Manfrotto's Entry Level Geared Ball Head

I’m hoping that this month’s post might help someone who’s been thinking about purchasing a new tripod head. This is a quick review on Manfrotto’s MXPRO Geared Head. 

    

I’ve been shooting for many years and have always had pretty nice ball head on my tripod. My problem was that sometimes when I had a good sized lens on my camera I might get a little lens creep, most often when I was shooting macro type photography. So when I purchased the MXPRO geared head I had already been doing my research online for quite a while. 

I’ve always kept up with other photographers in my niche (real estate photography) and almost every one of them said that a geared head should be considered a mandatory piece of equipment in our bags. The main feature of a geared head is that it allows users to frame their images precisely - one micro step at a time if needed - on all three axes and that would help me to be incredibly accurate in my vertical and horizontal shots.  I also enjoy shooting landscape photography in my free time and I’ve found that the more I use it out in the field, the happier I am with it.  Since owning this head, I can’t see ever using a ball head again. 

If you’re a photographer, you already know that anything photo related can get very expensive, and geared heads are no exception. When Manfrotto originally released this head, they said it was an entry level model. I’ve always liked and owned Manfrotto products and this head even came with two quick release plates. It was recommended as being ideally-suited for use with lighter systems such as mirrorless cameras, but I use it all the time for my macro work with a full frame Canon DSLR (with a battery grip) fitted with a 100mm macro with no problems so far!

The price was very affordable, but seriously, I was very reluctant about a tripod head made out of plastic. Manfrotto calls the material “Adapto Technopolymer”. This makes the head really lightweight, only 1.65 lbs. Because of its weight though, I can easily it carry around on a full day of shooting.  The first thing you’ll notice when you take it out of the box is that it has a very solid feel to it. Because I did my homework, I knew that all the drive gears inside were still made of metal and I liked the fact it had quick release handles on all three rotation knobs and three bubble levels. Some features that pricier models don’t even offer!

I’ve always been pretty easy on my gear, but I’ve dropped this quite a few times and it’s held up like a pro. Manfrotto has this head listed on their website at $244.49, but if you show around you can probably save over fifty dollars and you might even get free shipping!

I have to admit that I’m very happy with this purchase and it’s held like a pro for several years with no problems so far. Maybe this is something you’d like to have in your photo kit?  Click this link below or best price online, I think you'll love it. I hope you found this post useful. Manfrotto MXPRO

And remember, as always, keep shooting and have some fun!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tips for Photographing Sunrises and Sunsets

Thinking Ahead – I’ll be the first to admit, sometimes you get wonderful sunrise and sunset shots just by luck, being in the right place at the right time. But often times the best ones come out of a little pre-planning.  If possible, try to scope out places that might be good for sunsets when you can, preferably at least a day or two before your shoot.  Look for interesting places where you might not only be able to see the sun track all the way down but where there will be opportunities for shots that include foreground elements and silhouettes. Sunsets only last for about a half an hour altogether so you want to think about these elements before they start or you might miss the shots you’re after. 

                                                     

With the help of the Internet, you can easily find out when the sun will rise or set so you want to try to get there at least a half hour to 45 minutes beforehand to set up and get ready. Plus, often times, it’s in the lead up to and the time after the sun appears or disappears that the real magic happens. Another good tip is to keep an eye on the local weather reports. There are a variety of different types of sunsets and sunrises that produce all sorts of different types of lights and patterns in the sky. Don’t just go for clear days for these shots – while they can produce some wonderful colors, it’s usually the times where there are clouds around that the real action happens! Also be aware of places on days when there is dust or smoke in the air because that can also produce amazing results.

Experiment; try shooting a variety of focal lengths. Wide angle lenses can create sweeping landscape shots but if you want the sun to be the main feature of the shot you might want to be able to zoom right in, so bring along a zoom lens. Also, remember the rule of thirds when you’re photographing sunrises and sunsets. You know you always break the rule but it’s usually a good idea to place elements like the horizon, sun, silhouettes just a tad off center.






