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.

Video Blog #4 - Using a Light Meter...

I am pleased to say that today’s video blog is back to the usual high standard as produced by my good mate John.

There was a bit of discussion regarding the subject matter we would discuss, and the more we thought about it the more we realised that it would take 4 hours to properly cover all of the topics that are discussed. But rather than bore you all at once with an extended Studio Lighting 101 lecture I thought it was best to keep the ideas shared at a very high level; but we will certainly be drilling down into more detail if future video blog episodes… so stay tuned!

Ok, back to today’s video blog. I’ll try to keep this text short and use it just to supplement the information in the video. Please remember what is discussed in the video is a guide only. The core ideal around photography is creativity. Now I didn’t really get the opportunity to get too creative in this episode, rather I just give a brief overview of “getting started” with achieving a balanced exposure. What you do with it from there is entirely up to you and your own creative genius! So here we go…

Timography Vblog Light Meters from Tim Watson on Vimeo.

1. Use the light meter in your camera! All D-SLR’s on the market today are equipped with their very own ambient light meter which will work just fine for all of your “general” photography requirements – that’s a given. Now there are a stack of things to remember when using your camera’s built in light meter though. The biggest one is that, by default (and there is nothing you can do about it!) the camera’s light meter will try to read every scene you point it at as 18% grey – this is your camera’s way of trying to get the best tonal range in a scene. This doesn’t always work though.

As a couple of extreme examples – if you are shooting a very bright scene such as on a beach in midday sun or in the snow, the camera reads the scene and will try to pull it back to 18% grey; therefore grossly underexposing the image. In a similar manner if you are shooting a very dark scene like a theatre show or a night cityscape, the camera will similarly try to drag the dark scene up to 18% grey therefore grossly overexposing the scene. This is exactly the problem I encountered a few weeks back shooting the fashion shows at Every Woman Expo 2009.

This is fairly easy to overcome though by dialling in opposite exposure compensation – but keep it in mind next time you have problems shooting a particularly bright or dark scene.

2. The “Sunny 16” rule is great to get you started. Of course the best way to start getting really creative with your photography is to take your camera off the Auto setting and shoot manually. Again you can use your camera’s in-built light meter to good effect here, but remember if you are outside in bright daylight, you will get spot-on exposure if you set your camera to 1/125^th second @ f/16.0 using ISO100. Similarly use 1/250^th second @ f/16.0 at ISO200, 1/500^th second @ ISO 400 and so on.

The variations I spoke of in the video are as follows (1/125^th second @ ISO100)-

f/16 – Sunny

f/11 – Slightly Overcast

f/8 – Overcast

f/5.6 – Heavily Overcast

3. Exposure Slide Rules are a handy tool to get you off and running quickly. Obviously they are not going to be spot on 100% of the time – but they will certainly give you a reasonable starting point to get you going.

4. I love my light meter. They are hugely versatile and allow you to get the “look” you are trying to achieve before you take the first image. However – they are so versatile and there are so many things that you can do with one that I think I will keep this text really short otherwise this will turn into a 1000 word essay. Just watch the video and bear in mind that I will be going into more detail in future video blogs.

Also, we didn’t have a model for this video blog to show you what the images would look like, but you can get a fairly good indication by looking at the light coming from the modelling lights, which were set to be proportionally as bright as the flash power setting.

Ok, so I know it is brief but we have tried to take a huge topic and break it down into little bite-sized chunks. Over the next few video blogs I’ll be showing you some more specific lighting set-ups and we’ll incorporate using the light meter into those examples.

That’s it for now – I’m running late to take my wife and son out for the day to the Good Food and Wine Show. I’m a bit of a wannabe chef in my spare time so I’m really looking forward to it… if you’re in Perth I might even see you there!

Making time for number one...

Like some of you reading this blog, my passion for photography has grown in fits and spurts over the years. As a kid I really wasn’t the slightest bit interested. In high school however I was fairly active; I remember taking most of the photos for my school yearbook in Queensland. I spent all of my early adulthood playing the drums in several bands around Brisbane - photography was the furthest thing from my mind...

About 4 years ago however, I took the plunge and bought a second hand D-SLR camera body and a few lenses on eBay in reasonably quick succession to buying a mid-range point-and-shoot. I was hooked again. I would take my camera everywhere in much the same way as I do now – the difference being I was constantly taking images too. Trees, flowers, bugs, my darling wife (who hates being photographed but became my #1 model) and basically anything else I could point my lens at. It wasn’t unusual for me to take at least a few dozen images every single day and twice on Sundays! Why? Because I could. Because it was fun. Because no matter how many images I took I still wanted to take more. I had passion! My new “best ever shot” was only one shutter actuation away.

