Description: "Great Catch Light For The Eyes"
Items:
Ring Light
Light: 500w 18" Diva Ring Light Continuous. Positioned directly in front of the subject.
Vertical Strip Bank
Light: (2) 4ft fluorescent lighting bank (4) "T8" bulb housing 128w. Positioned on each side of the subject.
Backdrop
Green flower textured background
Woman
Subject is comfortably sitting on a stool. Looking straight through the ring light directly at the camera.
DSLR
Camera: Canon 5DMarkII
Lens: 70-200mm IS F2.8
Shutter: 1/1250
F-Stop: 2.8
ISO: 800
Focal Length: 100mm
Check out my video on YouTube where I explain how I achieved this shot.
Description: "Beauty Wrap"
Items:
Lighting:
(2) 400w Bowens strobes
22" Beauty Dish
60" Octabox
Octabox:
60" Octabox serves as the a white background set at half power, positioned 2" behind subject. You want the Octa close enough to where it is almost touching your subject.
Beauty dish with diffusion:
22" Beauty Dish with diffusion on a boom placed approximately 5' in the air above the subjects face positioned camera center.
Woman
Subject is comfortably sitting on a stool, looking straight at the camera. Subject distance 1.8m
DSLR
Camera: Canon 5DMarkII
Lens: 70-200mm IS F2.8
Shutter: 1/125
F-Stop: 14
ISO: 100
Focal Length: 105mm
Description: "Color and Fog"
Items:
Black backdrop
No description for this item.
Red gel
No description for this item.
Woman
No description for this item.
(D)SLR
Camera: Canon 5DmarkII
Lense: 70-200mm IS F2.8
Shutter: 1/160
F-Stop: F9.0
Iso:100
Focal Length: 70mm
Monobloc
400w Fotodiox strobe with purple gel set at 1/4 of it's power. The blue gel is represented as the purple fog.
Octobox with grid
50" Octa with grid set at 1/2 power, positioned left of camera, right side of subjects. The Octa Serves as the main light.
Blue gel
No description for this item.
Monobloc
400w Fotodiox strobe with red gel set at 1/4 of it's power
Description: "Face Forward"
Items:
22" Beauty dish with diffuser
On boom raised approximately 6' feet in the air facing the model.
Black backdrop
10x20' Back Drop
Woman
Subject distance 1.4m
Elinchrome D-lite RX4
Set at half power.
(D)SLR
Camera: Canon 5D MarkII
Lens: Canon 70-200mm IS F2.8
Shutter: 1/125sec
F-stop: F13
ISO:100
Focal Length: 200mm
Description: "Shooting Outdoor with a Strobe"
This shot was taking in the outside waiting area of the train station in Orange New Jersey! It was a bright sunny day so I wanted to place the model in some shade, placing her in the shade resulted in losing a lot of light . This is where my little one light setup came in handy. I have a 580exII mounted to at 32x48in softbox using a T- Bracket.
I positioned the SB in a horizontal orientation, angled at 45 degrees, and raised about 4ft in the air. I would normally raise this set up higher but being that the subject was about 2ft below ground level I didn't have to bring it up too high. After getting the model in the desired pose, I had her to look sightly into the direction of the light then let it rip.
Items:
Woman
No description for this item.
Speedlight
Canon 580EXII
Settings: Half Power
Softbox
Fotodiox 32x40, locked in a horizontal position.
DSLR
Camera: Canon 5D MarkII
Lens: 70-200mm IS F2.8
Shutter: 1/160 sec
F-Stop f/4
ISO: 100
Focal Length: 100mm
Description: "Colorize Your Subject"
Achieving this shot was not at all an easy task, but like everything thing else that requires work it reaped it's rewards. Shooting with gels can add some creative flavor to your images, besides that they are just fun to work with. When implementing other elements such as gels, ambient light, and slow shutter it adds a great deal of drama making your work more appealing. I now want to dive in on how I actually achieved this shot. After adjusting the power settings on each strobe. I then set my Canon 580EXII up as a master flash placed it to rear curtain sync and dialed the power all the way up, (please refer to the video below on how to put your flash in rear curtain sync) Doing this gave me the ability to fire off the strobes when the 580EX commanded them to. Without setting up the speedlite as a commander the strobes would fire as soon as the shutter release defeating the purpose of rear curtain sync. Now that that's all said and done, it was time to adjust my camera settings. This took a bit of experimenting along with trail and error, ultimately it all depends upon your personal preference. The key is to drag your shutter to capture movement before the flash freezes it. After I found my sweet spot there was nothing else left to do but shoot. When the shutter released I had 2.5 second to capture the movement. I direct the talent to hold still as I slowly pivoted the camera from left to right. With the slow shutter in conjunction with the rear curtain sync I was able to capture some of that blurred movement you see in the photos. Here are the exact camera settings I used to nail this shot.
(D)SLR
Camera: Canon 5DMarkII
Lens: 70-200mm IS F2.8
Shutter: 2.5sec (This gave me the best results in terms of exposure and movement]
F-Stop: 14 [Shooting at F.14 gave me a very sharp and focused picture]
ISO: 100 [When shooting strobe you want your (ISO) at its lowest for a clean image]
Focal Length: 200mm [I wanted to zoom all the way in for a nice tight shot]
Subject Distance: 1.4
Items
Backdrop
10 x 20 Deep Grey Savage backdrop.
Deep Blue gel
8-1/2" x 11" Transparent Cello Sheet
22" Beauty Dish with diffuser
The Beauty Dish is located camera center 5' away from the talent,
raised approximately 5'5" in height attached to an Avenger C stand on a boom.
Circular silver reflector
43" Silver reflector clamped to a light strand acting as a fill.
Monobloc
600w Fotodiox Strobe with a orange gel set to 1/2 power. Because this gel is much lighter in color it requires less light in comparison to the blue gelled strobe positioned camera right.
Reddish Orange gel
8-1/2" x 11" Transparent Cello Sheet
Monobloc
600w Fotodiox Strobe with a red gel representing purple. Power setting 3/4. This strobe is positioned camera left aiming directly at the right side of the talent's face.
Woman
The Talent is comfortably sitting on a stool looking directly into the lens of the camera.
Monobloc on boom
400w Elinchrome D-Lite4 RX set at roughly 1/4. The light from the Beauty Dish acted as a main fill light. I intently kept the power of the "BD" really low to preserve the richness and vibrancy of the colors from the gels.
Speedlight with grid Canon 580EX II with a purple Rosco gel and grid set at full power 1/1. I wanted to get as much punch as I possibly could from this little guy. The flash is on a boom positioned camera left also aiming at the left side of the talent's face.
Blue gel
8-1/2" x 11" Transparent Cello Sheet
Monobloc
600w Fotodiox Strobe with a blue gel power set at 3/4. Typically when shooting with darker gels, it requires much more light to effectively project through. This strobe is positioned camera right acting as a rim light on the talent.
This is a red gel represents purple
8-1/2" x 11" Transparent Cello Sheet
These awesome Cello Sheets can be found on Amazon for $8, it's a great value. http://www.amazon.com/Pack-8-1-Transparent-Cello-Sheets/dp/B000K78HUI/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1387516387&sr=8-1&keywords=cello+sheets
YouTube user FStopArmy shows how to put your Canon Flash in "Rear Curtain Sync"
