Feb
22
There was suppose to be a shoot this weekend for a MUA (of whom I first met as a bride!) that wanted to update her portfolio…but that fell through last minute (for the second time) when two out of three models decide to flake! We were both really looking forward to this, ruined all the planning and time that Kasthury has put in the shoot!
Anyways, I decided I needed to bust out all the lights to shoot to make myself feel better. I picked up these boots last Friday, never really had boots before but these are nice and comfy.
I started out with SB-800s in two softboxes as rim lights just behind the boots, I liked how the large light source (relatively) reflected off the side of the boots sort of like a specular highlight. Then I moved one of the softboxes (camera left) towards the front as a bit of a fill to bring out some details between the shoes since I wasn’t getting any specular highlights off that side of the boots anyways. However, this left the boots blending into the dark background on the left side. I then added a snooted SB-800 as a kicker on camera left where I moved the softbox from to add a hard rim.
As suggested by many tutorials online, it is good practice to add one light in at a time when you are working with multiple lights to see how each one affects the image. Here’s how the lights in this setup affected the final image one by one. (Softbox CL, Softbox CR, Kicker)
I’m also abusing this backdrop quite a bit lately…was too lazy to grab the roll of seamless from the garage.. will need to go backdrop shopping again soon!
Jul
23
The set up for Opal’s shoot. This was done on the fly so I went with my favourite and simplest high key set up. Two SB-800′s as the background lights (flagged to prevent flares) and a SB-900 in a softbox as the main. This is also the first time I am using this new softbox in a studio setting, I love the catch light it produces oppose to an umbrella.
The ability to control spill through a softbox is also that much better. This was especially apparent when I wasn’t blowing out the white background. Unfortunately my garage is not long enough for me to get enough space between Opal and the background to test out how dark I can make the white backdrop.
Mar
23
One night a lady invaded my room. But she was a bug. My first reaction was “GRAB THE CAMERA!”…kind of sad.
The set up was thrown together relatively quickly after one shot of just using the bare flashes. The specular highlights were point sources even though the diffuser is many times the size of the lady bug. So I threw some A4 paper in front of the flashes and jacked up the power (lost about 3 stops of power from the paper).
This is like standing next to a softbox as large as a couple stories high if you were the lady bug.
Focusing as tough because of the extremely narrow depth of field even at f16, not to mention the millions of sensor dust that I have to clone out.
Enjoy!
The resulting shots
Mar
17
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:
Nov
18
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.