1. Get a lens with a wide aperture

If I were going to give only one piece of advice, this would be it.

Light levels are low almost everywhere poker is played. Low light levels = high ISOs and longer shutter speeds. Higher ISOs can be managed and mitigated to a certain degree but long shutter speeds are going to kill the sharpness of your shots.

Most kit lenses will only have a maximum aperture of around f/3.5 and some will be lower still. This is going to stretch your shutter speeds out to levels where camera-shake and subject movement will render your images blurry.

What you need is a lens that lets in more light than your kit lens. This will allow you to keep your shutter speeds up versus the kit lens.

In this post about prime lenses I talk about a lot of exotic (and expensive!) fast lenses and how they can help your shots when it is dark in the poker room.

But some of the fastest lenses you can buy are also some of the best value! I’m talking of course about the humble 50mm.

Canon, Nikon, and Sony all make a nifty-fifty with an aperture of f/1.8 and they cost between £95 (Canon) and £150 (Sony).

Nikon AF-D 50mm f/1.8 – buy here or buy the newly updated AF-S G here
Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 – buy here
Sony 50mm f/1.8 – buy here

This is going to give you vital extra shutter speed in the poker room. Plus, there are extra benefits, too.

Firstly, the wider aperture is going to give you a shallower depth-of-field (or, more bokeh) which helps isolate your subject from their background

Secondly, the 50mm is a very workable focal length on a crop-sensor body where it’ll equate to about 75mm-80mm. You’ll need to crop occasionally but a lot of the time this is a perfect focal length.

2. Get on your knees and get close

Get low to get a better perspective on your subjects.

It’s subjective but I really do prefer shots taken from a level a foot or two above the table in the poker room to those taken standing up and looking down on the players.

Also, get yourself amongst the tables – the closer the better I think. Don’t be afraid to get right behind the player’s seat. As long as you aren’t nudging them all the time they usually don’t mind.

That said, some players do get nervous of people behind them if they are looking at their cards – they wonder if the folk behind them are looking too. I usually make a point of looking away or standing up when a player I am sat behind is looking at their hand. Why? If I look disinterested then they’re less likely to mind next time I kneel down behind them.

Usually…

3. Don’t use your flash

Just don’t, ok? It never looks good and it disturbs the players. Keep it for the winner shots but don’t use it at the tables.

4. Focus!

Make sure you know where you are focusing. For me, this is key!

I want to place the focus in my images and not let the camera choose it for me. But equally, I don’t want to make this stuff harder than it needs to be. Remember, you’re working with shallow depth of field (if you shoot a fast lens) and subjects whose movement you can’t control so your focus point is going to be changing all the time. Let the camera do the hard work of focusing for you.

Firstly, make sure you know how to choose which of your cameras focusing points you are using. Many people only ever use the centre focus point – or even let the camera choose what to focus on. It’s important to learn how to use the outside focus points, too.

Next, know your camera’s focus modes. Most people use single-shot focus when they shoot. This is where you point the camera at something, half-press the shutter release, wait for the beep…. and then take the shot.

Most of the time, that’s fine.

But I don’t like to shoot poker that way. 95% of the time I am in continuous focus mode (Nikon call this AF-C or Continuous Focus while Canon call this AI-SERVO). This setting is where the camera is always focusing on what is under your chosen focus point.

What this allows me to do is pick an area to focus on, put a focus square on that area, half-press the shutter-release and then forget about focus altogether – unless my focus area moves from under my chosen focus square. If it does I just put the square back onto the area I want in focus. I don’t even take my finger of the shutter release.

(Actually, I sometimes use Nikon’s 3D Tracking technology on my D3. This works out what I have focused on and if it moves it’ll select a new focus point without me needing to do anything. I put the focus point on my subject’s eye, for example, and then the camera does the rest. It’s incredibly clever.)

This all sounds very complicated but once you’ve done it a couple of times it becomes second nature.

Not working out for you? Then use single-shot focus but do make sure you’re using the closest focus point to your chosen focus areas. The less you’re moving the camera the sharper your shots will be.

Whatever you do, don’t just pick the centre point and blat away. YOU need to control which area of your image is in focus at all times.

