The Photo Journey » lighting

Stobes in Landscape Photography

Scott — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 02:22:02 +0000

Using small portable strobes when capturing a landscape can dramatically transform a scene. Sometimes the use of a small light to illuminate for instance a leaf in a rainforest can focus a viewers eye. They are also great for lighting the shadow side of very large subjects like this weeks subject the HMQS Gayundah ship wreck. I have put together a short video where I walk you around the wreck and explain my lights setup.

Not only is this my weekly landscape 52 shot it is also my entry for the Strobist boot camp III, Assignment 3 competition. HMQS Gayundah was a flat-iron gunboat operated by the Queensland Maritime Defence Force and later the Royal Australian Navy (as HMAS Gayundah). She entered service in 1884 and was decommissioned and sold in 1921 where it was used as a sand and gravel barge and was later run aground at Woody Point, Redcliffe to serve as a break-wall in 1958.

I had arrived at 4:45am so I had plenty of time to setup the gear and try a few compositions. I ended up using 2 Cactus KF36 stobes set at full power and positioned down the side on the ship. These were fired with Cactus V2 remotes. It took a little time to position the lights so that there was an even distribution of light. I started with capturing the correct flash exposure for the wreck and I then dialed in a longer shutter speed to bring in the ambient sunrise.

To really appreciate the size of the wreck and get an understanding of the light setup I have put together a small video. I would love to hear your comments and critique on both the shot and the video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Strobist Boot Camp – XXXX Beer Video Tutorial

Scott — Fri, 05 Aug 2011 00:27:56 +0000

Strobist.com run by David Hobby is one of my favourite websites. Every few years David runs a project called Strobist Boot Camp to basically get strobist photographers out into their community and push their lighting limits. For assignment 2 in this years Boot Camp David, wanted us to go out and photograph a local object or something of significance in our community.

After the year of disasters Queensland has had this year, with the massive floods and cyclones, I wanted to shoot something that stood for the great work done by Queenslanders to clean up and move forward.

XXXX Gold is brewed about 10km from where I live. It is the most iconic beer of Qld here in Australia. They put some great advertisements out congratulating Queenslanders on their great fighting spirit after the disasters. What’s more Australian than a good Aussie Beer?

And as usual here is my set up image. The white paper behind the bottles made a massive difference to the colour of the bottles. Such a simple addition but so key to the final image.

I have also put together a short behind the scenes (BTS) video of the shoot explaining my lighting and set up. You can expect many more of this in the next few months as product photography is really appealing to me. So keep your eyes out and feel free to submit ideas of things you would like to learn how to light and shoot.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Boost Colours with a Polarizer

Scott — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 13:02:31 +0000

I know I have blogged already about how great a circular polarizer is but this week I’m not talking about how it can cut reflections or let you look into water. This week I want to show you how you can boost your colours with a circular polarizer particularly greens.

To demonstrate the effects on colour saturation by using a circular polarizer this week I took 2 photos from exactly the same position with 1 stop of compensation for the circular polarizer. Each image has had exactly the same post processing applied. You will notice firstly the lily pads being a much deeper green and no glare. The glare has also been cut out of the palm trees. You will also notice the extra saturation in the reds and yellows.

The best way to see the effects of the circular polarizer whilst out on location is to turn on live view and watch the dramatic changes as you turn the filter on the back of your camera before you even push the shutter.

Earlier this week I came across the following great video that sums this up very well. It is made by Olivia Speranza from oliviatech.com. She has some great tips and tricks on here site. I recommend you have a look at it.

Location tips

Scott — Tue, 15 Feb 2011 23:43:52 +0000

There are a few important things to take into account before setting up at a location for your landscapes. I want to share with you my top 3 tips on setting up on location.

The photo below was taken at Look At Me Now Headland in Emerald Beach, NSW. We had gone for a swim on the beach around the corner and we took the long walk home to check out possible locations for that afternoons sunset. The headland has a multitude of locations to shoot from and come sunset the mountains on the horizon add another dynamic.

Canon 40D @10mm, f11, 1/20th with Tiffen 0.9 ND Filter

For this shot I really wanted to capture the motion of the breaking waves cascading down the cliff-face walls. To do this I would need an exposure of at least a quarter of a second, probably longer. Timing is everything in a shot like this. By using a cable release I could concentrate on watching the waves role in and at the high point of the wave on the cliff reel off the shot.

