Just in from a fabulous trip to Australia. Long on my list to visit, Australia lived up to everything I hoped and more. A HUGE thanks goes to Sam Oster for setting up my visit and teaching schedule, check out her work here. Also many thanks to all the others that helped sponsor my visit including Elinchrom, Diamonds Camera, Lastolite and the terrific folks at Red Poles.
I taught lighting classes during my visit, focusing on Hypersync. I’ve blogged repeatedly on this topic; it is amazing technology that Pocket Wizard developed allowing the use of fast shutter speeds with studio packs. Our group used Pocket Wizard Flex TT5 and Mini TT1 units with Elinchrom Rangers and Quadras, and we were able to shoot up to 1/8000 with a variety of Nikon and Canon cameras. A few notes; you will get slight banding at this extreme speed, but if you shoot wide, then this can be easily cropped out. Shooting outdoors minimizes how much this banding shows up in your image. If you shoot in the studio against flat backgrounds, then the banding is more obvious. Another note…turn off your red eye reduction in your flash settings, this causes a delay when triggering the strobe pack. And finally….note to self…American Pocket Wizards work on a different frequency than Australian units, so they won’t trigger each other. Which is nice when you have a bunch of people blazing away in the forest.
We had incredible models for all our sessions, including dancers swinging from fabric and ropes in trees, and skateboarders tearing it up. And did I mention one brown snake slithering through the grass…bound to get everyone’s attention! My only regret is not having enough time. Australia is big, with tons of shooting opportunities. Combine that with warm, friendly people…I’m already planning my next visit!