Alyssa and Alana - Military shoot Pt I

Canon 5D mk II 70-200 f2.8L IS II iso200 1/160@f4

Took the first flight over to Oahu on Easter Sunday to meet up with Chaz from After6Media for another joint shoot at the Naval Air Museum at Barbers Point on Oahu.

This time our models were Alyssa and Alana and our makeup artists were Chastity and Sarah.

The Naval Air Museum staff was very helpful with this shoot, doing everything from moving and positioning vehicles to holding lightstands and reflectors.  They even helped to instruct our models on the proper holding and use of the many firearms we had access to.  They really made the photoshoot go smoothly.

Canon 5D mk II 70-200 f2.8L IS II iso200 1/160@f2.8

Started out with Alana and a rocket launcher.  We used a California Sunbounce SunSwatter to diffuse the sunlight and a WL1600 with a beauty dish for the main light. We actually had two of the 1600s set up, but found that one was enough.

Our next set was on a tank named "The Duke".

Canon 5D mk II 70-200 f2.8L IS II iso200 1/160@f5.6

For a lot of these shots also I used a circular polarizer and an ND filter on the lens to help darken the sky.

Canon 5D mk II 24-105 f4L IS iso200 1/160@f2.8

The wind was doing amazing things with Alana's hair.  Kinda distracted me though - I should have also done a wide shot showing more of the turret, but didn't think about it at the time.

Both Chaz and I had a lot of our own concepts to shoot, so he primarily worked with Alana on this day while I worked with Alyssa.

Alyssa has been studying acrobatic silk work and the tank gave us a great opportunity to put her skills to work.

 Once she got the silk set up she started rocking the shoot.

Canon 5D mk II 70-200 f2.8L IS II iso200 1/160@f4

The wind was blowing quite a bit (the location is on an active airfield after all), but amazingly Alyssa was able to position herself so that we could get the shots we wanted.

Canon 5D mk II 70-200 f2.8L IS II iso200 1/160@f4

We used the WL1600/Beauty Dish again to fill in the harsh shadows.  One thing about the WL1600s - they are DURABLE.  The wind actually knocked the lightstand over while we were at the tank, denting the beauty dish and shattering the flashtube.  I figured the light was completely trashed.  When I got back to Maui however, I replaced the flashtube and tested it and amazingly the WL1600 is still working!

Alyssa is just fearless when it comes to posing - "Want me to hang from a tank turret holding a rifle? Suuuuure!  How about if I do it inverted?".

Canon 5D mk II 70-200 f2.8L IS II iso200 1/80@f2.8

We worked with one of the Navy jets next. Used the WL1600 with a 7" reflector for the main and an AB800 with the beauty dish for fill.  By this time the sun was a little lower in the sky so that we could use it as a hairlight.

Canon 5D mk II 70-200 f2.8L IS II iso200 1/160@f5.6

Played around a bit with the positioning and the various signage on the plane.

Canon 5D mk II 70-200 f2.8L IS II iso200 1/160@f7.1

We tried several variations of outfits.  I think the red worked out the best. Red, white & blue - a future Navy recruiting poster maybe?

Canon 5D mk II 70-200 f2.8L IS II iso200 1/125@f5.6

We also tried a few shots on top of one of the jets where Alyssa wrapped a silk around her body and let the wind blow through it.  Since she was pretty high up, I couldn't get exactly the right camera angle and placement of the light I was looking for.  Something to maybe save for the next shoot.

 Canon 7D 24-105 f4L IS iso200 1/250@f5.6

Did some playful shots as well.  Alyssa is great with expressions like this.  Of course, we had a bit of a run in with security right after we took this shot.

Canon 7D 24-105 f4L IS iso200 1/250@f5.6

Also did some shots with Alyssa and Alana together.

 Canon 7D 24-105 f4L IS iso200 1/250@f5.6

 Canon 7D 24-105 f4L IS iso200 1/250@f5.6

Canon 7D 24-105 f4L IS iso200 1/200@f5.6

We ended up at the Huey for some final shots. The image stabilization on the 24-105 f4L IS lens is pretty darned good - this was handheld at 1/15th shutter speed.

Canon 7D 24-105 f4L IS iso200 1/15@f5.6

We then wrapped up and headed back to the airport to catch the last flight back to Maui.