In the image above I want Dan Murariu’s left eye (on the right as we look at it) to be in focus. It’s perfectly sharp because my focus settings we right for this shot. (AF-C, single-focus-point, Nikon 3D Tracking enabled)

Why go to all this trouble? Read on…

5. Be patient

All your best shots will come when you wait for something interesting to happen.

Some people don’t like having their picture taken. They’re going to be doing everything they can NOT to look at you. If you’re ready to take the shot at all times, when they do look up, shoot!

Keep your eye on the players; do any of them throw their cards into the muck with plenty of air? Are any of them particularly animated? Someone tossing chips? Get low, get close, get focus and then wait for them to do something (focus and keep your finger on the shutter release in multiple shot mode) and when it happens keep your finger on the button and don’t let go until it’s over!

Sure, you’re going to be throwing a fair few shots away but who cares? No pixels have to die to make good photos but when the moment comes, you’re going to be ready.

6. Don’t forget the details

Keep your eyes open all the time – there’s often some really nice details to capture.

7. Mix it up a little

Much of the work I do is a numbers game – get as many players as I can before they get knocked out. There’s not much fun in that. But when I get some time to myself I go in search of interesting things to shoot.

There are few rules I bother with but two I try to stick to are: 1) always give people room to look into the frame and, 2) try and place people’s faces on an imaginary line dividing the frame into thirds.

Other than that, I just shoot what I like the look of.

8. Think about buying a monopod

Yes, they can be a pain but they really will help you take sharper images when the light is low. I have the Manfrotto 680B with the 234RC head.

Waiting (on my knees) for something to happen at the final table, Unibet Open Malta, March 2011. Pic by Tambet Kask

9. And finally

Don’t forget to have fun! Once the shoot is over, kick back and relax. Beer is, of course, optional

Relaxing with a beer at the end of Day 1a, Unibet Open Barcelona, June 2011. Pic by Tambet Kask

“Counter agent was very nice and didn’t even give me the evil eye when I approached laden with 8 pieces to check and just me traveling.”

Kind of made me wonder exactly how much kit I have brought to Prague for the job I’m on now. For the gear heads amongst you, here’s a list of just about everything I’ve brought with me:

Nikon D3

2x Nikon D3s + extra battery
Nikon 24-70 2.8
Nikon 70-200 2.8
SanDisk Extreme Pro 16GB CF card
2x SanDisk Extreme III 8GB CF cards
SanDisk Extreme IV 4GB CF card

Sensor cleaning swabs and fluid

2x Nikon SB-900 speedlights
Nikon SC-29 off-camera cord
3x Phottix Atlas radio triggers
2x Honl speed grids
Rosco eColor gel swatch book
16x Energiser 2650mAh AA rechargeable batteries & fast charger

Manfrotto 680B monopod

Manfrotto 5001B lightstand
Manfrotto 026 umbrella clamp
Lastolite umbrella
Lastolite EZY-Box 24”
Warehouse Express 5-in-1 reflector

Profoto Acuteb 600R

Profoto AcuteB 600 pack & head
Profoto Zoom reflector
Profoto 3’ Octabox
Profoto gridspot set
Profoto snoot & barndoors
Profoto lightstand

Apple MacBook Pro 15”
Apple Magic Mouse
Wacom Bamboo Pen tablet
O2 mobile broadband dongle
Seagate 320GB external hard disk
Lexar Pro CF/SD card reader
Kingston laptop lock

Ohtuleht Estonia; click to enlarge

Phottix Atlas

I took delivery of three brand new Phottix Atlas flash triggers today. These newbies have only just come to market and information on them is pretty scarce.

Even so, they’ve have been receiving quite a lot of attention online (at the Strobist forum on Flickr, for example) for a number of reasons. Chief amongst them, at least for UK and European based guys  is the price: around £85 each direct from the Phottix store. This is around half the price of a PocketWizard +II (currently £320 from Warehouse Express buy them in a pair). Also, a big a factor, for a lot of shooters is that they are PocketWizard compatible, i.e. they will trigger and can be triggered by (European) PocketWizards.

