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!!

my toy crazed friend

AChan has been through many hobbies. This is his latest craze since he and I got into kicks in the good old highschool years.

While shooting Cookie, we decided to just shoot some of his prized collection of plastic with the studio set up already.

In particular, I found these designer toys called World War Robots. Cute designs, amazing details. I told AChan about it and only a month or so later, he has already spent hundreds.

He recently bought a new camera too...another hobby would probably kill your wallet..

cookie the hyperactive pug

Had a photo session with my friend's pug this weekend. Continuing to build my books on pet portraits.

This time I went to his place to set up the studio so I can gage how much time I needed and what kind of things I should look out for. I also timed myself to see how much I can get in with a 1-1.5 hour session. Lastly, testing out the new monster.

Some notable things:

• space is limited and not everyone will have a living room in their home to set up the backdrop system and also for me to use a long lens
• the dog needs breaks
• don't throw a toy onto the backdrop since the dog will run after it
• the underside of the seamless paper can be used
• doing the shoot indoors really keeps the backdrop clean

More of the set and setup shots to come.

THUNDER GRAY!!!

Got a new backdrop. Not just regular gray. THUNDER GRAY. THUNDER F-ing GRAY!!! The first time I was introduced to a studio setting at the Toronto Strobist Group, the guys used a thunder gray backdrop. The versatility of this colour gives you many options to the look you're going for and I can't wait to take it for a test drive now that I am at a different stage than almost two years ago.

Just a comparison of what a 4ft, 6ft (artic white) and 9ft (thunder gray!!) backdrop are like side-by-side:

Gus and Buddy

I am building my books on pet portraits. What I am trying to achieve is a clean studio look. My goal is to capture these pets as if they are fashion models.

I may end up shooting some outdoor shots in the future, but right now I'd like to focus my efforts into studio type portraits...pets only though. I am still a big fan of on location shoots for humans.

So using my newly assembled studio, my first shoot was of Buddy the mini schnauzer and Gus the english bulldog. I am told the coloured set shows better.

It was a challenge, but both dogs were relatively cooperative. I won't be shooting two dogs together next time though. I also found out that a white backdrop is a disposable item when doing pets.

I will need to figure out if I can set up my studio indoors in a smaller space now that winter is closing in quick. Perhaps I should practice setting up on location to the owners house next time.

These are the two that I enlarged to 12x18 prints. They turned out nicely for what they cost.

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.