I was pleasantly surprised this week to find out that photohsop user magazine published a story I wrote about the trash the dress phenomenon. I was very excited to be featured (along with my wife) next some seriously talented folks. I had a chance to meet one of the photographers published in the article at WPPI, Cliff Mautner. I also parked myself next to the Nikon booth to hear him speak about making magical images… That guy is unbelievable! Check him out!

David Ziser was also featured (a talented photographer and photoshop artisan). I have featured David’s work here before on FF. I was hoping that I would get a chance to meet him at WPPI as well but with 1 zillion other photographers buzzing around everywhere, it was rather impossible to accomplish all my must see photographer goals…next time David!

SO, if you are in the neighborhood of a bookstore, pick up or sign up to receive a copy of photoshopuser magazine. Those guys working with Scott Kelby really have it going on… OH, I had a chance to meet up with Dave Cross at the Leaving Las Vegas shoot a few weeks ago. I’ve watched numerous episodes of him on Photoshop TV… Also, a special thanks for RC over at layersmagazine.com for asking / motivating me to write this article!

Anyway, keep your eyes peeled for the Magazine. Sol Tamargo & I have this very dramatic vision for the future of our Trash the Dress sessions. I’m not sure how long our clients are going to keep asking for them, but with the insane amount of worldwide buzz going on, I dont see it stopping anytime soon, especially with the destination wedding environment. We have 25 TTD sessions booked this year! Look out for some more crazy video’s coming soon!

Cheers!
mateo

PS, the photoshop guys & gals did a super job on the graphics… thanks again

I am very excited to see the birth of the Radiopopper this year. This write-up will serve as a initial preview of my experience with this revolutionary unit. In order to give a full review, I will need this baby on a few of my wedding gigs. I hope to be shooting with them at my first few weddings in April. We haven’t used TTL at a wedding with off camera slaves in a long long time. Heck, I can’t tell you when. I love to change up my game, so the popper is an exciting new tool in my tool box!

We spent an hour or so the other day with these units. Ordinarily, Flashflavor photo subjects will be wedding related. I ask for your forgiveness with this post as we didnt have time to organize any test bridal models during the short term planning we did to organize this shoot.

I spent some time with a few other photographers to get some play time with Radiopopper (RP). We each got a chance to set up a makeshift subject and shoot each one of these subjects to test the strengths of RP. We tested firing 3 different flash groups TTL using the 580 EX II as the master unit and 3 remote slaves all in different groups, set to different ratios. Group A, Group B, and Group C. I didn’t actually do any test shots with these flash settings but hopefully, I can get a copy of the images from Stillmotion to showcase here.

When it became my turn to play with the flash, we found our way inside Battista’s Hole in the wall, a rustic Italian food joint with some serious history in Vegas. I wanted to add a little life to my test subject and on the spot, I found a cute little old guy who made a SLAM of a subject. Sorry to bother you with the details but I believe if you add a story line to a test subject, the impact of the lighting efforts actually make a lasting impression. Call me a dedicated photojournalist if you will

In these photo examples, I used 3 flash unites in 2 different flash groups, Group A + Group B. (Remember, this is TTL folks). Group A 1:1 and Group B 1:4. We had 1 Radiopopper transmitter attached to the ST-E2 and 3 Radiopopper receivers attached to 580 EX II’s.

In this setup shot, I was shooting a Canon 5d with a ST-E2 wireless transmitter on the hotshoe . I had a RP attached to the top of the ST-E2. Group A was set to 1:1 and Group B was set to 1:4. Basically, I’ve told Group B to fire with 4 times more light than Group A. Group B’s units are placed behind subject on bench and camera right. I dialed my exposure in so that the ambient would hang out. What impressed me most about this is that we were limited here with time, with little or no actual test time to get ti done right. I shot 5 or 6 frames in this spot in the restaurant and I liked his expression best in these few frames. The RP allows you to set it and forget it. If this had been a Pocket Wizard setup (i still love my PW’s), I would have needed more time to set each unit up and get the job done. I took 5 minutes with this guy. With this kind of pressure, I’m starting to love the RP!

Here are my frames (all shot at ISO 400, 1/100th at 1.4)

Gordie has been playing the accordion at Battista’s for an outstanding 27 years. His listeners range from hookers and prostitutes to drunkards and party goers to the occasional superstars. His favorite musicians were the Oakridge boys! Batista’s ceilings are adorned with props and the walls are covered with their menus and wine bottles and different photos from the past. Battista is filled with low lighting and a moody atmosphere. I wanted to take a chance to add some light that would accentuate the mood that was plastered all over the walls.

I love how the backlight has added some dimension here. Remember, set it and forget it mentality.