If you let your camera meter for you and let it decide what shutter speed to shoot at you’re likely to get a bunch of crappy shots that don’t really capture the beauty of the light you wanted in the first place. Remember, quite often the shot will be under exposed because the sky is still reasonably light. The great thing about sunsets and sunrises is that there is no one ‘right’ exposure.   

There are many ways to shoot sunsets and sunrises, so experiment. You can try bracketing your shots and combining them later in post for some great results also. To do this, try taking a series of shots at the same ƒ stop, but play around with the shutter speeds.  Don’t be afraid to try different white balance modes either. Sometimes when shooting in extreme lighting conditions, some cameras can have trouble focussing. If this is the case for your camera consider switching to manual focus. Myself, I like to pre-focus manually and take my camera off auto-focus. This way I’m almost guaranteed to get nice crisp shots.  

Last but not least, a tripod is a must-have for good sunset or sunrise photography. Sometimes when you accidently come across a beautiful sunset or sunrise you can improvise and use something to stabilize your camera, but you really need a nice sturdy tripod. When I’m shooting  I always take along a cable release to insure I get the sharpest photos possible. Remember, most of the time you’ll want good depth of field so you’ll be shooting at small apertures from ƒ/8 - ƒ/22 or better and you want to avoid any camera shake if you can. Of course, these are just some suggestions, but the bottom line is to get out there and practice.

Remember, as always, keep shooting and have some fun!

Going Mobile - On Location Off Camera Flash

Recently, I was talking with another photographer about our different shooting styles and we got to talking about lighting and off-camera flash. I enjoy putting together images as opposed to just taking photos. What I mean is, when the conditions aren’t just right, I don’t mind altering it to create the image in my mind. Usually this can be as simple as just adding some extra fill light with speedlights or reflector panels. In this post, I’ll try to take you through my process of getting the shot I imagined. This day I didn’t have the luxury of light meters or assistants. Hopefully this will show you how to get similar shots quickly and easily without having to lug around a ton of gear.

About a mile from my home is a local bird sanctuary that I like to visit. It has miles of nice trails and lots of waterways and ponds. It also has a few abandoned buildings, some old dead cars and even a small waterfall and a covered bridge. To me, it’s a shooters paradise. I like to go walking / hiking there often and always bring along a camera. For a long time I’ve wanted to get a nice shot of a particular lagoon captured in early October, because I wanted the trees in full bloom with all the Fall colors. I couldn’t find anyone to model this day, so I elected myself.

Trouble is that in New England, once the leaves peak, you only have a few days before they start falling. Because of some nasty weather, I missed the peak by a few days and a lot of the leaves had blown off the trees or had already fallen. I decided to shoot it anyway and I got my gear ready; a couple of light stands, a few speedlights with remotes, a shoot thru umbrella and of course my camera and trusty tripod. Also, I knew that I wanted to blend in a little so I wore some fall colors and put on an orange shirt and some tan shorts. A little planning can change everything.

Check out the before and after shots, labeled Original Scene and Finished Copy. Luckily I got some pretty decent clouds that day, although I did have to punch them up a bit in Photoshop later on. In a shoot like this I have a system that works for me. I usually like to shoot tethered but this day I wanted to rely solely on my LCD and the histogram for creating this tutorial.

I knew I wanted some good depth of field so I started off at  ƒ / 11.  I switched my camera to aperture priority and then set it to ƒ /11, pushed the shutter button halfway to see what the camera wanted for a shutter speed, and then switched over to manual mode and used those settings as my starting point.

Next I needed to see what I’d get without any flash and I took a test shot of me on the rock. See the No Flash shot. These days all cameras have a self-timer and I set mine at 5 seconds so I could get in my shots. By looking at my LCD I could see I needed to add quite a bit of light on me. I set up my first bare speedlight on a stand to my left and took another test shot. I usually stretch my arms out straight and make that my distance between me and my main light. For me, that’s roughly 6 ft. away. Then I switch my first flash to manual and set it at ¼ power as a starting point.


