lighting a lens

When I see a for sale post of something, pictures contribute to the decision so much. I hate seeing a stock image from the manufacturer used. Experience tells me that if I take some time to represent the item properly, the sale happens quicker and without any troubles.

A set up I use when I photography lenses that I plan to sell or just making gear porn. This is a Nikon 17-35mm f/2.8 I'm trying to sell here.

So the SB-900 is snooted up to in my 'ghetto boom' or tilted light stand to just give a splash of light for the peddle lens hood so it is separated from the background.

The two SB-800's on the side are flag with foam sheets to control the light from spilling into the background. The zoom on these two are at it's widest settings since I wanted the spread to be able to cover the entire side. I may want to move the flashes a bit further back in this shot as I may have blown out the highlights a bit.

The final shot here:

Also another example of a similar set up:

strobist wino

A great weekend with some fresh seafood (so fresh we didn't cook it) with good friends. I hosted a get together at my place so I did a lot of the preparation, rand around most of the night and didn't get a chance to snap some shots of everyone.

Bought a set of new wine glasses too, even though they're not DF's 50 dollar/glass, so I want to show them off. I can't call myself a wine enthusiast but I certainly enjoy wine. I have been regularly tasting (drinking) with DF and been documenting the group's get-togethers for DF's blog.

These are some of the more refined shots I have taken thus far.
The set up as follows.

1) I didn't want to set up my white backdrop so I decided to just shoot on the bar top. It has a glossy vinyl surface so it's quite versatile in it's appearance depending on what angle you shoot at. Please don't mind the junk...

2) SB900 on white shoot through camera right to start things off.


3) Adding a SB800 to light the background.


4) Because of how I laid out the bottles, one key light on the left would leave the bottle on the right side underexposed. So...SB800 on a shoot through on camera right. I moved that background light behind the bar and pointed up. You'll notice a bit of spill on the light on camera right, fixed this by flagging the speedlight.


5) I snooted the background light to give focus to the bottles. I did this with a piece of black construction. The position was a bit off and I needed to play with it a bit to get it just right.


6) The final set up.


Be sure to check out these wines at DF's blog
From Left to Right:
2008 Thirty Bench Riesling
2004 Reichsgraf von Kesselstatt Riesling Kabinett
2008 Flat Rock Cellars Nadja's Vineyard Riesling

And the resulting shot, enjoy!

lighting for a party room

I make an effort to make the flash as seamless as possible relative to the environment. Gels are important for an on-location shoots where you want to balance the background with the flash. You often see indoor shots where the subject in the proper white balance while the background with ambient tungsten light is orangy-red. Adding gels to unify the temperature of the light avoid weird tints in the shot.

In this situation, there's some mixed lighting so it made it sorta difficult to match. I turned off some of the lights that weren't needed so that I would only be working with one temperature. I used a 1/2 CTO gel for my flashes but it didn't match the ambient perfectly. I set my WB to tungsten and the flashes still seemed a bit blue relative to the ambient lights. At the beginning of the event when there was still light coming from the outside, it was very difficult to work with since the temperatures of light had too much variety from the light coming in from the windows to the ones coming from the incandescent bulbs. Things got better and more consistent as the night went along after the sun set.

Two speedlights were placed in the main room, one in the kitchen area, and one on camera. Initially I used a piece of black foam to flag the flashes and pointed towards the ceiling, so that it would be less distracting to the guests. However, I lost a lot of light and it just wasn't enough to light the room, so I removed the flag and just used a diffuser to bounce off the ceiling.

The shots for this event here.

Enjoy!

fail-safe white

After testing out the thunder gray (step-by-step set up here) with Ben, I found out how much of a newb I am with it and decide to just do a quick switch back to the trustworthy arctic white.

Again, nothing crazy. Simple, elegant, and even a newb like me can make it look good.

2 SB-800s to nuke the seamless and a SB-900 on a shoot through as the key. I used a foam core as a reflector that's not in this set up shot.

