Project365 - Two Strobe Portraits

Introduction

In my last installment, I refined my technique for creating a deep black background. In this shoot, I applied that technique, along with two flashes to create more interesting portraits.

 

The Setup

My thought was to set up for a black background, and then light the model from above and to her right. Then, I wanted to place another strobe below and behind her. I was hoping to create a sort of light halo effect. Unfortunately, I didn't get the halo as her hair was as dark as the background. Worse, I had remarkably dark shadows across her face.

I shot the Canon 60D handheld. In the hotshoe was one of the Cactus v5s. I was set for a black background - f/250, ISO 100 and an aperture of 16. One Canon 430EX II was mounted on a Cactus v5 atop a tripod to the kodel's right, while the other was mounted on the trigger and placed on the floor.

The Photos

I am still learning about portraiture. It's not really something I'm very good at, so I was fortunate that my daughter agreed to be my model. It is easy to have a good rapport...

In this first photo, the main light was too powerful. While I had a nice dark background, you couldn't really see any definition between the background and the kodel's hair. And the pose is funny - unnatural, even. It looks like her eyes are pointed in two different directions !

Here, the main light is better, but the secondary is still underpowered. There are very harsh shadows on the models face. Given how pale her skin is, I would've liked to have made her skin tones warmer with a bit of makeup.

 

This one is better. We see a nice cross-lit effect, haloing her cheek and chin. And there is even a hint of catch-lights in her eyes ! But her dark hair is lost in the black background, still.

This is a little bit tighter a shot. I like the effect of the cross-lighting, and the black background.

Lessons Learned

I still need to figure out how to create the halo effect around the model's hair. I suspect my life would be easier shooting at night, when the room is darker to begin with. I'd also like to try to use a reflector to cross-light the face, which would free up the flash for the halo effect !

 

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Project365 - Black Backdrop

Introduction

Today I learned much more about a technique I had attempted once before. Now that I better understood how it worked, I believe I am better able to put it to good use. You see, one of the things that most studio photographers invest in is backdrops. Often large rolls of seamless white or black paper, they allow the subject to be the true focus of the photograph. Who knew I was carrying a black backdrop around in my camera ?!?

It's truly a simple effect involving the use of flash (or sometimes called strobe) photography. Cameras have a maximum speed with which they can sync with the flash to achieve a nicely lit picture, it's usually around 1/250th of a second. Keeping that portion of the exposure triangle still, we next dial down the ISO (the sensitivity of the CCD) to 100. The only thing left that is adjustable is the aperture. All we do is close that down until a picture taken in the ambient light is completely black. Now, anything lit up by the flash will be nicely lit, while the background remains black.

The Setup

Nothing really complicated the Canon 60D, set at f/16, ISO 100, and a shutter speed of 1/250th of a second. The Cactus v5 was mounted in the hotshoe, so I could use the Canon 430EX II off-camera. I placed it on a basic tripod with the other Cactus v5, so I could move the light & the camera around freely.

The Photos

Believe it or not, this is a photo of Pat's flowers on the dining room table. I was setting the ISO, Aperture and shutter speed to get a black background. Got it !

 

Whoops ! The flash was spilling onto the background too much, so I elected to put a snoot on the flash, to more tightly focus the beam.

That's better ! Although you will notice the pen & paper on the tabletop still show up faintly. Now to play around a bit... ;-)

The first few pictures weren't as bright as I would have liked, so they came out a little dull. Time to up the power of the flash a notch, and move the light stand a little closer !

Much better ! I like the contrast created by the various petals on the flowers.

I think this is one of my favorite photographs of the shoot...

Lessons Learned

I thought I really understood this technique, but now with a little better tutorial, I think I know how to nail it whenever I need it. Certainly, implementing the snoot helped narrow the beam, and moving the light stand over to one side helped with not lighting the background. I really like this technique & see myself using it for portrait work.

 

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Project365 - In the Kitchen

Introduction

Pat bought me a slab of Montréal Smoked Meat from Dunn's. It's an extra-special treat, bringing back memories of kosher dill pickles, beautiful rye bread, and tangy mustard. These were all shared with my father, whose laboratory at McGill was just a few short blocks from Dunn's famous delicatessen.

So todays's project was to slice it up & repackage it, so that we could enjoy it over a longer time. Unfortunately, we are also getting ready to move, so our meat-slicer is packed, but I know not where !

 

The Setup

Product shoots require a little bit of planning. Usually, you use a light-box, which helps create evenly diffused light on all surfaces of the product. I didn't want to lose the feeling that we were in the kitchen, so I decided to just shoot handheld, right on the cutting board

I used my trusty Canon 60D, and mounted my 40mm "pancake" lens. While it is capable of a nice wide aperture, I wasn't interested in a really shallow depth of field, so I shot it at about f/8. I also mounted a single Canon 430EX II on a Cactus v5 trigger, so that I could simply wash the ceiling & create a more natural light.

