DIY Passport Photos part 3

It was time again for us to renew passports for my daughter and myself (note that children's passports expire after only five years).  As before, I wanted to do it myself so that I could have photos I would at least be satisfied with for ten years (the passport duration for adults).

For the passport photos in this post, I used the following:

• Samsung NX500 (reviewed here)
• Samsung 50-150 2.8 OIS
• Godox e300 monolight (reviewed here)
• Yongnuo YN560III and YN560IV (reviewed here)
• Fotodiox Tri-Fold Reflector
• 4 x 6 feet popup background
• and...  Parrot Teleprompter

To process the photos and prepare them for printing, I used Lightroom 6.  Here's how I took the photos.

One Flash Portrait with Linco Boom Arm

Over the weekend, I took a quick portrait of my son to commemorate his First Communion.  In this post, I will discuss my lighting setup.

 

Triggering a Camera and a Flash Simultaneously with the Yongnuo RF603

When Mohammad posted his review of the YN-560TX, there was a question from one of our readers about whether you can trigger a camera and a flash at the same time with the Yongnuo RF603.  The question has been asked on DPReview previously  .This capability can be useful for sports (to capture multiple angles of the same shot), or architecture / real estate, for example.  I have tried several combinations of Yongnuo triggers and flashes without success, until finally I got a combination that did work.  It was so simple that I was kicking myself for not having thought of it previously.

with one speedlight

Vintage Mercedes Sewing Machine

Today I want to show you a few pictures for a vintage sewing machine that was gifted to my wife. I was fascinated when I saw this machine, with all the beautiful artwork and colors, that I quickly decided to shoot a few quality pictures. My online search for such machine returned very few results, with mediocre quality pictures at best. It also looks more like a piece of artwork than the other industrial-looking sewing machines. Click through to watch the other pictures.

Family Portrait Walkthrough

We recently did a family portrait.  In this post, I'll go through the process of how I took the shot.

Water Splashes With Olympus & Yongnuo

I have this post as a draft since the first of July. It is one of the most daunting posts (for no apparent reasons) for me to write. But here we go. Click through for the full post.

Review: Yongnuo 560-TX Wireless Trigger

Hello once again dear readers. I am very happy to be back and posting. Tonight I bring you a review of the best photography gadget that I have ever owned (apart from cameras and lenses).

Freezing Time With Flash

 

What you see above is the result of a lot of spare time. Almost every year, me, my brother, my cousin and my cousin's cousin gather in a deserted flat in the countryside for two days, for no other purpose but to spend some "male" time together, and do a lot of photography. Let me take you behind the scenes.

My Yongnuo Family Review: YN560-II, YN560-III & RF-603

Yongnuo Family

Writing this post required strong will power, I don't know why, but this is one of the more "daunting" posts I've written. So please forgive my delay, normal service will be resumed next week, or the week after.

Today I will give you a glimpse of my Yongnuo flashes and triggers. This won't be a detailed technical review describing every function and button, there are better reviews out there, instead, this will be a more "functional" review, with lots of product pictures. Ready? Let's go.

Fisheye Fun

This will be a short post, remember the fisheye lens I bought a while ago?

I have been having some fun with it, and I want to share one picture with you here. We had a team outing at work a couple of weeks ago, and I was one of the event organizers (that's why -as you'll see- I was wearing a high visibility vest), I was also taking pictures for the day. I took the OM-D and three lenses, the 12-50 for group shots, the 75mm for candid portraits, and the fisheye for some fun.

The photo you see above was taken by mounting the camera on a monopod, raising it high above the net, and using my Yongnuo RF-603 trigger to release the shutter. I was shooting at f/8 and 7 fps (the camera can reach 9 fps, but then the image stabilization would be off). I wish the camera's LCD would tilt 90 degrees downwards (it only reaches ~ 45 degrees) so that I can see it from below. I composed the image as best as I can, then I watched the game and use the trigger when I thought there was good action. Some friend took a picture of me while I was shooting a different game, but it's the same concept.

Posted with Blogsy

A Quick, Simple 2/3 Lights Setup

The final result

 

I received a request from an anonymous commenter to show the lighting setup and the processing done to a picture of my daughter wearing a scarf. And since I didn't have any BTS pictures of the setup, I decided to shoot a similar picture, in the same place, with the same scarf, and show the lighting steps as I progressed. Click through to read the rest.

Yongnuo RF-603 + Olympus OM-D: Reloaded

Do you remember my RF-603 modification post? In that post I was able to modify my Canon version of the Yongnuou RF-603 trigger to make it work with my Olympus camera to trigger external flashes.

Now thanks to member Earlack and his post in this dpreview thread, I was able to further modify the camera cable of the triggers so that they can also wirelessly trigger my camera. Full details after the jump.

