Kaash bon whites......

17 September 2010
Aftab Nagar, Dhaka, Bangladesh

"kaash" had always been one of my favourites, especially since picking up photography... I've tried several times to capture the beauty of these seasonal flowers in frames.... I got a stint with them at Jahangirnagar University once and again, Bashundhara Residential Area ..... the first one was in September 2008 and the next one in October of the same year.... this is the season.... Autum is blessed by their beauty and a lot of creative poeple lost their mind trying to describe their uniqueness.... I also lost my mind several times, not being able to decide how I could do justice to them.....

anyway, this was yet another photowalk organised by TTL... and who else organised it other than Shudipto?..... the photowalk was actually planned inside Banasree Housing, but we crossed the dividing canal to end up within the boundaries of Aftab Nagar Housing...... it was a short gathering, yet very productive in terms of photography.... I was scared a bit when I saw the rain clouds.... but the rain stayed away during the golden times of the afternoon sun.... and thats what mattered.... I had a couple of fantastic models with me, who would love to pose in front of my lens..... we kinda stayed away a bit to have some private time as well.... there were almost too many participants in the photowalk whose direct presence in front of us might've ruined my child's nice day out...... Lamisa enjoyed it to the full and so did we..... and the natural light was so good that I didn't have to touch my lighting kit, which I had to tug along with the help of my teammates.....

some challenges were there.... electric poles did their best to ruin pictures.... I was lucky to get some nice vantage point there..... but the limited spread of the "kaash" restricted my frames... I used a rather shallow DoF to utilise the light conditions and limited backdrop...... I started with a 20mm and then switched to a 50mm lens..... ended again with the 20mm..... I almost exclusively shot @ f2.8.... somehow, that aperture seemed right.... anyway, here are some of the outputs that I liked.... :)



















and this one was taken my buddy Tahmid Munaz..... :)

late-night drama.......

12 September 2010
Mohammadpur, Dhaka, Bangladesh

actually it was the night of the 11th..... that means, Eid Day...... we waited for some quiet time to do this.... and that called for a really late-night shoot, when everyone else would be in bed.... we started some time after 1:30AM.... I started to set things up in the living room some half-an-hour early..... the shots shows here were done well after 2:00AM..... and by the time I was able to pack things up, it was almost 4:00AM...... an effort like this after a hectic Eid Day was really tasking..... we were pretty much determined to do it..... and we more-or-less pulled it off!!

the idea was to create a spotlight of sorts...... previously I used the Simpex 25"x25" softbox to control the light spill from my diffusion panel..... it worked really well and it simply acted as a softbox for the SB-900..... I had the idea of doing sometime like that again...... but this time, I wanted the light-spill to be even lesser than previous occasion..... and straightaway, I was able to realise that it would be tough to achieve this.... the light spill was simply too much to achieve what I wanted to...... I needed a gridded softbox for sure..... and thoughts came to my mind of making a louvre-type grid for the softbox.....

I used a lamp for the extra effect and thus, I used a slower shutter to keep the light play its part..... I realised the need for a reflector a bit late though.... and for the second shot I used a reflector on a tripod..... really should've used it for the first one too....... anyway, its important that you make mistakes in order to learn..... tethered shooting was producing some teething software trouble.... perhaps with the help of that, rectifying small problems would've been much easier....

I used manual power for flash in order to keep everything under my control..... I used the SU-800 as trigger, but refrained from using TTL.... the SU-800 lets me set flash power from my camera, thus saving time and effort....

used the 24mm f2.8 lens after a while...... also tried out the 20mm and found it to be too wide..... 50mm was too narrow for the purpose..... actually the boom stands were right beside the subject and softbox right above...... so, there was no space for the light-stand legs to keep out of the frame..... I had to resort to a wide angle lens.... D700 @ ISO100 and 1/60s..... f6.3 & f8 for the two shots on 24mm lens.... for the second one, used a tripod and timer....

the improvised softbox was on camera right, right above the subject containing an SB-900 @1/8 power, triggered using SU-800..... a silver reflector on camera left for the second shot.....

food, glorious food!!!