 

The Photos

So let's see how we did:

The smoked meat had a beautiful "marbled" effect. Montréalers will tell you, it must be served fatty & hot, so the fat runs out, releasing the flavour !

When the meat is cured, it is first rubbed with a wonderful medley of cracked pepper, which you can see here. Obviously, this shot is taken before we began slicing the meat.

While I wasn't able to shave it as close as I could have with the slicer, I still got nice thin slices. We then arranged them in stacks, so that they could be repackaged.

Lessons Learned

I spent a lot of time working out the lighting. I took a number of shots that I immediately discarded, as they looked so unnatural. I tried bouncing the light, dialling it down & aiming it slightly away, and I still couldn't get the look I was looking for. Finally, I decided "back to basics !" and washed the ceiling with light at about half power. Finally, it looked natural to me.

 

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Project365 - Let's Go For a Drive !

Introduction

I have been thinking about this shoot for a while. I wanted to play with motion, but instead of having the subject crisp & everything else blurry - ala Bokeh - I wanted to capture the feeling of being in motion. After shooting the Auto Strobism shoot, I liked the setup in the car. And this gave me the idea for the shoot !

 

The Setup

This was a lot more of a complex setup than I expected. The idea was to mount the camera (Canon 60D), on the Manfrotto tripod in the back seat of the truck. In order to capture the entire windshield, as well as the occupants of the front seat, I switched to the Canon17-40mm f/4 wide-angle lens, and kept it at 17mm. I was worried about the stability of it all, so I looped the neck strap of the camera over the centre headrest. Finally, in order to get some light in the cabin, we set up the Canon 430EX II flash with my inflatable diffuser.

This photo (taken with my iPhone) shows the camera on the tripod, and the flash mounted in the hotshoe. As you can see, the iPhone camera really sucks in low-light conditions ! With the camera in the back seat, the setup was laborious - pull over, hop in the backseat, make adjustments, test shoot, refocus & start all over again !

 

 

 

 

 

 

In this side shot, you can see the shutter release cable dangling down from the camera body. Unfortunately, the cable is very short, so Pat had to hold her hand back behind her (out of the shot) to take the photos. She was an absolute trooper for staying in that position through 90 minutes and 270 shots !

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Photos

Here we are in the driveway. I knew I'd need to have some light inside the cabin, but we spent a few minutes figuring out the placement. At first, I thought off-camera would look good. I really didn't like how this looked at all - very unnatural !

 

 

Here is the first good shot - the cabin of the truck & passengers are reasonably lit, and in-focus. The outside is visible and somewhat blurry. The exposures were taken at 1 second, to enhance the feeling of motion.

This is actually one of my favorites. Most of the outside is blurry - look at the streaky headlights of the oncoming traffic ! But I was keeping pace with the car on our right, so it stayed reasonably in focus. This is the style I was after !

Man down ! Apparently, the rig wasn't as stable as I had hoped. I'm fortunate nothing got damaged as the tripod toppled over...

 

Occasionally, if we paused for too long, the flash would go into battery-saving mode, and not fire on the first shot. So we have about a dozen shots with no interior lighting.

This photo illustrates one of our challenges - how bumpy Calgary's roads are. The streak on the left is an oncoming car. The headlights waver up & down as the truck contends with the uneven road surface. That internal shake ruined quite a few shots entirely.

 

This photo was taken as we drove over the flyover into the downtown core. The exterior is blurred, giving the feeling of motion, while still focused enough to see where we are.

 

 

This is one of my favorite photos captured of the night's shoot. The passing traffic really conveys the feeling of movement. The viewer really feels like they are in the truck with us, driving through the city.

 

 

 

Lessons Learned

This was a complex shoot. I have to give a LOT of credit to my assistant, Pat. She not only fired off the 270 frames, but also had my iPad in her lap (out of sight of the camera) to validate we were getting the shots we wanted. The rigging of the camera in the backseat was OK - we really only toppled over twice in over 90 minutes of shooting. The shutter release cable is WAY too short - I think I am going to investigate a wireless option.

Over all, I am happy with the results. We captured about a dozen really cool photographs, which beautifully convey the feeling of motion. Let me know of you agree ! =D

 

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Project365 - Studio Shoot

Introduction

I have been doing a lot more reading about how to set up a basic photography studio. It usually involves having multiple strobes, umbrellas or big soft-boxes, as well as a host of other tools. Being on a budget, I don't have a lot of those things. So I improvised !

