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Our megamid setup on night 2 was very compfy; Brad and I slept in the Megamid while Robin and Kevin slept in his tent. We all cooked in the 'mid, which was very, very comfortable sitting along the bench on the left-hand side.
Addendum (November, 2008): After many more trips with the Megamid, this setup can be used with no bivy sacks or tarp floor for a very light system. The way we set it up is as follows:
First, make a flat area about 11 feet (a little bigger than each side of the 'mid) square, then dig down (cutting rough blocks w/ your shovel if possible) a couple feed in a ~9 foot square. Level the edges. Dig a trench down one wall (wherever you'll have the entrance); you can use this for a compfy cooking area later. Then, put the megamid down and use skis/poles/tree branches to secure the corners and midpoints. Go inside and set up your pole (we use two skiis with the skins still on facing heel-to-toe with two bike toe straps around them).
Adjust the length to get the tent secure, then put blocks back over the edges of the megamid to keep the wind out. Clean up the inside by digging it out as much as possible and potentially undermine the walls a little. You can sleep two on one side of the pole and one on the other.
We sleep in this with just thermarests on the ground and a winter bag (I use one rated to -14C). We pile our backpacks in the doorway, cook in a shelf in the outside wall opposite the trench which makes breakfast a lot easier, especially if it's stormy.
(Update Feb 2011): This gets a decent number of searches ending here; for a couple more modern shots of our megamid setup, look at these pics:
www.flickr.com/photos/mike-warren/464155013/
www.flickr.com/photos/mike-warren/462929911/
Feeling lazy, so a really simple setup today.
A sheet of black painted glass as the base with a black card background approx 12inches/300mm behind.
A pair of table lamps with 20watt stick type CFL bulbs. Pringles reflectors replacing the lampshades with sheets of tracing paper clipped on to diffuse the light and a couple of A4 sheets of black card to shield the background from the lights.
Simple but quite effective as I hope the shot below shows.
Second setup with this tilted glass.
The white card backdrop now has a sheet of blue Fun Foam placed in the centre, so only the edges of the white are illuminated. The white can just about be seen behind the lights, the area behind the glass is filled with the blue.
The lights are also changed. Well thats not strictly true, it's the same lights, a pair of 20W CFL lamps, but they are inserted into upright Pringles tube reflectors, which give a much larger area of light than the snoots used with the white background..
Also, a pair of black cards are placed on each side, to prevent direct light fom spilling onto the glass, it is all coming back from the background, which stops nasty reflections on the glass.
If I was going to do this again, I think I would place the flash lower and direct the light up more. This would have given a cool shadow on the headboard/wall and ceiling. I also forgot my shutter speed at 1/90 sec because I was doing some stuff before (and I wanted some ambient light effect), however, the flash was very effective in freezing motion.
Resulting pic here.
Strobist:
1 - SB-80DX camera left (1/8 power?)
Triggered by on camera flash (1/128 power)
I have been researching flash triggers and had settled on Pocket Wizards when I saw an article on radiopoppers. Now I'm not sure what to buy. To make a long story longer, I rarely use my Nikon CLS system (because my DX80 strobe can't) and I tend to be a "manual" mode guy when it comes to using a flash -- I like my flash to do what I tell it to do. Anyway over at radiopopper they are talking about TTL and iTLL and all I hear is bla, bla, bla, so I figured I should do some research. Anyway, I found this great blog... Nikon CLS Practical Guide by Russell MacDonald. I started with "Nikon Flash - Two Separate Metering Systems". You might like to check it out.
Step 1: Lay down 2 legs side by side. Then attach cross bar between 2 legs creating a "U" shape.
Then repeat this so you have two "U" shaped 7-8 feet apart.
It is important to follow these steps so that the joints will not break.
Another setup where the surroundings dwarf the subjects, but it does give nice big light sources.
The base is my usual sheet of glass painted black on the underside to create the mirror.
Behind this a sheet of white card which bounces light forward and is reflected on the glass.
There are 3 stick type 20watt CFL lamps used here, all in Pringles tube reflectors. Two are easily seen placed either side, while the third is behind the base shining up at the backdrop.
To diffuse the light, a pair of plastic document boxes are placed between the lights and the subject and have an additional sheet of tracing paper clipped to them to soften the light further.
Finally and not showing here, an LED video light was shone at the top of the backdrop to give a hint of blue. As the camera has the white balance set to Tungsten, which matches the colour temperature of the CFL lamps (2700K), the LED light which is daylight balanced (5500K) it takes on a blue hint.
Care does need to be taken that neither my hand or the LED light get reflected in the glass. One advantage of having Live View on my P&S camera.
Nothing fancy today, a pretty straightfoward setup.
Three 20watt stick type CFL lamps mounted in Pringles reflectors.
One each side and the third located behind and below the level of the glass base to illuminate the base of the background.
Diffusion screens of tracing paper are placed between the side lights and the subject to even out the light.
Have a nice weekend everyone.
