San Antonio Wedding Photographer | Soobumim Photography 210-863-9878 » Wedding Photography Gear

Photography tips: Extend the range of the Pocketwizard FlexTT5

Soobum Im — Fri, 07 Jan 2011 18:14:40 +0000

I’ve been using variety of pocketwizard system through out my career. Pocketwizard multimax never failed and has always been my #1 choice of wireless transmitting unit when I shoot basketball, and studio work. My experience with pocketwizard mini TT1 and Flex TT5 wasn’t so great. After communicating back and forth with pocket wizard, they sent me a test version of AC7 which reduce the RF noise from Canon 580 EXII.

Many people reported that AC7 won’t work with external battery pack. But this new version actually comes with AC57 adapter which can be used with an external battery pack. I have connected canon 580 EXII with canon CP-E3 battery pack

I’ve been testing this system today and it worked really well.

Image left: new setup with AC7. Image right: old setup with AC5

I had to use AC5 with off camera cable to be able to extend the range of pocketwizard TT5 + canon 580 EXII combo. It works great but takes time set that up especially having multiple setups like this. Now with AC7 set up is relatively easy and I can quickly mount the flash on and off . For the range, I get solid result. Almost no misfire with canon 70–200 2.8 is lens. Huge improvement. Only complain I have is the size. Again, it’s extra piece of equipment I have to carry but it does the job.

Wed ding Port fo lio~ S ports Port fo lio ~ Con tact

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Hood Hat

Soobum Im — Wed, 13 Oct 2010 20:44:01 +0000

Sometimes, I worried about my gear especially fans with beer on his / her hands during sporting events. Canon 300 2.8 is comes with cover but I really don’t like to use them — it’s huge. I found really good product called hood hat from : OP Tech USA. It fits perfectly (mine is XL size) and it’s not that expensive at all.

Sports Portfolio ~ Contact

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On Camera Microphone + Portable Recorder

Soobum Im — Sun, 01 Aug 2010 23:46:37 +0000

Battery powered on camera microphones are easy to use and good solutions for capturing high quality sounds. I’ve been using Rode videomic for some time but soon ditched it away due to poor build quality . It’s made of plastic and the shock mount system is held together by rubber bands. I’ve been shooting some video with simply wired lavaliere mic connected to Olympus DS-40. Here’s my post .

azden smx-10 connected to Zoom H4N

The video mic I have now is Azden SMX-10: light weight and short in length. It is a lot easier to carry and sound quality is decent. Azden SMX-10 is connected to Zoom H4N to record long period of time. I also use a splitter out of Zoom H4N (line): one for mic input to Canon 5D Mark II and the other for monitoring sound. Here’s my post on how to connect canon 5d mark ii to Zoom H4N audio recorder

It may not be the the best audio solution as it picks up lens motor as well as handling noise. But I think it’s great solution for covering events and news coverage (it’s still better than built in camera mic).

Wedding Portfolio ~ Contact ~ Pricing

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LED light for DSLR Camera

Soobum Im — Sun, 11 Jul 2010 21:45:35 +0000

I’ve been using popular 126 LED DSLR Video Light for shooting DSLR photo and video. This thing is really great and last really long time. One thing I don’t like about this is the bottom hot shoe mount. It’s not stable at all and I had to drill and replace with shoe mount-swivel shoe adapter from LED 4 Video. It’s probably Best Bang for the Buck. I highly recommend this ball head. Here’s some of the images with Jag 35 follow focus.

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{ San Antonio Wedding Photography | How do I record sound with Canon 5D Mark II }

Soobum Im — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 06:02:08 +0000

The sound quality off the canon 5d mark II is not great (I posted how I get around this on this post). Eternal microphones such as Rode ViodeoMic is good option but not great capturing sounds that are far away. Only option for capturing sound during ceremony is using lavalier microphone system, preferably wireless. I am a wedding photographer and don’t really want to think about wireless lav mic system and recording device on a wedding day (I am a photographer not videographer). I just found great way to record sound. It’s Olympus DS-40 and I picked up $50 on ebay. I also purchased olympus ME-15 mic lavalier microphone that clips grooms clothing. The whole system is less than $100 and very very small.

