Singapore Flyer

Did another flyer shot of the cheerleaders, this time at the Botanical Gardens (after they wisely refused to do a split while jumping over a low hanging tembusu branch)...

Managed to squeeze of less than a dozen frames before the skies opened up, of which this was the only half quarter-decent one:


Ultimately it wouldn't have mattered - gray skies do not make for an attractive background.

A City Hall Romp

Back to shooting cheerleaders after a two-week hiatus. The subject for this Sunday morning is Yirong, a graduating member of the team and arguably the one that kick-started the photography sessions for the NTU ACES squad.

Managed to get my ass and the gear on location by eight-ish – some members of the team were putting up a performance for the SHAPE Run 2008 which meant I’ll be shooting Yee Yong around the City Hall area, post-performance.

We settled on an open space beneath the Esplanade Bridge, aka “Falun Gong corner” to those who frequent the area.

Things got off to a slow start, but the pace picked up when we moved to the old Supreme court. Here’re a few outtakes and setup shots: -

A lot of light, but not much clue... =P

Underneath the Esplanade bridge

Padang on Sunday morning - Hot, in more ways than one

All set for the nth jump





All-in-all, a productive morning and I'm pretty happy with the output.

Speedcycler

Lugging a big ass strobe when shooting sports is sometimes not viable - but you still need decent flash recycle times.

Enter the Multimax's Speedcycler function, enabling sequential flash firing and consequently reducing the workload of each flash. It's a function that I've yet to use (in a meaningful way of course...)

Seat-of-the-pants testing gets me continuous half-power pops @ 2~3fps by cycling three hotshoe flashes. We'll see how this pans out in an actual shoot.



*EDIT*
After some thought, this is an overly complicated solution - it would be much easier to add more flashes and fire them simultaneously. I suppose the Speedcycler function comes into its own say on a fashion runway when the subject moves in a predetermined fashion and lights can be placed in sequential order...

'Chip'

Another shoot with the NTU ACES, although this was more of a clean-up session: some graduating members of the team weren't present a couple of weeks ago.

The weather did not favour allow for an outdoor shoot, so it was back to the safe (but a tad boring) pose against white white/gray-ish backdrop wall shots.

Nevertheless, Agnes (otherwise known as 'Chip') proved to be a revelation; it took only three attempts to get the SOTD (ok ok, Shot-of-the-Day, i made it up on the fly).

Shot 1 - The basic idea



Shot 2 - Almost there, pointy toes, pointy toes!



Shot 3 - SOTD



Here's a quick 'n dirty look at the set-up:



EOS 30D
EF-S 17-55mm f/2.8 IS USM

AcuteB600 w/ Softlight Reflector White
2 x 580EXII (Background lights, Flagged)
1 x SB-80DX (Rim light, Flagged)

3 x PW Multimax, 2 x PW Plus II Radio Triggers

JT & Linda

A relatively quiet weekend allowed for some backlog to be cleared - mostly images from JT & Linda's wedding.

I've been bringing less gear for actual day shoots - you can't beat the reach or the comfort in having a telephoto or telephoto zoom at the ready on a second body, but you sure can move closer a lot quicker without that lump of glass on your shoulder.

As the second photographer I had the luxury to shoot with two lights - quick 'n dirty with two 580EXIIs, the off-camera flash being attached to a Justin clamp and triggered by the on-camera master.

It's a hit-or-miss affair more often than I would care for, but more so with regard to positioning than exposure. Times like these, the old 580EX is preferred to its Mark II replacement- switching between Master and non-wireless mode is unnecessarily painful with the latter.

Bride 'rim lit' through the veil by a second Speedlite.

A less hectic moment, here the second 580EXII provides fill.

When you're beaten to the spot by a compact wielding relative...