Even in a snapshot, you want to;
If you do all that, your pictures will be better than Uncle Fred’s.
Posted in Composition, Learning
As a shooter, and as a teacher,and as a tech blogger, I need the most recent equipment. So I have no obtained a Canon 1D MkIV to replace my 1D MkIII.
So far it seems fine. Not the same great focus system as the 7D, but th same solid feel as the 1D MKIII and the same software options, which Canon has left off the 7D (e.g. the option to name the files to your liking). And lowernoise than the 7D (of course, if only because it is a 1.3 crop factor sensor). Fast 10 fps shooting that lasts much longer than on the 1D MkIII. Sozen of full RAW shots before the buffer fill sup even with a slow memory card.
So far. so good. You can be sure I will post detailed information, rather than these very first impressions, in the next days.
Posted in Gear
Bokeh means the blur, or the quality of the blur, in parts of your image that are out of focus.
And you can use this to effect. For instance when shooting city lights, or Christmas tree lights, you can make them into circles by throwing them out of focus:
That was shot with a Digital Rebel with a 50mm f/1.8 lens. You cannot get simpler than that!
Posted in Picture of the day, Technique
A few words on light meters.
When shooting studio shots like the ones I talked about, you use a flash meter. When doing that to accurately judge the right exposure, keep this in mind:
Then use the measured aperture as your starting point and check the histograms on your camera for fine adjustments. I believe that “exposing to the right” is generally a good idea.
Also, don’t forget to use a grey card to get a nice white balance reference target.
We appear to have an issue: clicking through to blog post links gets you to an empty page. Problem at WordPress.com I presume – if so, it’s one I hope they will fix soon!
Posted in Learning
Back to the standard “small studio” setup I described earlier. This time I shall talk a bit not about how it works – I assume light sensitive slave cells and Pocketwizards and cables are all old hat to you now – but instead, I will talk about how to use it.
As a reminder, here is such a four-light setup, again:
Four lights; and after the click, more about how you use them.
Have some fun with your photography.
This is trial and error, but you will succeed in the end, with shots like this one, fo a student who recently kindly volunteered:
The flash “freezes” the subject, but your background shows the zooming effect.
Posted in Learning
So when I pack by bags to do a location shoot, like today’s executive headshots shoot, you saw in a recent post that I bring rather a lot.
And what do I use? How does it look when it’s all set up?
That setup process, which takes about 45-60 minutes including carrying it all from the car in stages, results in this:
This setup consists of:
It doesn’t look like all that much, but when you write it out, and then add the power cables, connection cables, bags, and so on, it’s quite a lot.
Posted in Business, Gear, Light, Technique
Tagged Flash, Flashzebra, Honl, Pocketwizard, Studio, Studio Lights
One common sexy model look is the “look over the shoulder”.
Like here, in this shot of Nemo, a somewhat Rubenesque but nevertheless pretty model:
In an “over the shoulder” pose women can look over either shoulder, but for men, if the shoulders are angled, avoid them looking over the higher shoulder. This is a feminine look.
As so often with available light portraits, in the shot above I used my Canon 7D with:
Yes, you can take pictures on a 7D at 2000 ISO and have them look just fine.
Bright pixels are sharp pixels, but also, bright pixels are noise-free pixels.
(And you know to focus accurately, using one focus point, aimed at the closest eye, right?)
Mainly because it breaks the photographer’s back.
Here is part of what I am bringing to a multiple corporate headshots session tomorrow:
This kit consists of:
Not pictured:
I am now going to bed early, so that I can build strength!
The serious point, of course, is that when a photographer visits with a portable setup, he really carries with him a full studio and everything that includes.
Word has reached me that Ian Fuller, a.k.a. frequent contributor “bkkphotographer” from Bangkok, has unexpectedly died. His wife confirms this from his email address, as do several friends.
This leaves me profoundly sad, and I wish his family and his other friends strength, and extend my condolences. Ian was a good man, and was just 53. As so often, it is entirely the wrong people who die too young.
I had wondered why he had gone radio silent: I had thought perhaps he was taking a vacation. Alas, the news was much, much sadder than that.
Posted in Uncategorized
The book is progressing well. The only thing that is slowing down is all this work!
But it is delightful work. Last weekend, birthday shoots. This week, spot news. Thursday to Sunday: teaching. Tomorrow, a series of on-location executive portraits. Great and varied work.
On a forum recently, I asked some other pros what they would use in a given lighting situation. One of them wrote back: “You do this for a living so you shouldn’t have to ask. Do you want your clients to google you and find that you are asking questions”?
This person misunderstands the Internet and misunderstands the collaborative world we live in today. Of course I ask, share, debate, weight: the moment you think you know it all, you stop developing.
So if you have questions here, please ask and let’s kick some ideas around. Whether you are just starting to develop as a photographer or whether you are a pro: never be afraid to ask.
Posted in Learning
Tonight, I had some fun trying various new gels.
For those of you new to photography: a gel is a coloured material that you put in front of a flash to change the coour. You typically use these for background colours.
Usually I use a slight correction gel (1/2 CTO, 1/4 CTB, etc) to perhaps warm a background up a bit or to give a corporate shot that slight blue tint in the background. But tonight I thought I’d play with some great new colours.
My system for the test shots below was:
So for these gels I used some basic colours and the new Honl “Autumn” and “Hollywood” gel sets. Great colours. Here we go, and look how each gives you a very different shot:
[1] The new “Autumn” kit:
Egg Yolk Yellow:
Chocolate:
Rust:
Dark Salmon:
Medium Blue-Green:
[2] The new “Hollywood”-kit:
Follies Pink
Steel Green:
Rose Purple:
Smokey Pink:
Pale Lavender:
And for comparison, some basic primary colours: Red, Green, Blue and Yellow:
And finally, what it looked like with no background light, white background light, and “heavy frost” background light:
Note: When you play with gels, do not forget to set your white balance to “F;ash”, so your canera does not try to adjust the colour away.
Now to see these colours side by side, check them on one page: http://www.mvwphoto.com/gels/
A word about shooting in fluorescent light.
Unlike Tungsten light, which stays on and glows in between cycles, Fluorescent flashes on and off 60 times a second or more.
This means two things to photographers:
The second is most obvious.
Look at these images, shot at 1/320th second just now:
See what’s happening? They vary and from top to bottom the brightness is different in both. This is because the (vertical!) shutter is not all open when the brief flash happens.
So when shooting fluorescent,
If you do not know what “discrete multiple” means (how would you – you’re not an engineer!) then just stay at 1/30th second (and often 1/60th will work as well). and you are safe in both cases!
Shooting hockey? Well then just shoot a lot, and you’ll get lucky for some images. ortunately, hockye lights flash at a higher frequency, so the problem is much less common.
Michael Willems Daily Photography Blog 