Shooting on location.

As a professional photographer without a brick & mortar studio, I do all my shooting “on location”.    Location shooting is not without it’s challenges.  A short list of factors you must be able to work with and around if necessary include, weather, sunshine, wind, environment and accessibility.  You must also consider the welfare of your model or client(s).

There are several ways to bring what is outside into the studio, but often, shooting on location will offer creative opportunities not available in the studio and will provide a memorable experience for the client.  Remind me I said that when it’s 100F in the shade at dusk and a client schedules a location photo shoot.

You can go light on equipment you carry with you and concentrate on taking advantage of the location layout, bring a production crew, or stop somewhere in between.  Most of us, myself included, stop somewhere in between.

In order to master your creativity, you must be completely comfortable with your equipment.  This doesn’t mean you need to memorize the manual, but you should be able to quickly and easily change settings on your equipment as necessary.  Being able to do this will prevent a fun photo shoot from turning into a stressful situation.  It will also help prevent you from missing “the shot”.

When shooting on location, I like to use an off camera flash mounted in a 15x15” softbox with on camera flash modified by a bounce card.  Both flash units are mounted on a pocket wizard FlexTT5 and configured in master/slave modes with A:B ratios.   This setup is excellent for outdoor portraiture and can be enhanced by using a scrim to remove harsh sun from your subject and a reflector to add light without carrying an additional flash.  The FlexTT5’s ensure that my remote slaves work without having to worry about whether their sensor is pointed at the master flash or even covered up.

Not all location shooting is done outdoors.  I often take studio lighting with me to shoot indoors at large events.  For me, the major difference in shooting indoor event photography and studio shooting is how you have to set your equipment up.  When shooting a client or model, location shooting indoors is very similar to location shooting outdoors.  When shooting an event, you may need to locate power, run extension cords, and set up a backdrop, lights, table, computer, printer, etc., depending on the nature of the event.

A Review: Eye-Fi Pro X2 8GB + Wi-Fi

During the past year I was exposed to Eye-Fi advertising that looked worthy of further investigation. Like some many other ads I plan on looking into, this one went to end of my priority list until I was suddenly faced with a need to connect a camera wirelessly to my laptop at an event.  I learned in the two months prior, that other event photographers had successfully incorporated the Eye-Fi cards into their workflow.  Armed with that knowledge I purchased an Eye-Fi Pro X2 8GB+Wi-Fi   card from Amazon.  

The Eye-Fi Pro X2 8GB+Wi-Fi card arrived yesterday in a package about the same size as a DVD.  The box contained an almost useless paper manual (software installation instructions) and the Eye-fi card pre-inserted into a sdhc to usb adapter. 

Installation software for the Eye-Fi card came loaded on the Eye-Fi card.  Installing the software went smoothly and requires an internet connection to configure the Wi-Fi to your network.  This is one thing I would like to see change.  Any program that can be run via the internet to update the settings on the Eye-Fi card should also be able to run locally.

When the software was through configuring the Eye-Fi card for my home network, it instructed me to remove the card from the laptop, put it in the camera and take a picture.  The picture is supposed to show up in Eye-Fi Central, the software that Eye-Fi uses to let you upload photos and video quickly and easily to social networking sites. 

Here was where I encountered my first problem.  I loaded the Eye-Fi card into my 1DsmkII and took a photo…,   a RAW photo.   The images transferred to my laptop without any trouble, but that final window in the configuration software where I was supposed to be able to see my photo seemed to hang..,   of course it seemed to hang, the RAW file I took was over 17mb’s in size…  and I have a DSL connection to the internet.   When it appeared I was never going to see the image in the Eye-Fi Central, I closed it and moved on.

Next, I walked around the house with camera in hand and took a series of jpeg images. When I returned to the laptop,  all the images had transferred.  Okay, this test was successful, but I was connecting to my home networks wireless router and my goal was to connect to connect directly to my laptop in ad-hoc mode. 

Initially I though I couldn’t do it from the main network screen in Eye-Fi Central and ended up trying to configure the Eye-Fi card to look for my laptop that same way it would look for a Wi-Fi hotspot.  After going through the software settings several times and changing my laptop to ad-hoc mode, I was I able to achieve a connection.   Unfortunately after power cycling the laptop and the sdhc card, I was unable to connect again.

Ultimately, I did figure my connections out, although I didn’t know it because Zone Alarm was blocking the incoming signal from the Eye-Fi card. Once I closed Zone Alarm I was able to confirm my settings and restart Zone Alarm.  

I have re-booted the laptop several times and also moved the card from the 1DsmkII to the 1DmkIII.  Each time I turn the camera on and take a photo the image transfers to the laptop without a hitch.    A raw file from the mkIII takes 38 seconds to transfer from the time the shutter is pressed.  Jpeg’s are much quicker, with a M2 jpeg taking approximately four seconds.

The first time I ever tethered a camera to a computer I used Canons software. I also used Canons software at the first event I offered photos printed on location. In addition to that, I used Lightroom, which can be set to auto import files from a watched folder.  LR3 offers the ability to tether a camera now, but with the Eye-Fi available, you can skip the tether and transfer your images.

According to Eye-Fi, only the Pro version is capable of ad-hoc connections and transferring RAW files. You can compare the X2 models here.