11 September 2010
Mohammadpur, Dhaka, Bangladesh

Eid Day!!...... usually Eid-ul Fitr is more of an Eid of food and guests at our place.... I've documented home-made food bonanza for the last several Eid Days..... but never really concentrated in it or gave enough time behind it..... this time round, I got my strobist stuff going and I just had to push this one..... my family members were also co-operative enough...... we kept ourselves from eating the delicious stuff for, I don't know, may be 20 minutes or so!!

here's the geeky stuff..... I used two SB-900s here.... one as a back-light; direct, but with the diffuser on....... the second as the fill-light; beside the camera; with the diffuser on; shooting vertically towards the white ceiling..... both were firing TTL and were on tripods...... the trigger was the SU-800..... used a 50mm 1.4 for shallow depth (shot @f2.0; also experimented quite a bit) and 70-210mm lens for perspective flattening (shot @180mm f5) on D700..... shutter speed varied between 1/125s-1/200s, not to include any ambient light actually, but to compensate for longer focal length balance..... anyway, it didn't anyway, as I had the stopping power of the flash.... ISO was kept at 100....

three-and-a-half light.....

07 September 2010
Mohammadpur, Dhaka, Bangladesh

the main aim was to check out how I can sync the Simpex Prolite strobe with the SB-900/SB-600 flashes..... I have only one radio trigger!!...... but I did use the Prolite flash as an optical slave some time back.... it synced with SB flashes..... but for some reason, the optical slave of the flash is not longer working..... its the poor reliability of these cheap Indian system that keeps me worrying..... and can't really blame these systems much, as these are the only things that I can put my hands on right now.....

anyway, the experiment to sync once again failed miserably..... and I only have the option of using the Prolite as a stand-alone flash.... may be using some reflectors and diffusers to make it work a bit better..... thats it.... I quickly switched to the other set-up that I haven't tested yet..... spent some effort in recent times to construct some of a boom-stand to create overhead light.... this was the time to try it out, before I could really put strangers under it....

I quickly realised that the light spill on the background remained as grave a problem as before.... and SB-900 was easily reaching the backdrop..... I suddenly came up with a decision to use the softbox of the Prolite to contain the light of the SB-900.... thus, the whole system instantly becomes sort of a 25"x25" softbox.... and the spill was complete gone..... to be over-sure, I switched to high-speed sync and made the background totally dark..... it worked, although with some effort...... had to invest a lot of time and labour into it.....

the other problem that sneaked in was the trigger.... my SU-800 ran out of batteries and I couldn't get one timely enough..... the D700's built-in flash was the only solution..... but the practical problem was that the built-in commander was capable of controlling only two groups of lights..... but I needed three separate groups to accomplish my setting..... couldn't give the hair-light enough power because of this and struggled to make the hair-light visible in most shots..... was also not controlling the floor light well enough.... the chair got too much glare.... it needed some go-bo to control the spill on the bottom of the image.... I wasn't using tethered shoot this time because of some USB cable problems..... wasn't able to give enough look to all the small details.... may be next time....

I used the reflector for the first time and it worked really fine.... decided to use the silver side instead of the white side..... next time would also try out the white side..... the half-light really made a difference.... it worked almost as a full light!!



the set-up....

a turning point.........

04 September 2010
TTL Photowalk at a Jute Mill in Narayanganj, Bangladesh

one of my most important photowalks..... not just because I haven't been at a jute mill before, but because I took my photography to a whole new direction with this tour..... the strobist effort that I had been pursuing in recent times brought me to the ultimate utilisation of strobes..... in a documentary role.....

the moment i thought about the place, I knew that it would be a very poorly-lit area.... and it would be difficult to get a proper exposure, especially if I am trying to take a portrait...... this was exactly the kind of situation where a strobe could become the difference between a picture a no-picture..... and I was glad that I dragged my heavy bag over there..... and I was blessed by the help other extended to me..... mostly Zaim and Nasif.... they helped me too much really..... it was sapping heat, yet they voluntarily wanted to work as a voice-activated-light-stand (VAL)...... others also helped me at times, especially Newaz and Sureed....

