second_shoot_with_x100

Last weekend I did a portrait shoot with a friend who is graduating (hence the traditional hat). He wanted some images to use for both the graduation brochure, as well as facebook all done at the same time. I had a few locations scouted beforehand that would work well, and asked him to bring his graduation suit and hat, plus a few other outfits in case we needed to switch.

The light cooperated and was quite nice, soft and directional, and it got sunny toward the end right when we needed it. I directed his poses while keeping the light's direction in mind to hit his face in a pleasing way, mostly choosing short lighting, as I prefer (short lighting is where the front and far side of the face are lit, and the close side of the face you can see is in shadow, apposed to broad lighting where the front and front side are lit and the far side you can't see is in shadow), I had the X100 on one shoulder, and my 5D with 85mm 1.8 on the other. With both I shot at maximum aperture, the X100 had way way less purple fringing and was much sharper at it's max aperture of f/2 than the 85 was, but I probably should have stopped the 85 to f2 as well for a sharpness increase, but I wanted the shallowest DoF possible.

For the first image in the blog, I was sitting on the ground (in order to make him look more grand and tall, and to get mostly sky in, rather than boring ground), with the X100. I had the 3rd gridlines projected so I could put his face in one of the points of power, as it was a wide shot and I needed help guiding the eye to his face. The light was coming from the left (his right), so I had him turn in that direction. With guys I normally try to get them to stand naturally with toes slightly turned out, and ask them to bring their shoulders up and back, but then try to settle so they are comfortable and not stiff. Early on I tell them I will be directing their face turn for lighting purposes, so it's easy to use my index finger to ask them to turn closer to me or further away. Sometimes I use the command, "Ok, now with only your eyes, look at me", otherwise they will turn their whole head from the previously chosen position. For postwork, I adjusted contrast and clarity, white balanced it to be a bit less blue, then added one adjustment brush to the sky to bring it down and add contrast, clarity, and a bit of blue, and another adjustment brush on his face to bring it up, add clarity, and increase saturation a bit.

In this one I was kneeling, as I wanted both sky and ground, as I found this grass path to be a great setting. The light was coming from the right, so I positioned him this way so it lit his face in short lighting again, this is why the front of his face is brighter, giving it volume. If we were turned the other way, (to the left) this soft light would hit the back of his head, giving his skull volume, but leaving his face relatively flat. In post, I desaturated the greens a bit, as it was overwhelming the scene, cloned out a few distracting clumps of grass, used an adjustment brush to bring down the sky and add a bit of blue, and up clarity, and then overall scene contrast and clarity adjustments. I also have a special sharpening setting that adds micro volume, rather than really sharpening the edges too much. It uses a very wide radius, and a high masking value so only hard edges are affected, and in a broad, rather than narrow way. I apply this to every image, and change the amount depending on the output size (full amount for the web, 30% for full sized prints).

I love how sharp the X100 is at f/2, with no chromatic aberations or purple fringing. It allowed me to throw the background slightly out of focus for some nice subject separation, while still viewing the background's contents.

Just to follow up on my last post about focal lengths, here are two shots in the same location. First with the 85mm lens on the 5D and second with the 35mm X100:

The one with the 85 is tight, and is definitely about the subject as a portrait. It's flattering and cinematic. The 35 is wider and shows the entire cityline of Reykjavik. Neither is better or worse, but they both offer different things. One is a portrait that could be made in any city though, and the other was definitely done in Iceland. (the dark square on the far right is Harpa, the new opera house, and the grey point above it is Halgrimskirkja, the most famous landmark in Reykjavik, the tall dark apartment buildings are also very iconic as part of the beachfront skyline)

Not the most masculine of poses, but I think it works. The mountains in this direction behind him were so beautiful, and the light was still cooperating. In odd poses like this, it's really important to ask the subject to "settle in" so they feel comfortable. You can see a noticeable difference after they do it, much more relaxed. I might fine tune a pose, but before I take the photo I ask them to get comfortable so it doesn't look too stiff and awkward.

zen_shoot

Settings: 1.5 meter softlighter to camera left and halfway between subject and camera, aimed at head and centered at head height, about 3 meters from subject. Metered at head to be properly exposed. Background was shutter dragged to come up to proper exposure as well.