Anyone that tells you that being a model is easy - that's a load of bullpucky.  Dehydrating in the hot sun, posing in the wind, hanging from silks, balancing on airplanes, these girls worked their butts off that day so that we could get some cool shots.  Mahalos to our models Alyssa and Alana, our makeup artists Sarah and Chastity and the staff at the Naval Air Museum for another awesome shoot!

What lighting gear to buy?

Recently a reader from the UK emailed me about what lighting gear to buy to get the kinds of images I post on the blog.  After recovering from the shock (you mean, people actually READ this blog?!?!?), I started writing my reply and thought it might be a good subject for a blog post as well.  Here's my response:

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Thank you for the compliment.  To be honest, I'm still learning a lot of these things myself - I'm not even close to being able to do any workshops of my own yet.

The Canon 5D mk II is an excellent camera to work with, and I've heard good things about the 50mm 1.2L as well (that's probably the next lens I'll buy the next time I visit Tokyo).

It's difficult to answer your question about what to get for lighting equipment because each photo session I do is different.  Sometimes I'll use just natural light.  Sometimes I'll use a reflector. Sometimes it's one strobe and an umbrella.  

Sometimes I get crazy and try 6 strobes with Octodomes, softboxes, gels, fans, etc.  

I seriously need to have my head examined. ;-)

My best advice for you is something I learned from one of my instructors when I was first starting out:

DON'T go out and buy a whole bunch of lights and accessories at first.

Start small.  Start with just one light.  Just one.  Only one.  ONE LIGHT.

I started out with a single Canon 550EX on a light stand and an ST-E2 transmitter so that I could fire the flash off-camera.

  

Use that light every chance you get. Learn what you can and cannot do with that one light in different situations.  

Two good resources to study when learning how to use lights are: http://zackarias.com/blog/ and http://www.strobist.blogspot.com/.

Zack Arias has a whole workshop devoted to using just one light. You would be surprised at what you can actually do with just one light.  

Once you are comfortable with and know everything about that one light, and if you feel like you want to get a modifier for it, then get one modifier.  Just one.  Only one.  The first thing I bought was a single white shoot thru umbrella.

Just get one modifier, then do the same thing - learn everything you can do with that one flash and one light modifier.  For a lot of people, that may be enough. Also, remember that when you are using that light outdoors, you actually have 2 lights at your disposal.  The sun is a light source, and you can use it as a main light, fill light, hair light, whatever, depending on how you use it in conjunction with your strobe.

If you choose to go ahead and buy more gear in the future, it doesn't matter if it's a new light or light modifier or lens or camera body or whatever, always follow the same rule - get just 1 thing at a time, use the heck out of it and get comfortable using it. 

Truly understand everything you can do with that one piece of gear before you even THINK of purchasing the next thing.

Having a lot of lighting gear is nice but the more you have, the more there is to lug around to location, and the more tired you will be from setting it all up.  Lately I've been trying to reduce the amount of stuff I have to lug around.

For example, when I travel to Japan and want to do a model shoot, I'll take just 2 speedlights, 2 lightstands, 2 shoot thru umbrellas, and radio triggers for the speedlights.  That will usually get me through about 80-90% of what I want to shoot.

Sure it's nice to look at other people's work and say  "I wish I could do that, but I don't have all that lighting gear", but my advice to you is to find your own style, your own "look".  Learn what you can do with what you already have, or what is around you.  You may find that you don't need a lot of gear to achieve "Your Look".

There are many photographers that can do a lot without having to rely on a whole bunch of gear.  Some of the best ones don't even use any strobes at all, they just utilize the natural light around them.

Hope that this helps in some small way. Whenever I blog about a photoshoot, I always try to post what setup we used for lighting, but sometimes I forget to do that.  

If you ever want to know how we did a particular shot, please don't hesitate to use the comment section on the blog to ask questions.  I may not be able to respond right away, but I will always try to answer when I can.

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To all of you that take the time to read this blog, thank you very very VERY much.  I'm flattered that you would do so.  I don't pretend to be an expert in photography or lighting by any means - I make a lot of mistakes and I'll freely admit that I still have a LOT to learn and continue to try to improve at this craft every day.  