Yongnuo RF-603 + Olympus OM-D

OM-D + RF-603 working happily, excuse the quality, picture taken with my phone

During my DSLR sale, I kept all of my lighting equipment, one of my recent purchases were a couple of YN RF-603 wireless triggering kits (Canon 5D version), I never had a chance to use them on a real shoot with the 5D, however I tested them and they worked as advertised. I bought 2 kits, so I had 4 transceivers, they can trigger 3 flashes from the 5D, and they could be used to trigger the camera wirelessly as well.

 

Anyway, that's not the point, when I bought the OMD, I ordered an FL600R flash as my TTL, on-camera bounce flash, and I had a couple of YN-560 II powerful manual flashes to be used in lighting setups. I kept the RF-603 kit when I wanted to trigger all three flashes for setup shots, I know the YN-560 II flashes have optical triggers, and the Olympus FL600R can can be controlled remotely from the OMD, but I wanted the reliability of wireless triggers, especially if there are line of sight issues. When I tested the RF-603 triggers, I discovered they don't work with Olympus, I had totally forgot that I bought the Canon version, hmm, I thought, that's a bummer, let's see what I can find on the interwebz. Hit the jump to find out.

Better Point-and-Shoot Shots with an External Flash

Last weekend, one of our friends celebrated their daughter's birthday party.  On this kind of occasion, I don't usually bring a DSLR anymore - I feel it is a little too much when we're not the celebrants.  Instead, I brought our trusty Lumix LX5 (reviewed here).  However, to get the best image quality out of the LX5, I paired it with an external flash, the Yongnuo YN-560EX (reviewed here).

Yes, the 560EX is a manual not TTL flash.  (I don't have a dedicated TTL flash for the Lumix LX5.)  However, using a manual flash while shooting run-and-gun is actually easier than it sounds.  (See: Therapy for TTL Addiction: How to Use Manual Flash).

In this post, I'll discuss my thought process in setting the flash and ambient exposures.

Yongnuo YN-560EX (EX600) Review

This is a follow up to my preliminary review of the Yongnuo YN-560EX.  For convenience, I'm going to incorporate the information on the previous review in this one, so this will be the main resource page for the 560EX.

ABOUT THE YONGNUO YN-560EX
The YN-560EX (formerly EX600) is a manual flash but can act as a wireless TTL slave via Canon or Nikon's wireless flash commanders (yes it is cross-compatible with Canon and Nikon).  I was excited about this model because it's only $109.99, less than the YN-565EX (which has wireless TTL as well as on-camera TTL and costs around $160 for the Nikon version).  It is one of the cheapest wireless TTL flashes available.  (At the end of this article I will post other wireless TTL alternatives.)

The YN-560EX should not be mistaken with its similarly-named predecessors, the YN-560 (a purely manual flash) and the YN-560II (an updated version of the YN-560, also purely manual).  The 560EX was previously known as the EX600 but its name was finalized as the 560EX.

YN-560II Syncs with Nikon CLS Without Limits

We previously posted an article showing that it is possible to sync the original YN-560 with a popup flash as commander and a Nikon SB-800.  However, there were limits to the shutter speed that could be used.

BFP reader XiaoLi Zhang tested the Yongnuo YN-560 II's ability to sync with Nikon's wireless flash and found that the YN-560II can sync with virtually no limits!  Hit the jump to see the remarkable results of XiaoLi's tests.

Old School

From left to right: the SB-80DX, the SB-800, and the SB-26

Is there any reason to buy an old flash in this age of wireless TTL?  If you are looking for a multiple flash setup, some of these old dinosaurs may actually offer better value than even the YongNuo YN-560.

Is the YongNuo YN-560 a Headturner?

WARNING: I have ZERO evidence whether this works.  You may kill your YN560 in the process.  I am sure this will violate whatever warranty YongNuo or the seller may have.  Do this at your own risk!!!

Alas poor YN-560!

It must have started about a week ago, when I was looking around at a camera store and saw a Yongnuo YN460-RX flash -- Yongnuo's latest flash, with built-in radio manual and radio TTL remote adjustment.  My poor YN560 sensed that I was a little distracted and knew something was going on.  It put two and two together, figured its days were numbered, and formulated a plan.

The YN560 saw its opportunity when we went to the beach this past weekend.  I used the YN560 as an off-camera flash, mounted on a Propet umbrella bracket, firing through a Creative Light translucent umbrella.  For these shots, I waded into the water with our toddler.

As I was taking some photos, the YN560 found a way to loosen itself and dive into the water...!  I looked around in time just to see it splash into the water and fire its last pulse of flash, giving up its soul.  "I served thee well, master, as best as I could," it seemed to say.  "Through the drop tests and open heart surgery, I came through for you ...  I hope you like the images I helped you get and that you'll find happiness with your next flash!"  And that was the last time its Xenon bulb would ever shine again.