Initially, when we choose a location in the restaurant to shoot Gordy, we found a spot that seemed perfect. After my first several frames, I had botched exposures and misfires. After expressing my concerns that something wasn’t right, Kevin King (RP Creator), pointed at the link light on the side of the RP and noted that it was blinking, indicating that there was some type of interference. The moment I started to actually test this baby, I found a circumstance that actually challenged its performance. Apparently, the link light on the receiver unit that indicates it has a link with the other will stay a solid yellow upon its initial link up. After a fire, it will turn off and back on to indicate that it has linked up. If it intermittently blinks then it indicates interference. The receiving unit may or may not fire, depending on the circumstance. We walked literally 15 feet to another location in the restaurant and the problem went AWAY… hey, that was easy enough.

Ok, so now I’ve found a problem on the first frame I’ve tried to expose. In all honesty, this inst my first experience with Interference while transmitting to a slave flash unit… On numerous occasions, I have been using pocket wizards and experienced some sort of interference where my slave units WOULD NOT FIRE. I can recall one specific wedding where Sol Tamargo & I were both trying to trigger our Pocket Wizards. We each have 5 pocket wizards and 4 or so Slaves, each. So thats 10 pocket wizards, 8 slave flashes. In the heat of the moment, we tested all of our PW’s and slaves, traded sync cords, did just about anything possible to make it happen… NADA. There was some sort of interference going on and we could not nail it down. I’m not sure what went on as we never figured it out, but the point is that interference has happened to me before when using a device that transmits via radio signals. The bottom line is that I’m not too worried about this potential problem with the RP at this point. I’ll need some more testing time to give you more thoughts on this.

After my turn was up, Ed Pingol stepped up to the plate and took the RP’s outside. He wanted to test the high speed sync abilities and used 2 slave units. I don’t have any of the TTL settings at this point, but I do know that he used a ST-E2 on the hotshoe and 2 groups on the slaves, A & B. One unit was 3-4 feet away, camera right and the other unit was 6-8 feet away, camera left. I was a spectator

Camera: Canon EOS 40D | ST-E2 set to High Speed Sync
Exposure: 1/8000 sec
Aperture: f/2.8
ISO: 100 - Focal Length: 17 mm

The model is my wife, Sol Tamargo

I’m loving the use of high speed sync with these RP units!

Well, for now, I’m going to close with those photos of my HOT wife…thanks Ed! Thanks Kevin for giving us a chance to play with your new toys! I look forward to working with these units at my next gig. I will be doing a writeup on what it is like to use the RP’s in a live environment where the pressure is ON!

Thoughts or comments about the TTL system and Radiopoppers innovative way to use Radio Signals…. please give us a shout or feel free to drop off your ideas.

I’m really curious as to how many of FF’s readers actually use Manual slave flash operation or TTL…

Cheers!
Mateo

**Update**

I didnt have too much time when I originally wrote this post, so I’ve added one more image that showcases a long distance field test in “ideal conditions” meaning open range without any interference. In this photo example, i’ve added a field test shot at 300+ feet. I’m the spec off in the distance under the arrow holding the flash that is actually being triggered at that distance. We tried several frames where I would stick my hand in front of the antenna and some where Kevin would face the opposite direction to test if and when the slave would trigger. Anyway, here is the football field test…

F3.5 1/4000 ISO 50 ST-E2 trigger on Camera.

photo by Kevin King

and a zoom of this frame to see the slave being triggered.

***Update 2***

I got a few frames from Stillmotion’s tip top shooter, Amina Myriam Wojcik. We were all tag teaming along with the crew who was testing the RP’s. Here are a few of her photos and her 2 cents… She shot these with a Canon 5d and a Tilt and Shift lens… She also has added a cool X-process flavor to her shots…
Amina writes:

At WPPI, I had a chance to check out the Radio Poppers. The group went on two shoots with them, one at a really cool restaurant called Battista’s Hole in the Wall, and on in the desert just outside of Las Vegas.

But it was super fun, and we all got some awesome shots out of it

Above four images credit: Stillmotion’s tip top shooter, Amina Myriam Wojcik.

Thanks Amina & the still motion crew for your help!

I’ve been spending my time these last few days hanging out at WPPI in Vegas and finally got to meet up with Kevin King, creator of Radiopopper. Kevin is a pretty rockin photographer and an awesome entrepreneur as well!

Kevin let me play around a bit with this killer device and he even told me that I may be able to get my hands on a set pretty soon so I can experiment with them at my next wedding on the 29th. I hope to be doing some killer testing on this device as I just may have a new weapon to my arsenal! r….I fired this baby off TTL at 1/8000 at 1.4…(i’ll have to get Kevin to send me a few of those shots to post here as I was using his camera for the quick test).

I’ll keep you posted on my results…keep an eye on this guy, radio popper may be a big friend of FF very soon!