I mostly used a single SB-900, sometimes through a white shoot-through umbrella (for portraits) and sometimes bare (for place lighting)..... I also took a small tripod to work as a light-stand...... a second SB-900 was resting in my bag..... the SU-800 that I used for triggering was disappointing..... it missed trigger almost too many times..... and lastly, it failed totally with the expiry of the battery, right when I stopped a worker to take his portrait!!..... I learned a lesson here..... I quickly replaced the SU-800 with the built-in commander of the D700.... it worked.... the SU-800 battery came alive again after a while and continued to use it....... and then I switched to Elinchrom Skyport radio triggers.... I wanted the versatility of TTL settings, which prevented me from starting with the Elinchroms.... but now I was forced to...... the SU-800 failed on quite a few occasions.... one of the reasons can be that the unit's battery was at its last position.... may be the power required for a decent signal wasn't there..... anyway, a back-up in the form of the built-in flash commander of the D700 and the Elinchrom saved me..... I could continue the way I wanted it....

this tour was a turning point for me..... its for sure that I wouldn't leave home without a strobist system if I think that there might be a situation where I might need it....

hope to publish a blog-post on my travel blog soon enough.....


face of the Golden Fibre........01


an exhausted worker; a tired face; a dedicated father; a hard-working citizen...... its the sweat on these bodies that made jute 'Golden Fibre' of Bangladesh...... the industry dipped hard; but is showing all signs of making a comeback..... Gold will be Gold again......

Strobist info: 1 SB-900 shot TTL through a white shoot-through umbrella held by a voice-activated-light-stand (Zaim) on camera right; triggered by built-in flash of Nikon D700 (as the battery in my SU-800 ran out at the worst possible moment!)




face of the Golden Fibre........02

the look on the face of these jute workers tell the story of jute..... the lines on their face describe the history of the industry....... and the sweat on their metaled body tell the story of their life....... its the face of the 'Golden Fibre' of Bangladesh

Strobist info: 1 SB-900 shot TTL through a white shoot-through umbrella held by a voice-activated-light-stand (Zaim) on camera right; triggered by SU-800

high-speed focus??

02 September 2010

just today there was a discussion among TTL members about focusing speed.... someone posted a shot of an F-22 Raptor shot with a 600mm f4 VR lens on a Nikon D3...... well, fancy equipment can get fancy results and there's little to debate about it.... what would matter more to average people is whether something like this can be achieved with much less investment...... the simple answer is, no.... but something close to this can be achieved for sure....... it all comes down to personal acceptance; how close I would like to go.... if I tend to get happy with cheaper results then expensive hardware is just like trophies on a showcase......

I've had my stint with cameras like D50/D80/D90 and D700...... what I've found is that entry level cameras are far from high-end cameras in terms of focusing speed..... a good lens can look like an average one on an entry-level camera..... and on the other hand, a high-end body can bring the best out of average lenses and make them look good...... a good lens would obviously look excellent...... I first discovered this while on my Sundarbans tour in 2009..... the Sigma 50-500mm (BIGMA) lens on the D700 produced such spectacular results that my D90 became almost totally idle throughout the 4-day tour..... focusing speed is simple no match!!

my experience says that.....
good lens + good cameras = excellent results
good lens + average cameras = decent results
average lens + good cameras = average results
average lens + average cameras = rubbish!!

I've shot with the BIGMA on D80/D90 and got decent results...... these are some shots taken with the BIGMA on Independence Day (26th March) in 2008...... they were shot with the Sigma 50-500mm lens @500mm f8 on a Nikon D80.....


BT-6 trainer.....



F-7M......



MiG-29......











mind you.... these are relatively easy situations to shoot..... subject is a spot against a white background on a bright sunny day..... though traveling at more than the speed of sound...... the ones I've faced in the Sundarbans were much harder, with fuzzy background in much lower light...... yet, the D700 made the BIGMA shine....