GrandKids Strobist Shoot with Chetley

Last Thursday I did a shoot with Aubrey's family, and wanted to post some of the images for ya'll to check out. This is Aubrey, Aaryn & Will, the grandchildren on Aubrey's Mom's side of the family tree. My friend Chetley and I went out to the Bella Vista Lake and did a location scout beforehand to get a look at everything. Chetley is a huge help in the field, and steps in for me to check lighting before the girls step in.

He wasn't planning on these images going anywhere I'm sure, and still has a reflector in his hands, but I wanted to post one anyway. Chetley is a heck of an assistant and this shoot literally wouldn't have happened without him. And the pineapple. He carried around some pineapple while we were shooting, which kept everybody pretty content.

For the Strobists, the reflector never made an appearance much after the first hour. The shoot was minimally ambient, with as many shots as possible being carefully lit. thanks Chetley. All with one Speedlight, (Canon 580EX-II, worth the money). I had the light atop a Manfrotto nano stand, atop a Chetley. With having an extra man, I was able to boom light up and over sideways next to behind and in front of anything. I could say, "down a stop and a third" and he would do it, and I could just grab the boom and move my light to where I needed it until he "froze" it into it's new position. Honestly, I don't see myself shooting without Chetley again, or in ambient, or indoors, or without pineapple. That was some good fruit. After they proof their images, I will be printing, as always, through my friend and fellow Arkansasan Tim Donar out of Conway, AR. Tim Donar, is, the, man. He does quality work that sure beats anywhere else I've seen and makes me never want to print at Wal-Mart again. oh my.

not why, but How I blog.

I use a couple of tools to build this blog, but mainly rely on three big players. All of which are free. All of which are extremely widely used. I use Blogger, Flickr, and YouTube, all on a daily basis, and love each of them.

I am sure there are better hosting capabilities out there. I'm sure there are flashier blogs, faster photo sites and sleeker video hosters. However, I choose to stick with the most common, most reliable options instead of the latest and greatest. This way I increase compatibility and minimize the worry that one of my tools will fail or go out of business. I don't see YouTube shutting down anytime soon, so I feel good.

Blogger
Google owns Blogger, which tells me a couple of things, just from what I know from Google as a company. I know blogger will be reliable, frequently searched for, and free. Blogger has only gone "down" a few times in the last year. And by down, I mean everything worked but you couldn't post photos for 15mins or something. Because Google owns Blogger, I know that Google will "scan" my blog for searchable material on a regular basis. Google provides all of this wonderful service for free. I love Google, therefore I love Blogger.

Here's an example of the "scanning" my blog for searchable material. If you remember back a few months, I did an entry on renting a video camera. I had a video shoot and needed an HD camera, which I rented from a small company I discovered up North. After the rental I posted a nice little entry talking up how great their company was, because they really did a fantastic job. If I was some guy wanting to rent this Canon camera from ATS Rentals, I would do a Google search to check them out. If you want to, go open up a new Window or Tab in your browser and do a Google search for something like "ATS Rentals Canon A1" and see what you find. Here's what I found.

First Hit: Flickr Photos of the camera, most of which are mine
Second Hit: My album of photos of the camera, posted to Flickr
Third Hit: The ATS Rentals Website
Fourth Hit: My blog entry

If I was just building this blog on my own, Google would NEVER scan it for material, and you would never see it come up on a search. But, because I use their own stuff, Google loves to pull my blog up in searches, which makes me smile just a bit.

After all, of the three of you that read this blog, I'm sure 2/3 of you will never rent a Canon A1 from ATS Rentals. And, I don't write all this junk just for Phillip to read, so this way other video nerds can read the posts through Google searches.

Step One: import photos into iPhoto
Step Two: upload to Flickr using their "Flickr Uploader"
Step Three: type the blog content in Apple TextEdit
Step Four: maybe upload and post a YouTube video, sometimes
Step Five: combine Text, Photos and Videos into Blogger, and post

I love it. I'm not the best blogger in the world, I'm not the most faithful, I'm not the funniest or the smartest, but I do enjoy writing all this, and I'm glad the five of you enjoy reading it. I get all kinds of feedback from different people on whether the blog should have more personal information about fun stuff like dates with Aubrey, or more tech stuff. Some say not to post all the private stuff, some say nobody cares about the nerd stuff. Some say they only read half the posts, whether they're a nerd or a stalker. I never really know what to post, or what direction to take the blog. I just write what's on my mind at the time, and hope somebody cares. We'll see where the future goes, but you can count on it not being too random. I've got a couple of things lined up for the rest of the summer that hopefully aim to please! Thanks for reading! -Cameron

Fried Chicken Goodness

Oh my goodness I have stumbled upon what must be a mistake. KFC has a #5 on their menu that gives you this pile of food for, with drink, $7. Seven dollars isn't terribly impressive, that's really the going rate just about anywhere. It costs me over $7 to eat at Chick-Fil-A, so this deal wouldn't appear to be that fantastic. But oh my goodness it is. There is so much food in this lovely little box for two. Aubrey and I split the box down the middle for dinner tonight, 50/50, and couldn't finish it.

