Heading down to Mexico City tomorrow morning to shoot a Wedding in a little town outside called Cuernavaca.
I will be spending some time prior to and after the Wedding at an Orphanage helping out and doing some personal Photography.
Hopefully some pics to follow the trip.
What makes the long flight better than an Upgrade? Not much.
Carried over from previous review on www.digitalweddingchat.com
“A tad frustrated as ive not gotten the range on these that I got since I first turned them on, since I turned them on!
Used these for the first time on a shoot. Dependable as hell up to about 30ft and around 1 wall (drywall) at the same time. 40ft in high sun and no obstructions about 52ft at night with no obstrutions. Put a average sized truck between you and the reciever and you can cut those numbers in half.
They have some things you have to learn, these wizards are not much like the ones of old. You need to connect with at least 1 shot to “connect” to them. Then your assistant can walk way with the slave flash and it works fine.
The thing im not liking is if your assitant happens to be 30ft away and you decide you want to use that flash, it often times will not connect. They need to walk back to within 3-5ft of you and then it connects. Then its all good.
A tad frustrating indeed.
I have done extensive testing with 3 different sets with friends here locally and have come to the conclusion im 80% happy with them.
The thing is, I will ONLY really be using these on beaches and in bright sunlight when the St-e2 does not work. Keeping that in mind, 30ft is plenty of range for most Wedding Photographers. Commercial guys might want to wait until version 2.
Ratios work well on them simply by placing the St-e2 on top of the transmitter. We did a bunch of testing for accuracy until 1am and concluded they are good to go with the exposures.
We mixed them with the original wizards to find out if the much shorter viable range of these had to do more with the SENDING of a signal or the RETURNING of the ETTL, indeed it was the return. When using the Mini TT1 with a previous generation Plus II we got about 110ft. Switching the Plus II back to the TT5 we got back down to 50ft.
So the “short” is definately in the units processing of the Ettl and sending data back to the camera.
These are like a new relationship, you have to learn what they do and do not like and it might take a bit of time to learn all the the ways it likes to be touched. Im going to do some more tests when we get back into the Country next week and put up some more pics and also my test video which I hope you will all find very thorough and unbiased.
Pocketwizard has a great product on their hand here that will be even better with soem firmware updates no doubt. If they could increase the range im sure the commercial shooter nerds would be appreciative as well.
Pros: Hotshoe placement (Ease of use, plug and play), USB updatability (FIRMWARE updates on the way), Build Quality, No need for brackets, velcro, tape etc, functions flawlessly with previous Pocket Wizards.
Cons: Not 100% dependable over 30-50ft, Channel buttons could have had better placement.”
The set:
Whats in the box:
Mini TT1 profile:
TT5 Profile:
Set together:
Max Distance for 10 consectutive shots 46ft in Bright sunlight 52 @ Night :
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Have not had much time to play with these yet but lets just say my confidence is high and I have a feeling my work is about to hit a new level of creativity this year.
CANT WAIT!
Photog nerdness:
Issues currently at 1/350-1/500 ss. Sync fix for this yet? Easy enough to stay out of that range but still need to get it dialed in. Will play with it more when we get back to town.
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For the Wedding and Portrait Photographers.
New Lightroom Presets that are sure to improve your workflow and image quality in a heartbeat. The great thing about these (other than the fact I designed most of the effects myself) is that they create a simple to follow file string for your workflow which so many presets are missing.
Lightroom is very easy to turn into a MESSY program with the addition of presets. This is a solid and comprehensive selection of workflow tools such as contrast, clipping and general adjustments with a single click. All the way through thigns such as the Sexy Porno and Hot Sex presets which are sure to spice up your images.
Over Lightroom 75 Presets for only $45??!?!?!?!?!? Uh….yes please!
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We got the call from fellow www.digitalweddingchat.com member Brigitte Millar (www.belisephotography.com) to come up and shoot her Wedding in Canada. Obviously we said yes. Brigitte is an incredibly talented Childrens Photographer in the Toronto area.
Here is a small handful of the pics from their day.
All images processed in Lightroom using gFUNK Lightroom Presets by www.digitalweddingpro.com
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Just snapped this with the new G1 cel phone while driving through Niagara on the Lake. This is a fantastic region for Ice Wine and all white wine varietals. As the sun was setting and the snow was resting on the vineyard we pulled over and snapped this quick pic.
I thought it had an amazing feel to it. After uploading it I thought “its great but about 1/2 stop too dark” damn cel phones.
Pic: G1 Android Phone
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Once again Story by Photo has been published! This new book that has been released by Susie Coelho “the Martha Stewart of the West Coast” is sure to be an incredible guide for the most discerning bride.
The will be available in all major bookstores soon and is also available directly on Susies website.
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Recent Wedding that was shot in Mexico. Awesome couple, awesome time…..hopefully you agree we captured some awesome photos.
cheers
Gino and Heather
The Early Days ceremonies at El Careyes Resort and Casa Sol De Oriente
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Here is a pic from an Art series we are doing now we call “Funky Paint”. Hope you enjoy it.
Hotel is the 4 Seasons resort in Las Vegas.
http://www.fourseasons.com/lasvegas/
Danny and Jennifer,
Thank you both for being wonderful to us and for your incredible Wedding that was a wonderful experience for us all.
Cheers,
Gino & Heather (and our tag along Floyd) =)
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New Logo, live and in effect. Actually we have 2 but this one was preferred because so many of our peers thought this looked a bit like Butts and Boobs. So of course we had to keep it =)
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A few of our faves from the day. Small Village in the Kowloon area of Hong Kong. Approximately 500 guests.
