Here in Vermont, it can get pretty cold. It’s not so unusual for our winters but while a lot of people like to stay inside and drink hot cocoa, David Brueckner lives for days when the temperature drops to negative digits. Because that’s perfect weather for getting creative!

Throw Boiling Water in the Air? Why Not?

David wanted to take the idea a step farther. So he thought, hey, let’s do it at sunset. Because that will be beautiful. And let’s do it on Lake Champlain, because it can give you a pretty amazing background. Oh, let’s add some lights. Because it’s going to be dark. And one more thing, let’s add some color to it, just for fun!

To do this properly, David needed several things:

• A flash on a lightstand he could put behind his subject;
• A subject willing to chance getting wet (multiple times) in the freezing cold;
• Several buckets of very hot water;
• A camera to capture the image;
• PocketWizards to trigger it all;
• And Mother Nature to cooperate and give him a clear, cold day with amazing light.

David likes the PlusX radios because they are so simple. Just plug them in, match the Channels, and you’re good to go, then it’s up to Lady Luck and a skilled water throwing subject!

The trouble with a shoot like this is that you don’t get a lot of retakes. David shoots either near sunset or sunrise, so his time window is already super short and at those temperatures, you can’t stand around waiting. You have to be ready to move fast.

How Exactly Do You Make This Work?

David picks a spot on the lake with a great background and makes sure the ice is solid. Because it’s Vermont, the temperatures can vary dramatically and you typically can’t plan a shoot like this very far in advance, usually only a few days or maybe a week, tops. For the water to vaporize, the air temperature has to be at least -10 F (that’s -23 in Celsius!) and the water has to be boiling. Temperatures that cold impact EVERYTHING. David and his model only have a few minutes outside, then they need to bring everything back to the car to warm up. To get about 20 shots, it takes about an hour.

He sets up his lights, making sure the stand is hidden behind the subject and turns everything on. At this point, he has the model grab the cup of water then get into place. Then it’s time to shoot!

They have to work quickly, there’s only enough time for about 5-6 attempts before everyone needs to get back into the car to warm up. Once everyone (and everything) is warm enough, they pop out and shoot again for a few minutes. It takes about an hour to do a full session.

David’s Best Tips and Tricks:

• Biggest tip: Throw the water off to the side, not directly over head!  Lindsay tossed the water with the hand that was further from the camera and kept it off the the side as she threw it in an arch.
• Second biggest tip:  Light the water from behind the subject.
• Make sure the air temperature is at least -10 if not colder
• Use handwarmers taped to your flashes to help keep the batteries warm. Also, have extra batteries ready and warm in your car. (and keep the car running!)
• The water has to be boiling. Keep it in a thermos and just use a cup/mug at a time.
• Wear gloves (fingerless gloves are perfect for this!).
• Use a wide angle and leave plenty of room overhead to catch the water as it vaporizes.
• Be patient with the shutter release. Wait till the water is spread out so the vapor fills the frame.
• Watch your lighting. As the sun comes up or goes down, you’ll need to adjust the camera settings and maybe switch into (or out of) HyperSync.
• You can get a larger arch and bigger effect by using a larger pan or cup of water but you’ll got through your water supply faster.

David’s looking forward to the next cold snap to shoot more images this year. Check out his Facebook page for updates!

IMPORTANT!

If you decide to try this type of photo shoot:
Be sure to check the ice and make sure it is thick enough to support people and equipment – usually at least 4 inches thick. If you are driving a vehicle out onto the ice, it needs to be at least 8-12″ thick.

Using boiling water can be VERY dangerous, especially for children. It can cause 2nd and 3rd degree burns. If boiling water lands on clothing, the material can retain the heat,  extended contact with skin and prolonged contact with heat. This can result in deeper burns.

Please be careful AND safe if you decide to try this. Good luck and let us know how it goes!

The post Hot Water + Sub Zero Temperatures = Pretty Cool Images appeared first on PocketWizard.

The Big Opportunity!

Alexis Cuarezma is a portrait photographer with a specialty in photographing sports figures. One of his big breaks was when he was asked to photograph an athlete, Shayne Skov, for Sports Illustrated. His assignment: keep it simple on a plain gray background. However, simple is not Cuarezma’s style and who knew when he’d have the opportunity to shoot for SI again? He knew he needed to fulfill the simple assignment, but it was also a great opportunity to showcase his artistry.

PocketWizard to the Rescue

A feature of the MultiMAX II is SpeedCycler which makes it possible to set up multiple lighting scenarios and cycle through them with each click of the shutter. Although SpeedCycler was originally designed for sports photographers and others who needed continuous drive but whose lights couldn’t recycle fast enough, Cuarezma tasked SpeedCycler for something a little more creative.

