Nikon D300, 18-70mm, 200iso, f/5.6, 1/80th, Sb-28, 1/2 power, 85mm, bare, left of camera (4 ft from wall)

Well after a long time not posting, I am back and ready to blog again.  School has slowed down and the business is starting to grow.  I just attended ITEA (International Technology Education Association) in Louisville, Kentucky, which is a national competition for all Technology Education majors across the US.  At the conference my team and I placed first in the Digital Communications competition.  This is an event where we are given a topic to follow and we must create a video in the given time.  This year our topic of the video was to create a 30 second public service announcement of the watercraft of the Ohio River.  We were given 2 days to produce this video including filming, editing, and also create a notebook.  We had 6 people on our team and I was the editor of the video.  It was a rough 2 days of working nevertheless we came out on top beating the other six schools in our event.  

I will be posting the video online in the next few days.

Along with that excitement, I did manage to buy a Nikon Sb-28 flash and some fun toys with it.

Here is my list of fun goodies:

1. Nikon Sb-28
2. Impact Air-cushioned 8 ft stand
3. Impact Umbrella Adaptor
4. Impact 33″ white shoot through umbrella
5. Nikon sc-17 sync cord
6. Cactus V2s wireless triggers

I will have reviews on each of these products and how they work.  I will also be having a write-up about modifying the Cactus V2s triggers to make them much better performers.  I will have to say I have been using this single flash setup for some group photos and it seems to work great, I will be getting a whole other set of this stuff for a two flash setup.

Here is my first photo shoot with my buddy Jeremy Walck.  I only used this setup plus a homemade snoot from a Pringles can.  He is a triathlon athlete so he has been training a lot in the gym so I figured he would be a great person to shoot as my first subject.

This is one of the first shots that I took with him, I brought a spray bottle full of water to create the super sweaty effect of him lifting very hard.  I would have like a little more expression in this photo but it was just really an opening shot with new stuff.

Nikon D300, 18-70mm, 200iso, f/4.5, 1/80th, Sb-28, 1/2 power, 85mm, snooted (homemade), right of camera

This was one of my best close shots of him with his extremely sweaty (wet) hair.  I love the look of his emotion in his face, there is so much drive it creates the photo.

Nikon D300, 18-70mm, 200iso, f/5.5, 1/80th, Sb-28, 1/8 power, 85mm, snooted (homemade), right of camera

 Next is my favorite three shots of the same set.  We were in the basement of the high school in the weight room.  On the wall there are panthers stenciled on the wall with a blue stripe.  This shot was a total luck shot when I first saw how the light reacted with the wall. It lit the wall up and faded off as it go to him. 

Nikon D300, 50mm, 200iso, f/5.6, 1/80th, Sb-28, 1/2 power, 85mm, bare, left of camera (4 ft from wall)

 And these two last shots of the same set are my best ones from the photo shoot.  I impressed myself with these!

Nikon D300, 50mm, 200iso, f/5.6, 1/80th, Sb-28, 1/2 power, 85mm, bare, left of camera (4 ft from wall)

AND THE BEST!

Nikon D300, 18-70mm, 200iso, f/5.6, 1/80th, Sb-28, 1/2 power, 85mm, bare, left of camera (4 ft from wall)

Thanks for looking and I will be posting much more, starting with reviews of the lighting stuff I got and my winning video.

-Geoff-