Alison and I visited the Kasematten as part of a touristy visit of Luxembourg. I’ve been there a couple of times, but it’s the first time that I’ve seen a bat hang from the ceiling of one of the tunnels! The little guy didn’t seem to be bothered by all the people passing through there (most of whom didn’t notice the animal was there), and it didn’t even move when we photographed it close-up with flash.
I hang around on the internet so much and browse so many photography forums, websites and blogs that I stumble across a lot of interesting photo-related stuff. Here are some cool pages that I discovered recently that you may enjoy:
DIY Gary Fong Lightsphere. The Lightsphere is a popular (in my opinion overrated) but expensive light modifier. Make your own by following Artur Gajewski’s guide on instructables.
RGB Music Lab. Ever wanted to know what your photos would sound like? Feed them to this freeware Mac/Win software to find out.
What camera should I buy? This question pops up in forums all the time. The ones who ask them usually don’t give any information on what kind of camera they’re looking for. Read through Scott Bourne’s article and you can probably find the right camera yourself or help others help you.
Studio Lighting Techniques. Addicted to Life shows some cool studio setups to build upon and experiment with.
Alison and I made a trip to the butterfly garden in Grevenmacher. This time the temperature was a bit more comfortable than the 40°C in the World of Butterflies. We only had one macro lens between the two of us so we took turns in photographing and holding a flash for one another. We started out with the ringlight adapter but moved on to a DIY diffuser to light the butterflies. It’s quite useful to be able to sculpt the light the way you need it to be rather than being at the mercy of the sun shining through a glass roof and foliage. I used the Pocketwizard Mini TT1 and Flex TT5 to allow the camera and flash to communicate with one another. Setting the flash power manually would have been tricky, since we worked without tripods. At those small distances, a few centimeters change in the distance between flash and subject can make a big difference. (Inverse square law: if the flash is giving me a correct exposure at 1/8 power and 10cm distance, if the flash moves 5cm closer the power needs to change to 1/32. ETTL takes care of this on the fly.)
So my technique here is to get the aperture I need for a decent depth of field, then dialing in a shutter speed and ISO that get me enough ambient light for a photo that’s slightly underexposed, then bring in the flash to get the exposure to where it needs to be.
(For those wondering what the title means: it’s one of the Luxembourgian words for butterfly.)