One Pose, Two Shots, Two Dramatically Different Looks

Using PocketWizard’s unique SpeedCycler functionality, Cuarezma captured two separate exposures in milliseconds – one exposure lit using his dramatic style with colored gels immediately followed by a second exposure per his instructions – simple on a gray background.

The Dream Come True

Cuarezma’s style was well received. He took a chance and turned a simple portrait assignment into a creative, dramatic, and dynamic photo shoot. His “outside the box” thinking ended up with a double-page spread in Sports Illustrated – a dream come true.

Check out Behind the Scenes

Alexis created the behind the scenes video of the shoot – check it out!

 To see more of Alexis Cuarezma’s work, check out his website.

All images, videos, and quotes in this post are used with permission images ©Alexis Cuarezma all rights reserved; story is ©PocketWizard. Feel free to link to this blog post, but please do not replicate or repost elsewhere without permission.

The post Use PocketWizard SpeedCycler to get 2 Dramatically Different Looks in an Instant appeared first on PocketWizard.

I’m a natural light photographer!

do you really mean…

I don’t know how to use my flash! 

If you are like many photographers, you’ve invested a lot of money in your equipment, including a speedlight. Have you become friends with it yet? If not, we challenge you to get to know your speedlight a little better this weekend.

Check out this great example of the same portrait taken outside without flash, and then with a flash by photographer Fred Pompermayer.  Without the pop of flash, he would have missed this beautiful shot.

Yes – natural light is wonderful! But it isn’t always where we want it and you can’t control its location or its strength. By using the controls on your flash, you can adjust the strength and by getting your flash off your camera, you can control its location.

To start using off-camera flash, get yourself 2 PocketWizards to radio control your flash wirelessly. One goes on your camera, and the second connected to your speedlight.

Set your exposure on your camera to get the background perfectly exposed – then add your flash and adjust as necessary. By getting the exposure just right in camera, you will save yourself tons of time in post. No more bumping up the shadows and living with grainy photos.

Try adding a pop of flash to your portraits and tag us – #pocketwizard – we’d love to feature your masterpiece on our Instagram feed. The more you use it, the more you will like it – it’s like having a little sunshine in your pocket.

The post Flash Friday appeared first on PocketWizard.

MVCC Photography Professor Jerome LaLonde brought his students to New York City to attend PPE to learn a little about the photography industry. The group met with photographer Lenny Christopher, a MVCC alum and former student of Professor LaLonde. Lenny is also a member of PocketWizard’s support team.

Working with the students, Lenny led a workshop teaching them on how to use off-camera flash and the benefits of using PocketWizard to take advantage of HyperSync.  

High Line Photowalk

One of the highlights of the workshop was when Lenny took the students on a photo walk on the High Line – an elevated park above NYC and demonstrated the benefits of how to use flash creatively to elevate the student’s images. This unique vantage point helped give a different perspective on the busy city and allowed time for the students to play with the PocketWizard radios and lights. It was fun to see the students get excited by flash, and the HyperSync capabilities opened their eyes to new creative possibilities.  HyperSync is a feature patented by PocketWizard and enables the ability to use a flash at a high shutter speed. When used with portraiture, photographers can use a fast shutter speed to control the ambient light and take advantage of using a wide open aperture to achieve a soft background even on a bright sunny day.   

The PocketWizard Off-Camera Flash Challenge

After the walk, Lenny challenged the students to use a PocketWizard to elevate their portraits for a chance to win a set of PocketWizard radios. We asked the students to submit their top photos at the end of the semester for our team to review. The students went back to campus in Utica, NY and had the rest of the semester to submit.  

We saw some amazing images and judging was tough.  In the end we choose our top 3 which are posted below.

The Top Three

The winning image is a black and white portrait taken by Collen Szatko, using off camera flash and shot on 120 film!  The judges loved how sharp the image was and they loved the feel and story it told.  The off-camera flash really helped tell the story and helped to accentuate the features of her model.  

Want to learn more about how you can use HyperSync to elevate your photos? Follow this link.  

The post Elevating your Photos with PocketWizard appeared first on PocketWizard.

“For this photo I used 2 PocketWizard FlexTT5s on 2 Nikon SB-900 Speedlights and a PocketWizard FlexTT5 on a Nikon D5. I used a 70-200mm VRII at 200mm and my settings were: 1/1250, f2.8 and ISO 400. Using the PocketWizards, I was able to use a fast shutter speed with HyperSync to capture the powder spray. To get the light where I wanted it, the subject in this photo wore a small hiking backpack with the speed lights and PocketWizards attached.”

Pro Tip: By using HyperSync at manual full power, you are able to generate a much brighter flash burst than you can with High Speed Sync.