DS-40 Digital Voice Recorder I use on wedding day

I used this setup during recent engagement session and sound quality was pretty good. I had some problems with sync and alignment using this system. The solution that I found was to use MPEG Streamclip software by Squared 5 (here’s a link to download) and it’s free. Only tricky thing was to change some of presets. I use following presets:

I use apple intermediiate codec at %80 quality and set audio at 44.1 khz when I use Olympus DS-40. Some people suggested to manually change audio speed to solve sync and alignment or recoded again with 48 khz recording device. But I found this is easy way to solve this problem.

Wedding Portfolio ~ Contact ~ Pricing

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Canon 5d mark II audio with Zoom H4N

Soobum Im — Wed, 26 May 2010 04:57:45 +0000

With 5D mark II manual audio control, I’ve been trying to configure out ways to record better sounds. Canon 5D Mark II has a 1/8th inch stereo input which allow to use external microphones such as Rode ViodeoMic.

Rode VideoMic

small
doesn’t require external power source (with 9v battery, gets 100 hours of power)
switchable high-pass filter (works fairly well)

Dislike

build quality (it’s made of plastic and fragile)

Later, I returned the Rode VideoMic and bought popular Zoom H4N by Samson.

popular Zoom H4N by Samson.

Excellent audio quality and 4 channel recording allow me so much flexibility (adding lav mic etc). I am going with dual system which means I will have to record sounds separately and edit them in Final cut. If dual system is hassle, try this:

I just found a special cable with 25 dB attenuation from Markertek allow me to connect Zoom H4N line out to 5D Mark II stereo mic level input.

Zoom H4N with 5D Mark II

Set camera volume around 30% (with manual volume control, you can do this) and always use wind screen. I’ve been testing audio (ambient) quality with it and it’s been great so far. I also have stereo Y-cable so that I can monitor sound at the same time.

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Wedding Photography Gear | San Antonio Wedding Photographer

Soobum Im — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 05:40:27 +0000

I’ve been traveling a lot this year and thought I’d post wedding photography gear that I normally bring.

Bag: Think Tank International V2.0. I was little afraid about carrying this with me since I’ve never travel this before. It fitted overhead without any problem.

Camera

Canon 5D Mark II : great for formal portraits, reception photo
Canon 1D Mark III: fast, AF is fantastic

Lems

Canon 17–40 4.0: for outdoor portrait. I usually overpower the sun with lighting and don’t need 2.8 at that point
Canon 35 1.4 : stays 5D Mark II 90% of the time. very sharp, great image quality
Canon 85 1.2: for lowlight ceremony
Canon 70–200 2.8: stays 1D Mark III 90% of the time. can shoot journalistic style with this and that’s way it’s my favorite lens
Canon 15 2.8 fisheye: maybe used 3–4 time but it’s great capturing the whole venue

Lighting

Canon 580 EX II (x2): one main, one for back up.
Nikon SB 26 (x2): mainly use for reception dancing photos
Elinchrom Quadra: great for outdoor portraits. It’s about 4 times brighter than 580 EX II
Canon OC-E3: for off camera flash (just in case)
Canon CP-E3: flash power pack for faster recycle time.
Pocket wizards: Transceiver (x2), Mini TT1, Flex TT5 transceiver

Computer: Mac book pro

Also carry 2 light stands, umbrella,westcott apollo softbox in small tripod bag

Gear that I no longer use

canon 24–70 2.8: too heavy
canon 24–105: great focal length, image stabilization is great but I like prime lens a lot better for some reason
canon 100 macro: it just too many lens to carry
canon st-e2: never used
flash bracket: never used
gary fong lightsphere: I don’t know why I purchase this

These are all the gear I bring for wedding and I trust them to work 100% of time.

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