As you can see in the 1^st Test Shot, I needed a wider spread of light so I re-adjusted the speedlight and added a shoot thru umbrella. Then I could easily move my light stand or adjust my speedlights power up or down to compensate. 


   

Next, I put a light stand in the place where I would sit and auto focused on it. See the Focus Shot. When I achieved focus, I switched the lens off of auto-focus so all my shots would be set.

After looking at that shot on my LCD, I saw the shadows under my leg, behind my arm, and on the sides of my face.  See the 2^nd Test Shot.


 

I knew I’d have to add another speedlight into the mix on my right hand side to lessen up those shadows. I set my second light about 8ft. away, bare bulb, and set it at ¼ power.  See the Add Second Light shot.
    


 

Check out my Lighting Set-Up diagram to see how I placed my gear.


 

Now I still had some shadows to mess with but by rearranging the speedlights a few more times and taking some test shots, I got to a place where I got the least amount of shadows and I knew I could easily fix those in Photoshop afterwards.  See the Tweaking Photo.



 
I could also see from my LCD that I wanted a darker sky. I dropped the ambient a little more by raising my shutter speed and adjusting the power of my speedlights until I was happy with the light on me. I knew I was going to punch up my colors on the trees in the background and on the sky some more in post so it was time to pack up and head home to edit and put the final touches on my shots.

Because I was only using my 3” LCD that day and mainly paying attention to the lighting on me, I didn’t notice the other stuff on the rock beside me until I opened the shots on my PC at home. You’ll notice the plastic bag and the white tube socks on the rock. Just for the record, I wrap my speedlights in tube socks to help protect them in transport.

The final steps were relatively easy. After downloading the shots, I opened up the last shot I got after tweaking my lights, duplicated the layer, and then removed the stuff on the rock beside me with the clone stamp and content aware fill.  See the Remove Clutter shot.


   

If you look close you’ll notice on the Remove Clutter shot, I still had a few more shadows that I had to remove (above and below my hands). So I duplicated that layer and edited the shadows out.  See the Remove Shadows shot. 

Next, I duplicated that layer because I needed to darken the tall grass and the ground in front of me and I grabbed the burn tool to tweak those areas.What I like to do when dodging and burning is to add a new layer, fill it with 50% gray, switch it to Overlay mode and then dodge and burn on that layer, all non-destructively……Nice huh?

Pressure sensitivity on my Wacum tablet helps with that.  I still wanted to darken my sky a little more so I used a new Gradient adjustment layer for that. Here I press and hold the Shift, Control and Alt buttons and tap the E key to create a flattened version of all my layers on top of the layer stack, then proceed to the next step.

Finally, I punched up the saturation on the island and the trees in the background with the sponge tool. I made sure it was set to saturation mode with the vibrance box checked and brushed it in until it looked good to me. Keep in mind, all my adjustments in post are made on adjustment layers or separate new layers so I can always go back and change things if I want. That's a huge reason I’m a huge fan of Smart Objects and Filters. Plus all my work is shot in RAW on my camera. This post wasn't meant to be a lesson in Photoshop, so please bear with me.
 

Because I’ve done this a few times, the whole shooting time was about a half hour or so and counting the practice shots, I probably took somewhere between 50 – 75 shots total. 

If I had a model, that time would be even less because I wouldn’t have had to jump up from the rock and move the light stands or adjust the power on my speedlights after every shot. In the end, I probably spent another half hour or so in Photoshop.

Obviously, your first time will probably take you a while longer, but with a couple speedlights and some practice, you too can make great shots under all conditions. I hope you enjoy this article and you get a few useful tips out of it.

Remember, as always, keep shooting and have some fun!