But then we decided to take my passion and try to make a bit of money out of it. Not a lot of money, but I was doing something I loved so it’s all good right? Well, yes – and no.

You see, I had (and still do have) a full time day job. It’s great – a nice security blanket thank you very much. But it also meant that any photography jobs I did get had to be held during weeknight evenings or on the weekends. Initially this wasn’t a problem – but in the last year things have gotten a little bit out of control. It’s totally awesome that people hire me because they like my work and would like to have me take their treasured images. It still makes me genuinely happy when I secure a new client. Not because of the money; although it is a bonus, but because those people have faith in my abilities and I will strive to give the best possible images back to them as a result.

But there is another cost, other than the monetary relief that my photography provides. Long gone are the days where I would regularly take a whole bunch of images of nothing just for the heck of it – for the pure enjoyment of the art, the ability to create a cool image out of nothing. In their place I instead have an enforced passion for post production. Instead of going for a 4 hour drive on a Sunday to Hicksville just south of nowhere just to grab a bunch of shots – now I spend hour upon hour cataloguing, editing, cloning, masking, duplicating, exporting and archiving about 10,000 images in a busy month. Is there any passion in this – no, not a great deal. As I said, the actual image capture part still gives me a buzz but that’s only about a quarter of the effort that goes into a shoot from welcoming the clients to “here’s your proofs”.

For the keen readers out there, you will know that this is part of the reason that I really enjoy going on photo walks with some mates from time to time. But if I had the opportunity I would jump in my car, by myself, start driving and stop driving somewhere like Prevelley Beach, Margaret River – or [insert desirable location here] only to get the shots I want and head home the same day… all “because I could”.

So, now that I have made a short story as long as possible I have decided wherever possible to take some time to keep my passion for photography alive, to ensure that it really does not become a second “job” that I loathe. I have come close the last few weeks; but it doesn’t have to be like that. Remember that the most important thing in your photography is you – not your clients, your peers or your critics. If you loose the drive that got you to where you are in the first place you might as well use your spare time more productively and strap a Domino’s Pizza delivery sign to the roof of your car.

Make time for you. Make time for photography that you want to do. No one will probably ever see the images from this down time, but who cares. It’s not about them – it really is all about you and keeping your creative passion. The end.

Shooting in a tent... and a trip to the hospital...

Wow, a week has almost passed since my last blog post… oops! Didn’t mean to abandon you, really!

As usual, it has been another full-on week with lots happening in our little Perth based Photography Studio here in Kelmscott. This week has been full of shoes. Women’s shoes specifically – and lot’s of ‘em. Now before you get too much more into that train of thought you are on let me clarify this a little bit.

I was able to secure a job for a client who owns a shoe store. They wanted images of their new spring stock to go onto their website. Cool I thought, I hadn’t used my light tent for some time so I thought this could be fun.

So, a couple of advantages here. I quite enjoy using the light tent to shoot product because it is quite different from the usual modelling and portrait photography that I am used to. It also means that I can really utilise the full potential of the brilliant live-tethered shooting application by Fujifilm – HyperUtility HS-V3. There are a few tethered shooting options out there for Nikon and Canon shooters; but this puppy from Fujifilm is awesome. Combine it with the live-view function on the Fujifilm S5 Pro D-SLR and product photography really is a joy. Just put a shoe in the light tent, sit down at your PC and start shooting. Live-view will show you how the shot is composed in the viewfinder before the image is captured, and if it didn’t capture correctly you can adjust ALL, yes I do mean all of the camera’s shooting parameters right from your PC. Very cool. So even though the product itself really didn’t do much for me it was a pleasure to do this job.

When I shoot product however I do like to shoot it ½ to 1 stop underexposed so that, even though I shoot in RAW in the studio, I ensure that the images are captured without any blown out highlights which are essentially un-recoverable; even if you are shooting RAW. But this has issues of it’s own in that every single image needs some post production work done to it. Enter stage left Photoshop! In the following very low-fi (for the sake of your bandwidth) home made tutorial I show you some quick and easy masking techniques. I hope you like it.