I do remember what it was like when I first started out - once in a while I would come across an image that I really liked and when I contacted the photographer to ask questions, I got some real snotty replies. it was like a big secret - "go figure it out yourself".  I realize that many photographers are busy, but come on.  We should all help each other out because we can all learn from each other.

Thankfully, not all photographers are like that.  I've learned a lot from and have been inspired a lot by the masters like Rolando Gomez, David Hobby, Zack Arias, Chase Jarvis, Joe McNally and many more. When I started this blog I decided that though I may never be as successful or as skillful as they are, I am more than happy to share what little I do know. Hopefully something I post might inspire you or you can learn from my mistakes ( I make a lot of those).

As always if anyone ever has questions, please feel free to leave a comment or shoot me an email.  Let me know what subjects you'd like me to cover in the blog.

Mahalo!

Todd

Review: Think Tank Skin Component System

I just heard from the folks over at Think Tank Photo that they're having a sale on their belt systems so I figured this would be a good time to share thoughts on some of their gear that I use in the field.

For beach weddings I've been using a Think Tank Pro Speedbelt with several bags from the Think Tank Skin Component System.

The Speedbelt is padded, so it's pretty comfortable to wear when running around.

When you attach a modular component bag to the belt, you can choose whether or not to lock it in place by inserting the plastic tab on the back of the component bag into a loop on the belt.

Since I use the Spider Holster rigs to attach my cameras to the belt, I usually prefer not to lock the bags in place, so that I can slide them forward when I need them then slide them back when I want them out of the way.

There's several reasons why I like the Skin Component Bags.  One is that when you take a lens out, the bag can fold almost flat against your body. Below you can see it compared to the heavily padded and bulkier Lowepro lens case that I used to use. Don't get me wrong, the Lowepro bags are great too, and they really protect your gear, but having several Lowepro lens cases on my belt just made me feel a little too wide and I'd be bumping into things when trying to maneuver around a crowded room.

Another thing I like about the Think Tank bags is that the zipper pulls are non-metal.  I've broken off more metal zipper pulls than I can count (probably because of all the salt air they are exposed to at the beach).  I like the Think Tank design better because not only do they not eventually wear out and snap off, but they don't make a lot of noise that metal zipper pulls do when you are moving around during a church ceremony.

One of the main features that I like about the Skin Component System is the "Stealth Mode" velcro for the cover flaps.

This lets you cover up the velcro so that you can quickly open and close the bag without making that typical loud velcro ripping sound.

Each bag has a drawstring closure on the mouth of the bag as well as an integrated rain cover.

Some of their bags also have the additional drop down feature that lets you unzip the bottom of the bag  and extend it.  This lets you put in a lens with the hood extended so that you can whip it out, mount it to your camera, and start shooting without having to fiddle with reversing the lens hood.

Right now Think Tank is having a sale on their belt systems, so I hope you have the chance to take advantage of it.  You can see the Skin Component System here.  If you feel you need a belt system with more padded protection for your gear, they also have the Modular Belt System here.

Alyssa and Alana - Old bridge shoot

Kahulani, Ronald and I met up with models Alyssa and Alana for another shoot, this time in the late afternoon at the old train bridge in Wailuku.

Since we had three photographers this time, we planned to do two different lighting setups in separate areas so that we could all be shooting at the same time. Due to time constraints and the high winds we experienced that day, we ended up doing just one lighting setup and rotating the photographers and models through that.

While we were setting up our lighting at the location, Alyssa was already coming up with ideas I never even thought of doing at this location. Since our lighting was setup in the other arch from where she started doing these poses, we ended up shooting this with just natural light.  The sun had just gone below the mountains behind our location, but there was still enough light from the sky coming down so give her a soft rim light.  Shot it with the 85mm for a shallow DOF to pull the attention to Alyssa and also to blur out the fencing way in the background.

 Canon 5D mkII 85mm f1.2L iso400 1/640@f2.0

It was really windy at this location in the early evening and it stirred up a lot of dust.  It seemed to calm down a bit when we first got there so I thought "maaaaaaybe I could get away with putting up the Octodome if I braced the edge of it against one of the walls".

Big Mistake.

As soon as I set it up, the wind picked up again and started whipping the Octodome around in every direction EXCEPT the one we wanted.

So then I tried switching to a medium softbox.  Of course the wind just laughed at me and said "Dude, don't even THINK about it".

