May

The Bronica is Back, a photo by killy on Flickr.

Didn't realize it was the last day of the month till this evening. I spent my evening going through April's crop of photos. It turns out i've had a pretty productive month. I've managed to collect a crop of new equipment and constructed a DIY softbox, ring light and a black straw grid for the sb-600. I've shot two portraits for the Mangum Manor Civic Group and managed to drag the family out for bluebonnet portraits ... just to name a couple of the shots i've done.

I've also managed to resurrect a couple of pieces of equipment that i thought i'd never use again. Turns out this stuff can be fixed! (insert laugh track).

The Bronica is back in business and i couldn't be happier. This is the first shot for the month of May. I worked this shot as slowly as i could and built it in the strobist fashion - in layers.

Used my big beauty dish with a diffuser as the key light and exposed for the out-of-focus Zenza Bronica up on top. Once i had that solid, i added the fill and decided on simply bouncing flash off a poster board. I thought about using a piece of foam core, but the foam wouldn't bend the way the poster board did. I made sure the flash was pretty closet to the board so that my source would be small and would create noticeable specular highlights. Lastly, i set up a flash with a gel on the back wall for separation. It went surprisingly smooth. I almost dropped a flash only once. Once.

Strobist info: Vivitar 285 with 1/4 CTO gel in big beauty dish with diffuser camera right (1/16th power); sb-600 bounced up-close off of a curved white posterboard for fill with specular highlights (1/32nd power); and lastly, a Vivitar 285 with DIY black straw grid with full CTO gel on a white background.