/2.8 ISO 200 at four feet. The beauty of working with LED lights is WYSIWYG. What you see is what you get.

Yours in Creative Photography,         Bob

Olympus livecomp mode and fireworks

Olympus livecomp mode and fireworks

The Olympus cameras now have a feature called LIVECOMP. This is short for live composite. You set a base exposure and then the camera repeats that exposure but only allows new light to be added. You get to view this as it is happening live, hence the name, which allows you to stop the exposure when you have gathered all the information you need.

Most current Olympus cameras have the feature. You’ll find Live Composite Mode in OM-D, PEN and TOUGH cameras.

Why LIVECOMP?

olympus fireworks photo

All images in this posy Olympus OM-D E-M1 Mark III with M.Zukio 40-150mm f/2.8 lens. F/11 4 SEC ISO 100

If you need more time to capture the light effects of your scene and were to increase your exposure time the dark areas of your image would begin to become muddy and over exposed. It is definitely a specialty feature, but one that has some great uses. For example, keeping your frame exposed to catch lightning, car trails, carnival rides and fireworks. I’ll let you imagine the others but I’m going to share some settings and images made during the fireworks from the fourth of July.

Fireworks

olympus fireworks photo

F/14 4 SEC ISO 100

With the camera firmly mounted on a Fotopro Eagle E6L tripod I found the base exposure. I was looking to render the building lights and allow the fireworks to be against a dark sky. Knowing from past experience the fireworks would have time to streak in the sky showing the burst if they had about three to eight seconds ISO 100 @ f/8. I choose four seconds for my base exposure. Once I started seeing results on the camera back I made adjustments to the aperture to allow the fireworks to record just a bit more color and changing to f/11 then f/14.

Single frame capture

olympus fireworks photo

F/14 4 SEC ISO 100

Normally, to get multiple bursts in a single frame I combine images in post-production. With the LIVECOMP in play each image you see here was done in camera. The shutter was opened and recorded a four second exposure with the shutter still open additional four second exposures were recorded adding only the new bursts of light. When I saw enough bursts were captured I ended the exposure.

Next time

In the next fireworks post I’ll share settings for automatic recording of captures using the time-lapse mode of the Lumix G9.

Yours in Creative Photography,   Bob

restart posting with an article on fireworks

restart posting with an article on fireworks

My writing for the Successful-Photographer blog has been lagging a bit. I’ve been writing for many different publications including Photofocus.com and photography magazines. I’m sort of reminded of the story about the cobblers children having no shoes. Or, on an even more personal note, my dad was a TV repair man always off to help other folks get their sets tuned correctly when I didn’t know that other people in the world didn’t have a green cast. Kidding aside I want to get my home base back to work.

Start off with fireworks

And, what better way to get things going than to set this first new post off with some fireworks??

fireworks cottonwood arizona 2020

Four images combined in post production. Captured with Lumix GX85 and the G Vario 100-300mm f3.5-5.6 lens at 100mm. Exposure f/8 four sec at ISO 200

On July 4th Cottonwood, AZ, the next town over from Sedona had a fireworks display. And, in honor of the state of Covid-19 they used all aerial shells so people could spread out to enjoy the night of colors streaking across the sky.

It worked it very well. I’ll share some ideas on capturing your fireworks for next year with some new things I learned. (you may want to bookmark this page) I’ll share my set-up for using three cameras on this post. The next two posts will be on the Olympus LIVECOMP setting and making a time-lapse.

Three tripods

Three tripods for three cameras

Three tripods set close together allows for different looks.

On to the set-up with three cameras mounted on tripods. Two were standard and I added a Joby Gorillapod with legs wrapped around one of the taller tripod legs.

Joby Gorilla tripod holds the Lumix GX85 camera

Two of the cameras were set for capturing five second exposures with a one second delay using the time lapse mode. Somehow one of the cameras got off its time-lapse mode and I ended up firing it by hand. The third camera was the Olympus E-M1 Mark III which was set to LIVECOMP mode which I’ll detail in the next post.