Ps, jump over to strobist to read about David’s meeting with Kevin recently….

Cheers!
matt

We have been very lucky in a sense that our clients commission us to fly all over the world and shoot in some super exotic places. One of the requested sessions is typically an after wedding session where there are no rules and the dress likely will end up in the sand or swimming in the ocean. This allows for total creative freedom.

I wanted to share another one of these sessions we shot recently in the Dominican Republic. We ended up spending the whole day with these folks driving across the entire country and exploring a few locations. Shooting in these conditions is risky as you never know what the locals are going to do to you, and sometimes, equipment is in danger. I’d like to cite a specific example where I was in the water with my wast belt of lenses and for this particular example, I was helping Sol with the flash and we were under exposing the background as the bride and groom were splashing each other. I was also shooting (bad idea). Somehow, I ended up tossing a Nikon SB-28 slave and pocket wizard into the ocean. Lets just say that was the end of those pieces of equipment. $130 for the flash, $189 for the PW and a nice SHOCK to my face as the flash does not like water… I had my SD-8A batter pack plugged in, when I unplugged it I got a jolt!

Here is Sol’s photo just moments before the flashes death…

I walked back to the shore to sulk and drop that now useless equipment and snagged this frame of Sol shooting…

Since we had tons of backup, I added a CTO gel to another flash and shot this frame of the bride on the sand (special thanks to our taxi driver for holding the light (he has a cameo in the slideshow with a brides reflection in his shades).

Here is Sol’s version of this a few moments later when the groom decided to enjoy himself…

If you want to check out our entire adventure across the Dominican, check out this TTD Slideshow.

Well, I hope you enjoyed these TTD del Sol moments. Maybe you had a smile or two after visualizing me tossing that flash in the water. Moral of the story, dont try to shoot and assist at the same time, just dont do it!

Cheers & thanks for checking us out here at FF!

Mateo

How much can I begin to say about the fun that we are having with our subjects. Our clients are escaping to a wonderful destination location and planning the wedding of their dreams. Why not dream a little more and go out on an exotic excursion to be photographed in the land of fairy tales? This is exactly what we are doing with our sessions and I often need to pinch myself.

Picture yourself in the middle of a muddy deep dark hole and bats are flying around, everywhere. Watch out, if you step in the wrong place, you will be up to your knees in quickmud and sinking fast. Oh, there are little round balls of bat poo everywhere… I am stepping on them with every step through this mud cave. Insert bride and groom in this non-friendly environment and you are slap in the middle of a del Sol TTD. It gets cleaner and eventually becomes a “Wash the Dress” session.

I’ve talked about one of our previous sessions before HERE and if you have seen that, you will see something familiar. We added a little color to the background again but this time, we used a mix between the amazing power of the video light and a red gelled flash flavor. The combo worked very well for the looooow light circumstances. I am hoping that my viewers can live vicariously through this session and help us keep the TTD phenomenon alive. You can do this by posting this TTD link in your blog. Show it to the world, tell a friend or neighbor about this insane video you watched. Del Sol is making a huge effort to keep an interest in the TTD session.

Many thanks to our friends Paul & Rachel at Playa Weddings for the awesome video work.

OK, OK, OK, I’ve used red flash gel in the past to add some sauce to the frame… Well, I thought the flava was oh so nice…. Anyway, here is a set of images that we got recently while doing a little spelunking.

Here are a few of my favorite photos… JUST an FYI. The del Sol studio has been undergoing a little brand development. Sorry for all the inconsistency… But you are beginning to see some of the results of our new face. This is our new blog template with the new logo. New blogs for Flashflavor and del Sol coming very very soon!

and this is the “scene setter” from the bat cave…

We we were getting stuck in some serious knee deep stuff in there… (shot courteous of Sol Tamargo)

Sol also snagged this killer frame. If you have been curious up to this point as to some specifics about our lighting, we would like to introduce you to the power of video lights. In ALL these frames, we are using a very inexpensive low wattage SONY Video light. Makes for some pretty sexy fill, eh?

100% Sol Tamargo…

and another one from Sol

Ambient light all over the background of the cave…. the sun was beaming into the cave producing this beautiful light quality that was being reflected all over the place by the ripples that we were causing by our movement through the water… her is an example of total ambient with a tad bit of low power flash flavor fill. In the video, you can see what I am talking about with ambient splashing everywhere.

This shot sets up the ambient beam of light that helping us with these frames…

Again, the movie file at: www.delsolphotography.com/ttd/ttd2 Please, throw the link to this around to share the love. The more people (clients included) helps our worldwide efforts to keep the TTD thing going!

Thoughts? We had some serious fun on this one. It is our hopes to perpetuate the TTD phenomenon for the next few years. We believe that fun times and exotic locations such as this continue to stir the imagination. Do you?

Cheers!
matt