NIKON SB 900 Flash-thermal cut out solution

I just learned some new things about flashes that I thought I'd share. You probably already know about this but anyway: The SB900, until today, Nikon's flagship flash is notorious for it's thermal cut-out after a period of prolonged use. This is caused by the BATTERIES overheating. It is aggravated by harder use such as rechargeable batteries, longer distance to subject, bounce flash, increased flash value, diffusers, or anything that makes the flash work harder. This also causes the recycle time between flashes to increase. Shooting at a higher ISO or wider aperture helps, but there are other solutions that take care of all of these.

1. The obvious and most expensive solution is to have a backup flash to spell the main flash while it is cooling down (sometimes 15 minutes or more)
2. (Bad solution warning!) Shut off the thermal cut-out resulting in the risk of cooking your flash.
3. Special rechargeable batteries replacing current rechargeable batteries or not using rechargeables in the first place.
4. Compromise your shooting techniques... why even mention this one? Only if you're at the end of a shoot and don't have other options would you remove your diffuser or stop bouncing etc.
5. Here's the biggie: A Battery pack not only practically eliminates thermal cut-out, it has the huge added benefit of decreasing flash recycle time!

This is why many wedding photographers use these things. The downside of battery packs is that they add weight/bulk, some require a pocket or a belt, some require a cord, and added expense. The upside is virtual elimination of thermal cut-out and faster flash recycle time.

You ought to check out these Youtube videos if not just for the great soundtrack:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VWBPnGRY95o

Bog Plant- Brookfield, NH

In the early springtime these plants exhibit a magnificent rhythm and shading. This image could work equally as well in black and white. Please click on the image to view full size.

Vermont Barn-Undisclosed location

This is why I consider black and white to be the tuxedo of photography.

Ferris Wheel- Rochester Fair-Rochester, NH

This is a composite image using layers and masks in Photoshop. The blurred portion of the image is the result of a long exposure. The script on the hub of the ferris wheel and the sharpness of the cars are from a separate image. A tripod is essential for this type of shot.

Minimalist Flower- Bleu Lavande- Magog, Quebec

This image is all about removing all but the essential subject with the exception of a small amount of detail in the background. The flower in the foreground is separated from the background by contrasting tones, color, and by the shallow depth of field by using f/5.6.

This image is all about the wonderful color and textures. There also was a significant amount of tonal adjustments to bring out the details.

Highland Games Sheepdog Competition-Loon Mountain- Lincoln, NH

The sheepdog is caught headbutting the ewe in the butt. To get this shot the focus on my Nikon D300 was set to track the movement of the dog and the shutter release was set to burst mode.

auburn dog Brookfield, NH

The white balance (overall color cast) of this image has been set to complement the auburn coat of my neighbor's dog. I like the quirky placement of the subject where he is almost off the image. This creates a little tension and allows him to be looking into the frame. Notice that the eyes are the sharpest part of the image. He's waiting for me to toss his ball. Shading has been adjusted by applying a subtle freehand vignetting.

Fan Ho fanboy

Someone once asked me who my influences were. This blog entry is the definitive answer.

The most effective way to improve your compositional skills as a photographer is to study the great masters. There is one photographer in the world whom I think stands out above the rest in terms of composition. That would be Fan Ho.
He is a master of compositional techniques. He directs your eye using lines, subject placement, and chiaroscuro*. He masterfully uses fog/smoke/smog to create a feeling of depth. All the elements of his images have MEANINGFUL impact. His composite images are well designed with composition in mind using scale not only thoughtfully, but playfully at times. His image, An Early Morn is a visual Haiku displaying balance and simplicity eliminating all but the essential elements.
You would benefit from viewing Fan Ho's work at: http://www.modernbook.com/fanho/new-work/images.htm and keep coming back on occasion for a refresher course.


(*contrasting light- think of a spotlight in a dark image)

Panda Cub at San Diego Zoo San Diego,CA

This image required a lot of tonal adjustments.  Besides having contrast problems and structure problems, his face also had a yellow cast. However it was easily corrected by using NIK Software Viveza control points. He also was very dirty and required a beauty makeover that was done using the spot healing brush in Photoshop CS5. The rock also had some clipped highlights that were easily remedied using control points. I cannot say enough good things about the NIK Software suite of plugins.
By the way, his pose is not photoshopped. This is an example of a "decisive moment" for the shot.

