Nikon D300s announced...time to go shopping.

I don't intend to report photography news all the time but I'm pretty excited about this one. Finally after months of watching Nikon rumor sites, it's official. Nikon has released a replacement for the D300. (photo courtesy of Nikon)

The D300s adds a few new features to the already amazing D300. The most significant of which is the ability to shoot HD 720 video. I don't know what that means, but it sounds pretty sweet. click here for Nikon D300s microsite.

I'm not much of a video guy BUT I could be. I like the idea of being able to shoot high quality video through my nice nikon glass without needing a $10,000 video rig. And it will fit in my water housing with out any modifications.  

B&H Photo has the D300s available for pre-order. ($1799.00) as it won't be available for delivery until September. Needless to say, I'll pick one up soon. 

Bingin Bali...always bring a tripod.

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Here's a nice shot I grabbed down at Bingin a little while ago. I was there shooting the local Bali rippers Garut and Raditya. During the high tide they took a break, but I kept shooting. This guy was waiting for the right moment to enter the water. I decided to slow the shutter down to give a better sense of the water movement happening up against the jagged cliffs. 

It was quite bright at midday so I threw on a polarizing filter to suck up some light (2 stops) chose ISO 200, I stopped the lens down to F22 and ended up with 1/13th for a shutter which meant I couldn't handhold it, so I used my favorite piece of gear: my tripod.

So many photographers hate to carry tripods, but without a good one you're really limited to hand holdable shutter speeds and that can mean your creativity is limited too. Things get even more difficult (impossible) when you want to shoot in low light like early morning and late afternoon. Just bring it. 

With that said there is one thing worse than not having a tripod and that's having a crappy tripod. Buy a good one with quick release and a good head on it. I prefer ball heads for most of my photography.  

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Nice shot...Garut Widiarta

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This is "Garut" Widiarta on a recent shoot here in Bali. An unusual problem occurred during this particular afternoon: I was too close. 

I was shooting with my 300mm 2.8 from the beach which usually allows me to show a bit of the wave and the surfer on it. In fact, I sometimes wish I had a 400mm or a 500mm on. The waves on this day were quite good and allowed some pretty long rides right in to the beach. Garut was finishing this wave with a nice aerial but he was unusually close in to me. I think the shot still works with the trail of water and the amazingly colorful light but I would have preferred to show the wave and perhaps more of the story. Either way, Garut rips.

DIY Remote Flash Housing

Ever since Transworld’s 2005 Photo issue I wanted to shoot using flash in the water. More than half the images in that issue were made using various forms of remote flash and the results were ridiculous. I hadn’t shot a single frame of surf at that time but those images inspired me to start hunting waves with my camera. 

See pics of my do-it-yourself flash housing and the building process below.

I had plenty of experience using strobes and various slaving systems and most of the gear too. But, I didn’t have a necessary protection for the flash and radio receiver. Coming from my background in architecture, travel , people and underwater photography, I’ve come to believe that 95% of the time if you are going to use a flash it can’t be on the camera. The other 5% of the time (cocktail parties, easter egg hunts, nights out with friends) on-camera flash is fine.

So here, four years later I finally put together a flash housing so I can start creating some images similar to the ones that originally inspired me to shoot surf. It would have been easy if only I had bought the flash housing from Sean at SPL, but instead, for economic reasons, I decided to make it myself.

This project would have been fairly simple if I had decided to build it while I was back in the states but unfortunately I chose to “make it happen” in Bali. Without a Home Depot down the street things took a little longer… but after a trip to Singapore and countless runs through the non-tourist industrial sites of Bali, I finally collected the necessary parts to put it together.

Important Disclaimer: This is a personal photography project and is not intend to promote your doing the same. There are no guarantees that it will work. In fact, I expect this home made flash housing to fail catastrophically at some point in which case I would lose some expensive equipment. I'm willing to live with that. If you're not then don't try this at home. If I had a lawyer, he would tell me to say this. 

click an image for the larger version

Parts list:

1x Pelican 4100 dive light (picked it up in Singapore from Marvid Int’l who were gracious enough to sell me just the light housing without the guts.)

1x Pelican 1010 waterproof case (Marvid again)

1x Wire Seal thingy (some electronics mall in Singapore)

Nikon SB-800 Speedlight or similar

Pocket Wizard Plus Radio slave kit (transmitter and receiver)

Loads of various 5 minute epoxies, silicone, rounded files, a borrowed drill, q-tips, a leatherman tool, nuts and bolts, fingers, blood, sweat, tears from the epoxy fumes, Tupperware, swimming pool, messy beach break, frustration, hopes and dreams.

The Idea

I thought a dive light with a built in pistol style grip would be the simplest and most intuitive shape for the flash housing. Especially for the swimmer holding the flash, I told him, "Just act like it’s a gun and shoot the surfer as he goes by.” Unfortunately, most people know how to hold a gun, not really a good thing in my opinion, but the concept was helpful here.

I was hoping to just get a dive light big enough to hold both the Nikon Sb800 flash and the Pocket Wizard radio receiver but to no avail. So instead I decided to just use the light housing for the flash and connect some other case for the radio receiver.

