Saturday, June 19, 2010

Tak'n from behind

First picture form our shoot today at the studio, i wanted to shoot between f1.8 an f2.2 for a very narrow DOF , for lighting this i choose a strobist setup with the softbox camera right + SB-900 @ 1/8th power + the pentax AF-540-FGZ @ 1/16th power behind left

Friday, June 18, 2010

Anna at Antwerp Central station

An ideal shoot to test out my newly received Apollo westcott 28" Softbox, inside shots were done with a SB-900 at 1/2 power which delivers f:5.6, ISO 200 at about 2,5 meters, this seems to be an ideal distance for full body shots. For the part outside i used my 800Ws ringflash as the light source in the softbox, f:11 or even f:16 is not really a problem, i really need to get my hands on a 3 stop ND filter in 77mm size for some more experimentation. A special thank to Mr Bitbanger for lighting assistance!

"Anna meets Fashion", clothing provided by SPS Superstar 2010 collection















Enisa in the forest

Enisa wanted a bit of a fairy-tale look and feel to her shoot, i knew a magical forest just between Leuven and Brussels, nice hot & sunny day, not ideal for photography but even so for bugs!

Make-up was done by Babs and a special thank to Mr Bitbanger for lighting assistance!


White shoot trough umbrella as shadow fill and sun shining trough the leafs, creating some minor lens-flare







White shoot through umbrella - one light


Big zebra reflector +california sunbounce Sunmover as accent light




Diffusion screen camera right, silver reflector far behind camera left and zebra reflector front, camera left (look at the catch-light ;-) )


Silver screen behind, zebra in front:



Hard sunlight, natural fill by the leafs and the grass (lot's of green in the light)



Big silver reflector screen


Strobist workshop

Our usual location that we use to give the workshops was not available so we had to find a alternate solution, i once visited this place as location scout some time ago, it has usable space inside but also a very nice garden.

The results from this workshop were very different because of the location , just to remind you of the fact that nice and fresh pictures need a lot more than a camera and technical knowledge...


White shoot trough umbrella, blended 50/50 with ambient





Apollo Westcott Softbox 28" 'One Light'



And a wide aperture ambient only (as i love them)



Overpowering the ambient by a few complete stops..


Sherlyn at the Zuri

Nice shoot again with Sherlyn, young girl filled with ambition and devotion to make it as a model.
In the morning hours we had a very fine location at our disposal, it made me think of the Provence in France ... The sunlight in Belgium is not of that same warm toning though...







In the afternoon we had the fantastic opportunity to shoot at the Zuri :-)





Bridge of Temse

A brand new bridge in Temse, bit of a cloudy day, gorgeous model, just not enough time to make more of it :-(

100% natural light









Enough use of the ambient light! Time to set up some strobes, bare flash @f:22, 1/250th ISO 200




And some more with ambient and reflector, sun behind some mild clouds and reflector as shadow fill (camera left)


Babs does the ring

On our first shoot Babs told me she was good at imitating Sadako, the young girl with the black hair from the movie "The ring" or Ringu in the original Japanese version (which is way better than the US version in my humble opinion)

We shot this pretty early morning, i wanted the sun to throw long shadows and make use of the somewhat softer morning light, and only used a reflector for fill.
This allowed me to push the contrast a bit in pp to add a bit of grungy atmosphere, this is also why i chose very narrow DOF and shot between f:1.8 and f:2.2.

People who were passing by looked at us in a strange way, I'm still wondering why...












After watching these pictures you only have 7 days left to enjoy this last one....




Babs in a more "humane" condition ;-)

Monday, June 14, 2010

Westcott Apollo 28" Softbox, inclination issue

Having just bought my first Westcott Apollo 28" Strobist Softbox i quickly came in touch with the inclination issue, because the light stand goes into the softbox and the opening in the underside of the softbox is limited you need to pull a trick out of your hat to get more inclination than 5 or 10 degrees. 1 problem always has more than 1 solution so if you search the net you will find others, it's up to you to choose the one that fit's you best. Buying or constructing a boom stand was not a solution for me, i do not like to use this on location because of the space it uses and the eventual instability.

For this solution i used 2 Swivel adapters and 1 piece of steel tube (diameter 16mm and length 300mm), I hope following pictures will make clear how this construction works and is assembled.

Almost every angle is possible now!

Wescott Apollo inclination

Sorry for motion blur :-$

Wescott Apollo inclination

Wescott Apollo inclination


Even with the poor position there still is a good spread of light in the softbox, no hotspot

Wescott Apollo inclination

Sunday, June 13, 2010

Laura & Connie

Once again a last-minute improvisation shoot, normally we would have done this shoot outside, we were looking for photos where the sun would provide a lot of lensflare, but for this you need... sun, and that was one of the missing items... . luckily Laura remembered a big location near Zolder where she knew we could do the shoot inside!

model was Laura Theys, MUA Connie Van Noten, assistant and co-photographer Bart Henseler aka Bitbanger!


Checking the light wit Mr Bitbanger himself... (strobist info, rimlight from Sb-900 @ 1/8th power, zoomed 200mm, main = white umbrella Canon speedlight @ 1/4th power, triggered with Skyports





Just for fun shot, 100% ambient 50mm (on fx) f:1,8 1/320th ISO200



This is a 100% strobist shoot with 1 or 2 white shoot trough umbrella's or 1 silver relfective umbrella and 1 hair light provided by the SB-900 zoomed at 200mm (no need for a snoot, beam is extremely focused)







Dragging the shutter to use the colored light in the back provided by LED, main light by speedlight in reflective silver umbrella ISO 1600 - 1/20th - 200mm f:2,8