Flower and Bee at Bleu Lavande Fitch Bay, Quebec Canada

Checking the metadata of this image revealed that I used the 18-200mm a (relatively) cheaper lens that came with my camera. It has a different bokeh than my 70-200mm lens which I also had with me. Bokeh refers to the quality of the out of focus portions of the image. Compare it to the bokeh in the two previous images that I created while at the San Diego Zoo which employed the 70-200mm lens. I'm still not done with this image. I'm going to try softening it with noise reduction and see what happens. PLEASE CLICK ON THIS IMAGE TO VIEW AT FULL QUALITY!

Exotic Bird San Diego Zoo San Diego, CAL

As I mentioned in an earlier post, it's all about the eyes. When I brightened his eyes in postproduction I realized why he posed so graciously. I suspect that he has cataracts! This was shot using an aperture of f/8 which should be a medium to shallow depth of field. The reason that it appears so shallow is because I was right on top of him. This blurs the background thereby separating the subject from it. That aperture is also in the best quality range of the lens which is about two stops from wide open.

Prairie Dog San Diego Zoo San Diego California

This image was created during a session at the San Diego Zoo with nature photographer, Laurie Shupp.
She is truly amazing. Do yourself a favor and visit her website: www.imagesbylaurie.com/
The most important thing that I learned from her is that, like all portraits, it's all about the eyes. This little guy had very shaded eyes. His eye details were brightened using a NIK Software control point. Again the NIK Software suite saves the day.

Autumn Delight Westmoreland, NH

The orange tree would be lost in this forest image if not for the contrast in tone and complementary color. This is another example of backlighting that causes the subject to glow.

Tunbridge Worlds Fair Tunbridge, VT

In order to create slightly more contrast and reduce distracting elements, portions of the image have been selectively darkened such as the people in the background. This is another example of checking the perimeter of the image for distracting elements. The blurred hands and feet add a sense of motion, yet this image wouldn't work if his face wasn't sharp.  Notice the effect of the backlighting.
I plan on removing the feet in the background and then doing a before/after comparison to illustrate how an image can be improved by removing distraction elements. This is also an example of how many times you can use the words "distracting elements" in a single paragraph.

Hay Rake Milton Farm Museum Milton, NH

This hay cutter which had been sitting in a field at the Farm Museum in Milton, NH seemed to have been prominently displayed like a piece of agricultural sculpture. I often stopped to photograph it, but had the most fun employing this technique that was taught to me by renowned photographer Tony Sweet. Google him to see some of the most creative methods of composition. This particular technique involved zooming from a long focal length to a shorter one during a long exposure. To reduce your shutter speed for the long exposure try using a combination of low ISO, narrow aperture, or adding a neutral density filter to your lens. This actually employed a polarizing filter later in the evening allowing me to use a wide aperture of f/2.8. That helped to separate it from the background. A slight pause during the exposure before zooming will help define the subject. Otherwise it just looks like the screen on the Starship Enterprise at warp speed.

Fence and Blue Flowers Portsmouth,NH

Don't be afraid to be creative! These brilliant blue flowers made much more of an impact when viewed through this contrasting fence. Otherwise, to me anyway, they just appeared to be another piece of landscaping. This also allowed me to exaggerate the beautiful blue by slightly bumping up the saturation. Normally this would be way overdone, but the fence serves to tone it down a bit.

Bronze Door at Hope Cemetery Barre, VT

This post is more about location than technical matters.  Good images can be created anywhere. I have often found that less travelled places such as remote railroad tracks, cemeteries, abandoned factories, etc. offer great opportunities. The Hope Cemetery in Barre, VT is one of my favorite locations. It is full of art.

Blackhawk Boy Portsmouth Air Show Newington, NH

Can you just hear this little guy saying "COOL DAD! Can we get a Blackhawk? PLEASE!!!!" This is one of those critical moment images where your see the reaction from someone and just keep shooting. This is the time to be using aperture priority mode and have your ISO all adjusted and ready to go. I got off about three shots with Dad obscuring my shots, but I just kept firing until I got this one. This is one of my favorites out of over 900 images that I did at the Portsmouth Air Show in Newington, NH. It's all about telling the story.

Thunderbirds dart to the Sun Portsmouth Air Show Newington, NH

I went into detail in my last post with a very similar image of the Thunderbirds flying into the Sun and it's technical concerns. The only thing that I would like to add is that these guys are real vertuosi. There was no manipulation of the elements of this image other than those mentioned in the previous post.

Thunderbird supernova Portsmouth Air Show Newington, NH

Normally we try to avoid lens flair (those little orbs and glare) in an image by using a lens hood that provides shade for the front element of the lens. Often lens flair will wash out all contrast in an image and require significant levels or curves adjustments in Photoshop in order to save the image.
However in this case it added an significant creative element to the image that I found appealing. This dramatic effect was enhanced by bumping up the saturation and vibrance. Saturation/vibrance is like tabasco sauce, a few drops make a glorious gumbo. Any more gets overdone very easily. This rule applies to sharpening images as well.