I had asked this subject if I could photograph him over a year ago, and it just worked out this weekend to do a shoot. I had some locations in mind, and did a 1.5 hour location scout with my camera, 35, and 50mm lenses. Luckily I did this right before the actual shoot, so the lighting was identical between scout trip and the shoot itself. Doing a location scout is really pivotal. You don't want to feel rushed with the subject or you could miss some nice background elements trying to just find something quick. I pick locations based on "feel" and our eyes can take in a huge field of view, plus we are viewing "live". It takes exploration to find a single view for your camera that encapsulates this same "feeling" that you chose the location for. By having plenty of time by yourself with no lights, just your camera, you can find these views a lot easier. I'm constantly putting the camera up to my eye without taking a photo, just looking how things are compressed and what shows from that angle.

For the above shot, I loved how the trees went back into the background, and the serene feeling of the bare ground with just pine needles. This is a very uncommon setting in Iceland, tall trees like this and bare ground with no grass or weeds. I knew this was spot number one for the shoot. I experimented with different heights of the camera during the scout, and I knew I wanted my 35mm lens so I could see up into the trees, which would necessitate a low angle. The 50mm narrowed the view too much and you didn't get the same sense of height. I wanted a nice soft side light, so I used the 1.5 meter softlighter. I metered for the face, and then opened the shutter until the background came into a nicer exposure, 1/60th of a second. The rim light on his left side is from the bright sky coming through the open area of the tree trunks above, behind, and to the right.

In post, all I did was create a gradient adjustment in Lightroom for the top of the trees, which I boosted exposure by 1 stop, and made a bit more saturated, and added a slight orange color overlay to give it the sunny feel. The left side of this copse of trees had a road, where people were walking and cars driving, so in Photoshop I duplicated the layer, flipped it, and masked in just enough to show bushes on that side as well. I left as much of the original trees as possible to keep it from looking mirrored. I also made an adjustment layer for the ground, darkened it slightly and added more red so it wasn't so yellow.

This location was very close to the first, and uses all natural light. This is the main cemetery of Reykjavik, and it is an incredibly peaceful place. There are trees planted on most graves, and since the cemetery itself is about 150 years old, some of them are quite large. It's the most dense large forest in the capital area. This location was the hardest to scout. I wanted to capture the depth of the forest, and the serenity, without it being too cliche as a cemetery portrait location. I wanted peace, not morbidity. This tree was one of the more dense in it's foliage, and as such created the darkest area of the cemetery. I knew if I put the subject under it and facing out, I could get some nice soft light with decent shadows on the side facing the tree. We took a few shots of him looking toward me, but I had him look outward, and his profile looked great. I made sure to line it up so it was on top of the dark branch, to truly show the silhouette, and grabbed this image. It should really be viewed large to really appreciate the details and tonal depth. I love the composition of having the dark side and light side, but his sleeve and face serve as the main light spots in the dark half, properly drawing your eye to the foreground. His sleeve and the tree branch behind his head make a smooth S-curve with his face in the middle. The photo was mainly about the tones and composition, and I felt black and white treatment was more appropriate and would really let me draw out the details I wanted. The main color was the green of the foliage, his outfit was all grey and white, so the color version doesn't bring much.

Here are the other favorites from the shoot, all using natural light.

lausanne_portraits

Settings: Ambient (on the subject) is one stop below neutral grey. Flash is one stop above neutral grey.