Break it down? you bet.

1 Original Thigh
1 Popcorn Chicken
5 Chicken Strips
1 Mashed Potatoes
1 Potato Wedges
2 Biscuits
and a drink
and it's seven dollars

Hot dang what a deal. You just can't beat it. It couldn't beat it with a stick. If this high of an intake of fried chicken wasn't lethal, I'd be there for lunch tomorrow. What a deal. I'm so happy.

Batteries

Batteries are expensive. I typically prefer to use rechargeable ones when the purpose is sensible. In some cases, one outweighs the other.

In my wireless PC keyboard, it doesn't make sense to use rechargeables, because the keyboard only uses about two sets a year, and would be useless during the 2hr recharge period. However, in my camera flash, I use rechargeables. The flash eats four AA's for breakfast every day, which would be outrageous for Alkalines. Also, an added bonus, the flash recycles faster with rechargeables. If you've ever waited on a flash to recycle and missed a moment, switch to rechargeables to save some money and save some time.

When it comes to rechargeable AA's, I've tried a couple of companies, including Canon and GP. The Canon's run about $5 each and the GP's are about $3.75. To be honest, they're both great. However, if I was to go out and by a few more today, I would be buying Sanyo Eneloops, for sure. I have heard nothing but praise after praise about these guys.

GP
Canon
eneloop

I bought the GP's four at a time, and bought a separate 8-bay charger. The Canon's and Eneloop's each come in four packs with chargers, or you can buy just a four pack "refill". For my flash, I got a four pack, and a refill pack. That way, I don't need two chargers for my eight batteries. Four are charging, four are flashing. Then switch. It's a simple effective system.

Aside from the AA's for a moment, my Panasonic uses it's own rechargeables packs. The camera ships with one "medium" sized pack, and my used camera came with an additional "large" pack. My goal was to have three large packs. At about 5hrs each, that would get me through an extreme 15hr day. Which never happens, but that's the point. I already had one large, so I searched for two more. Panasonic sells theirs for $140. I have no interest in dropping $140 to have Panasonic stamp their name on the back, which I would cover with Gaff Tape. As much as it's frowned upon, there are hundreds of generic battery packs all over eBay. I went there. I didn't run out and get the cheapest, but I wasn't paying $140. I found a small battery store that had generic large Panasonic packs for $40. Bingo. I bought two, and the company got them here in three days. Great!

In my use so far, these things are rocking. Rocking. I will be sticking with them, but will make sure and report any grief they give me, if they do. I took some (more) Gaff and numbered the packs with to keep them straight. I charged each one up, drained it all the way, charged it up and drained it. Now I've got them all charged and "reset" (at least I feel like it anyways) and ready for action. My handwriting doesn't look anything like a lovely Panasonic logo would, but I would hate staring at it knowing how expensive that label cost.

Gaff Tape doesn't Scratch

One of the worst parts about all this Audio/Video equipment is that it's all made from either Metal or Plastic, both of which scratch really easily. To avoid that, I try to put a coat of Gaff Tape on any parts of my gear that I can.

Gaff Tape doesn't scratch. It doesn't leave a residue behind. It's a nice sharp black, which doesn't look awful. It's easy to tear and manipulate down to exactly what I need.

For instance. One of the first things I did with my new Panasonic was put a layer of Gaff on the lens hood and under the body on the base. The Gaff is a slick black that looks fantastic on the camera, and will stick through cold or hot protecting that scratchy plastic around the clock. The lens hood always takes the hits for the lens, and can get looking really bad. Not mine. Also, the base gets scratched even easier with all the tripod mounting/unmounting. All those clips leave small marks that add up.

With Gaff tape covering everything except the lens and my face, I feel very comfortable about keeping my gear in 100% shape. Which is very important to me, because it's easy to understand how much it all costs when you are the one who paid for it all. Seriously. There is no excuse not to take the utmost care of gear. Yours or not. This stuff can last longer than it's needed if it's handled properly.