International studio shoot with Irish

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

While in Tokyo this past Decemver, I had the opportunity to collaborate with a truly international team - model Irish Kashima from the Philippines, makeup artist Mai Shimura from Japan, and body painter Yilei Liu from Shanghai.

Mai was able to book us some time at the Zero Studio in Edogawabashi. This was my first time in this studio and I tried to plan out the lighting in a way that we could move quickly between setups and make the most of our time there.

Our first setup utilized an existing curtain of shiny material in the studio that was hung next to some windows.  Since there was a lot of natural light streaming in from the window,  I decided to start with a strobe setup to first overpower the ambient light, then quickly switch to a natural light setting so that we could get two different looks in one setting.

For this first setup, a Nikon SB26 with a CTO gel and a Pocket Wizard Plus II tranceiver was set up behind the curtain.  A ProKit Speedlight reflector was used to direct the light onto her hair.

The main light was a Nikon SB26 with a CTO gel and a ProKit Beauty Dish positioned to camera right. We also used a small Vornado fan to add a little lift to the model's hair.

I set the camera to Tungsten white balance and did a series of headshots.  Also added a fan to give a little lift to her hair.  In addition, Yilei held a silver California Sunbounce Micro Mini to bounce some of the main light back as fill.

Canon 5D mkII  70-200m f2.8L IS II lens iso 200 1/160 @ f4

We started adding some accessories to Irish, and since we needed Yilei to help with other things, he wasn't able to hold the reflector anymore.  I setup another SB26 on low power right next to my camera to use as a fill light instead of relying on the reflector.

The reason that I used the CTO gels and tungsten white balance for this first set was so that the incoming window light would [hopefully] turn the background blue.  You can kind of see it in the reflective surfaces of the curtain behind Irish in the above headshot.  It didn't translate so well tothe back wall however, so I added another SB26 behind Irish and put a blue gel/Stofen Omnibounce on it to color the wall behind her.

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

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

To quickly transition into our natural light look, the Pocket Wizards were turned off so that the strobes would not fire.  The camera white balance was set to cloudy white balance/aperture priority mode.

Canon 5D mkII  70-200m f2.8L IS II lens iso 400 1/125 @ f2.8

Canon 5D mkII  70-200m f2.8L IS II lens iso 400 1/80 @ f2.8

Moving to our second setup, we hung a red satin bedsheet on a backdrop stand.

You can find satin sheet sets like this at Ross's Dress for Less for around $25.  Didn't have a fabric steamer available so to help hide some of the wrinkles in the sheet, we put a fan behind it to add some movement to the fabric.

While we were testing, the Vornado turned out to be a little stronger than the white standing fan, so we swapped them around and used the Vornado in the back, with Yilei holding it and moving it from side to side to keep the bedsheet constantly in motion.

Mai adjusted Irish's lipstick to match the color of the sheet and we started shooting this look.
For lighting we used just one SB26 in a Westcott Apollo Orb Softbox to camera left.

Canon 5D mkII  70-200m f2.8L IS II lens iso 100 1/160 @ f2.8

We tried several variations on this, including wrapping one of the bedsheets around Irish as sort of an impromptu evening gown.

Canon 5D mkII  70-200m f2.8L IS II lens iso 100 1/160 @ f2.8

Canon 5D mkII  70-200m f2.8L IS II lens iso 100 1/160 @ f2.8

Found a blue muslin backdrop in the studio and wanted to try something different instead of simply hanging it.  I laid it out on the floor next to a ledge where I could get on top of for an elevated shot. We didn't have a ladder and the ceilings were pretty low, so I switched out the lens for the 24-105mm f4L IS so that we could get some full length shots.

We used some blue and pink organza fabric that I had brought and Mai wrapped them around our model.

Canon 5D mkII  24-105mm f4L IS lens iso 200 1/160 @ f4

Tried out one of the Dave Hill B/W presets in Lightroom and I kinda like what it did.  Always fun to experiment with new things.

Canon 5D mkII  24-105mm f4L IS lens iso 200 1/160 @ f4

While we were shooting these, Yilei did some sketching on a whiteboard and suggested the idea of making Irish into a mermaid using some red organza fabric.

This is why it's great to work with a team.  A lot of times ideas will come up during a shoot that you never even thought of.

We used the Westcott Orb Softbox again as our main light, and propped the Sunbounce against the ledge I was standing on to add some fill.