This past week I traveled to Lausanne to vacation and attend a strobist meetup. I had a great time and got a chance to photograph two very good models, Sandra and Scott. I was a group leader, and when we were asked if any group wanted to use the library, I volunteered, as it was very bright and sunny outside, and I didn't know the campus we were on. I didn't want to lose too much time walking around looking for a spot. Once in the library, the tables and chairs near the brightly lit windows immediately drew my attention. I explained how that when walking around looking for locations, I use my hand to envision how the ambient light will fall, and how bright the exposure on it compared to things in the background will be. It's much faster than having the camera up and trying to arrange the model. It's like a divining rod for pleasing light.

Once we were all set up, I asked the group if they wanted me to walk through a normal shoot, and they said yes. I'll try to repeat all the steps and explanations here.



This first image is the natural light only. I explained my first choice is always lens fov. Because of the location, a wide angle lens would have revealed that this was just a row of tables at the edge of a library, and for the narrative of this photo, I wanted it to feel more like a warmly lit cafe. A telephoto lens would compress the scene to only show the row of tables and give a more blurry background, creating more subject isolation, and a pleasing pattern of all the background patterns.

Step two for me is to figure out ambient exposure. If I'm planning to use flash, I use 1/180 as my ceiling for shutter speed (1/200 is the 5d sync speed, but I can't seem to get my skyport/quadra setup to reliably sync, but it always hits 1/180, and I have my camera set to half, rather than third stop exposure changes, so 1/200 doesn't show up anymore, but 1/180 does). It was really bright in this room so I was able to use ISO 100, 1/125 and f/2.

We noticed that the background really blew out in brightness, so our next step was to try to control the background, and use the flash to augment the existing light. The goal was to get the same overall feel as the ambient only image, but with complete control of background and subject illumination. I doubled the shutter speed to 1/250 to darken the background. This left the face quite dark, but I positioned my softbox in the same location as the window, and powered it up to match. Because I did not want spill on the table, the shutter at 1/250 managed to block the flash from hitting the table, which was a convenient feature.



The light is a bit more contrasty and specular than the window light only, but to be honest I prefer it that way. It's not quite as appropriate for women as for men, but she had sufficient makeup on that it worked well anyway. Specular highlights tend to work nicer in bringing out skull structure on men, whereas women look better looking smooth and matte.

Notice how in the ambient only image, the bright areas in the background fight for visual attention with her face. In the flash lit image, we were able to darken the background, add a bit of volume to her face, and bring it out brighter. Now there is no question where the eye should go, directly to the subject's face. With this control we could darken the background even more, or let it bleach out. The flash frees us from the ratio of the ambient only.

Next I wanted to try a different feel. With the crop occurring mid-torso, it has a more relaxed location feel. But since she had very nice legs and a short dress, I felt that a more full body shot would be more beauty/glamor. I asked her to move the chair to the edge of the table so that I could see all of her.



Settings: Ambient (on the subject) is even with neutral grey. Flash is one stop above neutral grey.

For this the flash is coming from almost directly in front of her face, perpendicular to the camera. One of the group members asked about how the light would work in terms of reading well, since the ambient light is clearly coming from the other side. I said that since it was an indoor location, there would most likely be interior lights, and having a light source coming from the other direction was ok and would most likely still read well. It was a good question though, as it's good to have your light motivated by existing ambient. It is possible to break the lighting on the subject so they appear not to actually exist in the background.

I also explained that once I have a lighting setup and pose that I like, it's fun to explore around to the different angles, and you can potentially find a really nice image that you hadn't pre visualized. This was one such example.



This was the first part of the day, I will cover the second portion tomorrow or the next day.

Garden

Settings: Ambient is 2 stop over neutral grey. One flash to camera right, with grid spot, aimed only at the head, even with neutral grey.

No setup shots on this one unfortunately. I noticed that the lighting in the backyard was beautiful the other day. I started shooting in sunlight, but by the time I finished, this was just bright sky providing even smooth light. The light from the left side is from the sky, and the fill on the right side is from the flash. it's a bit hot on the forehead, and would have benefited from an umbrella to soften it a bit.

