Posted by
jussi on November 6, 2010 at 3:57 pm.
I promised a tech post of the just do it picture so here goes. Its not much but something..
If anyone has any questions about the pictures and how they are done just pop a comment and I’ll try to answer the best I can.
First the lighting setup. Which was straight forward eazybox and separation light with grid.
It looks so nice and spaceus but in reality it was like this. Very little room to move anywhere and the assistant James developed some symptoms of claustrofobia.
The photographic black is about four and one thirds (4 1/3) stops below mid grey. We had to shoot with lights on because the sb’s don’t have modeling lights I could not have seen anything nore could the camera focus. The powerlevels were pumped up so the ambient light would not come into play. Picture with out flash would be black.
Now its only a matter of controlling the light, not spilling it on the background thus it will appear black. A diy-straw grid was used on the separation light and the ezybox was flagged with the walls of course and featherd towards the camera a bit. The box is also very close to Janni to ensure rapid fall off. Light falls off quicker form the “start.” If any light would find it self to the back wall it would not show on the frame.
It was not perfect, but close.
The digital black is different from the analog rule of four stops. I have no idea how far to black it would have to be for my D200 not to pick up anything from the back ground.
This is a raw image pushed rougly 3½ stops and you can se the door.
With out pushing its not visible in my monitor but some quick levels adjustemt cleared the rest of it.
Posted by
jussi on July 30, 2010 at 6:21 pm.
I do not think that any of the silent readers visit the blog to see lighting tips and diagrams as there are better blogs for that.
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On the previous post I scratched the surfice a bit but I figured I’d do a quick setup post for the pictures. As mentioned the light is used very differently even thou the lastolite ezybox is the light modifier in both solutions.
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First Iinas picture on the forrest road. Its quite normal studio setup with a key light just out of the frame camera right and very close to the subject. The fill light is on camera left. The fill light is slightly lower and further back. It was only a weakish fill so the softness was not an issue. Shot with the 80-200 / f.2.8 to compress the background in the frame and the ambient is dropped about three stops.
Second is the shot of Henna on the rocks. I pulled some frames with the flash beign the keylight and switched the Skyport trigger off. Just the ambient shot looked nice. But nice is just nice and frankly the light in the shade was dull. I asked henna to turn even more to her left and I jumped out to adjust the power down on the flash. I wanted it to be subtle glow on her and as I was working the long lens I could not drag the shutter and squeeze down the aperture to pull down the flash. It would result to a blurred out image.
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The ezybox is quite a long way from the subject and therefore on the harder side of light.
Posted by
jussi on May 17, 2010 at 11:07 pm.
Nikons CLS system is something to die for.
There is SB800 and SB600 in the frame on both sides of the stage. The place is so dark that four sb800 could easily overpower the available darkness and light the whole stage with 1/16 power or even less.
Clearly the 2 flashes (in the pic) aren’t high enough to light the whole stage evenly and they are crossed. So what are they doing? Providing a very low power fill light and clearing up some some colors/shadows on front of stage – nothing more. The flashes are aimed almost to each other to feather the beam.
Both flashes are set to 1/128 power and trigered with the popup. Which is nice concidering the distance: I was on the very top row. Popup is ok but has a draw back. Its a freaking popup! Even with minimum power setting (–) it does not recycle quick enough for quick bursts. It takes from 0.5-1 seconds to recycle. And if you fire two very quickly you have to wait longer.
Good thing about this setup was that I could just kill the popup and I would not have to change any other settings in the camera. I’ll just loose some detail in the frame.
Posted by
jussi on November 16, 2009 at 3:38 am.
Its two am again. Do normal people stay up this late at sunday nights?
Having 800+ images waiting to be dealed with forces one to push the limits a bit. Not complaining though because I am having a blast! This is truely unique a time for me.
Small project with the stylist got a tubo boost! Its offically collaboration of two photogs and a video guy. We are shooting at the studios on the 5th of december and location shoots later in this year. Its just a amazing project to be a part of. Even the first test shots from Mikas camera blew me away! (Mine are still in the camera, cause my drives are full) He has the patience and the eye for details. Talking about good model directing! My way of “Do something” just doesn’t cut it..
Gear is rarely mentionted in the blog. That’s because its mostly irrelevant, but some requirements need to be met. For example having a lens wider than the classic 50mm. (Notice the D200 has a 1,5 crop factor going on.) A monitor that’s not yellow is also handy tool for post production. Guys laughed at me when I told them I still have only the old 17′ ViewSonic VE710s.. Slightly warm in tones, lacking the detail in the darkest and in the brighest parts of the pic and impossible to “correct.” Thus I a bought used sigma 24-70 2.8 lens and I’m very close at ordering a new Samsung monitor with a decent PVA-panel. Its not IPS but it will do. Waiting for the farther christmas is useless because he got shot..
Some pictures to with the edless babble. More pictures on my flickr account..
Ouh..what about farther christmas getting shot? Well,the paper industry is down and we have to export something..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uUiDDWi8k1o&feature=related part 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Z4OvK3Vn44&feature=related part 2