Low resolution artifacts and softness introduced by the shrinkage done by Photobucket where we host them. Costanza style shrinkage no doubt.
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Considering we did not speak the same language, these 2 little villagers in Hong Kong talked my ear off for a good 5 minutes!
They were the sweetest things ever.
and then their friends showed up and made sure they got it into my head really good that they “we love the USA, hi USA!” which is exactly what they were all saying here.
As for the Cuisine of the evening. There were about 600 people there. The entire village. Each table had one of these huge pots of food. in it was pretty much every part of the Chicken you could imagine and a few other things we never could quite figure out. Needless to say, not our favorite food but definately an experience.
Each table had a hot plate under these big bowls and was at a little picnic table. Constantly locals would come up to us and constantly try and show us some new food we might have been ignoring. Also pounding some local beers into us.
Great time.
The entrance to the Wedding, no clue what this said but I was assuming it was all about the Wedding.
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First installment in our series of Landscapes from around North America. the following photos from from a recent trip to the Yellowstone area. Also the Grand Tetons where we shot a wonder Wedding for NFL quarterback Casey Bramlett.
All photos handheld, Canon 5d and 40d, 16-35L and 70-200is
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Many thanks to the thousands of Photographers who have supported the Digital Wedding Pro series since its inception in 2006. Thanks to you all it has been one of the top selling instructional DVD series available for Wedding Photographers today.
As our way and www.digitalweddingpro.com way of saying thank you, we are offering this special for those who have yet to hop on board and are new to the industry. $299 blowout special gets you ALL 5 DVDs in the series! Thats a savings of over $200!!
Simply click the image of DVD #3 below to take advantage of this special promotion. Remember you are getting all 5 DVDs!
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Thanks largely to these candles. If you have not tried them, DO. Our massage therapists use them in their lobby and we fell in love. Now we have them throughout the house.
Its nice to find a scented candle that REALLY does smell great and throw its scent through a whole room. Check em out if your into scents.
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Come along with us on a 1 week extravaganza of shooting and education with Gino Lucadamo. This workshop will be an excercise in creative lighting and Beach funk. Wander the back streets of San Juan Puerto Rico and St. Thomas US Virgin Islands with a couple and a whole lot of time to build some killer Portfolio shots.
Spend classroom time of 4-5hrs a day learning the latest in marketing, package building, search engine optimization for photographers, relationship building, and all in all round table discussion with Gino.
This workshop is limited to a handful of Wedding Photographers and is not open to just anyone. Please email a bit about yourself and email for info to accounting####@storybyphoto.com (remove the ####) for more info.
Schedule: Sept 21-28th (San Juan Puerto Rico, St. Thomas, St. Maarten)
Cost: $765 (Cruise only) $995 (workshop/optional includes Action Pack and www.digitalweddingpro.com DVD )
This workshop is also open to BYOB-Bring your Own Bride!
This is a perfect opportunity to offer a former client of yours who was unable to get the beach photos he/she wanted, to do it all over again!
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Bonnie and Jimmy in Phuket Thailand at the Banyan Tree resort.
We had a fantastic time in 2 different countries with this awesome couple.
Thank you both for the wonderful experience. Hope you love your 2000+ photos! Here is a small sampling for your friends.
(this is meant for a poster print)
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Excited?? You should be! This is an excellent opportunity for those brides who are already married and perhaps did not get to have the Destination Wedding they wanted or perhaps just did not end up with the photos they had hoped.
This offer is for either of the following 2 types of brides:
1. You did not get to have the Destination Wedding of your Dreams and thefore dont have sexy beach style photos of you and your Hubby.
2. You did have a beach Wedding and made the mistake of either going with the resorts photographer or you took an “online giveaway” and the photos ended up being kinda….not great. Or they just lacked the artisticness that would have captured the location and you in it.
This is your chance to do it again!
Here is how it works. On September 21st we will depart from Miami on a 7 day cruise to 3 amazing locations. With us is coming 6-10 of the Worlds most eager photographers, to learn, to shoot, to portfolio build.
We are looking for 3 lucky couples who want to come along for the ride! You will be having your own “Destination” photoshoots on the beaches of Puerto Rico and St. Thomas! With over 8 different talented photographers shooting you and under the guidance and organization of our own lead photographer Gino Lucadamo you are sure to end up with some of the best, sexiest, most romantic Destination and “Trash the Dress” type photos you could have ever dreamed of, FREE!! All you need to do is book onto the cruise with us and sign up.
For more info please contact us via our website www.storybyphoto.com
We look forward to meeting you for a week of partying, sun, fun and Photos!
Gino and Heather
www.storybyphoto.com
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Today we decided to have some fun and try something new we heard about a few months ago called Geocaching. its a blast!
Basically its a giant international treasure hunt that is forever growing and you get to find and plant your own “caches” everywhere in the world you visit.
Today we kept is simple and decided to see if people were indeed Geocaching in our own neck of the woods. They were. Thousands of them! Our first Geocach took us to a Costco parking lot. Of all places to end up, this was awesome because not only did we find a Travelbug in the Geocach but we also were able to get a 24 pack of Toilet paper, 12 cans of Tuna and Dog food.
Here is our first find in our Geocaching journey. We plan to plant some of our own Geocaches as we travel throughout Asia and the West Indies this year. If you decide to do it, let us know and we will give you the coordinates and see how good you are.
Visit Geocaching here: www.geocaching.com
Gino and Heather
www.storybyphoto.com
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