Tuesday, December 27, 2011

Gold, part 2

The golden girl, part 2 ..


Model is Karen DW - MUA: Liesbeth De Smedt





The next pictures gives you a little insight on the extensive post processing that goes into these "golden" pictures, count on ± 5 hours work / photo
Let's try out some different things !!




And a bit of a special Make-up look we wanted to try out, Liesbeth did a great job :-)



We even made it on the picture of the day contest that runs on Model Mayhem, woohoo!


Wednesday, December 14, 2011

Gold, part 1 (might be NSFW)

Let's start with some gold, but ye be warned, some pictures might be slightly nsfw :-)

The idea behind these series was to create some intimate close-up portraits combined with a lot of golden accents, i pushed the warm golden tones in post (LR + PS)

This is something that works very good for me, it's pretty easy to reproduce, so if you follow my blog you will see a lot more girls getting the golden look, hope you like it as much as i do !

Model is Charlotte, Make-up & Hair by Adele!







Okay let's change the setting a bit, more white, striplight from behind left and main light in the 120cm octa, white seamless



I don't know what movie you think of when you see a chair of this type but if you grew up in the 80's i bet it begins with a capital E... :-p









Friday, December 2, 2011

Don't trip over the cable dude!

I got a question last night about the high sync stuff i do a lot with the Nikon D700 and the SB-900:

"Why do you use a cable instead of the new generation PocketWizards with TTL & high sync capability"

After reading this question, i think it is time to share my view on this :-)

But first things first, Why do i need High Speed Sync?

Simple answer: because of fast glass, the sun and my willingness to shoot with strobe-light!

Technical answer: because i like to shoot my fast glas wide open or nearly so, let's say f:1.8 tot f2.2 and the Nikon D700 has ISO200 as recommended base, combine this with daylight and it's really easy to exceed the 1/250th sync limit... sadly this is way too fast for standard flash operation

What are the solutions?

Use a -2 or -3 stop ND filter witch will cut down the light and lower the shutter speed*

Close down aperture (but i don't want to do this)

Turn off the sun (can't do)

Lower the ISO to 50 or 25 (No can do)

Use high speed syncing (Yes, we can! and we will!)

(*) Using the ND filter feels like draining more battery power and the flashead has to work harder so this is only a second best option for me combined with a speedlight, if you are working with larger flasheads this is the way to go!


What are the High speed syncing options for a Nikon guy?

- On camera flash (no thank you)

- Off camera through the use of CLS, Nikon's creative lighting system (no can do, too much money for dedicated flash and there are some issues like "line of sight" between commander and units and some problems using this in broad daylight as it is based on infra red signals)

- Special (read expensive) dedicated Pocketwizards units that will allow a lot of fun and creativity (not the usual Pocketwizards, they will only sync to your max sync speed!)

- Off Camera full TTL Cable you can buy at flashzebra.com (only 1 flash can be connected)


I choose the Cable, but why?

it's 7,50 meters long which will allow for enough possibilities to place my flash head

in 90% of the shoots i will only use "1 extra light" setups (keep it simple, remember)

it's cheap and works like a charm

Light and portable, Just a guy with a camera and a flashead on a light stand

no need for extra batteries, triggers, receivers

I keep full manual control with the extra of going over my max sync speed


And if tomorrow i go out shooting with the PhaseOne or the Hasselblad i won't get far with the special pocket wizards, or even less far with dedicated Nikon flashes and CLS...


I hope this clears out my choice and if you too have questions, don't hesitate to contact me!

http://flashzebra.com/




Thursday, December 1, 2011

Arwen @ Hofstade

Arwen just turned 16, sweet sixteen as they say :-)

As the Bloso domain of Hofstade was strategically placed in between of our homes we quickly decided this was going to be the ideal place for our shoot together and we got pretty lucky with the weather too, 15°c and sunshine in November is not really normal but you won't hear me complaining!

MUA: Yinka Gboyega




All my shoots will be done with the 85mm 1.4 in the future, the 70-200 stays in the bag, i'm just looking out for a 300mm 2.8 that will be ideal for some close-up portraits, without the problems of close focus and deformation that you would get with closer focal ranges


Strobist info, once again i use 2 lighting styles:

1 the Sunbounce mini silver as a soft shadow fill





And as a second lighting setup , the "shoot-through white umbrella" lighted by the SB-900 triggerd with the Cord that will allow me to keep all manual setting but shoot high-sync