The Setup
My Dad had an old Kodak Brownie Junior camera amongst his keepsakes. I thought it might make an interesting shoot - taking photographs of an antique camera ! Lacking a lightbox (although I have seen a YouTube video on how to make one inexpensively), I decided that a couple of flashes and some white paper carefully arranged on the dining room table might do the trick !
I mounted the Canon 24-105mm f/4 L lens onto my Canon 60D. I also used the Cactus v5 to trigger the flashes. One flash, at 1/4 power, was fitted with my inflatable diffuser & mounted on a small tripod. The other flash at 1/2 power was set to nuke the ceiling with bright light !
The Photos
I took quite a few photos, and the shoot lasted about 45 minutes as I played with my settings to get the sort of shots I wanted. Here are three of the best.

As you can see, the Brownie is a very simple camera, with a fixed lens. There's no focus or aperture settings here !

Note the Kodak name on the hand-strap ! At the bottom of the photograph, you can make out the winding mechanism for the film.

An interior shot highlights the lack of vanes on the shutter. It is a simple procedure to slide the shutter open & then closed. Really, there's not much to this beauty !























Lessons Learned
I enjoyed this shoot. I was faced with a number of challenges, including not being able to properly diffuse the light. But by bouncing one flash off the ceiling & using a diffuser on the other, I was able to properly light the subject without creating any harsh shadows. In a future entry, I want to build the lightbox I saw in the video, and see how well it works (or doesn't) .

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Project365 - Up Close and Personal !

Introduction

It's eleventy-beelion degrees below zero this weekend, so my photo shoots are being limited to in-studio for a couple of days. This means a lot more technical shoot, using more of my equipment. I have no willing subjects - teenagers sleep a remarkable amount, and the critters tend to get bored & wander away - so I'm shooting flowers. Yep, flowers - they don't give attitude, they don't wander off, and most importantly they are pretty to look at !

The Setup

I shoot with a Canon 60D, and today opted to shoot with my Canon 40mm f/2.8. It has a nice wide aperture, allowing lots of light onto the sensor. I mated it with a 12mm extension tube, to allow me to get a little closer. The whole rig was mounted on a Manfrotto tripod, and I chose to go off-camera with my Canon 430EX II flash using a pair of Cactus v5 triggers.

Here's what the shot started off as. Later I chose to add the external light to accentuate the blooms.

The Photos

Whoops ! I totally blew out the photo by setting the flash at full power with a wide (28mm) beam. Let's try that again ! (Neat effect, though)

Better, but I still have too much light at 1/8 power. It blows out the left side, while creating a strange white rim on the right side. Once more...

 

I dialled down the power to 1/32, but the flash is showing up in the corner. I didn't see it when I shot it, but it is definitely there !

 

This is much better. The flash is low-power, and behind the bloom. It makes the flower positively glow ! I tried to balance the aperture so that the leaves in the background were blurry, while most of the bloom (the stamen is the focal point) is in-focus.

Lessons Learned

I am learning more about studio setup. Using my tripod, flash, triggers and shutter release to create visually interesting images is actually a lot of fun ! I wonder if Pat would let me convert one of the kids rooms into a studio ?!? =D

 

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Project365 - Know Your Gear !

Introduction

I tend to read a lot of photography material - everything from Popular Photography to Chris Gampat's excellent webzine The Phoblographer. I read about hardware reviews, about tips and tricks, and tutorials about various techniques. Sometimes, it's as simple as realizing some aspect of what your gear can do that you weren't aware of ! Those are always happy moments...

The Setup
This particular post isn't specifically about how I set my gear up per se. More accurately, it's about some extra "features" I wasn't aware of. Today, I am specifically looking at my tripod. It's a Manfrotto 190CX Pro3, with a Manfrotto 486RC2 Ball head on it. Riveting stuff, I know ! ;-)
It's a pretty versatile unit, made with carbon fibre legs for extra rigidity. But that particular medium also makes it lighter than aluminum - which is important, when you have to lug the thing in & out of your shoot !
The Photos

The tripod comes with a raised centre column, allowing me to change the height of the head beyond that of the top of the legs. But the centre column can also detach and be used in a 90 degree fashion. While this sounds a little odd, it allows me to move the camera off the centre of the tripod, which I find handy for when I want to shoot macro photography. In this photo, I didn't need to add weight to the tripod, to counterbalance the weight of the camera. But there is a hook on the base of the tripod which allows just that.

Here's a photo whereby I am using the tripod to support the camera below the head ! The centre column can be reversed a full 180 degrees, allowing it to support the camera. This photo further showcases my EyeFi card, which directly beams my photos to my iPad. I like to be able to see the images as I take them, but the tiny screen is hard to make out. You can also see my off-camera flash, complete with Cactus v5 triggers, and an inflatable light diffuser.


Lessons Learned
It pays to learn about all the features of your gear. You never know when you might have some challenging situation to overcome !

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Project365 - Auto Strobism

Introduction

I have started following a blog which gives an introductory course to Strobism - the advanced use of various types of lights and light modifiers in photography. I started with a course called "Lighting 101". It is a fantastic resource for amateur photographers who want to sharpen their skills with lighting various situations.

