Roger Rosales

So, you’ve reached your destination. It was a rigorous climb up the mountain and you begin to setup your shot. You frame your scene and you reach inside your bag and your heart sinks deep into the depths of your stomach.

You’ve just realized that you forgot your ND filters. “NO!“ you scream in defiance. However, it is all in vain as no amount of screaming will undo your blunder.

Fortunately, you’re a resourceful photographer. Rather than throw your hands in the air in defeat you realize that you are wearing a potentially good ND filter alternative. You quickly remove your lens clip on sunshades from your glasses and you begin to MacGyver a solution to your woes. And then...

...this is your handy work.

Or this...

Neither of which look sexy or professional. Quite frankly, it looks terrible. Not only on your camera, you soon realize that you have zero fashion sense. But, whatever!

“This just might work!” you shout joyfully! And you would be right.

Ok, so that’s a very farfetched scenario, however, it is not uncommon for us to forget very important pieces of gear on photo shoots. Or perhaps you’re really  strapped for cash and simply can’t afford a decent set of filters. The above example can yield some decent results and offers nearly 3 stops of light.

Obviously, this is not an ideal setup. Nor, should we bank on this method to replace proper ND & polarizing filters but if we find ourselves in need of a couple extra stops, this could very well do the trick.

Besides the obvious, this method will only work with certain lenses. For this test I used my small 40mm Canon pancake lens. The entire lens element fit inside the width and height of the clip on lenses. This method will definitely not work with my 70-200mm or any other lens with large glass.

These images are straight out of camera. Absolutely nothing was changed or edited. I shot these images on an overcast day later in the afternoon (it was 4:30ish) which is why I was able to get slow shutter speeds right off the bat. However, theoretically, whether I was shooting at high noon, I should get the same amount of stops regardless.

So, for the first image, my settings are as follows: 1/4 f/13 ISO 100

Now, using the Solar Shield polarized Clipons I was able to slow my shutter speed down to 1″6. Aperture and ISO remained the same:

The results are not too shabby. You can see the biggest differences on the bottom portion where the stream is hitting the pond. So, at 4:30 in the afternoon I was able to go from 1/4th of a second to 1″6 seconds. That’s a third of a stop away from a full 3 stops. Now, if this was closer to sunset or sunrise you easily slow your shutter speed past 1″6 seconds. I would guesstimate that you could potentially achieve a shutter of 15″.

As a matter of fact, I could have slowed my shutter speed even more and still have maintained a good looking histogram and tweaked my exposure in lightroom. 

Here’s my histogram for the image using the clip on lens:

How is image quality affected by using such a cheap method? Surprisingly, not very much. Sharpness didn’t seem to be affected very much. Whatever difference I saw was negligible. Take a look for yourself: 1″6 Shutter Speed:

1/4th Shutter Speed:

Will you be replacing your ND filters for this method? I sure hope not...but, if you find yourself in a situation where you don’t have your filters and you happen to have a pair of non-prescription sunglasses this is a good method to employ to help you achieve slower shutter speeds.

My wife and I hiked one of the trails at Griffith Park that leads to the observatory and beyond. As you can see in the video, I was struggling. Sure, i’m a little (ok ok...a lot) out of shape, however, we’ve done much more rigorous trails in the past (and longer). For example, Gem Trail in the June Lake Loop. That is a loooong hike with varying degrees of inclination. So, i’m not completely new to hiking.

So, what was so different this time around? I was carrying an additional 32lbs of photo gear. Now, some of you may think that this is overkill, however, as I start out in my YouTube venture, I’m taking as much of the gear I think I’ll need to record great video. The sad part is I only used my iPhone to record video.

I could’ve gone without the additional MeFoto tripod and the Sony a6000 camera with the additional 55-210mm lens. I also could’ve left my Canon 60D at home.

But now I know.

So, chalk it up to a learning experience. However, I will say this, I know for a fact I will need the Sony a6000 and the MeFoto tripod on solo trips. The reason for carrying that secondary camera and tripod is to record B-Roll of me setting up my camera, putting on filters and lenses and all that other stuff. For this particular trip, however, my wife did all the recording hand held.