My little mac setup, just need a midi keyboard to finish it up. Wish I could go for a somewhat minimalistic look but those gay victorian wall frames kill it. -_-
Setup for the Pink orchid shot. For the final shot I've put a black glass below the orchid, the rest did not change.
setup for this shot: www.flickr.com/photos/powersimagery/4488254430/
Strobist: X3200 into a gridded beauty dish from above
2x Sunpak 555 into 43" umbrellas cam right and left
ABR800 on cam
Sb900 and SB800 as kickers behind subject cam left and right
X1600 with blue gel behind subject on background
The full hardware controller for flying insects. The internal basis is an Altera FPGA chip (hardware, no software) this chip can be hardware programmed with the functions need to drive the hole unit as lasers, highpower magnet for the compur1 shutter, red cros lasers for the detection of the flying insects, all the flashes(max8) camera control, green laser pinters for the framing, high power drivers for UV leds and withe leds to work into the dark for moths at night.
How to take insects in flight see:
Setup shot for 057/365 Howdy Partner.
Camera Info:
Canon 7D, Canon EF 50mm 1:1.4, f/2.8, 1/60s, ISO 100
This setup shot was taken with a Sigma DC 17-70mm 1:2.8-4 Macro Lens.
Strobist Info:
-Canon 430EXII Camera right and in front of subject, 1/64 Power, @24mm zoom, about 7 feet high, 5 feet away from subject through white shoot through umbella.
-Canon 430EXII to the right of subject lying on ground covered with white napkin pointing up at 22.5 at the background wall and balloons, 1/64 Power, @24mm zoom.
-Flash was triggered with Interfit Strobies.
Strobist Boot Camp 2008
Headshot Assignment - Setup shot
Camera:
Nikon D300 - 17-55 f2.8
1/250, f5
(2) Nikon SB-800 (fired via CLS)
- Main light from camera right with shoot-through umbrella @ 1/4 power
- Background light from ground behind model (pointing up) zoom head set to 70mm @ 1/32 power.
White reflector on camera left.
Macro test setups.
Test object : KC73129MP
Number of Effective Pixels: 500(H) ´ 582(V)
Unit Pixel Size: 9.80um(H) ´ 6.30um(V)
This is a CCD with fine structure as a test object. The structure is uniform, perfectly straight and the dimensions are fixed. The macro magnification can be measured easily.
The 100% crops are always 600x400 pixels. Since a sensor pixel less than 10 um the resolution of the image can be properly checked.
I use a new tube-lens, the AF-S Nikkor 70-200mm 1:4G ED.
The advantage with this lens is the possibility to change the focalt length. This also changes the macro ratio. The ideal value is 200mm and this lens performs excellently. At other focalt values the quality remains very good but there are problems with the lighting in the corners. You'll practically limited to about 150mm. At 135mm you will have to adjust the angles sure if your image is in that zone. Smaller than 135mm is no longer usable, you lose too much by the dark corners. Successive images show these results.
The left part shows a 100% crop, the right image shows the entire picture. Focalt lenght and lens type are always marked.
Mitutoyo M Plan APO 10X lens is the real winner. That may be for its price. Again, you can not go too low with the focalt value The AIS35mm 2.8 reverse lens performs clearly worse. In contrast, the lens AF50mm doing a lot better. Macro AF60mm when reverse is very limited in length focalt but it does well with 200mm.
This is the result of one shot, there is no stacking used in these tests. Because the sensor is very flat so it can be done.
Setup shot for the portrait of Rachel. Also shown is Rachel's mate Amy who came along for moral support, and did a fine job of hair and make-up as well.
As always, the notes will answer your queries.
Setup Shot for 077/365 Amazement.
Camera Info:
Canon 7D, Canon EF 50mm 1:1.4, f/1.4, 1/60s, ISO 200
Strobist Info:
-Canon 430EXII camera right in a 24 inch softbox, 6 feet high and 4 feet away from subject.
-Flashes were triggered by Interfit Strobies
Az a "fényterelő" ott azért hátul van, mert nem tudtam elvinni onnan, fix. :( Amúgy létezik flickR függőség?! :-o
Setup shot for this shot: flickr.com/photos/dangottesman/2850492134
Roll over the notes for additional details.
4 SB's:
directly above, with a gridded softbox - this made the upper highlight, seen on the center seam of the shell
camera right with a straight softbox - this made the big obvious highlight in the middle of the shell
camera left, high, with a small softbox - this helped diffuse some of the shadows, and also made a nice gradient on the back wall (white) for the background
camera right, with a long snoot -
this back-lit the batter head (which is actually pretty beat-up), and really makes the head just pop
I'm not totally in love with the way the shadows fall on the foam core, but I think they're tolerable for now.
If i were to do it again, I might start with a big umbrella directly above, and then 2 soft boxed lights on either side to counter any hard shadows.
(not 100% sure about the power settings, as I did a lot of playing around)
Forgive the lack of quality in this shot. The Kodak DC240 was actually a good camera when I bought it for my second eldest daughter a few years back. (Yeah, kids had a digital before I did!) Few dints, knocks, scrapes, flash not working, buttons missing from the back - but it still takes pictures. Rescued it from the bin after she threw it out!!!!!
Anyway, just to show the setup I used for the Lupin shot.