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 ‘Studio’
Playing with fire…..
Saturday, April 25th, 2009
Water Droplet Photography…
Monday, April 20th, 2009I’ve always wanted to do the standard water droplet photo, but never had the time on my hands……until a week or so ago.
Click Image or HERE to go to gallery
Here’s the studio set-up for the shoot…..
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It was a bit of a laugh and good to have done….I do need to get a life though eh!!!
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.
Action Flash multi-pop flash set-up…
Friday, August 22nd, 2008I’ve been wanting to do the whole multi-pop flash thing for a while now, so with the upcoming MTB world cup I though it would be time to get it sorted. The problem with most multipop exposures is that they all look washed out. There is no MAIN exposure. To get around this I am using 2 fashes – one for the multipop and the other for the main exposure. You do need to have a very dark background like the night sky.
Here’s the idea :
1. Have a guess at the exposure time for the frame. In this case 1/2 a second.
2. Work out how many pops you want in the shot. In this case 4
3. work out the timing for the pops = 8 hz, 4 pops in half a second.
4. Work out the main pop exposure, remembering that shutter speed is not important only aperture.
5. Set the camera for ISO 200, f5.6 0″5 exposure (manual of course)
6. Put a Multimax on the camer hot-shoe. Multimax’s are able to hold the exposure open for the 1/2 second. The PLUSII units only send 1 pulse at the start of the exposure.
7. Connect a PLUSII to the multipop flash and set the 580 for 4 shots at 8hz
8. Connect another Multimax onto the Main flash and set the delay to fire on the 3rd of the multi-pops.
Take a test shot…..
You will see there is ghosting on the 3rd exposure. This is caused by the main and multi not firing together. Hmmmm don’t forget that the PWs have a 0.002 sec transmission delay. Back the delay timer on the main off by 0.002 sec and test again.
NOICE!!!!
SETUP Geeky stuff….
* Exposure Time = .5 Sec
* Flashes per exposure = 4 = 8hz
* Main Flash delay = ((.5 / 4) X2 ) – .002 = 0.248 (NOTE – Delay starts at the first POP so the first shot is 0, then 1, then the main flash on 2 or after 2 delays – Make sense??)
* Main flash exposure = f5.6
* Main flash power = 1/64, Multi is 1 stop down at 1/128th. (This ratio works all the way up to 1/8th power – Multipops abive this are not recommended/possible)
Now I just have to do the same thing with a MTB flying through the air at 60km/h…..Worth a try though!!.
White studio background…
Thursday, June 19th, 2008
As usual, none of these ideas are my own. I got this idea from this guys website (http://www.zarias.com/?p=71). The idea is to get the effect of a very large white background from a small studio. To achieve this you need to overexpose the white background by about 2 stops to make it 255/255/255 white. From this you can expand the background in photoshop to what ever size you want.
Here’s my Studio set-up:
* There are 2 x 600WS strobes with soft boxes to blow out the background. I chose to use the softboxes to control the spill sideways. These lights have plenty of power to achieve the light levels I was after.
* The Backdrop is white muslin over a background stand. The floor is a piece of white masonite – Good to stand on and easy to clean.
* On either side are black baffles to prevent too much light spill.
* The main subject light is a 580EX in a Lastolite EasyBox. I really love these for this little studio.
Once you have the photo into photoshop, Crop it to the size you are after and then clear the non white bits with white. For more details go to (http://www.zarias.com/?p=148).