Since the purchase was somewhat of a leap of faith for me I’m keen to share my experiences.

Here’s the plan: I’m putting them straight into service on a week-long commercial job in Prague from Wednesday August 4th and I will be updating this post every day with my review from a real assignment.

There will be no quarter-mile distance tests and no unboxing videos. What there will be is a complete review of this kit’s performance in live shooting conditions, on location.

Setting the scene

I’m covering an international poker tournament in the Czech Republic and will be shooting everything from formal portraits inside the venue to a press conference, a fashion-style shoot with professional models in the old town, a PR shoot with key players in a makeshift studio with everything culminating in a high-pressure, low-time (no-time) shoot for the waiting media with the lucky winner who will have played for 3 days solid and who, and 5 minutes before I turn up, will have scooped £150,000!

Here’s a small selection of the sort of stuff I’ve shot on these assignments – everything here is flash-lit:

I usually shoot these jobs with a mixture of Nikon SB-900s and battery powered ‘studio’ flash. In this department my preference for a while has been for the Elinchrom Ranger Quadra which is a solid piece of kit (my only comments are that the flash duration is a bit slow on the standard heads and that I’ve sometimes found  I need more power than 400 w/s). Because the Quadra has the Elinchrom Skyport system built-in I have been using the Skyport transmitter on the camera (sometimes a bit flaky on my Nikon) and have used the Skyport Universal on the Speedlights when mixing the lighting. I like Skyport with the Quadra because it has remote power control from the transmitter but the Universal system is not a hit with me mainly because it has to be recharged from the mains which can be a hassle and makes you carry more kit.

Profoto Acuteb 600R

However, I’ve just started a relationship with a new rental house, Direct Lighting so I’m taking the opportunity to try some new kit that I’m considering buying: the Profoto AcuteB 600. Direct don’t carry the AcuteB 600R (which has PocketWizard built-in) or the new AcuteB2 600 AirS (this is what I am looking at – comes with either PW or the Profoto Air system built-in) so I’ll be using the Atlas’ as my primary triggering system.

I will be mixing light sources a lot so it will be interesting to see how the Phottix units play when I ask them to trigger the AcuteB and SB-900s together.

As well as Skyport I’ve used the Bowens Pulsar system, the much-loved RF-602s and some trusty CTR-301Ps, too – even triggering 3000w Elinchrom packs with those when a studio’s Skyport packed up.

On this job I will always be able to fall-back on the good old fashioned sync cord or CTR-301Ps if I need to – or CLS with multiple SB-900s if appropriate.

Why are you doing this?

Because I’m curious and because I hope it helps some folks who are considering buying these triggers.

I can afford PocketWizards but I don’t like the idea of paying such a huge premium for them over US guys; the Atlas trigger ticks all my boxes.

On with the review…

First impressions are really good – the build quality and finish seems excellent and they have a nice heft to them. The metal mounting shoe fits snugly into my Nikon D3s hotshoe and the locking wheel creates a solid connection.

There are plenty of people who consider the build quality of the PocketWizards to be less than amazing so this is a boon and, if truth be told, somewhat of a surprise.

The unit itself is fairly straightforward in design: to the left there’s the on/off switch and a WRS switch (to allow sync of a flash and remote camera triggering), on top are two 3.5mm jacks and on the front sits a standard hotshoe, a channel selector (4 channels are available) and the test button. On the back of the unit is a standard 5/8″ socket to attach to a lightstand.

Nikon SB-900

Inside the box are two cables to connect the units to studio or hotshoe flashes – a 3,5mm to 3.5mm jack cable and a 3.5mm to PC Sync cable. The latter comes with a screw-fit PC Sync which fits perfectly into my SB-900s. There is also a 3.5mm to 6.35mm adapter which fits many studio-flash systems. Finally there is a lanyard to allow you to hand the Phottix unit and a fairly decent user manual.

They take two AA batteries which make them much easier (and cheaper) to power than CTR-301Ps which require a somewhat hard-to-obtain CR2.