The first thing I did was seal up the automatic pressure release valves in the case as well the on/off switch that comes on the light. Features that I had no use for and I viewed as a port of entry for water some time in the future. All eliminated with 5-minute epoxy inside and out.

I didn’t think epoxy alone was going to hold the two cases together under the stresses of duck dives and the occasional wall of water crashing onto it so I decided in addition to epoxy they should be joined by thru-bolts. I drilled a four bolt pattern and wire hole on the radio housing first and then using the first as a template I drilled the same pattern on the back of the light housing.


At this point, I also drilled a hole for the antenna to pass through in the radio housing.

Next, I test fitted everything multiple times before any epoxy was ever mixed. The largest drill bit available to me was not quite large enough for the wire seal thingy to mount in the radio housing, so I had to carefully grind out the hole with a combination of a file and the knife of my Leatherman.

So once the hole was the right size, I epoxied the wire seal into place top and bottom.

With 5-minute epoxy I was able to work in steps without having to wait very long between steps.

Next, I epoxied the bolts into the radio housing and encased the heads completely with epoxy. Let dry.

Now it was time to mount the Radio housing to the light housing with epoxy. I created an epoxy ring around each screw hole on the light housing and pressed the radio housing into place until the epoxy hardened. (5 minutes)

At this point I wasn’t completely satisfied with the sealing job between the two pieces so I ran another bead of epoxy completely around the outside where the two meet.

Next, I screwed the nuts on to bolts on the inside of the light housing. I could only hand-tighten them because of my reach and lack of tools but I secured them anyway by encasing the nuts in epoxy as well.

The unit is pretty much finished at this point so now it was time to test it in the water for leaks.

First test in the pool was a failure: the seal that comes with small pelican 1010 case wasn’t enough to keep water out more than 1 foot under water. I kind of expected this and had an idea to just put a thicker o-ring in its place. Luckily, I had some random pieces of Tupperware lying around (who doesn’t?) which had an o-ring that fit perfectly in the groove. It was much fatter which means it’s compressed much more when the case is closed. And that was enough to seal the case at least at 3 meters of depth.

So with the pool test complete, I took it into the ocean (empty) to make sure it could stand up to duck dives and random water movement. I slapped it against the face of waves and just went through the motions of in-water photography stresses. No leaks.

I positioned the flash unit in place with some removable pieces of foam.

Note: I think the weakest point of the housing is the radio case. If anything is going to leak, it would happen here. Possibly fatigue in the plastic hinge from the fat o-ring. So to avoid a complete loss of my gear (radio and flash) I filled the wire hole between the two cases with soft silicone adhesive to basically isolate the two from each other. If one leaks, I only have to replace one piece of equipment instead of two. I chose the soft stuff so I could remove it if I ever needed the cable for my other non-water flash projects.

My next step was to load the flash and radio receiver and swim it out while my friend Affan (and soon to be official “Flash Guy”) triggered the flash from the beach. I wanted to test the range of the radio signal especially being in the water.

The pocket wizards are good up to about 800 feet but radio signals don’t penetrate water very well so I need to know how it would work in the waves. At about 500-600 ft out the signal became less reliable which was still plenty of range for the places I’m likely to shoot. So all test pass and now its ready to shoot with.

The next step was to get it out in the water with Affan (Flash Guy) while I shot from the beach. I wanted to test the flash power and exposure settings while also getting some teamwork experience with Affan. The waves were really small and the boys on the beach volunteered to take their longboards out do some modeling for us in the ankle high waves.

I learned what I needed from this little exercise. My guesses on exposures and flash power were pretty close but not quite right. Now I know the power adjustments to make for the future and we’re ready for some bigger waves and some hi performance sunset surfing. Stay tuned for more remote flash shots with some of Bali’s best surfers. The ocean studio is now open.

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Forcing creativity: blurred motion

This guy was trying to head butt his way into the tube. F20 1/60th ISO 250(click image for large version)

So I was getting a little bored with the usual mode of shooting and decided to shoot an entire day of blurred motion. I find it's always a good idea to switch things up a bit to get my creative juices flowing and get something a little different. Instead of the usual 1/1000th of a second shutter speed I decided to keep it and 1/400th and lower for the day. ..more shots below.

Volcom rider Ribut caught at the right moment to freeze his face but let the spray radiate in a blur.  F20 1/60th ISO 250

I have to admit, it took some commitment. The percentage of good shots is certainly less than usual but this isn't a numbers game, we are trying to create some art. Right? That's what I kept telling myself after butchering a few would-be perfect action shots with a dragging shutter and my erratic panning technique. But I eventually I found a rhythm and ended up with something new and interesting.

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Padang Padang comes to life

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Anytime a large swell is forecast in Bali the first thoughts on most people minds is Padang Padang. Normally, when every other nook and cranny on this little island is firing with barreling waves Padang can look like a lake. It's hard to understand.

That's one reason it's such a special wave: it rarely breaks, and when it does it's the perfect barrel. It's so fickle that the RipCurl Cup Padang Padang being held next month is using the entire month of August for the waiting period. That's unusual and not necessary for most contests , but again this wave is special. 

