Back to Hofstade!

There is something about this location in the winter that i really like, so we went there for Enisa's winters' snow shoot - 'strobist style'

This is somewhat how i prepare my flash and trigger to shoot in humid conditions:

Just a transparent plastic bag and a yellow stretcher , same stuff to protect the transmitter 'on camera'

The images ... (all with white shoot through umbrella)

Second Strobistworkshop

Few days ago we had our second strobist workshop ( www.strobista.com ), once again with a very nice audience and a very elegant model: Elke. (You might recognize her from my previous shoot at the studio ;-) )

The workshops are there to share our knowledge and experience, we try to keep it very to-the-point so max 6 students per workshop.
As it was snowing outside of Fort 5 @ Edegem there was a nice flow of light coming trough the windows, an ideal challenge to crank up the iso's and make some "about" pictures at 6400 iso and use the big aperture f 1.6 / f2 resulting in a very shallow DOF



So here you can see my colleague Peter explaining stuff about the beauty dish (with extra diffuser)





Yep, that's where the light comes from, just to be sure :-p

This is the result with the right camera angle

50mm ISO 200, f:5.6, 1/125th,
SB28 at 1/4 power in the beauty dish, camera left 45° high
AF-540-FGZ at 1/8 power, 1/2 CTO + gridded snoot, camera left, 3 meters behind model



Strobist info, same settings as previous photo, except the hair light is now a "bonnet" light and on the right side behind the model

Elke @ the studio

Playing with a striplight and a fine model in the studio can really deliver some nice results, just one light, using the light to sculpt the model out of the darkness...

Added some theatrical decor, follow the light

And spice it up a bit!

Next decided to do some clamp lighting, bare flash, standard reflector high right and a very frontal striplight on the left, ratio 1/1

Let the model fill the frame, 2 shoot trough umbrella's left and right of the camera 1/1 ratio, let's add some more spice!

Thanks to Elke and Elke Tuteleers who did the make-up :-)

800 Ws Ringflash

Thought this might be something nice to buy second hand, a battery operated 800Ws Ringlflash, just had time to do a quick test, D700 50mm @f8 1/200.

Looks promising, not?
Not quite Dave Hill but i don't like to imitate, I'd rather innovate ;-)

After this short test outside in the cold we went back to the studio, another shot with the ringflash. Pentax K10D tamron 28-75 @ 65 f:8 1/125th

Then we put the ringflash aside and choose some other lighting approach:

2 lights on the background (left & right softbox) and 2 lights with shoot trough umbrella's left and right of me, left umbrella at 1/2 power of right one

And the same lighting set-up, but this time the lights are balanced 1/1

thanks to Natalie, Nathalie and Little Black Rose for the make-up!