Anyway, regardless, it was a fun hike, and I think I got some cool photos out of it. Nothing spectacular, but, nice nonetheless. 

I do want to mention the final settings for this photo are not what I described in the video. This shot is actually the first shot I took when I setup. The light was perfectly hitting the mountain side creating these really nice highlights that contoured the mountain. Final settings for this shot were 1/25th, f/10, ISO 50 with no ND filter. I did shoot an image with the ND filter and the settings described in the video, however, the light that was hitting the hollywood sign and mountain was gone and didn’t have nearly the same amount of impact. Interestingly enough, however, it wouldn’t have made much of a difference because there was no significant blur in the clouds as I was hoping for, even at the 30″ exposure.

One thing that we (at least I) neglect is our clothing and footwear. I tend to focus so much on camera gear that I neglect to stop and think about the external items that will facilitate a good and much more comfortable hiking experience. So, what I have to say to you is, don’t forget to set aside some of that budget on gear for some good clothing and footwear.

Photography.

It’s expensive. And who really has the money to buy all the name brand photo gear? I certainly don’t. With that said, expensive equipment does NOT make the photograph. The photographer does. Which is why I am exploring various non photography specific gear and using it for my photography.

Let’s take seamless background paper for example. A roll of Savage 53″ x 36′ will cost you $30 at B&H. That’s not exactly cheap, especially if you’re just starting out, have a family; are a student or simply just don’t have enough funds to throw at expensive gear. Now, let’s compare that $30 roll to Pacon’s Fadeless construction paper that costs you $10 for a 48″ x 12′ roll.

For $10 you get a roll wide enough for portraits & headshots. At 12′, however, you really can’t roll this sucker out for a full sweep. Pacon offers a 50′ roll that costs you $28.44 on Amazon, however, if you’re going to spend that much...buy the Savage. It’s just better. However...The idea is to save money. And if all you plan or want to shoot are headshots or portraits of single (as in one person at a time and not a group shot) individuals, the $10 could save you a ton of money.

Recently my previous employer moved to the midwest from it’s Los Angeles location. Needless to say, I found myself unemployed in the traditional sense. However, I see it as an opportunity to go full on freelance with my photography. And without a steady income coming in now I have to be very deliberate with my spending. So, I decided to try out the Pacon Fadeless paper rolls.

After purchasing the roll I called up my buddy to help me out with a test shoot. I setup in my backyard and started shooting! I ended up using a two light setup as seen below:

To my surprise, the backdrop did really well. Of course, it has it’s drawbacks. It’s very thin compared to the Savage rolls and as you can see in the image above it creases pretty easy. However, the look I was going for was a very dark and moody one so I wasn’t lighting the backdrop and was using it primarily to help facilitate a black background. Of course, I could’ve used a white background, used the inverse square law and yadda yadda to get the same look, but I decided to go this route.

As with any portrait, you have to be very careful with your lighting, and this was no exception. If you’re going to go the route of the el cheapo I highly suggest you shoot tethered on a bigger screen. Those creases in the back become pretty visible once you open your raw files. The histogram won’t be much help here in detecting the background wrinkle texture. Here’s a straight from camera sample with ONLY a B&W conversion done to it in lightroom:

Now, with a little bit of burning in Photoshop you can eliminate the ugly texture in the background. Here’s the fully edited version:

The background is much cleaner now and you would never be able to tell I used a cheap $10 roll of paper. It requires some extra editing time but not by much if you get your lighting right. And this is why I highly recommend shooting tethered so you can view the images on a larger screen and adjust your lighting as needed.

I did not. But that’s OK. This was only a test shoot and it showed me exactly what I wanted to see. The weaknesses of going the cheap route. In the next image below the background is MUCH smoother and cleaner and I did not have to do any burning in order to get it to look this way. My light didn’t change, however, I got a much cleaner backdrop. I believe the reason is because the wind helped smooth out the creases by stretching the background a bit and I just so happen to have caught it in the right moment. As a matter of fact, I upped the black value to +25 in lightroom.