On July 11 a big swell arrived just like the forecast said and Padang awoke for only the second time this year. It wasn't as perfect as it can get but there were a few sets that came through to make you stop and stare. I grabbed the above shot from one of my favorite cliffside spots. 

On a clear day, you can see...

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This, believe it or not, is Kuta Beach in Bali. I have never seen it this clear. Ever! In fact, I didn’t even know there were mountains (volcanoes) off that way until now. That is west Bali as it stretches toward the island of Java (if you’re familiar with the area).

This was one of the great moments of the last few weeks. Most of the frames I captured are nice sunset colors, reflections, volcanoes and some blurry ocean, but the beautiful light coming through the perfect wave form in this one stood out not only as a nice landscape but a great surf shot too. Varying the shutter speed and timing the inconsistent waves was all it took…and of course the extraordinary “never before seen” background.

Cultural paradox

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I shot this not long ago out on the beach in Kuta, a traditional fisherman preparing to cast his net into the turbulent shorebreak. From this serene perspective it's hard to believe that only a few feet behind him at the same time a different culture is flourishing.

Kuta beach culture alive and well. It's nice to see people living in harmony.

Shots of the week 3: the Hurley Team in Bali

Kalani Robb in Bali

The Hurley Team seems to be everywhere in Bali right now. I'm sure part of it has to do with Hurley's north shore-like compound in Canggu. more shots below (click an image for a large version)

Bali Kingpin, Rizal Tanjung

Dillon Perillo unleashed in Canggu.

Kekoa Cazimero fins free blast.

 

Canggu local and Hurley super grom Jerron elevates above the competition in Kuta.

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Where I buy my gear and why you should too

Like most photographers, I have a lot of gear. Lenses, camera bodies, flashes, diffusers, reflectors, tripods, cords, radio slaves, flash cards, card readers, chargers, batteries, computers, software etc. The list goes on and on and will continue to go on until they stop making cool new ways to create images.

 
People always ask me where I buy my gear. It’s very simple; I buy 95% of my equipment online from Adorama.com and BHphoto.com. The other 5% is at random or because of geographical reasons. It just depends on what I’m looking for, both sites have everything like cameras, lenses, used inventory, studio lights etc. Take your pick.If one doesn’t have it the other will. No matter how many things I buy, my wish lists on their sites never seem to get smaller.

Both sites carry all the major brands but some of the more obscure or unique are usually only carried by one or the other. For example, I bought my Lumedyne Strobe kit from Adorama because B&H doesn’t carry that brand. On the other hand, I’ve bought two of my Mac Book Pros and all of my Western Digital Passport external hard drives from B&H, Adorama doesn’t sell Macs or WD drives. I’ve also picked up some nice used lenses from both sites over the years.

Either way your golden, both sites have everything on comprehensive websites; inventories are always current, street prices (no retail mark up) and no sales tax. Shipping is exact and the entire process is streamlined. Even when dealing with them on the phone for purchases or other assistance, they are competent and professional. No bullshit hard selling, no “bait and switch” games or uncertainty about when you’ll get your stuff. It’s the way it should be.

Here’s a tip: Don’t pay taxes. Buy a Mac from B&H. They already have customized versions in stock. I’ve bought from the Apple store online also and yeah their fine, BUT you have to wait for them to build it, they have an “expected delivery date” and the worst part is you have to pay the sales tax. That’s a lot of uncertainty and extra money. It’s like you’re waiting for a baby rather than a computer. B&H already had it made and will ship it that day AND there's no sales tax. You’re welcome.

The Endorsement

As someone who owns and buys a lot of photo equipment from them: this is my whole hearted endorsement. If you are going to buy some gear, buy from either of these sites by clicking the adds through out this site. They are the best. (I’ll get a small kickback.) Please and thank you.

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Self Promotion Tool: iPod Touch

The iPod touch is the coolest thing I own. It also happens to be my most useful tool as a photographer, besides my camera. I’ve used it more for showing my photographs than listening to music. It’s great when you’re out at the beach and you can show shots from the day before. The images are large and vivid and it gets people stoked to have you shoot more. Its better than any business card or website. You don’t have to direct people to your website and hope they actually look someday, you can show them your portfolio now! 

I also use it to take quick notes in the field or get names and details for captions. I keep it with me all the time, always with my current portfolio as well as the most recent shots. You never know when you’ll run into a magazine editor or sponsor who doesn’t know your work yet. 

Keramas: Jamie O'Brien

I made it out to Keramas last week, timing it with the arrival of good  swell. An hour on the motorbike with a few wrong turns still had me there at about 730am. As expected, this perfect right hander had attracted a crew of the surfing world's heavies. Notably, Jamie O'Brien who sat deeper and waited longer than anybody for the biggest set waves. 

The wind didn't come up until about 1230 so I had a solid 4-5 hours of shooting time before finally embarking on the long, hot, treacherous ride home. Also met Silas Hansen, another photographer there shooting for Kiwi Surf Mag. I enjoyed talking shop with him in between flurries of shutter clicks. more shots of Jamie O'Brien below. (click an image for a large version)

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