Canon 5D mkII  24-105mm f4L IS lens iso 800 1/160 @ f4

It took a while to get the pose and the fabric to look right.  I tried to emulate a water look in post, since we probably would not have been allowed to flood the studio floor with water.

Canon 5D mkII  24-105mm f4L IS lens iso 800 1/160 @ f4

For our last look, Mai and Yilei wanted to experiment with body paint.  The idea was to paint a dragon onto Irish's back, then drip some gold paint over it.  It was something new and interesting to try, as I had never done a bodypaint shoot yet.

To light this, I wanted to put Irish up against a black backdrop, which we did not have.  Since the studio walls were all painted white, I knew we had to really overpower the ambient light with flash in order to make the background as dark as possible.

We setup as far away from the back wall as we possibly could.  2 SB26s in Westcott Apollo Strip Softboxes were setup to light Irish from either side.  The flashes on either 1/2 or full power and positioned really close to the model, just out of frame.  This made the white wall in the background go down to a very dark grey, which we could then tweak a little darker in post.

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

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

For the last few shots, Mai and Yilei added some gold paint dripping down the dragon.  The side-lighting helped bring out the texture of the paint.

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

Canon 5D mkII  70-200mm f2.8L IS II lens iso 100 1/160 @ f6.3

Wish I could have made it look more sparkly (there were tiny flecks of gold in the paint that they used). Guess I'll need to study up more on how to light bodypainted models...

Made a short video of the shoot with lighting info and diagrams:

Christmas Fashion show at Stella Blues Cafe

Had the chance to shoot another fashion show, this time it was the Candy Cane Lane Fashion Event at Stella Blues Cafe in Kihei. This was a benefit for Toys For Tots and featured clothing lines from Karamel Collection and Pakaloha Bikinis.  Our models for this event were Brittney Baker, Aja Marie, Tami Solomon, Julianita Nakagawa, Austin Macdowel, Tiffany Russo, Ruby Barichi, Perri Kaminoff, Kapila May, Valerie Wessel and Hayley Kaysing.

Hair was done by Colours Salon and makeup done by Ry-n Shimabuku and Julianita Nakagawa.

This is what the location looked like that evening.  Dark.  Reeeealllly dark.

The original plan was to shoot with a high iso and just utilize the lighting on the runway.  However, since this location had ZERO in the way of runway lighting, we fell back to using some Strobist techniques.

I recalled from one of the Strobist DVDs that David Hobby lit a basketball court using a couple of Nikon flashes on opposite sides of a gym, and I thought it might work in this environment.  In his example, he balanced his strobes with the ambient light of the gym.  In our particular situation at this location, there was no ambient light to work with, so we used a combination of a higher iso and 3 flashes to light everything - a Canon 580EXII and 2 Nikon SB26s.

Found two light fixtures on opposite sides of the room where we could mount a flash facing the runway.  Two Nikon SB26s were mounted onto Manfrotto Justin Clamps and a Pocket Wizard Plus II Tranceiver was added to each rig.

These Justin clamps are really handy tools to have in your kit bag.  With them, you can stick a flash pretty much anywhere you can think of.

Both flashes were set to 1/8th  power and zoomed out to full wide.  These were then clamped onto the light fixtures on both sides of the room and aimed at the runway.

Right side of the room:

Left side of the room:

This gave us some nice cross lighting to work with which would help bring out the details in the clothing on the models.

To test it out, I walked alongside the runway and checked to make sure that at every spot on the length of the runway that I could still see the face of the two strobes.  This would insure that no matter where the model was on the runway, the light from the two SB26s would fall on them. Also, since the distance from the two side flashes to the models remained relatively constant, the exposures would be roughly the same no matter where on the runway the model went.

The main light was a Canon 580 EXII with a Gary Fong Lightsphere (1/2 cloud, no dome) pointed up mounted on a 5D mkII with a 24-105mm f4L IS lens.

A Pocket Wizard Flex TT1 mounted on the camera's hotshoe triggered the two remote Nikon flashes.  The 580EXII was mounted on the hotshoe of the TT1.

Shot everything in Manual mode, iso 800 1/60@ f4.  Main flash (the 580 EXII) was dialed down about 1 stop to fill in the shadows from the front.

The 580 EX II was set to ETTL mode, so that as the models got closer to the camera, the flash would adjust according to the distance.