Overall, I think it’s worth spending the extra money and going with the Savage rolls instead, however, these Pacon backdrops will do in a pinch and if you’re tight on cash. Some extra work in post will be involved but if you shoot it correctly and get the best looking raw files possible it shouldn’t be a headache at all.

So, Canon decides to release a new flash. The 470EX AI; Auto Intelligent NOT Artificial Intelligence. Yep.

This is what B&H overview reads like:

“Helping to reduce the intimidation of flash photography, the Speedlite 470EX-AI from Canon is a unique on-camera light featuring Auto Intelligent Bounce technology. This function measures the room you are working in, along with the set focus distance, in order to automatically tilt and rotate the flash head to produce even, diffuse, and clean bounce flash results. This function can be used in full-auto mode, where the flash automatically determines all settings, or in semi-auto mode, where you can set the angle of the flash and it will automatically rotate depending on the specific camera position or orientation in use.”

So, basically, it like, automatically swivels the flash head finding the best angle to bounce your light off of completely eliminating the need to have basic flash knowledge.

Initially, I thought it ridiculous and quite stupid, however, upon further stewing of the idea and technology, I actually think it will be tremendously useful even for the most knowledgeable flash photographer.

Now, by no means am I a flash master. Joe McNally my name is not. However, I know my way around speedlites and studio strobes quite well.

My initial reaction was if you don’t know the best angle to bounce your flash you shouldn’t be using flash at all. Yes, that’s a very arrogant and perhaps elitist attitude. I’m sorry. But then I started to think about past events I shot...

When you’re shooting events like weddings and anniversaries you’re constantly on the move. You angle your flash but within seconds you do a complete 180 and your angle should change with you. I can’t begin to tell you how many times I forgot to adjust my flash head. Not because of not having the knowledge, but, because of it just not being on my mind and getting the shot is. Now, that’s no excuse. One should always be aware of their flash angle but I’m human. I have an imperfect brain and it forgets things and under stressful fast moving situations it tends to glitch from time to time.

And that’s when it clicked for me. Canons new 470EX AI flash has the potential to eliminate this part of our workload. And that to me is AWESOME. One less thing to worry about when you’re running and gunning. This doesn’t make you any less of a photographer but rather it’s aiding you to achieve your artistic vision by eliminating some of the more mundane mechanical aspects of our job.

Also, what’s wrong with a new technology helping beginners to learn the art of photography? Far be it from anyone to look down on anyone for using new tech to learn. We all started from the bottom with little to no knowledge. Leave a comment and tell me what you think!

Anyway, enough of my ramblings. Here’s a link to the Petapixel article regarding the new speedlite:

That’s precisely how their sign should read above their entrance.

It's refreshing to see local shops supporting artists. This is precisely what I experienced a few weeks ago at my local skate/record shop— Yuri's Records in South Gate, CA. In it you'll find various music memorabilia. It's heavy on the rock/metal side with a good amount of rap and hip-hop strewn in; enough to satisfy local kids looking for an awesome shop that they can not only shop for their favorite records but also hang out. A safe haven in the local community so to speak.

I remember being a high school punk kid playing backyard shows and getting removed by the cops. Often times we couldn’t get passed the first song before we were shut down. It was a constant battle. We normally were one of the later bands to play (I like to think of it as Semi-Headliners!) and by then all the grumpy old folk got fed up with the noise and called the po-po. ‘Twas not the case this night.

This is where I hold a lot of respect for Yuri’s. I follow them on Instagram and I often see them posting flyers for their free shows they host in their shop. They range from rap to metal artists. I just think it’s awesome that they open their doors for local and non-local artists alike and give them a platform to reach peoples hearts with their music. #Respect

I showed up halfway through the acts. The crowd was slim that night. There was some soccer (or football for European folk) game and I think that may be the reason why. I spoke to the owner of the shop and she says they normally have a great turnout. Whatever the reason, that didn’t stop Richard Lamas from Rundown Kreeps from giving it his all. He was performing by the time I walked in through the front door.

Richard did a cover of Sublimes’ “Garden Grove” and nailed it. Dude has an awesome voice. It was Definitely reminiscent of Bradley’s. He also played original music which I found to be very well written as well. Overall, he was a solid artist.