Lights for 66

PYeung is moving out of her home of 10+ years. Exciting times!

They put a lot of time and effort to make it into a beautiful home. I took some time to document some of her designs for her portfolio. This display cabinet was home to her Coca Cola collection.

I used 3 SB-800's and an SB-900 off camera to trigger in two groups via Nikon's CLS and on camera flash. The shoot was done with a Tokina 12-24mm which has been replaced by the second version with a built-in motor.

Group A was the SB-900 on a shoot-through umbrella to light the main area and a SB-800 with a diffuser dome in the kitchen below. If I didn't have a light in the kitchen, it would just be a dark room.

Group B are two SB-800's behind the glass cabinets. These just gave the cabinets a bit of a pop. I'm not entirely certain the shadows cast on the wall opposite works out but I left it anyways. I had to play with the angle a bit so that the flashes are just out of view to prevent any flares.

I was at a high enough shutter speed where virtually only the flashes are contributing to the exposure and the lights are only turned on so that it gives a glow to say they've turned on. Shot at ƒ/8, which is about the sharpest setting on this lens. After some colour/brightness/contrast adjustments and etc, here is the end product.

get into the head of a newbie strobist

Opened up the thunder gray for Benjamin's shoot. Lovely neutral colour but more difficult to use than I expected!

Using the white seamless for a high key look is easy, it's fail safe. It's a simple, elegant set up and hard to screw up; Two lights nuking the backdrop, light the subject properly and voilà.

The gray requires more thought and understanding. It is very versatile so it's only natural that there are a lot of different setups that result in different looks. Understanding lighting ratios are important and I am still a newb at this. I also found a lot of blemishes (ripples) in the gray backdrop that shows up quite a bit, I think I'll either need to go lighter or darker to avoid this.

I tried a few things to get it right and in the end I think I still screwed it up. It doesn't make it easier when the subject runs all over either (especially with the rim light)

I would like to take you through my thought process in my learning experience step-by-step.

1) First thing after setting up the backdrop was to position my key light. This position was too much off to the side and I would get too much shadows emphasized on once side of the subject.

2) Moved the key more towards the front so it's more or less camera left @ 45 degrees. However there's too much spill into the background. I also added a flag to prevent the spill from the side of the umbrella. Simple solution: cardboard + elastic band.

3) Lowered the flash since my subject is Ben and he's tiny. This offers more control of the light and reduced the spill onto the background. A boom would definitely help this since I can get the light closer to the subject without the lightstand being in the way. Ideally, I would have more space between the subject and background but as you can see I don't live in a mansion and is too cheap to rent a studio.

4) Introduced a background light. Wanted to create a nice fad in the back. Here, you can see it could use some adjustments. The diffuser dome also created too much spread and the light spilled from the side of the umbrella to the ground.

5) Took off the diffuser dome and there's still some spill.

6) Flagged it to reduce the spill even more but there's still a bit but it's at an area off to the side that I probably won't be shooting at. Also jacked up the power to increase the fad area. My ghetto flags are more visible in this shot.

7) Next I introduced a rim light. This was with no light modifiers.

8) I found that it there was too much spread and put on a snoot. This concentrated the area and would reduce any flares in case the rim light spill straight into the lens. I'm still not too sure about this because the rim light created a pretty harsh shadow on the ground. I think I should have lowered the flash and directed it more parallel to the ground so that light doesn't spill on the ground. The problem is Ben is going to be running around so much that it will make it difficult for the rim light to land on the right spot unless I have a voice activated lightstand (PYeung) that would always point the rim to the subject.

9) Back to the background light and more experimenting. I ditched the umbrella and snooted the flash. I ditched the snoot after this shot because my ghetto snoot (piece of black foam) sucked and didn't give a nice shape and the fact that Ben would run around too much to make the spot look good because it'll rarely be directly behind his head and would need to be moved constantly to center it (pretty much impossible)

10) Took the flash off the stand and placed it on the ground with no modifiers to try to go for a simple streak of light. Zoomed into the SB-800's most telephoto setting (105mm). I placed it right beside the seamless.