After getting a shot that I wanted, I tried to emulate the split toning that Annie Liebovitz seems to be using lately. I messed around with the shot, mainly desaturating the whole shot, while keeping blues normal. Then I used lightroom's split toning feature to make royal blue shadows, and turquoise blue highlights. Further, I made two gradient masks, one from top left with a tiny bit of an orange hue, and a +.2 exposure setting, then the bottom one with a purple tint and a -.2 exposure setting. I feel it emulates the parts that I liked about Annie's post, so I'm content.

HelgiO part 1

Settings: Sunlight only, but with a silver long throw reflector just outside camera right, filling the shadows on his face.

Iceland experienced quite a financial boom in the last 10 years, that came to a grinding halt in the last year because of the financial crisis. It´s left a lot of half finished buildings all over the city, many of which are not being worked on. I personally love man made spaces that are empty or abandoned, so I knew a photo opportunity awaited.

I did a scouting run the day before. I have decided this is really the best way to shoot. I can take my time exploring around for good angles without any pressure, and most important, note down at what times the light is perfect for what I want. It also allows me to have the images to both show and excite the subject, possibly giving them ideas for hair/makeup/clothing. It also allows me to look at them at my leisure at home to determine how I want to light them.

Here are my research images:


I took more than this, but mostly I was walking around the place, seeing what caught my fancy, what angles felt nice, examining how the light fell, and trying to envision what it would be like to have my model there in front of me, and what I might ask of them. This trip is to get comfortable with a new place, so that I have less to worry about during the actual shoot, which is hectic enough already.

My general workflow goes:

1. Observe constantly during my daily errands and travels. If I find someplace that looks promising, I plan a research trip.
2. Do the research trip. Guess at what time the light will work well with the location (lots of lights and reflective surfaces = night, open side areas with lots of soft light from the sky = daytime on a cloudy day, lots of interesting shadows and bounce surfaces = direct sunlight, etc)
3. Explore with an eye toward eventual photos. Let my mind chew through what I'm seeing and imagine what kind of subject I'd want, how they should be dressed, colors, lighting, etc. If any of my ideas prompt some further exploration while there, the more the better. I take only my camera and lenses on this trip, no lighting equipment. This is to be a bit more mobile, but also because I am just exploring the location and seeing what's possible with ambient.
4. Edit images at home. I try to bring out the "feel" that I want from them, the same way I would if the subject were there. I tone shadows, white balance, recover highlights, fill shadows, the whole shebang. I want to know if there are any shooting conditions I should be aware of. In some cases I want to let things blow out, and in other cases I want to be careful of the highlights. If I find that I need as much dynamic range as possible because the contrast is so high, that will let me know to keep my ISO as low as possible (cameras lose dynamic range as you bump up ISO)
5. Show images to the subject, and get their feedback. Mostly this is to get them excited about the shoot, but also so they can be thinking about it. It might give them pose ideas, or get them in the right mental state. Mostly I think it helps them pick out their outfits. I normally give a general guide (all black, mostly white, something bright and warm colored, etc) but let them pick outfits they think they look best in. If it's a really involving shoot, I'll do a wardrobe planning session with them at their house.
6. Try to figure out lighting scenarios. I first try to figure out where I wan to place my subject in the frame from what I've picked out. Then I envision how the existing light will light them, and if it needs modifying or amplifying. Lighting normally falls into 3 categories,

• no lighting required, just the ambient plus possibly reflectors or subtractors.
• using the existing light sources and angles, but either boosting the level by placing a flash in the same place, or by complimenting the existing light with another flash filling in the shadows
• providing the lighting completely with the flashes.

So, for example with this one:



I knew the thing I liked most was the shadows. I knew that I would want the shadows to play over the subject, and possibly have some of the shadows on the face. This sunlight faded quickly, so I had only one hour when this light existed. We shot here first because it was my favorite setting. I knew that the room bounced enough ambient that the shadows wouldn't be jet-black, but I imagined my silver long throw reflector would be a benefit to fill the face shadows. The location scout helped me figure out most of this, so once we arrived and I unpacked, I merely had to direct the model, and have my friend keep the silver reflector aimed at his face. Having an assistant on shoots like this is super beneficial.