Well there you go, simple but tells a story! Finally, I had the pleasure of enduring the Emergency Room at my local hospital this evening after our 13 month old son took a bit of a dive and appeared to really hurt his hip and left leg. Two and a half hours and three doctors later we were assured that the little guy had only done some soft tissue damage and he’ll be right in a day or two. Thank God. I started to get a little worried as patients started queuing into the waiting room coughing and spluttering who-knows-what out into the air; quickly followed by hospital staff running to them and handing out masks of a different kind to those I showed you in the video. Sign of the times I guess…

Love the one you're with...

Just a quick entry this evening. I was really looking forward to today. I had planned to go out on a photo walk with my good mate John. But I woke up feeling dodgy – not a good start. Nonetheless I packed my photo walk camera bag, which unlike my normal take-everywhere camera bag only contained one Fuji S5 Pro D-SLR body, my 24-70mm f/2.8 zoom and my 50mm f/1.8 and 24mm f/2.8 razor sharp prime lenses. I think I also packed my SB-900; just in case.

Anyway, I was feeling dodgy before I left but I felt 100 times worse when we arrived in Fremantle one hour later. It wasn’t Johns driving either – just my churning stomach. Oh, did I mention it was blowing a gale and heavy showers were passing through rather frequently? Well, they were. Am I painting a good picture so far?

So, with our camera bags still in the boot of the car we set off around Fishermans Wharf in Fremantle. To be honest the main reason we were in Fremantle was to visit an art exhibition, the images making up the exhibition were actually taken by an acquaintance of my mate and fellow photo walker. The images were quite good too. It was the sort of thing that at first glance it was a little hard to “see” but the more you looked the more you saw. Cool.

But then came the really cool part. Enter stage left the humble iPhone. For those who have never been to Little Creatures Micro Brewery (that’s such a silly phrase ‘micro’ as the place in enormous!) it as a great venue. Basically it’s a massive warehouse that has been converted into a brewery and funky restaurant. The venue was very much like the artwork on display that we had come to see – the more you looked the more cool things you could see to photograph. Before I knew it I was actually doing the photo walk after all, but I was using the camera I had on me; my iPhone.

I have been reading a lot recently in blogs from my peers that their favourite camera is the one that is closest. Sure they shoot with cameras that still make my mouth water and use lighting equipment that is “to die for”. But they too embrace these little wonders. I really don’t know for sure but just taking a stab in the dark I recon that three quarters of all mobile phones these days have cameras built in. Yes they are not the best quality and no I would never use one exclusively but they are so much fun – and I always have one with me.

So after all that we did end up having a photo walk of sorts; and our camera bags never left the boot of the car. In hindsight I would have got some really awesome images if I did have my camera bag with me. But you know what – I had fun, took some great little images, post processed them and even uploaded them to twitpic all using my iPhone – the only camera I had with me. I couldn’t have done all that with just my D-SLR.

I will always shoot with high end equipment when the need arises. But I finally can say that today, I loved the one I was with and had an absolute ball with the only camera I had on me at the time. I think this could become a trend…

The world is your oyster... just don't forget to let the world know...

Wow it’s the end of another crazy week already. I think I blinked and missed it. But that’s an occupational hazard I guess, especially when you work two full time jobs like I do.

So yeah, life is pretty hectic. I’m almost always doing something.

Now, put yourself in my shoes just for a moment. When you are that busy – how do you find the time to stay in touch? How do you stay up-to-date with your friends, family and peers? How do you think you would find the time?

Getting off subject just for a moment… I am a self confessed geek. I love technology. I embrace it. I seek it out! I really love my mobile devices though; my iPhone 3GS and my HTC Touch Pro. Apple and Windows. Chalk and cheese. But both are very cool and share similar functionality. One of those functionalities is internet access.

Now, who here catches public transport to and from work? Or who, like me, sits in peak hour traffic twice a day doing nothing but staring into oblivion through a double glazed piece of glass?

And finally, who here is on Facebook, Twitter, MySpace etc. etc? I really love Twitter and Facebook. Both are easy to use. One takes a little bit of time and the other can get you lost in pages and pages of… stuff. They are great though for networking; but not just networking with your friends.

In Twitter for example, I have chosen to “follow” my peers; photographers I admire and aspire to be like one day. I think it is great that with one finger swipe and one click I can see what everyone is up to. But it gets better. I advertise a link on my Perth Photography website www.timography.net that encourages people to follow me on Twitter – and they do. All of a sudden potential clients can scroll back through my previous posts to see what I have been up to. As some of you know I also love to post simple, often meaningless but cool images I have taken just moments before with my phone camera. This is all great stuff. It gets you out there – with a minimum of effort.

