Enduro is loud... And painfull...

    Funny thing is, even though I did not race, I found it a little painful... The rocks thrown by the tires were flying all over through the air.
    As the title says, I went and photographed an enduro race. I didn't have the same amount of oportunities lately to shoot street photography, even though I still love it, but I compensated with some sports photography... I might actually go photograph a tennis contest and who knows, maybe I'll win something :). Sports photography is something I like because of its diversity. And this is what I tried this time, some shots are froze, some have a blurred backfround, some are low, some are from high above.... basicaly they are diverse... Here are some of the best in my opinion...

This is probably my favourite of the set. I used the Canon 20D with 18-55 and my trusty old Canon Speedlite 199A on which you can find a review here. I used a 250th of a second shutterspeed and f8 I think at ISO 400.

This was shot in Av mode (or A on Nikon and Fuji) at f4, ISO 100. I like the idea of the biker coming in in the background...

For this one I had to build up a little courage... Theese ATVs and QUADs  threw the most rocks, so getting that low could be quite scary. Actually, the guy who was timing stood in front of the laptop in order for the screen not to be smashed and another one grabbed a chair as a shield...

I did some B&W shots too, because I love the way monochrome pictures look. They are a little more dramatic in my opinion... So, this was it for today, I might go take some other shots before the tenis thing...

You can find all the pictures by clicking here.

(Puteti gasi toate fotografiile aici.)

Check out my website http://tudorsphotos.weebly.com/ by clicking on the link. 

Also, my review on the Canon 20D is coming soon, see how can it cope to the modern world...

National Mountainbike XCO Championship

    Although I did participate in this contest, and it has been one of the most exciting races I've ever done, I will not talk about how I did and so on... I will talk about the pictures I took during the Elite's race, and how I likw to take pictures of MTB races.

I tried to change positions after each lap, so that I could get more interesting perspectives. This first one was actually my first shot, so it came out quite good.

The equipment I used was my Canon 20D with the 18-55 shot at 18mm for a wide perspective. I used shutter speeds of 125/1 to 250/1, depending on how much blur I wanted in the background. I wanted it to be blurred, but not undistingueshable.

I don't really like shooting Mountainbiking with a tele like a 70-200... I prefer the more dramatic, wide-angle lens look. 

Also, I really enjoy using a flash for theese pictures. It really helps bring out the subjects from the background. Actually, I had to put a white piece of paper in front of the flash in order to make the light a bit less harsh.

This is how I like to shoot cycling races, and it may completely differ from other styles. By the way, don't forget to check my portfolio and not only at http://tudorsphotos.weebly.com/.

You can check out all the pics here.

Old flash on a DSLR?

    This is my first review, and it's not actually a review. So, it all started about a month ago, when I had to shoot an event and needed a flash. Since I didn't know how much would I ude it afterwards, I wanted to spend little to nothing on it. The cheapest new flash I could find was at about 50$, which I had doubts about speding the money or not. Then, I found an old Canon Speedlite 199A in a supposed good condition. After what I raed on forums, I wasn't exactly sure it will work on my Canon 20D and not sure if it will fry my DSLR or not. So, I went ahead, and here is how things have gone...
    I received it in 5 boxes put one in other, for protection. When I opened it, I was amazed... It was in a perfect condition, like new from the shelf. It had no scratch at all, and not even a sign of ware.

IS IT SAFE TO USE AN OLD FLASH ON A DSLR?

    The answer is it depends on the flash. Not many film era flashes will work on dslrs for a reason. The discharge curent might fry the inside of your DSLR, making it as useful as a shattered brick. Here is a chart I found of flashes and their trigger voltages compatibility with EOS cameras. Though it only shows Canon EOS camera compatibility, it should be the same with Nikon, Pentax, and so on... http://www.botzilla.com/photo/strobeVolts.html. Now at the sections where it says "your call" me, personally, I wouldn't try using it. The expenses of frying my DSLR would be too big if something goes wrong... If you don't find your desired flash in the chart, from what I know, a flash is safe to use on a DSLR if its trigger voltage doesn't exceed 6V.