I made sure to try different angles. As much as I loved the full room shot with all the shadows, the lighting was superb, and the model has a great body and facial features, so a closeup was definitely in order. I am glad I tried some closer shots, as this is probably my favorite shot from the shoot. I had to pay attention to the red channel in the histogram, because red represents the skin (on white skin) and if it clips, you most likely have blown out skin. I did want a bleached look, and I wanted enough shadow information to lift, so I let the red channel skirt the right edge of the histogram, without slamming up against it.



The far side of the wall had some awesome, even busier shadows going on, so I had to be sure to take advantage of them as well. After getting enough of the main wall, we moved to a sitting position against the other wall. I was laying prone on the floor to get the best angle on a few of these. One thing I learned early on, is to consider different heights. Don't always shoot from standing normally. Stand on things, go on tip-toes, crouch, lean against things, kneel, or even lay flat. Think about the emotion you want, and the angle.

Be sure to ask your model about poses. I normally suggest a pose by showing them myself doing it, then I ask them to get comfortable in that pose (so it doesn't look so stiff). I will get a few photos, then ask them if they have any ideas for poses.

One good thing to do, is at the beginning, explain about head angles. I am constantly watching how the light falls on the face and eyes, and if I want something different, I will ask them to rotate their face towards me or away. If you don't explain what you mean, the subjects have a tendency to rotate much too far when you ask. At the beginning, I explain what I'm doing, that I'm watching the light, and I might ask them to rotate toward me or away, and I want them to do it slowly so that I can ask them to stop. This helps immensely, and can be the difference between getting catch lights, or a good light angle, and getting unflattering lighting that falls poorly on the face.

Tell your model they look great, be excited about the photos, and show them! If they see that it's coming out awesome, it will rid them of any feelings of looking silly. This is especially important if you're using a non-model (someone you just asked, because you like their look).

I think this is the longest post I've made on my blog so far, but I learned a lot on this shoot, and wanted to share.

Remainder of the set.

Óðinn part 1

Settings: Ambient is .5 stops below neutral grey. One flash to camera right, aimed up so that just the bottom edge touches his face, at 1.5 stops over neutral grey.

I'd been wanting to take photos of my friend Óðinn for a while, and finally got a chance to. We did a multi-part shoot to make the most of our time. This is where being mobile really pays off. I'm convinced that with studio strobes and a large battery pack, with the extra time it would take to set everything up, we would not have been able to fit this much in. The daylight was fading fast, and we had a narrow window when the light was perfect.

I've been to this location before, but not during the snow. It opened some really nice possibilities. The sky was still quite bright, and was providing a nice soft even light, this provided for some nice photos with no lighting equipment needed.





After a few nice shots in this setting, we moved to these wooden beach chairs that were covered in snow. There was some beautiful light still coming from the horizon, and I just wanted to add a touch of light with the strobes, to bring attention to his face. I could have oriented myself on the side of the light, but it would have given me a much darker background, and I wanted some of the interesting sunset in the background.



Settings: Ambient is .5 stops below neutral grey. One flash to camera right, aimed up so that just the bottom edge touches his face, at 1.5 stops over neutral grey.

The biggest thing that I learned from this shoot, is that when using an unmodified flash, and letting in enough ambient to make the shadows not so harsh, I like "short portrait lighting". You can find a detailed explanation here. The quick explanation, if the flash is illuminating the front of the face and the side of the face you can see, it's "broad" lighting. If it's illuminating the front of the face, and leaving the side of the face you can see in shadow, it's "short" lighting. Broad lighting with an unmodified flash is less pleasing (to me) than short lighting. I hadn't consciously recognized this preference of mine till this shoot, and I'll let it dictate my lighting placement for future shoots.

