Video Blog #5 - Shooting Portraits in a Light Tent...

So it’s another week and time for another blog post. This week has mainly been a family affair with photography taking a bit of a back seat for a few days. It was nice and kind of weird all the same… on one hand it was great not to have to worry about clients, accounts, web updates or pending shoots; but on the other hand I did really miss not doing all of those things. Is that normal?

This week also saw some great news in that I finally ordered my new Nikon D700 & accompanying MB-D10 Battery Grip plus a few other extra goodies including a couple more of the brilliant Bowens Pulsar Radio Transceivers from B&H Photo in New York. It took a phone call (from my cell phone!) to the US to sort out the price but it’s finally on it’s way. I can’t wait.

But the most important thing about this blog post is our latest Video Tutorial. Sadly this will be the last one for a couple of months as my good mate and he who owns all the video equipment and has the expertise to put the whole thing together is going out of town for a while. Not to worry, please click on the window below and enjoy the video. I will briefly explain the set-ups in the video after…



Ok, for all of these set-ups, my camera settings were – ISO100, 1/125th second @ f/8.0. when we recorded the intro we were planning to show the set-up using a high key background – but alas time got away from us and to keep the video under 10 minutes to appease the YouTube god’s we had to cut that bit out. Never mind.

Set-up #1 – Single overhead softbox. This is enough all on its own to create a nice headshot. Nothing too complicated just simple, elegant light. You could have any colour backdrop behind your subject, just be aware that it will be quite a lot darker in the final image as it is not being directly lit.

Set-up #2 – Single overhead softbox augmented by a reflector. This makes such an unbelievable difference without actually adding any extra light; rather we are just bouncing the available light around even more. Cool huh.

Set-up #3 – Single overhead softbox augmented by a background light. In a similar manner to the technique shown in Video Blog #2, we are using a single light on the backdrop which is controlled by using a grid attachment. It was set to meter at f/5.6, or 1 stop less than the key light (at f/8.0 remember). This is not so critical on a white background but becomes more apparent then you are using a coloured backdrop, once again as covered in my blog post Video Blog #2.

Set-up #4 – Single overhead softbox augmented by a background light and using subtractive lighting with the foam core panel. Wow that’s a mouthful. This is where things start to get cool. Take notice of the two still images that are shown on the video. Note that there is shadow on the left side (models right side) of Jaylee’s face, even though we are still only using one overhead light. This is because the white panel on her left is reflecting light but the black panel on her right is absorbing the light. This is so easy to achieve and you could even substitute a piece of black cardboard of you don’t have a foam core at your disposal. Once again the backdrop light is metered to f/5.6 so it doesn’t stand out too much.

Set-up #5 – Single overhead beauty dish augmented by a background light and using subtractive lighting with both of the foam core panels. This goes further to enhance the shadows produced by the black foam cores. Another bonus is that the grid reflector on the beauty dish is now killing the spill from the key light that was falling onto the backdrop in the previous set-ups, hence the reason the backdrop appears much darker; even though I have not changed the metering from the last set-up. The backdrop light has been moved however from the floor stand directly behind the model to off to the side wall of the studio, but it is still aimed at the same spot on the backdrop and still metered at f/5.6 to make the backdrop appear to be a darker red than it actually is; remembering that our key light is still metered at f/8.0. Easy!

So there you go - some really simple lighting set-ups to achieve some nice looking headshots in the studio with only one or two lights. I hope you got something out of it! See you in the next blog post...

Less is more...

Wow – yet another week has been and gone – I think I blinked and missed it.

As usual there has been lots’ going on this last week. Not so much behind the camera; although I did do a couple of low key commercial shoots. But over-all, this week has been more in the office than in the studio. We have been discussing and planning some changes for our website – http://www.timography.net/ and in the interim I have uploaded some new images to the home page to give our little Perth based Portrait, Fashion and Glamour studio a fresh appearance. Also, after months of lying dormant – I managed to get our VoIP phone up and running; albeit after a little bit of bother because the NetComm VoIP connector and iinet didn’t want to play nicely together, but after a stern talking to they are now behaving nicely.

Anyway, down to tonight’s topic. For those of you who have seen our Video Blog Post #1 you would know that I like to use prime lenses. What’s a prime lens you ask? Well that’s a good question in today’s consumer based market that is ruled by zoom lenses. Well, a prime lens has a fixed focal length. They are commonly found in 24mm, 35mm, 50mm, 85mm and 105mm focal lengths, plus a few more, but those are the more popular ones.

So what’s the advantage of a prime lens I still hear you asking? Well, it’s distortion, or gross lack of it. You see, a prime lens has a lot fewer optical elements to make it work – and the more lens elements you put into a lens (e.g., a zoom lens) the more distortion and aberrations you have to deal with which need to be corrected. Prime lenses are also physically lighter than zoom lenses for this very reason. But the best bit is because there are less lens elements the light can pass through a lot easier so all of a sudden you find that without too much trouble you can get a relatively cheap lens with a minimum aperture of f/1.8! Cool.

There are 100 other reasons why a prime lens is optically superior to a zoom, but I’ll give you just one more. As I hinted to earlier, the best benefit other than a super-fast aperture is that your images are going to be a lot sharper. Let me explain. Every single lens ever made has a sweet spot. This is usually (at a given focal length) two or three stops from “wide open” or the largest aperture your lens is capable of. Now with most entry level kit lenses that come with your D-SLR this minimum f/stop is anywhere from f/3.5 to f/6.3 depending on the focal length of the zoom. So, in a worst case scenario you are looking at about an aperture of f/8 or even f/11 before you start to get really sharp (from edge to edge) images. This is fine if you are in a studio situation and have 1.21 gigawatts of flash power at your disposal to light the scene but pretty much useless for anything else except for outdoor photography in pretty decent sunlight. Also, the depth of field or “bokeh” at f/11 isn’t all that great and you will have a pretty hard time getting a pleasant blur from your background.