HOW IS USING IT LIKE?

    The answers I found on the web were "just like using a manual flash". Great, but for a first time flash owner, I did not know how to control a flash... But basicaly, as you can see in this image, you only have one switch to play with. Its the one on the right and it has 4 or 5 steps of lash power.

The other one on the left is the on/off button, which I think does the same you think it does... Down you have two butons, one for illuminating the dial which you'll never use (at least I don't) and the second one is for firing the flash manually. The dial serves as a calculator for what flash intensity do you need, but I find the trial and error method a little more efficient. The good thing about this flash is that its head tilts, so you can bounce it off a wall or something.

    The flash fired in any of the creative modes on my Canon, Av, Tv, M, ... One thing not to worry about is power. This flash packs quite a lot of it, sometimes I even have to put a difuser or something to stop down the light. 

    It uses 4xAA batteries, pretty standard. After about 400 firings at medium power with 2000mah rechargable batteries is could still hold up. Recycle time is about a second on the lowest power, but it takes a couple of seconds to recycle from max power. Since I am not a machine gun shooter, this didn't really get in my way...

CAN IT BE USED AS AN OFF CAMERA FLASH?

    I don't really know, haven't tried it. It deffinetly can't be used with as an optical slave, since, unsurprisingly, it hasn't got an optical cell. Using it with a transmitter may not work from what I raed on the internat, too...

SIZE?

    Better than describing you the size of it, here's it mounted on my Canon 20D. I installed the kit 18-55mm so that you can make a better idea...

CONCLUSION

    Should I buy an old flash for my new DSLR? It depends! If it is safe to use and you expect some missed shots, than it is a good deal. But take care, you'll have to use it as an on-camera flash at all times... If it is your first flash and you want to experiment a bit with flash photography, than this is one way to go...

Update: Some sample shots.

How not to be inspired

    Yep, as the title may say, I did not have my best photographic day... But still, I found theese 2 pictures decent. Actually, I did do something else this past week. I went to shoot a couple pictures in front of our MTB cycling team's sponsor showroom. But still, nothing too interesting. The only thing is that nobody actually knew what they wanted, not even the person who organise the whole thing... I mean, they didn't even know where they wanted their shots to be taken. Luckily, we staged a few scenes and I could get some images...

Starting with the street shots, I found this giraffe interesting because of the way it was colored, but the overall color of the shot didn't attract me... So I decreased saturation, tweaked the WB and pumped up the vibrance on the giraffe, and this is the result... 

This one I like the array of benches, even though the background looks a little clutered.

This is from the whole team shoot thing. Of course, the clicheic shots could not be avoided...

Here I tried to highlight the brand but make it in a discrete way by not focusing on it. Instead, I good a pretty good portrait that includes the team's colors.

And the last one was one of the whole "staged" scenes, where they walked out of the showroom and jumped into the car.

Don't forget to chech my website and portfolio, http://tudorsphotos.weebly.com/.

So that was it, I'm taking a photographic time-out for the week-end, since I'll be gone to the national XCO championship. Thanks and, like allways, feedback would be appreciated.

End of trip...

    So this was the end of my trip to Italy, a great trip in which I've had lots of fun... And, also, theeese are the last pictures from the last day. Even though there are only 2 posts from this trip, you'll be able to see another one with some of the best shots I've taken at my cousin's graduation on tudorphotoevents.blogspot.ro and also I'll share over there my first experiences with flash photography.

    But, coming back to the subject, here are my last shots:

This first one is obviously all about the colors. This is what I love about my Tamron lens, the colors it produces. Sure, I added a bit of vibrance in Lightroom, but still I love the colors this lens produces.

What attracted me to this was the overall geometry of the picture. I've made it B&W in order to put the accent on the shapes and not on the flushed colors.

I did crop this one creatively in order to let the viewer see the splashes behind the running man.

Now, I have a question. Thatnikonguy is having a contest with the theme cinematic, I'd recommend checking that out. What do you think, would this picture suit the theme?

Also, don't forget to check out my freshly created portfolio at tudorsphotos.weebly.com.  

Thanks in advance for the feedback!