Soooo we finally went to the beauty dish which seemed to hold up pretty well.

Yeah I know, I know. I shoulda just started with the darn dish in the first place.
I'm dense like that sometimes.

So here is the lighting setup.  If you look at the photo at the very beginning of this post, you'll see that each wall has two archways. About the third wall in, one of the openings is sealed up. We set up in this archway, with the sealed wall behind as a backdrop.

Our main light was an Alien Bee 800 and beauty dish setup in front of the archways off to the right about 45 degrees. Behind the archway wall are 4 more lights - another AB800 and 3 Nikon SB26s. One of the SB26 flashes was used to light the back wall and the rest of the lights were setup to rim light the models and also to light the ground behind them.

This is the view from behind showing one of the rim lights- the AB800. If you look past the wall off to the left, you can see about where we placed the main beauty dish light.

Here Ronald is setting up one of the SB26 flashes on a lightstand as a rim light.  There is one more SB26 on the ground that has a CTO gel on it to add some warmth light to the ground behind the models.

Another angle (shot from the archway where the models were standing) showing the AB800 rim light and also the third SB26 which is aimed at the wall. This third SB26 was gelled to add color to the background.

All these lights were mostly triggered with Pocket Wizards.  The SB26 on the ground didn't have one attached (ran out of Pocket Wizards) so it was set to trigger optically instead. 

It was starting to get dark by this time, so we had to hurry. For the first look, we used a dark blue gel to light the wall behind the arch. If you look closely at the background light, you'll see a diagonal shaft of light below the blue - that was a happy accident - because the blue gel didn't quite cover the flash head completely.

 Canon 5D mkII 85mm f1.2L iso200 1/160@f7.1

I'd be lying if I said we meant to do that.  Sometimes things happen and it's best to just roll with it.  Especially when you're rushing to get the shots done before the wind covers your models in dirt.

Canon 5D mkII 85mm f1.2L iso200 1/160@f7.1

For the second look, we swapped out the blue gel with a red gel for the background.  This time we were able to fully cover the flash head with the red gel for a more solid background color.

 Canon 5D mkII 85mm f1.2L iso200 1/160@f7.1

 Canon 5D mkII 85mm f1.2L iso200 1/160@f7.1

Canon 5D mkII 85mm f1.2L iso200 1/160@f7.1

 

Canon 5D mkII 85mm f1.2L iso200 1/160@f7.1

 Had some more ideas I wanted to try out at this location, but will have to save them for another time.

Creating night with 2 hotshoe flashes

For our last shot of Alana, we went out into the atrium of the building where the studio was located.  This was middle of the afternoon, and a lot of natural light was coming in and bouncing around the white walls. 

Thought it would be interesting to attempt a night scene here using just hotshoe flashes.

First thing I did was set the camera's white balance to tungsten and did some test shots playing around with the exposure settings until I got the scene to a nice deep blue color:

First test shot with auto white balance:

 Switched camera white balance to "Tungsten" changes the overall color to blue:

 Increased shutter speed to darken the ambient light:

For the main light I used a Canon 550EX flash with an external battery pack, triggered with a Pocket Wizard, firing through a small softbox.  This flash was gelled with a full CTO and also a 1/4 CTO gel. The gels lit the model so that her skin and clothes would render normal on camera while everything else remained blue.

The back light was a Nikon SB-26 flash gelled with a full CTO and a 1/4 CTO gel, also triggered with a Pocket Wizard.  I added a ProKit reflector to help prevent this flash from flaring into the camera.

Didn't feel like going back to the studio to grab another lightstand, so I just used whatever was nearby to elevate this flash. Pretty ghetto, I know.

While doing test shots I kept getting reflections of the flash off of the metal columns,

 so I experimented with different positions of the main light until I settled on putting it right up next to the front column just out of the frame and skimming the light across the model's front. This had the side effect of helping to bring out the detail of Alana's red dress.

Canon 5D mkII 70-200mm f2.8L IS iso 100 1/160@f5.6

The final image came out pretty close to what I had intended.  Think it would have been nice to have a couple of zombies standing outside the glass walls behind her, but unfortunately we couldn't find any zombies that day. ;-)

Canon 5D mkII 70-200mm f2.8L IS iso 100 1/160@f5.6