Even better is to write a blog. Put your name and your business all over it. It doesn’t really matter what you write about (clearly you know that by now if you are still reading this!) but it all helps with your Google ranking. I posted a tweet about this a few weeks ago, but go here and have a look at this video. It’s the best hour and a half you will spend on the internet this year – I promise. Three of the worlds most well known photographers all telling you how to make the internet work for you. I currently pay Google a princely sum of money each month to make sure my name comes up in the sponsored links of just about any photography / wedding / portrait keyword search that you can think of relating to Perth photography. But I don’t have to pay them that much – I could do it myself. But, even better my tenacious little wife is learning how to do it so I don’t have to – bless her.

To end for today, my point is this; we all have the ability, the time and the means to spend a few seconds to a few minutes to an hour or so being productive with our “downtime” and promoting ourselves on the web. I am writing this as much for me as I am for you guys. Sometimes (ok, most times!) I need a kick up the butt myself when it comes to promoting my little home Photography Studio here in Kelmscott, Perth. Interesting fact: since I started this blog I have added over 40% more traffic (unique visitors) to my website which already had a respectable number of unique visits per month - in the region of 400-500 visits per month (45,000 individual hits). And the people that do visit are coming back twice as much and staying about 40% longer on my site each visit. The people that visit my site from 0-30 seconds has dropped a whopping 30%. People that stay from 30 minutes to 1+ hours has risen also about 30%. Now you might think that isn't a lot. Well truth be told, you are right. But compared to this time last year it is a HUGE improvement, and I think that’s pretty cool. All I did is get a Twitter account @timography and started to write this blog – all in my spare time. If I can do it anyone can. I can't wait to look at my website stats in a year from now...

Which begs the question, what are you waiting for? More internet exposure + more website hits = MORE CLIENTS!!

PS – from this blog post alone Google will find 4 keyword phrases that will lead to my website… and they didn’t cost me a cent.

Video Blog #2 "Grid Spot Lighting"...

Well it’s been a couple of days since my last blog post but that doesn’t mean that I have been slacking off!

So, once again with the help of my good mate John we have released our second video blog post. In this video I quickly demonstrate three different studio lighting setups; all of which utilise grid spots to really focus the light coming from the flash head.

I really love this style of lighting at the moment. In fact I would have to say that my “favourite” way to light in the studio at the moment is using set-up #2 in the video. Everything is so crisp and clean as far as the lighting is concerned- and you can make this style of set-up as simple or as complicated as you like. Sure, it’s not the kind of lighting that you can use every time you shoot in the studio as it can get a little much sometimes. I guess I just really love the way that it does such a good job of making the subject standout so much more from the backdrop.

Timography Blog - Grid Spot Lighting from Tim Watson on Vimeo.

Ok, I’ll give you all a quick run-down on the three set-ups shown in the video.

1. Single overhead light with beauty dish attachment. This is such a simple arrangement that works well without fail! The key is to make sure that the model always keeps their head tilted slightly up to avoid heavy shadows under their eyes, nose and chin. The light falling on the models nose was metered for about f/8 in this instance. Shutter speed was 1/125th sec @ ISO 100. For digital capture I drop my aperture back to f/7.1 (1/3rd of a stop) just to give the image a little more “punch”.

2. Overhead light is still in place but is augmented by the introduction of a “rim” light coming over the models left shoulder. This light is also metered at f/8, but this is really only a guide as it can be set wherever you like really. At f/5.6 it will be barely noticeable and very soft. At f/11 or f/16 you can start to create some really interesting effects. Just make sure you can still obtain correct exposure on the models face though.

3. Finally, we add a third light onto the backdrop. I didn’t mention in the video but this light was metered to be one stop lower than the key light – so it’s set at f/5.6. Basically the more power you feed the backdrop light the brighter the “spot” becomes on the white backdrop. If you were using say, a red backdrop; f/5.6 would make the spot a wine red colour. At f/8 (the same as the key light) the rule-of-thumb is that the spot will be red. At f/16 the spot will be hot pink, and so on as you vary the power of this third backdrop light.

So there you go; three really simple lighting set-ups that work really well and can be set-up in no time at all. A big thank you to Jodie Edom @ Je Mode Makeup and Styling and also to Tarnee Bidzinski from Metro Modelling.

As I said in the video – if there is anything that you would like to see demonstrated or any techniques that you wanted to see then please let me know. After all, I am making these video blogs for you guys out there…