Next up was Meg and Paul from Eyeless Collective. You’ll notice that they are not playing acoustic guitars, rather, they are breaking the rules! They played...ELECTRIC! And they opened up by saying “we don’t have any acoustic guitars. This is all we have, so yeah...this is what we’re playing” Of course, I’m paraphrasing here. Not a single distorted note was played though and they played as acoustic as they could. I’m no rule Nazi here. I just found that amusing.

They too played a cover. They played a song from Bob Marley. I can’t remember which one they played, however. Wish I would’ve written it down. Anyway, Meg sang it and she nailed it. She has a very gritty sounding voice that suits their style and tone very well. 

Paul’s performance was great. Fluid and organic are words that immediately pop into mind. Dude was bobbing and weaving his head to the flow of the music and he had his eyes closed the whole time. Very much in-tune with his playing and the music all together. 

His expression and style really fit Nirvana’s smiley face. I don’t mean that as an insult or in a bad way at all. He was just very much in the moment. Blissfully aware of his music.

Anyway, the night ended and it was great hearing these talented individuals. I approached them, commended them for their talents and gave them my info. Looking to do photo shoots with them soon.

Anyway, you can check them out yourself.

Rundown Kreeps: https://www.reverbnation.com/rundownkreeps

It’s another late night editing my most recent photo shoot. This photo shoot has been in the pipeline to complete for the past 3 weeks. It’s hard for me to actually find time to edit my photo shoots. Being a husband and a father of two with a full time job, time really is almost none-existent. So, often times my only available window of time to edit is nights. I just grab my headphones and throw on some Anthrax, ‘Tallica or some Rage and off I go late into the night. Focused. Although the majority of the work is done, I still need to fine tune some images in Photoshop. 90% is done.  

I’ll take that.

I know- That’s a REALLY long time. Fortunately, this was a pro bono shoot I did for good friends of mine. If this was a paid gig I would’ve finished this much earlier, however, I took a little extra time to breath. It’s a really good feeling upon completion or at least near completion as is my case at the moment. Having a photo shoot that needs culling and editing hanging over your head is never fun and it really does feel like excess weight pushing down on you.

As always, with every photo shoot I learn something new. I look at my mistakes and try to learn from them and apply them on the next shoot. It’s a constant process of refinement and it keeps me on my feet. This particular shoot was a couple shoot for their 5th anniversary. It was quite a day. But that’s a post for another day.

Do you want to know one of the greatest things about the internet? It’s being able to put out an ad on craigslist - or any other platform of your choice - and almost instantly be connected with individuals who are in need of your services. Such was the case with Robert.  Robert is an actor, editor and just an all-around filmmaker.

Robert was looking to update his headshots and I am looking to expand my portfolio so we set a date and we made some images!

Now, I know this isn’t a typical Peter Hurley-esque headshot on a white seamless; I opted to shoot at the old abandoned L.A. Zoo and the results are great. Robert was a great guy to work with and we shot on a few different locations within the park. I tried to get as much diversity as possible with the short time-period we had.

Being that he was an actor we played off of that and he was able to give me some great looks to help lighten the mood and generate a pleasant environment. I really enjoy working with actors because I can throw out a word and they give me a visual of that. This method (which I did learn from Peter Hurley) helps to get natural smiles out of individuals. It definitely works much better than “say cheese!” The latter is no bueno.

For a lot of the shots I used a simple 5-in-1 Westcott reflector kit. Since we were shooting at high-noon I mostly used the diffusion to soften the harsh sun. Since we were kinda runnin’ and gunnin’ it I had my assistant hold the diffusion panel.

Diffusing the light works wonders and it really helps in minimizing the amount of gear you lug around. However, I did use an Alienbee 800 strobe hooked up to my vagabond mini with a 35″ Octa with a grid to help control spill. It provided some really great results especially in a dappled light environment.

During the entire shoot I used natural light with no diffusion, strobes and natural light with diffusion. Knowing that we were going to be doing some light hiking I did not want to overburden myself and my assistant with too much gear.