I grabbed it without hesitation - stupidly perhaps - getting a little electric shock in the process.  I rushed it back to shore and took out the batteries, which felt extremely hot.  However, even I knew it was too late.  No amount of drying or exchanging batteries would bring the spark back into the little YN560.

Oh, YN560, if you only knew - I had no plans to replace you.  With your ability to sync at extra-high sync speeds without the aid of HSS, and Matrix-style reflexes enabling optical sync at 1/8000 shutter speed, I could always use your photons.  You were content to let the SB-800 grab the headlines, even though it was your rim light that made my shots look a little better. You helped me cheat the shutter's twin razor blades when the mighty SB-800 could not.  Together we broke the CLS code.  You even helped me sell a house and a crib.  And how could I forget that you helped me learn manual flash?  Ah, little YN-560, you worked as hard as the underpaid laborers who made you.  Farewell!

Preview of Yongnuo's radio commander and speedlight: YN460-TX and YN460-RX

LightingRumours.com posted Yongnuo's official announcement of its radio commander and speedlight, the YN460-TX and YN460-RX.  I downloaded the demo videos from Yongnuo's website, which weren't exactly crystal clear, and tried to figure out how the commander and flash work.

First of all, the system seems independent from the camera's wireless flash system (such as Nikon's Advanced Wireless Lighting).  Briefly, the system appears to allow radio TTL and manual capability with remote adjustment.

COMPONENTS:

There is a commander unit called the YN460-TX (which looks like the Nikon SU-800).  The TX commander is designed to be attached to the camera hotshoe and apparently can emit an AF assist light.  However, it also appears that the TX can be used off-camera (query whether the TTL capabilities would remain). According to Yongnuo, the TX commander can control up to 16 dedicated speedlights (YN460-RX), each of which has built-in radio capability. 

HOW IT'S USED:

The TX commander controls 3 groups simultaneously: a TTL group (TTL), Manual group 1 (M1), and Manual group 2 (M2).  To assign an RX flash to a group, you press the RX flash's mode button until the RX selects WT (for the TTL group), M1, or M2.  In addition to the WT, M1, and M2 mode, the RX unit has another wireless mode, WX which allows it to function either on manual or TTL, as explained below.

Wireless Manual:
Group M1: once an RX flash is assigned to M1, its power level can be selected by choosing the M1 group on the TX unit then adjusting the power level.  There are 7 power levels, in full stops from full power to 1/64 power.  There are no power indicators per se -- you have to count the number of LEDs lit.  1 LED = 1/64, 2 LEDs = 1/32 etc. 

Group M2 functions similarly. Its power is selected by choosing the M2 group on the TX and adjusting the power level.

Wireless TTL:  This was not clearly demonstrated in the videos.  It appears that TTL flash exposure can be adjusted from -3 to +3 FEC.  The video demo'd adjustment of FEC directly on the RX flash.  The videos did not demo wireless adjustment of FEC with the TX commander, though it seems the TX commander should have this capability because its LEDs are labeled -3 to +3, which wouldn't make sense except for TTL.


WX mode of the RX flash:  In WX mode, the RX flash will match the CURRENTLY SELECTED mode of the TX commander.  By contrast, if the RX is in WT mode, it will stay assigned to the TTL group, and if it is in M1 or M2 mode, it will stay in M1 group or M2 group respectively.  On the other hand, by using the RX flash in WX mode, it can join group WT, M1 or M2 as needed.  If the user wants the RX (on WX mode) to join the TTL group, then the user simply has to remember to switch the TX to TTL mode when he is ready to shoot.  If the user wants the RX on WX mode to join the M1 or M2 group, the user simply switches the TX to M1 or M2 respectively immediately before shooting.

The WX mode is useful when you only have one RX flash, allowing you to switch from TTL to manual anytime.  It is useful also if you want one of your RX flashes to be flexible and join any of the other groups as needed.

OTHER NOTES:

• Uses 2.4ghz frequency.  Up to 200m range claimed.
• 7 available channels.  (By contrast, Nikon's Advanced Wireless Lighting has only 4 channels.)
• Supports rear curtain sync, flash exposure compensation (FEC) and "FEB" (flash exposure bracketing??)
• There is a blue LED light to show that a link between the TX and RX has been established.
• The TX appears to have 2 ports, one of which appears to be a PC sync.
• The RX flash can also function on non-wireless manual mode.  It is not clear whether it can function as a non-wireless TTL flash.
• LightingRumours.com, citing De.Rec.Fotografie, states that cost will be 200 euro for a TX and RX kit.  Availability is estimated to be within the next 2 months, direct from Yongnuo's ebay site with a 12-month warranty: http://stores.ebay.com/hkyongnuophotoequipment .