Yet another of the shots I’ve always wanted to do. A little cliche, but hey. It’s a part of my little elements project, this is, of course, fire.
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Posts Tagged ‘commercial’
Playing with fire…..
Saturday, April 25th, 2009
Scody Advertising Shoot….
Friday, November 14th, 2008It was a blast to spend the day with some of Australia’s best Triathletes. Normally I watch them wizz past me on the course!! The shoot was by FusePhotography and Christian Blanchard was directing the action. I was the #2 shooter getting different angles and candid shots.
The constant heavy showers made the day quite a bit harder. I’ve never been keen on letting my cameras get wet….perhaps I’m a big sook, but these stuff is not cheep so I look after it. Rain covers, plastic bags and the good-old postie elastic band kept everything dry.
I’m pretty happy with the results. I used the ST-E2 and a remote flash (Camera left). Next time I’ll use a 580-Master on the camera with a 580-Slave off-camera for fill. Many of the shots were not clearly lit and given the brand is all important, basic front lighting is kinda important. Everything fixed up ok in post processing, but I’d prefer to get it right on-camera where possible. Given the gloomy day we used 1/2 CTO warming gels on the flashes and set the WB to cloudy. This warmed up the “models” nicely.
I’m looking forward to see the final results. I’ll start stalking Scody shops to see if my shots made the swing-tags etc… Sad I know.
Swatch product photos…
Sunday, October 26th, 2008I’m geeking out on product photography at the moment….if it’s clean and near me I’ll shoot it.
Watches have always fascinated me when it comes to product photography. I look in these glossy magazines and see the shiny metal objects that cost more than my car (not that that’s saying much), and I admire the way the photographers use specular reflections to create texture (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Specular_reflection). If you shoot a shiny silver watch alone it will look like a big silver thing with no way to discern the difference between surfaces. Specular reflections of white and black bounce cards can create texture and depth to the subject.
The watch was lit by a ring flash front-on and 2 flashes underneath. 2 white panels of foam core and 1 piece of black cardboard were used to create the specular reflections. Next time I won’t use a ring flash and use a double diffused strobe to prevent the reflections in the watch face glass.
GoNatural Bike Lighting…
Monday, August 18th, 2008Saturday 16th August saw the 4th running of MaxAdventures Go Natural Multisport. I was working for Aus Triathlete Mag and also to produce some marketing shots for the race organiser. My plan was to have shots look more commercial than normal event photography. Here is the final result.
I wanted to light the subject with the Sun as the main light and 2 x 580EX as balance. Here is the lighting plan in minute to-scale detail (NOT!!)
The sun is the main light as front 3/4 to the camera right, so to balance that out I used 1 x 580 as front 3/4 to camera left. For fill I used a second 580 at 180deg to the sun. To have full control over the flashes I wanted to use ETTL from the ST-E2. I have not used this unit nearly enough, and in this application, it was just perfect. I needed to be able to change camera settings without having to run around changing flash power. Bike riders are hardly going to wait for me!!!
Notice that the IR modules on the front of the 580s are pointed to where I was standing and the heads are pointed to the subject. This is to the IR receivers can “see” the ST-E2. The IR signal is line of sight so if they can’t “see” each other, then it just doesn’t work. The 580s are both set to SLAVE and one is A and the other is B. I have a ratio set on the flashes of A:B=2:1. With the ST-E2 I have full control over the flashes from the camera; Exposure, High speed sync, ratios etc…all from where I’m standing.
So what’s the down-side? These units MUST have line of site. If the flashes were in different locations, I might not be able to use this set-up. I have seen shots where flashes are hidden behind trees….not possible with the ST-E2s. However for this sort of thing….Brilliant!!!
Car Boom Mount Shots for Dave…
Tuesday, July 15th, 2008After a month or so of perfecting my car rig, I’ve tested it on my mate Dave……well his car anyway.
I’m pretty happy with the results. The location was not ideal, so I need to find some better spots with perfect surfaces, no traffic, good backgrounds, no security guards, a clean road……shouldn’t be that hard?!??!? The EXIF on the images is intact so you can get some secrets from there, but the rig itself is going to stay a mystery. Needless to say, you have to Photoshop it out.
The 1DsMK2 did well, but shooting at f22 you get to see every bit of sensor dust. I spend about an hour cleaning it so I am amazed just how much there was. Of course it’ve cleaned it from the shots, but believe me, there was loads there.
I have a bit to work on to make this rig easier for regular usage. There is some “bounce” in the rig if it can’t be fastened REALLY tightly at the front. Generally I’m really happy with the result.