During the show there were times when I fired too many shots at one time and the 580 EX II wasn't able to recycle fast enough.  Since the two Nikons SB26s were only set to 1/8th power, they fired pretty much every time so that there was still enough light to pull out a decent image later on in Lightroom.

Some samples from the show:

Aja Marie

Tami Solomon

Julianita Nakagawa

Austin MacDowel

Tiffany Russo

Ruby Barichi

Perri Kaminoff

Kapila May

Valerie Wessel

Hayley Kaysing

Another one of the challenges that came up during testing before the show was that the Canon 5D mk II had trouble focusing in the low lighting conditions.  To help alleviate this, an LED video light on a light stand was set up next to the camera position at the end of the runway. The camera's autofocus was set to AI Servo mode so that it would track the models as they walked toward the camera.  It ended up working about 90% of the time.  The few times that it didn't was when the camera got confused and tried to focus on the LED light of the video cameraman in the background (you can see him in some of the shots).

This shot of Brittney below is one of my favorites from the show.  It was one of the few times where everything clicked - the lighting, the pose, and the flow of the dress.

Thinking maybe the next time I shoot a fashion show, I'll try using the Canon 7D which has a better autofocus system.

Wiring up the Think Tank Multimedia Wired Up 20

One of the problems when shooting wedding videos out on the beach is trying to carry all of your gear and keep it out of the sand.  I used to use a large camera bag to hold all my stuff, but constantly worried about having to leave it unattended on the beach during a wedding.  I wanted to find something that would let me carry the vital necessities with me, yet not get in the way when filming.

I came across the ThinkTank Multimedia Wired Up 20 and it looked like it would fit the bill.  

I also ordered the Multimedia Wireless Mic Kit to go along with it. It attaches to the built in belt of the the Wired Up 20.

One of the great things about the Multimedia Wired Up series is that they designed them with small openings that allow you to run cables between the various bags.  

I have two wireless mic receivers in the Wireless Mic Kit and run the output from that bag into the Zoom H4N stored in the audio compartment of the Wired Up 20 .

Since the cables run through the bottoms of the bags, I can zip the top closed and throw on the included rain cover when needed.

The audio compartment of the Wired Up 20 is designed to open away from the body, so that you can see and adjust the levels on the screen of the audio recorder.

Had some custom right angle XLR connectors made to reduce the stress on the cables that are plugged into the bottom of the H4N.

The cord for the headphones runs through an opening on the other side of the bag.

The Wired Up 20 also comes with a hook to hang your headphones on.  Very handy to have.

The main compartment is nice and roomy.  I can fit a 5D mkII with a battery grip and a 70-200L lens (hood reversed) in the center section  with room for another lens on the side (maybe the 50mm 1.2L when I buy it later this year).

When I shoot a ceremony with my regular video cameras, a Canon XF100 and an XA10 as a second/backup camera, the Wired Up 20 is roomy enough that I can quickly store the XA10 in the bag after the ceremony and continue shooting with the XF100.

The Wired Up 20 also has large side pockets that can stretch out to hold water bottles or LCD lights, or whatever else you can think of.

It also comes with a Cable Management bag and mini bungie cords useful for storing microphone cables and things.

As I make the transition to shooting more and more video with my HDSLRs instead of my video cameras, I'll be using this setup more often since it makes recording dual system audio much easier.

Right now Think Tank Photo is offering up 11 camera pouches and memory card holders worth almost $300 that you can have added for free to your purchases when you visit their website via one of the links on this blog.  Every time you place an order with Think Tank, when you check out you will be asked which one of the items listed below you wish you receive for free.  There is no limit on the number of orders you can place.  You receive free gear with every order. 

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R.I.P. Steve Jobs

I was saddened to hear of the passing of one of the greatest individuals of our time.  Steve Jobs inspired millions to "think different" and in doing so literally changed the world with his unique vision and his approach to computers and technology. He was the Leonardo Da Vinci of our generation.

In this commencement speech from a few years ago he shares a few stories about his life, but what I find most inspiring is what he says towards the end.

" Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life.  Don't be trapped by dogma - which is living with the results of other people's thinking.  Don't let the noise of other's opinions drown out your own inner voice.  Most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition.  They somehow already know what you truly want to become.  Everything else is secondary"

Our thoughts and prayers go out to his family and friends.