Here is an example of broad lighting. I like the pose and composition, but wish I had taken this photo with short lighting instead. The broad lighting is leaving his face too flat for my taste, and not bringing in enough of the colored shadow from the ambient to tie him into the background.



Settings: Ambient is 1 stops below neutral grey. One flash to camera right, at 1 stops over neutral grey.

Slight flash

Settings: Ambient is about a stop below neutral grey. Flash through honeycomb grid aimed at face, from high up and to the right, at one stop above neutral grey.

I realized all my favorite photos, both that I've taken, and that I like of others, use a lot of ambient light, and the artificial light is very subtle and only adds a little pop to the main area. I really want to pursue this line of lighting this year.

For this photo, almost all the light is window light from the left. I got on a chair to shoot from this height, and took at f/1.8 to get a little depth of field on the feet, so that the attention was kept on the face. Once I had everything exposed right, I decreased the iso by one stop to make everything a bit darker. Then I added my flash to a stand at about 2 meters height, to the right, aimed it at his face, and added a honeycomb grid to constrain it to just his face. Without the grid, even zoomed to 105mm, it spread to the rest of the bed and body. It had just enough softness to fade out nicely, and because there was only about a stop difference between ambient and flash, even though the edges of the shadows from the flash are harsh, they aren't very noticeable. If I had dropped ambient another stop or two, the flash shadows would have been extremely noticeable.

I'm still working on a portable option that lets me through softer light a longer distance. I'll let you know what I come up with. I would have loved to have this light constrained only to the face like this, but softer.

Window light with reflector and subtractor

Settings: giant window to the right, large black subtractor panel on the left to absorb the light and darken the shadows.

While I was in England, I went to this great specialty shop, Viewfinder Photography. They have all sorts of equipment custom made just for them. My favorite is this great collapsible reflector panel, it has 2 pieces of fabric. One is black on one side, the other side white. The second is silver on one side, and gold on the other. Each corner has a grommet, and it uses steel poles to hold it tight, and mounts onto a light stand. Nothing else like this mounts so easily and collapses so small. It comes in 3 sizes too, but I have the smallest, 1x1.2 meters.

It's extremely versatile. You can use the black or white as backdrops, like I did here:


Settings: Ambient is underexposed by 4 or more stops. Flashes are 3-4 stops above neutral grey, into large 110cm umbrellas on either side of the subject, slightly behind and above, but aiming forward. Large gold 1x1.2 meter reflector in the front, bouncing the light back onto the front of the face.

or you can use them as a reflector or subtractor. For the first photo in this post, I used the black side to subtract light from the shadows. Without the black subtractor, the light from the window could bounce around the mostly white kitchen and fill in the shadows. With a big black sheet right on the other side, no light can bounce, so it darkens the shadows a lot.

Conversely, you can use the white side to fill the shadows a lot, like this:



Settings: giant window to the right, large white reflector panel on the left to reflect the light and lighten the shadows.

One trick I want to try, is to place the gold sheet on the ground, and aim one of my flashes at it. That way I'll have a nice warm, golden fill light coming from below, and I can use my main flash and light mod as the main light, and still have the white/black panel to use as a background or a reflector/subtractor.

The best part about this light modifier, is the price. Only 30 pounds for the small size I got. That's about 45 USD.

Light Festival

One year ago, a company called Vegalume came to Reykjavik with their light costumes for the light parade. I was asked by the company to photograph the parade. They were quite happy with the results, and so when their next large gig came up, they asked me to be the photographer. In Germany. This is probably my largest professional gig yet, where they covered my flights to and from Germany, as well as my photographers fee. This is an example where your reputation is extremely valuable. There are a ton of photographers in Germany already, who actually speak German (unlike me) and most likely at least a few who can do low light photography. However they did not know any off the bat, so a time-tested photographer they have worked with before, and that they know can deliver the results they want, is worth the extra expense of flights. This was a very expensive and one-time event, in front of the Dom cathedral in Cologne (the largest gothic church in northern Europe), and a repeat was not going to happen. They had to be sure the shots came out right the first time.