Quick tests

I attached one unit to the camera hotshoe and another to a Nikon SB-900 via the supplied cable. Tests shooting indoors gave 100% reliability triggering the SB-900 at distances of 15m or so both line-of-sight, around corners and through doors and walls. I then used the supplied 3.5mm to 3.5mm cable and adapter to connect another Atlas to the AcuteB. Test shots showed 100% reliability triggering the AcuteB.

While these tests aren’t at great distances they are at fairly typical shooting distances. I will try some longer range stuff (upto maybe 50m or so) next-week.

So, it’s so-far-so-good for the Altas’. Come back next week to see how they fare in the field.

Triggering multiple systems

It’s important for me to be able to trigger multiple systems on occasions. By this I mean studio lights or battery-powered flash (such as the Elinchrom Quadra or Profoto Acute) and speedlights – all triggered by radio.

Sure, you can use optical slaves for this but they’re often not as reliable. I could have used the SB-900 in SU4 mode for these shots. Equally, I could have turned on the AcuteB’s optical trigger but that’d be defeating the object of my test!.

To see how the Atlas system would perform I borrowed my good friend and ace videographer Mr Andreas ‘machine’ Jud and setup a very simple two light shot.

Camera right is the AcuteB 600 with a 20* gridspot in the Profoto Zoom reflector. Camera left is a Nikon SB-900 on manual, full-power, with a Honl speed grid. The SB-900 is much closer to Andreas to make up for the lack of power compared to the AcuteB.

I shot plenty of frames like this and then swapped lens (to the Nikon 70-200 f/2.8 VR II) and turned Andreas round to (what was) camera right. I moved away right to 200mm zoom range but by leaving everything else alone the same the lighting gives us this:

The SB-900 now becomes more of a rim-light (as well as giving us a great shadow on the wall).

Throughout these tests the Atlas performed flawlessly – never missing a beat when triggering both the Nikon and Profoto systems. There wasn’t a single shot where only one flash fired. I don’t know what else I can say about them in this respect – 100% reliability: not a single misfire.

With the test shots out of the way and dinner eaten, it was time to put Andreas into (the flower) bed

Taking it to the MAX!

Sometimes you need to be at your maximum sync-speed to get the effect you want – bashing most of the ambient out of a shot is a technique that can give you a lot of control over your exposure. There’s a problem though. Well, two really. The first one is that if you’re trying to take a lot of ambient out you’re at high apertures. This is going to tax your flash. The second is that when you’re at 1/250th (of whatever your max sync-speed is) you’re taxing your triggers.

Taxing them because once you press the shutter release they have to get their act together, send the trigger signal to the receivers and then actually fire the flash(es). And if your exposure is going to be correct they have to do all this in a super-small fraction of a second.

Shooting in the early evening in Prague’s Old Town I wanted to setup a shot that would show how the Atlas triggers cope with like at max sync-speed. I’m shooting on a Nikon D3 and so my max is 1/250th of a second. There’s a catch though. Nikon say that you’re only going to be able to fully sync at 1/250th with their own kit attached to the camera. Everything else can expect to sync at 1/200th or so.

This will be a cool test of the Atlas triggers.

What we setup here is a simple shot into the setting sun. When we walked to this spot I knew I’m going to be at 1/250th so what I’m looking for here is how the exposure drops off towards the bottom of the frame.

As you can see things are pretty even – which is good. Great, even.

If you’re being picky on this frame you can argue that there’s a minimal drop off towards the bottom but it’s not something I’m going to worry about. I shot a whole lot of frames today at max sync-speed and on the few I didn’t give some extra leeway in my framing for any drop-off I’m not seeing anything that worries me.

To that end, I’m confident that the Atlas performs well at max sync-speed. Better for sure than pretty much any trigger I’ve used before.

Interference?

I want to test the Atlas triggers in an environment where there’s lots of other electronic gadgetry – the aim being to see if they handle this well or if they start firing the flashes at random.

I setup a shoot on the TV table in the main tournament area at the Unibet Open. Around me were a handful of camera, wireless mics, plasma and LCD TVs, WiFi connected computers and literally tens of power plugs. All of them conspiring to interfere with the Atlas system and potentially trigger them unintentionally.