In the course of my reading, I came across a challenging situation, in which the author was attempting to light a helicopter mid-flight ! While I haven't got a helicopter of my own to photograph, I thought I would attempt to duplicate the technique.
The Setup
My trusty Canon 60D was mated with the general-purpose Canon 24-105mm f/4 L lens & mounted on the Manfrotto tripod. The flash was mounted with the Cactus v5 remote trigger, so that it could be mounted off-camera.

This nifty little DIY mod is called a "lightbulb". The idea is that the sour cream container acts as a diffuser, and the light is thrown in all directions. In practice, it works very well, and I will likely keep this little mod in my kit.
























The Photos

Here is the basic setup: the "lightbulb" is placed inside the car between the front seats, and when triggered will light the car from inside. As you can see, I substituted Pat's car in the dark garage for the helicopter in the night sky.

This is a step towards the end product - you can see the desired effect. You can ALSO see the lightbulb peeking up above the dash !

I couldn't decide how to set up the shot with only one flash. So I also tried it in the back seat, to see how it looked. I don't like it as well, as the front seats are in deep shadow and you can't see anything but the silhouette of the fuzzy dice. In the perfect world, I'd like to shoot this with two flashes, one in the front, and one in the back.

Here is the final photograph, with the desired effect. Overall, I'm pleased with the effect, although one day I'll re-shoot it with a second flash.









Lessons Learned
Photography is really the craft of manipulating light. I thoroughly enjoyed this shoot, as it is an interesting & creative way to experiment with light. I might later try to reuse the technique, but with more light sources, and even models in the cabin.

Project365 - Get Out of the Way !

Introduction

While experimenting with Depth of Field, in a previous post, Pat suggested that using a fork on a plate might be a bit boring ! Instead, she handed me her David Yarmin ring to shoot. It's beautiful, to begin with, but has lots of interesting details - the facets of the stone, the twists in the ring itself, and the detail around the stone.

The Setup

Of course, the camera body was my Canon 60D, and I mounted it on a Manfrotto tripod. Next I mounted the Canon 40mm f/2.8 prime lens, and a 20mm extension tube because my subject was small, and wanted it to fill the frame. Next, I mounted my Canon 430EX II flash with the Cactus v5 triggers on a second tripod, and affixed a 8" snoot to focus the light very tightly. The flash was set to 1/64 power, and a 108mm beam.

The Photos

Oops ! See the orange tinge in the stone and the setting ? That's a reflection off of my t-shirt ! I only noticed it after I started processing the photos. This will never do...

 

 

This one is better. But if you look carefully at the bottom right of the stone, you can see my shadow outlined ! Sigh - another decent photo ruined by an accidental reflection. Next !

 

This picture is pleasing to the eye - no reflections, nice Depth of field, and an interesting composition. I also like how the facets of the cut stone show up, and the position of the flash helps draw out the detail of the mount.

 

 

 

Lessons Learned

As the first two photos illustrate, I must remember to get OUT of my own photos ! Being aware of one's surroundings, and how they might affect the photograph, are of paramount importance to the budding photographer.

 

Project365 - Depth of Field

Introduction

In a previous post, I remarked that there IS such a thing as too much Depth of Field (DoF). I thought it detracted to the composition of the photographs. But then I wondered if I could turn that detraction into an advantage. To me, it seemed to be a good thing to experiment with ! So tonight's Project365 entry is about my experiments with Depth of Field.

The Setup

This was a little bit more complex. Of course, the camera body was my Canon 60D, and I mounted it on a Manfrotto tripod. Next I mated the camera body with my Canon 40mm f/2.8 prime lens, and used a 20mm extension tube. My subject was tiny, and wanted it to fill the frame. Next, I mounted my Canon 430EX II flash with the Cactus v5 triggers on a second tripod, and affixed a 8" snoot to focus the light very tightly. The flash was set to 1/64 power, and a 108mm beam.

The Photos

I shot a great number of test shots, attempting to dial in the settings. These are a sampling of some of the more interesting ones.

Here is one of the early photos of the set. You'll note how shallow the DoF is - not even the length of the tines of the fork ! I like the overall effect, but not the lighting or the background.

 

I turned the fork over, hoping to achieve a more interesting look. The farthest tine is sharply in focus, while the nearest is blurry. I still don't like the background !

 

THIS is more the effect I was hoping for ! The ends of the tines are in focus, and by placing the fork on a white plate, the background loses importance. Best, the blurriness increases as the eye travels down the tines.

 

 

 

Lessons Learned

After about two dozen shots, I started to achieve the look I was after. But it proved that I can use Depth of Field as an artistic part of the composition. Something I wouldn't have understood yesterday !