The event itself was too quick and large to use my flash equipment, so this is all available light. The costumes themselves provided most of the light, but there are street lights and lamp posts littered around the square. This required my camera's fullest light gathering abilities. I was using the 35mm f/1.4 lens, ISO 1600, and 1/60 of a second (to be sure to avoid hand shake, and to freeze the movements of the actors as much as possible). The noise levels are acceptable, and the illumination is sufficient. Post processing involved boosting the light areas, and then increasing the deep shadows, as noise is always most evident in the dark areas. By lowering the deep shadows, the worst noise gets damped down into black. On my favorite images ( including the top image) I make a new layer, use noise ninja to do aggressive noise removal, then use a mask to reveal it only where the noise is offensive visually. This results in clean areas of low detail, but leaves detail in the more busy areas.



Toward the end, one of the actresses was given these flaming wings, and she performed alone. The fire provided a lot of extra brightness, but she was moving much faster than the other dancers, so instead of decreasing ISO or aperture, I decreased the shutter speed, to be sure I froze her actions.

With any less light gathering capability to my gear, I would not have been able to achieve this level of illumination. With an f/2.8 lens, I would have been boosting my ISO 1600 shots to ISO 4500 or so to get a similar illumination level, which would have far more noise and less color accuracy and less dynamic range. (color accuracy and dynamic range decrease as ISO increases, as well as the obvious sharpness and detail of the image). Ideally I would have used the 24mm 1.4 lens, to get more of the cathedral in the background showing, but the rental agencies in Germany were already closed when I arrived the day of the shoot, and I do not own that lens. It's on my lust-list however.

The remainder of the set.

Belly Dancers part 3

Settings: Ambient was 3 stops below neutral grey. One flash into a 60cm umbrella above and to the right, at 2 stops above ambient.

One of the dancers from the original shoot asked me to come out to Akranes (a smaller city about an hour north of Reykjavik) and photograph her dance team, as well as some individuals of herself. I used save, even lighting for the group shots, but once I could focus just on her, I could play with more contrasty lighting. I used only my 60cm umbrella, as she had great skin that would work well with it.



Settings: Ambient was 3 stops below neutral grey. One flash into a 60cm umbrella above and to the right, at 2 stops above ambient. There is also a bare flash on the ground behind her, pointed straight up, at 3 stops above ambient. You can see the rim slightly on the bottom of her forearms.

It was great to have someone so eager to perform in front of the camera, and the costume made it even better. Once I had my lighting ratio setup, I was able to ask for all types of poses, and as long as I stayed in the same general angle to the flash, I was getting good lighting with contrasty shadows. On this fullbody shot, I had placed a bare flash on the ground behind her aiming up. I got a little bit of rim light separation, but I should have zoomed it wider so it hit more of her veil to really light it up.



Settings: Ambient was exposed at neutral grey.

After getting some good lit photos. I wanted to try some warm candle lit photos. I asked her to lay down on a pillow, and I moved several candles in close to get as much light as possible. I cranked my camera to maximum light gathering mode (ISO 1600, f/1.8, and 1/80) The shutter speed was so low that I had to brace my elbows on the ground to avoid camera shake on the 85mm lens. Normally I try to use 1/160 of a second with this lens. Even with this much sensitivity, I had to boost the brightness about .6 in lightroom, making this about ISO 2500) The soft candlight really added a nice mood. However her makeup had an odd reaction to the candle light and slightly discolored her face to a green color. I made a quick brush adjustment with a color overlay of a light magenta, which popped it back to the color of the rest of her skin, and much more natural.

The rest of the set.

Sunlit blinds

A coworker of mine is involved in a Tribal Dance troop, and they needed photos for an upcoming show. She asked me to come over and do a few group, and individual shots.