Me shooting on a TV set with the Altas on a Nikon D3 firing a Nikon SB-900 and the Profoto AcuteB 600. Pic: Andreas Jud

Setup was the Profoto AcuteB 600 in the 3’ Ocata as the main light high camera-right. I had a Nikon SB-900 with a Honl grid as a hair light high camera-left. Directly camera-left of the model was a huge silver reflector for a touch of fill.

Triggered both the flashes with Atlas’. Conditions were pretty easy to work in here. I could probably have triggered one or other optically if I wanted to.

Shot with the Nikon 24-70 2.8 lens, mostly at 24mm.

Compositions were super-simple; the aim was to get some fairly tight shots of models in a poker setting looking unbeatable!

Once all the Atlas’ were plugged in and switched to channel 1, to my complete surprise they started popping off at random: one pop every 10-20 seconds.

Turned the AcuteB off and left the SB-900 turned on. Same result. Turned the SB-900 off and left the AcuteB on. No change. One pop every now and again. Weird.

They still fired every time I asked them to, whether via the test button or the camera’s shutter release, though.

I switched all the transceivers to channel 3 and the random firing stopped. Again, they worked perfectly when asked to: no mis-fires.

Dubai based photographer Charled Verghese reported random firings with his Atlas set, albeit under different conditions and with pre-production models. Read more in his review, here.

I don’t know what bit of kit was causing the random firing but there you have it – the Atlas’ first flaw as far as I’m concerned. Switching channels did the trick for me but remember, your mileage may vary.

Here’s a small gallery of BTS images captured from a video shot by assistant and videographer extraordinaire, Andreas Jud:

Conclusion

So, to sum up, how would I say the Atlas triggers performed?

Very well, all things considering. I threw a lot at them in a short amount of time and haven’t found them wanting. Yes, they are more expensive than a lot of eBay triggers such as the RF-602 but for me the versatility of each unit being a transceiver and their ability to trigger PocketWizards is worth the extra money. Sure, you can get a lot of RF-602s or other triggers for less money but I don’t want to be carrying lots of gear I won’t use – a small amount of stuff I can rely on works better for me.

Would I recommend them? Yeah, I would. If you’re considering these triggers then I haven’t found anything in this test that should conclusively put you off. Sure there was the random triggering issue but it was easily solved. And besides, how often are you going to be shooting in a TV studio?

Update: April 2010

I’ve been shooting with the Atlas triggers exclusively since I wrote this review and I haven’t changed my opinion of them one bit! They’re still going strong for me and I haven’t considered changing systems.

As well as buying directly from the Phottix store you can buy the same units from Calumet where they are rebadged as their Pro Series Wireless Transceiver. Or you can buy them as the Interfit Titan from Jacobs. I guess all of these will work together so you can mix-and-match but don’t quote me on it!

One of the things I mentioned is how, if you shoot with a CTO gel in a Incandescent (Nikon) / Tungsten (Canon) white balance (the lightbulb on both platforms), the unlit portions of your image will turn blue.

I wanted to illustrate that concept with a frame from a recent shoot with a friend. This image is lit with a single Elinchrom Quadra S head with a full CTO gel.

Here’s the frame at daylight white balance (5500k):

White balance: daylight/5500k

Nick is much too warm here but the sky, obviously not affected by the flash, is as you’d expect it to be.

Here’s the same frame with the white balance set to Tungsten/Incandescent (2850k):

White balance: incandescent/tungsten/2850k

The sky has turned bright blue and the warm light on Nick has rendered him more neutral.

When I was working with this shot in Lightroom I actually preferred this version which is at 3000k (similar to Halogen in temperature):

White balance: 3000k

This version has rendered the sky not so blue and kept some of the warmth in Nick.

It’s all a matter of what you like but you can achieve some cool effects with warm gels!

Look at the photographer holding his camera in the air behind the red-haired lady.

He has a CTO (Colour Temperature Orange) gel attached to his flash; the lighing where he is shooting is probably tungsten (light bulbs, basically) so he’s gelled his flash to match.