Stunt Air Team Portsmouth Air Show Newington, NH

I never thought that I would admit this, but I adjusted the tones to simulate a high dynamic range (HDR) image. OK hear me out. The complaint by many people about HDR photography is that it is gaudy, hyper-saturated, over the top, lacking subtlety, crass...(and these are the kind words). I happen to be one of them. However, this technique can be useful using the more recent software versions. I will post some tone mapped images using HDR eventually.
You be the judge. Google Trey Ratcliff's "Stuck In Customs" website and look at some of his HDR images. You'll love it or hate it.
That being said...this image is not HDR. I merely took this low contrast image and exaggerated the tonal adjustments to get the silhouette of the aircraft and the smoke trails better defined in order to separate them from the clouds. Without that adjustment this image was just dead on arrival.

Jet Engine Portsmouth Air Show Newington, NH

This is one of those rare occasions when I'm not even tempted to adjust the image as captured by the camera. I didn't even do a black and white conversion. (Yes, this is a color image.) Because the engine cowling was shading this turbine and bright sunlight was reflecting off the fairly distant runway, the exposure couldn't have been any better. Normally, I would have recommended using NIK Silver Efex Pro black and white conversion software. It is simply the best and worth every penny.

shaded by a Galaxy Portsmouth Airshow Newington, NH

There are a lot of subtle and not so subtle alterations to this image. The actual subject in this image is the older couple contrasted by the mammouth C5 Galavxy. In order to draw attention to them I applied a local increase of their brightness using a Nik software Viveza control point and reduced the image's global brightness by using a very low opacity vignette. The vignette technique limited the shading to all but the couple.
Not so subtle devices were used to remove all traces of an air show such as litter, stray people, baby carriages, and barricades.  The real artistry came into play when the wheels had to be reconstructed. For this I made use of a combination of Photoshop CS5's brush, cloning, spot healing brush, and content-aware tools. In parts of the image the content-aware tool performed miracles. In other parts it just couldn't get the job done.

Thunderbirds mirrored Portsmouth Airshow Newington, NH

To get this shot the shutter speed is set quite high (the easy part) and the shutter is released in burst mode which creates a quick series of shots. Beware that the images are immediately stored in the cameras cache and read slowly onto the flash card at the rate that the card is capable of reading them. Once the cache is full, you cannot capture any more images until the cache has been read onto your card allowing more room for images to be captured. Shooting jpeg instead of RAW files speeds up this process, but I prefer to shoot RAW unless it gets to be a problem.
Also, I find that when shooting panning shots with a long lens (70-200mm f/2.8) I get lots of stability by cradling the lens with my left hand very near the lens hood and panning at the waist. This required shifting my feet just as the subject passed this critical point, but it didn't seem to matter.

2 generations of fighter aircraft Portsmouth Airshow Newington, NH

These aircraft actually were close together. I imagine that the mustang was going full throttle while the jet was holding back quite a bit. The original image was very low contrast due to the lighting conditions. After testing various modifications to the tones I realized that a simple silhouette was in order here. There was no point in trying to get more tonal variation in the two aircraft using fill light and other Photoshop techniques.   The only technique that satisfied me was a slight crop and bumping up the saturation.

Black Hole in Green Brookfield, NH

I came across these amazing plants in early Spring in a bog in Brookfield, NH. In order to emphasize the lines of the vortex rather than the plant as a whole, the aperture was set to f/2.8 creating this shallow depth of field. This is another example of how the viewers attention can be drawn to the area of sharpest focus. Be sure to click on the image to enlarge it in order to see the full effect.

Mannequin, Washington, DC

This is another example of an  image that tells a story.
This was captured (the image, that is) as we were walking back from an assignment at the Luxembourg embassy while shooting the Global Health Council conference in Washington, DC. It was the summer solstice and the light was  superb, so we decided to walk back to the Omni Shoreham Hotel where we had been living for a week. Fortunately for us, it was in the opposite direction because everywhere we looked there were wonderful photo opportunities. I will be posting some of the others eventually.