Now think of your prime lens with it’s minimum aperture of say, f/1.4. At the risk of complicating things a little more, because of the fewer optical elements within the lens it is already going to be a lot sharper wide open than a zoom, but by the time you stop the lens down to say f/2.8 or f/3.2 you are going to be able to cut yourself on the image – it’s that sharp! Not to mention the awesome depth of field and creamy bokeh that you will be getting. So this is a recipe for some fantastic natural light indoor photography that otherwise would be impossible with a zoom lens, as well as fantastic optical quality in just about every situation that you throw at it.

And to finish – the downside of using a prime lens. You have you get off your butt and move around, as your legs are now the zoom mechanism of the lens instead of those light-robbing and distorting extra elements in a zoom lens. You have to look for the right shot, the right composition, not just by twisting your left wrist. You have to make it happen. Sometimes it’s hard – but it’s always worthwhile when you see the end result.

I dare you, go out and get yourself a cheap little 50mm f/1.8 prime lens. Nikon, Canon and Sony – they all make one. They are light weight, small and totally awesome! You will not regret it. Unlock your potential!

PS - todays image was taken with my iPhone - another camera with a prime lens!

Just a quickie...

This is just a quick little post – normal programming will resume in the next post!

I just wanted to share a couple of things. Firstly I had a fantastic meeting with a couple whose wedding I will be photographing early next year. They are a couple of lovely personalities and I am really looking forward to shooting their wedding on the beach in the late summer afternoon sun… cool!

Secondly, remember the old blog post where I told everyone that I took my camera bag everywhere? Well as luck would have it, today’s meeting with my clients saw me travel 106 kilometres up and down Perth’s freeways getting to and from their venue. I also happened to stumble (or is it drive) upon a simply gorgeous sunset. I always keep a mini tripod in my car, and as I had my camera bag with me I quickly pulled over and grabbed this sunset shot. Cool huh. And I was still 2 ½ minutes early for my appointment.

Enjoy your weekend and I’ll catch you all again soon.

Better late than never...

After much procrastination and other things getting in the way I have finally managed to finish the images I took at this years EveryWoman Expo at the Perth Convention and Exhibition Centre. Thank god.

It has taken nearly two months and about 11 visits to my Physiotherapist (for spending far too much time in front of the PC with bad posture!) to cull the 4371 images down to an almost manageable 650ish.

I ended up doing the majority of the post-processing in Lightroom 2; something that is new to me. Let me explain. I usually do all of my post production straight into Photoshop CS3, one image at a time – for a couple of reasons. Firstly, I am really familiar with PS and most of the editing doesn’t take all that long once the image has actually opened. Secondly, for some time (and possibly incorrectly) I have been of the opinion that the end result of an image edited in PS just looked… better – than the same adjustment made in Lightroom. Now I realise that the same processing and editing engines that run PS are in Lightroom (albeit in a less powerful incarnation) but call me silly and old-fashioned; I just liked Photoshop more.

The problem with Photoshop arises however when you start to open lots of images, lots and lots and lots of images, all at once. I have a pretty souped up workstation but it really starts to suffer with this. No such problem with Lightroom however! Yay. And I am now a lot more familiar with Lightroom’s capabilities than I was two months ago too.

I did really struggle with the colours that the Nikon D700 was producing compared to my beloved Fujifilm S5 Pro. There seemed to be neither rhyme nor reason for the out-and-out colour shift from one image to the next. The image gallery that I have uploaded to my website contains about 90% D700 images – simply because that camera body took 90% of the images over the weekend of the Expo; but anyway you will see what I mean with the colour shifting. Bear in mind also that you are viewing images after I have tried to tweak them in Lightroom. The images look quite acceptable when viewed individually, but played one after the next the colour shifting becomes evident.

And to finally put the Nikon D700 vs. Fujifilm S5 Pro comparison to bed; after now reviewing every single image from the weekend I can safely say that the D700 showed much less noise than the Fuji, but the colours produced by the S5 Pro still amaze me, and they are consistent (for the most part) shot to shot unlike the D700. Both cameras have the same resolving power (they are both 12 megapixels after-all) and given time I am sure I could get used to the one big-ass menu on the D700 as opposed to the separate (and brilliantly done) dual menus on the S5 Pro. As for the rather mediocre pixel count of both these cameras in today’s market – I feel it really apt to adopt and slightly modify a saying that Porsche drivers have been saying for years to their Italian counterparts – “it’s not how many pixels you have – it’s how you use and process them that matters!” I don’t want to get into a half hour lecture of the advantages of less pixels = bigger pixel sites which in turn = more photons hitting said pixel sites which finally = MUCH more dynamic range and less noise than a camera with a similar sized sensor but a higher resolution. You just have to trust me on this. If you don’t believe me, ask Google!

Anyway, I am really looking forward to the next few weeks. I have a few model portfolio shoots lined-up with new models which give me the luxury of being able to try new ideas and lighting scenarios. To this day previous model development shoots I have done produced some of my best work – in my own opinion. When the pressure is off and you have free reign to do whatever it really does make for a fun time! I can’t wait.