______________________________________

“I love using remote/off-camera flash – it’s a great way to create dynamic and unique lighting. Photography is basically painting with light and PocketWizards make it possible.”  ~Andrew Jay

______________________________________

For the sweet shot below, Andrew gave us the following information:

Nikon D3s, 70-200mm at 116mm: 1/250,  f4, ISO200
Made possible with 3 PocketWizard FlexTT5s and 2 Nikon SB-900 Speedlights.

Andrew’s secret for the best powder days? Ski and ride British Columbia! One of his favorite mountains is Big White Ski Resort in Kelowna, BC. Check out more of Andrew’s amazing work on his website: www.andrew-jay.com/

Inspired? Hit the slopes and tag us!

#PocketWizard     #MakeitPossible

The post How to Elevate your Ski and Snowboard Photography appeared first on PocketWizard.

Getting together with family and friends this holiday weekend?  Get yourself in the photo using PocketWizards set up for Auto-Relay.

At PhotoPlus Expo in NYC this past October, we hosted an informal photowalk where we showed participants how to set up a selfie using a remote DSLR camera and an off-camera flash using Auto-Relay. Our location was on the High Line, a former elevated train line that has been converted into an elevated walkway, green space and park.

Auto Relay Set Up – Three PocketWizard Radios

PocketWizard Sales and Support Team

In order to take this selfie, we held a PocketWizard Plus III in our hand and used it to trigger our camera in sync with an off-camera flash. This is called Auto-Relay and it requires three PocketWizard radios. Auto-Relay is the only situation where not all PocketWizard radios are set to the same Channel.

1. We set the transmitting PocketWizard Plus III radio in our hand to Tx only and set it to a desired Channel and Zone.
2. We set the relaying Plus III for our remote camera to the same Channel and Zone and set the triggering mode to TxRx. We put this radio on our camera’s hot shoe and connected it to the camera with the remote camera cable.
3. We connected our remote flash with a sync cable to our third PocketWizard Plus III set to Rx Only. We set the Zone on this radio the same as the other radios, but we set the Channel one higher than the other PocketWizard radios. (If we had them all on the same Channel, the timing of the flash would fire before the camera and miss the shot.) We could have used multiple lights – they would all need their own PocketWizard all set up the same.
4. Making sure all our radios were set to the same Zone, we took our places then pressed the TEST button on the PocketWizard in our hand to take the shot and the magic happened seamlessly.
5. To capture the best city lights, we used a somewhat slower shutter speed to let in as much of the ambient light as possible.

Settings:
ISO 1250
Aperture: F4.0
Shutter Speed: ¼ sec

For more information, check our our Wiki. Note that Auto-Relay can be accomplished with our other PocketWizard radios in the same manner.

Try it and tag us with #pocketwizardselfie!

The post PocketWizard Auto-Relay appeared first on PocketWizard.

So you’ve invested in a Speedlight, but you’re disappointed in your photos. Do they look something like this?

The child is adorable – but we hate that shadow. And his face is pretty flat and one dimensional.

Try taking the flash off your camera. In this next example, we used a single Speedlight and we set it to TTL. We used a MiniTT1 on our camera and a FlexTT5 on our Speedlight.  The flash was simply held to the right of our subject.  Our camera was at f3.2 and we used aperture priority.

This portrait definitely has more dimension! Half of his face is well lit and the other half has a few shadows. In addition to adding some dimension, it adds a little bit of drama which is perfect for this pose.

In this last example, we added another Speedlight to the left with another FlexTT5.

Dimensional lighting with no harsh shadows!

Which one is your favorite?

The post One Step to Improve your Photos appeared first on PocketWizard.

The best time to take a shot like this is either at dawn or dusk, when the light is low but you can still see some environmental details.

These shots were taken at the beautiful Shelburne Farms in Vermont, just a few miles down the road from the PocketWizard headquarters. The moon was nearly full and rising just after sundown so there was still a bit of ambient light.

I placed my light about 6 feet in front of my subjects. In this example, I used a speedlight mounted on a PocketWizard FlexTT5 which was then mounted on a light stand. There is screw mount built right into the PocketWizard radio to make that easy. If you don’t have a light stand, you could put it on the ground or even have your subject hold it. A second FlexTT5 was mounted on my camera’s hot shoe. We set the camera settings to perfectly expose the dark scene without over-exposing the full moon. After some tests, I decided on the following settings:

• ISO: 500
• Aperture: F4
• Exposure Time: 1/200

My advice – take lots of shots, experiment, and have fun! My subjects were thrilled with the results!!

The post Remote Flash for Beginners – Rim Lighting appeared first on PocketWizard.