11) Just testing out what different distances and angles would result with and I was fairly happy with this.

12) Last thing I tried out was to have two rim lights. I think this might work with a portrait of a person, but not with a little dog that will be moving constantly. I ultimately ditched this and went back to #11's setup because taking the SB-900 off as the commander to get that 4th flash in, I would have to sacrifice a flash group since the in camera CLS system only offers two group of control.

There's still a lot of experimentation to do with this colour. Advice and feedback needed!!

clamshell lighting

Clamshell lighting is a technique used by many fashion photographers to create a very flattering look with a 1:1 lighting ratio.

It's almost a fail safe technique next to the 'umbrella-camera-top-right-@-45-degrees.' It makes the average person look good and make good looking people even better. Pairing this with a telephoto lens just makes everything come together that much better.

The set up is simple, some use only one light and a large reflector, or in this case two speedlights. The light source should be large to give a flattering soft light. Remember that it's the relative size that matters, so getting the light in as close as possible increases its relative size to the subject. I actually had PYeung hold up the light at the top just above DF's head. This can be eliminated if I had a boom, but I'm cheap like that and my assistant is free.



The set up includes two SB=800s with the shoot through umbrellas. A SB-800 in the back for some separation. (I moved the hair light when I took the following).



The camera loves DF.

**edit* the lights weren't so awesome that it changed a bowtie into a neck tie...wardrobe change

lighting it up for cookie

This was an on location shoot because I need to experience setting up the backdrop system and lights at the client's place.

This was a challenge since the area I require is quite large. Using a 6ft arctic white backdrop and a good amount to cover the floor, my porta-studio requires about a 8ft x 10ft area. Not everyone will have this type of free space in their home. Because I'm shooting with a white background again this time, there was not too much of an issue with the white ceiling, but I can see that it might be an issue if I cannot get enough distance between the subject and the backdrop. Aside from the studio, trying to shoot with a longer lens proves also difficult because I still need a good 6-10ft away from the subject if I were to use my 85mm or the monster (yes, that's what I'm calling it).

Cookie did not like the white backdrop. She would get away from it whenever she had the chance and would only go on if a treat was involved. It was a challenge to capture her good side.

The set up is similar to what I had done before; 2 SB800s nuking the background with enough leaking from the diffusers to give some back lighting for the subject, not that it needed separation with a white background. I used a SB900 on a shoot through umbrella as the key.

Midway through the shoot, I decided to introduce another SB800 (because I can). I wanted to see if I can get more catch light in the eyes. The results were very subtle and I'm still undecided about it. I may look into adding a ring light adaptor to get some circular catch lights for close ups.

Results were decent and predictable. Need to look to do a larger range of variety within the studio setting.

More to come in this set as I get myself to do more editing.

my ghetto studio

Just got a few rolls of backdrop today to complete my recently bought backdrop system.

I got the backdrops used at $40 for 2 rolls of 6' wide and 2 rolls of 4' wide. They're still in decent shape and after only cutting off about the first couple feet, it was pretty fresh. Was going only buy the 2 rolls of 6' because honestly 4' is quite narrow. If you want to get some decent distance between the subject and the background (like where I've placed the monopod), you can only do portrait shots and you'll start seeing the edges when you shoot landscape. But the nice gentleman just wanted to get rid of all of them and offered to sell the me the two 4' for 5 bucks each. At that price, who cares.

I have two sb800s nuking the background and then a sb900 on the umbrella for the key light. The corrugated board I used as a sign for my garage sale last week is used here as a ghetto reflector. I didn't flag the two background lights because I wanted an even fade on the floor portion of the backdrop. The light leak also gave a subtle nice rim light on the subject.

I'm trying to build my books on some pet portraits. This will be a good start to what's to come....but also I can foresee some serious spending when I decide to go full studio strobes.