As a Canon user he will set his camera white balance to Tungsten. Nikon call this Incandescent but the icon for them both is the same – the little bulb (). He does this so he can get both ambient and flash in his exposure and not have uneven lighting – the ambient light and the flash light are the same colour.

If he didn’t do this, the people lit by his flash would be white (becuase flash is daylight balanced) and those not lit by flash would be yellow (becuse tungsten is very, very orange).

What he needs to be careful of is heading where the ambient isn’t tungsten, such as outdoors. What would happen then is that the portion of his shot lit by flash would be colour-correct but everything else would turn very blue. Check out this shot from Flickr that illustrates this perfectly.

The person who took this photo didn’t gel his flash and that’s why the people at the back look so much more orange than the ones in the front.

More on using gels for color correction at The Strobist.

Where to buy CTO gels in the UK

I buy them in 50x60cm sheets from the Rosco e-color range. I find the number I want from here and then call Flint’s Hire and Supply in London on 020 7703 9786 and ask them to order them for me. They take a few days to show up and cost about £3 each.

You can also buy them from The Flash Centre (sold by the sheet, ignore the crappy website – just call them or visit the shop) and Direct Lighting (sold by length).

Update

See an example of using a gel to intentionally turn up the blue in the ambient part of your exposure here.

This is the obvious one – if shooting with f/2.8 zooms  is still giving you shutter speeds slower than you’re comfortable with you could move to quick prime glass.

Canon 200mm f/2

I used to be a Canon guy and used the 17-55 f/2.8 IS (on a 50D), 24-70 f/2.8 L (on a 5D and 5D Mk II) and 70-200 f/2.8 L IS lenses – basically Canon’s flagship zooms (at a combined cost of just under £4,000 as I write this). Canon gives you the option of moving to some ultra-quick primes. I’m not a prime kind of guy but I could see the attraction in shooting their 50mm f/1.2 L, 85mm f/1.2 L and 135 f/2 L (combined cost of just over £4,000). Hell, if money was no object you could even add Canon’s amazing 200mm f/2 (pictured, £4,800) to your collection.

You’d miss a bit at the wide end but you should be ok with a slower zoom here (camera shake is less of an issue at wider focal-lengths) so I’d add maybe the 17-40 f/4 L (about £620) to the bag.

Those of us on Nikon don’t have the luxury of f/1.2 primes so we must content ourselves with the alphabet-soup of the 50mm f/1.4 AF-S G, 85mm f/1.4 AF D and maybe the 135mm f/2 DC AF D (total of about £2,200) leaving us plenty of money to add the perplexingly named 16-35mm f/4 AF-S ED VR G for about £900.

Buy any of these lenses and you’ll have yourself some really, really nice glass. From f/2.8 you are now at f/1.4 – an increase of two stops. Suddenly your 1/60th @ f/2.8 ISO 2500 can be a much more manageable 1/125th @ f/1.4 ISO 1250 (I’ve swapped one stop in aperture and one stop in ISO here).

There are other benefits too: most modern cameras keep the lens wide-open when composing and focusing to keep the view-finder as bright as possible. They only stop down to the shooting aperture (if required) when you press the shutter. If a camera is going to struggle to get focus anywhere, it’s going to be where it’s dark. The brighter you can make the scene, the more accurately the camera can focus.

But with the speed comes another ‘problem’; depth of field. The wider our aperture gets, the shallower the portion of our scene which is acceptably sharp. This means your focus needs to be spot on. Be prepared also for your pics to look a bit weird. I mean, who needs razor thin DOF for poker portraiture?

Equally, if you’re shooting a commission for a commercial outfit they’ll want their branding in acceptable focus so, after all, maybe f/1.4 glass isn’t right.

Finally, fixed-focal-length glass will make shooting in crowded poker-rooms much more difficult because now you’re zooming with your feet. You might find yourself changing lenses more often unless you have a second body (you should have a backup regardless. You do have a backup, don’t you?)

What’s in my bag? As I mentioned above, I’m not a big prime-lens player so I carry Nikon’s trio of fast-zooms:

Nikon's 'Holy Trinity': (left-to-right) 70-200 f/2.8 VR II, 24-70 f/2.8, 14-24 f/2.8