Be Curious Amesbury, MA

There are so many things to say about this shot from the Warrior Dash in Amesbury, MA. First of all: don't think that you are handicapped just because you are not using your best equipment. I shot this with my back up camera (Nikon D70) because it was pouring and muddy. I left my $2400 zoom lens in my truck and used  the 60mm prime lens that is on that camera because it has a recessed lens and would be less likely to get dirty. However, the 60mm 1:2.8 is  still a decent lens. You just have to compose more with your feet and don't expect to get those long shots.
The strongest part of this image is the story that it tells. The people dressed in tutus (including one guy), mud all over them and the fat guy, an almost naked guy in front of them, the little girl taking this all in, and the only clean things in the foreground are the t-shirts that read "be curious". This would have been a good image with just the four main subjects, but add the little girl and voila!
Techniquewise (is that a real word?), all I had to do was add a slight localized increase to the exposure on the little girl's face and burn the white thing on the guy's head in the upper left corner of the image because it was distracting. I also did a slight cropping.

How to get a shot like this: be there, be aware, and don't ever allow yourself to say "Wow, that would have been a good shot". Turn around  and go back and take the shot (if you still can!) I literally ran after these people trying to get a front shot until I saw the little girl.  I stopped dead in my tracks, composed, and fired. Oh yeah!

Compare these two versions. I adjusted a very important flaw. See if you can spot it. Hint: check the periphery.

Steve Bedell did a wonderful job of selecting these models for the portrait lighting workshop. It was overcast when I shot this image which caused a wonderfully diffuse light. This shot used all natural light without flash.

It took me a few times  to adjust the white balance comparing this and the previous image of this model. Finally, it occured to me that I had  simply increased the vibrance on the previous image giving the illusion that the white balance was different. Another lesson learned.

Senior portrait workshop

It was a pleasure working with this young lady. She is very talented and has a natural instinct for modeling.

Senior portrait workshop

Again, this was all done with available natural lighting.

Senior portrait workshop

A snoot was used to light the hair.

Senior portrait workshop

This is the first of a series of portraits that I shot at a natural lighting workshop with Steve Bedell. These are all shot using available light and an occasional light modifier. The young women in this series are not professional models, but seniors from local NH schools.

Hallway inside Hoover Dam Colorado

This image is yet another of my images in the lines and rhythm series.  Of all the different styles of images that I shoot, these seem to be the most gratifying. Maybe it's the musician in me. 

This image was shot in jpg format a few years ago and pretty much ignored. It was somewhat underexposed so I recently decided that it would be a good candidate to try out George DeWolfe's PerceptTool equalizer. George's software worked brilliantly to allow me to discover what a decent image was actually there. It's all about bringing the midtones into balance. 

Prescott Park Orchid, Portsmouth, NH

This is part of my floral series. I came across this orchid blossom while going to shoot some images of a political rally in Prescott Park. The bokeh from this Nikon 70-200mm 1:2.8G lens is incredible.  It beautifully softened the branches that all seemed to reach out to present this gorgeous flower. After I tweak the colors and tones slightly this should be a good candidate to print on Epson Velvet Fine Art Paper.

Prescott Park steel sculpture Portsmouth, NH

This is my third image in the series, "Images On The Edge". My intent was to emphasize the mysterious appearance of this sculpture. Depending on how the image was adjusted it either looked like the monolith from 2001 A Space Odyssey or something apocalyptic.

No pixels were injured in the shooting of this image. Everything you see is the result of a long exposure. The light in the lower right corner is on a boom in the Navy Yard about 1/2 mile away and is neither lighting up this sculpture, nor the sky. What you see is clouds being lit from behind by the moon. The shot was positioned to give the appearance that it was the light from the Navy Yard doing all the lighting.

The light on the sculpture is coming from a much closer light directly behind it.

Oskar J. W. Hansen WPA sculpture at Hoover Dam, Colorado

This is the second of my Images on The Edge Series. I've always been intrigued by Art Nouveau and Art Deco such as this sculpture is. It is another example of the use of a pinhole camera simulation. The only place that I had available to shoot from presented this difficult backlighting that washed out the color and much of the detail. Consequently this image sat idle for years until I recently decided it would be a good candidate for this pinhole camera technique. The emphasis is on creating a mood rather than on sharpness and accurate tonal balance. 

My little friend at The San Diego Zoo

The frame was created in multiple layers using cropping, the rectangular marquis tool, and gradients. It was a fun exercise and I think it complements this image nicely.

Hope Cemetery during snow storm Barre, VT

This is the first in a series of images that I call "Images on the edge". They all seem to have a mysterious quality to them. 

This was produced by simulating a pinhole camera using NIK Software's Silver Efex Pro. It began with an attempt to simultaneously bring out the tones in the falling snow and the monument, but was pleasantly surprised when I explored this pinhole technique. I never thought I would have any use for this effect, but have had more than a few pleasant surprises using it.