Michael Forsyth's News

I have been using some of the Yongnuo RF-602 transmitters and receivers for a little while now, and they perform pretty well under most conditions. They operate on the 2.4Ghz band, but I have never had any interference problems, even using them on a college campus with tons of wireless devices on the same band.

RF-602 trigger and receiver

The trigger that fits on top of the camera is a pretty small thing, about the size of the new pocket wizard mini TT1, although not as nice looking. The receiver has a screw lock connection for a sync cord on the back, and a hot shoe on the top. This is great  because it eliminates the need for sync chords, while still providing the option. The SB600 I use has no sync port, so the hot shoe triggers my flash. On the bottom there is a plastic hot shoe connector (cold shoe) and a tripod or light stand socket.

This was my max range test. The arrow points to the flash. It is on the other side of a practice field and down a hill.

There are plenty of reviews online stating the range to be around 200 meters or so, and I found that to be pretty accurate as long as you maintain line of sight with the flash. I decided to try a test I had not seen done before on the internet, so I placed the flash on a stand with the receiver well behind a brick and cinder block wall, next to a transformer. I figured if there was going to be loss of signal or interference, this is the kind of condition that it would occur under.  My conclusion was that the range was decreased significantly, although they still had plenty of range for what I need. In real usage, they have never misfired on me. I use them often to light basketball games, and they fire every time no matter where I am in the stadium.

Flash behind the wall. Note the transformer to the right of it.

My school’s basketball teams played at Mercer on November 5th, and I got sent out to cover it. I didn’t use any flash, Mercer’s arena has like 30 metal halide lights around the ceiling pointed at the court, enough to get a solid 1/320 @ f/1.8 ISO 400. Both teams lost, the men by 3 after just missing a 3 point attempt at the buzzer in a last minute attempt to tie the game.  All shots are from my 35 f/1.8, about 3 feet from the end line.

GCSU Bobcats Basketball

GCSU Bobcats Basketball

GCSU Bobcats Basketball

GCSU Bobcats Basketball

This past Saturday I was lucky enough to get a photo pass for the Grace Potter and Brett Dennen at the Tabernacle in Atlanta. It was a really great concert, the lighting, sound, and venue really came together to make an awesome show. I still have a few of Grace Potter’s songs stuck in my head as I’m writing this (specifically Mastermind). I was able to get into the pit in front of the stage and work with my wide angle for a little while. I think I got some really great stuff, I sure was happy with the results! Here are a few of the pics I shot, ill also have a gallery with some more shots here. Except for slight color balancing  and some minor exposure adjustment on a few, these are straight from the camera.

The show had really nice lighting.

Grace at the Mic.

Grace decided to throw some flowers to the audience.

This is my favorite picture of the night. Love the expression!

Brett Dennen

I like the light coming from behind on this one. Streaks are from a gobo on the light.

I have always been aware that my D40 has an electronic shutter above 1/125th or so, and that theoretically that gives it the ability to sync at any shutter speed. I know people have been doing all this off camera for a while, but I haven’t seen anyone using it on camera for quick fill flash. As to why Nikon limits it to 1/500, I really have absolutely no idea. I built a small mask to cover all but one hot shoe contact, essentially tricking the camera into thinking there is no flash on it. Obviously you loose TTL, but gain the ability to forget about sync speeds all together and just let your creativity run free. With this kind of sync speed, you can shoot portraits directly into the sun (although there will be a little bloom from the sun) and actually expose your subject and the sky perfectly. Using a standard sync speed, say 1/250, that would require using a tiny aperture like f/22 and a studio flash such as an AB B1600. The only other way to do this is to use CLS, which I don’t have the capability for, and even then I suspect this may work better (and defiantly simpler, no menu’s).

f/6.3, 1/4000s, flash at 1/16. I left the EXIF data attached for those interested. There is a little bloom from the sun, but other than that everything works fine.

The small peice of plastic I used to enable all this came from a package of markers, and is the same thing that batteries come in. I had to sand it down a bit so the flash could still slide into the shoe. The idea is to only allow the middle pin to make contact, allowing triggering without the camera’s knowledge of the flash. After sanding down, the flash is a pretty tight fit in the shoe. You could also use tape or paper, but I opted for something that could stand up to repeated usage and be easily removed.

This is the hot shoe mask I made, it fits in the hot shoe, then the flash slides in on top of it.

Due to the duration of the flash itself, there is no power to be gained over 1/16 power on the flash at 1/4000 sec. and 1/8 at 1/2000 sec. for the other shutter speeds, it falls somewhere in between. This is great, as it takes a lot of weight off the shoulders of the flash, and of course, no waiting for recycling. For off camera lighting, the sync speed is limited only to your triggers response time.

Sun is just out of the frame on the left.

Special thanks to David Hobby and the Strobist group, I don’t know if anyone else has done this but the idea came from bits and pieces of information gleamed from that site, specifically this page.

Here is a podcast I keep up with regularly, I thought I would share it to see if anyone else was interested. It really keeps me informed of stories from across the globe.  One aspect I find fascinating with these audio documentaries is the “feel” they have, they really do seem to take you right to the location with the people. I don’t do any sound recording, but I just might try my hand at this 140 second video thing Chase Jarvis is talking about. For a chance to win $100,000 why not? Some ideas are rolling around in my head right now…

GCSU women’s soccer played Montevallo this past Saturday during the Peach bowl cup semifinals. It was a pretty wet day, and lucky for me the rain let up as I was setting up on the sidelines and resumed as I was walking back to the car. With all the clouds, I was lucky enough to have Austin let me borrow his 80-200 f/2.8, and I was shooting wide open the entire game.

I also shot the Bobcats basketball game last night at Mercer, look for photos from the game next Friday (or so).

GCSU Women's Soccer

GCSU Women's Soccer

GCSU Women's Soccer

This past week I shot some stuff at the Deep Roots festival. One of the events I covered was the concert by Grace Potter and the Nocturnals. Lighting was really tough, with the spotlight a good four (at least) stops brighter than the rest of the stage. I was able to get on the sound stage behind the audience, as they weren’t letting anyone near the stage who didn’t have a backstage pass. You would think they would love the free publicity, I surely would. Most of what was shot with my longer lens was at HI-1 (not shown here), although I did move in for some closer stuff with the 35 1.8 and got some good stuff.

In other news, I will be attending the Mark Wallace US Meetup Tour in Atlanta on January 23rd. It’s free!