Yours in Creative Photography,   Bob

LED lite review

LED lite review

I had the opportunity to get my hands on an LED light from FALCONEYES. It’s the F7 Pocketlite. You can see my thoughts below but the short answer is I like it. 97 Color Rendering Index and a good size and power as a fill or main light in a pinch.

I’ve often heard the expression the best images are made with the camera that you have with you. This light is small enough to have with you all the time.

Here is my Falconeyes F7 Amazon link if you want to get more info.

Yours in Creative Photography,      Bob

lumix pro services

lumix pro services

Lumix Professional Services

Panasonic is working toward serving the professional photography market in an exceptional way. As you probably know they have come out with two full frame mirrorless cameras (shipping in April) adding to their micro 4/3rds line. If you pre-order a full frame camera from Hunt’s Photo Video before April 4th you’ll get an extra battery and battery grip at no extra charge. (tell ’em I sent you if you would be so kind)

Just received my Lumix Pro Services welcome packet. It includes all the deals, contact information and membership card. They started this program last year and I used it for the first time myself just this week.

Service was as advertised. I received a Fed-Ex label for overnight shipping. Contact immediately when they received the camera and verified the problem. (the rubber from the SD card door was coming up) They again contacted me right away to let me know it was a warranty repair. The door was replaced and the camera was returned via Fed-Ex overnight.

Wahoo!

lumix pro-servicesLumix Pro Services Welcome Packet * Note does not come with GH5 camera!

Here’s most of the skinny on what’s included:

• 2 day turn-around on repairs

• Free next day shipping both ways

• Twenty percent discount on Out-of-Warranty Repairs

• Online order tracking

• Loaner gear

• Free clean and check for two bodies and lenses per year

• As a bonus in the welcome packet, here’s my favorite, a Lumix pro camera strap. One of the reasons the camera strap is my favorite is because Panasonic has partnered with Peak Design. Peak Design makes straps that have a quick release that is extremely handy. I’ll do another post on my Peak Design straps as I could be considered a fan-boy for their product. The post will show you why

There’s more but I’ll let you go dig that out from the Lumix Pro Services site.

Yours in Creative Photography,        Bob

PS – Remember to pre-order to get the extra battery and battery grip from Hunt’s Photo Video before April fourth

good photos from the zoo – part two

good photos from the zoo – part two

Creating Good Animal Photos from a Captive Environment – Part Two

Last zoo post I was sharing some ideas on learning wildlife photography skills while photographing captive animals. See Part One here

great white egret photoI followed this Great White Egret until the reflection was completed from beak to tail. The black and white treatment brings the bird to the highest contrast attention

One of the essential skills is to learn to queue on behavior. This means learning to see when the behavior will change. What will happen when you look at the feathers shaking in a certain way or excrement fall from a bird. These are indicators that signal flight or a change of wing position and either of those can lead to a more interesting photograph.

tiger from the phoenix zoo photoProcessed this image to BW also. Slight sharpening of the tiger using Skylum software as an Adobe Photoshop plug-in. I also softened the foreground and background with a gaussian blur as well as a darkening Curves layer  Significant help for me that increased my ‘keepers’ in photographing images of animals in zoos, parks and in the wild was a lens that has a long reach. The micro 4/3rds Panasonic Lumix system has been an enormous help. Being able to handhold an 800mm equivalent lens makes a huge difference because of the mobility and distance from the animals. The less you disturb your prey and having the ability to still fill the frame is golden.

tree trunk photoDon’t lose sight of other opportunities when photographing wildlife. This split tree trunk was good for an abstract look of colors and tones.

My main camera these days is the Lumix G9. The stabilization system gives an extra six and one-half to seven stops of hand-holdability. This means that hand holding a lens of 800mm equivalent at 1/60th of a second is very possible with sharp results. My favorite lens is a zoom lens – Leica 100-400mm f4.0-6.3

 

Yours in Creative Photography,    Bob