When I got to the studio, the first thing I noticed was the awesome wooden blinds against the wall, and how the sunlight poured through them. It was quite convenient that it was one of the few sunny times in past days. I wanted the almost blown out look of the blinds, with a good bit of warmth to the light, and let the edges of the model be almost rim like in light quality, with a dark front to the face. I started at my lens maximum aperture (1.8) and the lowest shutter speed I could get away with handheld (1/100 to be safe). This still left the model a bit too dark, so I bumped ISO to 200, then 400 before I got a good overall light level.



Once I had good settings, I was free to let the models pose as they liked, as long as they stood in generally the same place, so as to have nice framing against the individual window frames. The light was very forgiving. This was the type of setup that would be almost impossible to emulate easily with my lighting setup. I would need to set up a bedsheet with strobes behind it, both at full power, and blinds directly in front of the bedsheet. Even then I would probably need to work at ISO 800 or 1600 even to get the light as bright. This is one of those cases where you're presented with a great existing light setup, and you should work with it as best you can.

If I were to experiment with anything else, it would be nice to put one of my flashes in my small 61cm umbrella, at lowest power (1/128) very close so it only hits the face. That might still be too bright, but would be fun to experiment with.

More from the same setup:

Work with what you've got

Settings: Window light to the right, tungsten ceiling lamp to the left.

A few days ago, one of our PR people asked me to take some photos of two employees at work. The problem is that she asked me the day that she needed them, and I hadn't brought any of my equipment to work, not even the camera. I asked around and a friend has his 400D plus 50mm 1.8, which is a perfectly usable camera and lens. (normally I prefer my 40D with the 85mm 1.8). Now I at least had a camera, but I needed some light.

Unfortunately, this time of year, Iceland only has a few hours of daylight, and it was nearing the end of these, plus it was overcast, so I had very little window light to work with. I scooted a couch right next to the window, and had a nice set to work with. The window light is on the right, and an interior tungsten is on the left. I angled the couch so it would be easy to get the window light onto both sides of the face if they turned towards it a bit. Had the couch been perfectly perpendicular, they would have had to rotate unnaturally far. The light was so dim, I was working at ISO 1600, f/1.8, and 1/80, pushing the limits of the camera sensor and lens.



Settings: Window light to the right, tungsten ceiling lamp to the left.

Once I had the two photos, it was off to processing. First, since ISO 1600 is quite noisy on the 400D, I reduced all chroma noise. I personally don't mind luminance noise in an image, I think it can have nice qualities to it, so I always leave it in, smoothing only on large solid colors that might be in the background. Next I needed to make a custom White Balance mask to suck out the yellowy green of the tungsten light on the left side of their faces. Then I did a quick highpass and smart sharpen to bring out a bit more micro contrast, and desaturated the shirts to make sure focus was on the face. This layer is masked to only contribute fully on the face, but fades out of the shirt and background.

Could I have done a lot nicer job with my full kit? Sure, but for a last minute corporate headshot, these work fine. Look for nice light and settings wherever you are.

Post processing

I took this today on our walk to work. I saw the awesome texture of the wall and the framing element of the empty doorway, and asked Agust to stand there. He decided to put his hands up on the frame, which actually improved the pose a lot. The lighting is all from an overcast sky.

I wanted to really play up the texture of the wall, so I used a lot of contrast, clarity, and sharpening on the wall texture. Here you can see the before and after:



And a gif flashing between the changes to better show them:



The main things I did, was to immediately boost the fill light a little to show more of the interior of the alcove. Then I desaturated just his jacket, as it was too attention grabbing. Next I imported to Photoshop, and used the liquify tool to adjust the shape of his silhouette to be more dynamic. I then lifted up to a new layer, his torso and legs. Then I transformed the top and bottom separately to lengthen his legs, while shortening his torso. Finally I used a smart sharpen to add even more contrast to the walls, and then masked it away from his face and the interior of the alcove (the alcove was getting too noisy with the last sharpening, and faces shouldn't be oversharpened).

I had to start with a photo that I liked to begin with, but post-processing really opens up some doorways to hit the vision you had in your head when you lifted the camera to your eye.