Tip 1 – Whether its a sunrise or a sunset always take a good reliable torch with you. The torch will help you when focusing in low light by simply pointing it at your foreground subject and using the Auto Focus. Once you have got focus switch your lens to Manual Focus so you do not need to keep setting the focus from shot to shot. Just remember to set it back once you recompose or put the camera away.

Torches are also handy for making sure you can safely enter or exit your location. If you are looking at buying a torch go with something that has a nice long throw of light and is fairly rugged as it will probably see some tough days.

Tip 2 – Some locations are dangerous so always think about yours and the safety of others with you first. This weeks location involved a very steep rocky edge with plenty of loose rubble. One wrong step and I could plunge 2o+ meters to the base of the cliffs. I first attempted at getting into position for the shot without my tripod and camera to make sure it was safe. Always take into account the weather conditions as the wind or rain can make a once safe location a disaster waiting to happen. Putting your life on the line for a landscape is just silly so look for somewhere or something else to shoot. Where possible shoot with a friend and keep an eye on each other.

Tip 3 – Walk around your locations without your eye to the camera. Try different angles and take it all in. Work out what specific features you want to capture and how you would go about capturing them. What lens will you use? Will it be a landscape or portrait orientation? Do you need to use any filters? Once you have done this you can then put the camera to your eye and squeeze off a few tests.

Keep returning to the same locations for years to come because they can be so dramatically different from day to day and who knows maybe you will find something you have missed in the past.

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Inspired by sound BTS video

Scott — Sun, 26 Dec 2010 21:20:00 +0000

Here is the last video in the series of videos of how I took my photos for this years Canon Photo5 Competition. Check out the other photo5 blog posts here.

Brief 5 was to listen to a sound clip from the Canon website and use it as inspiration for the final image.

The sound reminded me of my grandfather snoring so I had the inspiration and now I just needed to come up with how to setup the lights and camera to match my minds eye.

Once again it was recorded and edited all on my iPhone 4. Interesting exercise. Love to hear your comments.

Confetti Cleanup – BTS Video

Scott — Thu, 09 Dec 2010 02:37:42 +0000

Here is the 3rd in a series of videos on how I took my photos for this years Canon Photo5 Competition. Check out the other photo5 blog posts here. For more information on the competition check out the website.

Brief 3 was to incorporate confetti in motion. This was going to be 1 messy shoot

I wanted to capture the cleanup after the party. I put together a short video of the setup explaining the lights used and the way I rigged up the vacuum cleaner. Over a month after the shoot I have still managed to find confetti all around the house.

Once again it was recorded and edited all on my iPhone 4. Interesting exercise. Love to hear your comments.

Bubble Gum Brief Video Tutorial

Scott — Mon, 18 Oct 2010 05:27:23 +0000

So this is the first in a series of videos on how I took my photos for this years Canon Photo5 Competition. The way the free competition works is Canon send out a couple of thousand brown boxes with 5 random briefs for the entrant to complete. This year Canon announced a portfolio category that got me really excited to complete all 5 briefs. For more information on the competition check out the website.

Brief 2 was a portrait that had to include some bubble gum that they had supplied. I hated the stuff as a kid and I still do. I was very depressed to see it in the box at first. I wanted to capture something that showed the bubble gum inflated and then popped. My initial idea had been done by numerous other competitors so I wanted something totally different and eye catching. Then it hit me a double exposure would capture both states of the balloon, but first I had to work out how the heck to do it on a digital camera. I did some research and came across an article about an international fashion photographer called Joe Oppedisano. He took some amazing double exposures on film back in the 80/90′s in a series titles “Inner Self”. They were amazing and instantly I pictured my shot. Now I just had to work out how to do it in camera. There was to be no Photoshop here.

I was wrapped with how the final image turned out. I couldn’t have pulled it off without my wife Anna who put up with my directions of moving an inch this way and an inch that way. She managed to blow some great bubbles. Especially considering we were up till midnight shooting.

Check out the BTS video on how I did it. It was recorded and edited all on my iPhone 4. Interesting exercise. Love to hear your comments.

Shooting bikes on seamless white

Scott — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 08:27:12 +0000

How can I shoot bikes on a seamless white background? I received an email with this question after creating my seamless white background video. The challenge was to shoot a mixture of shots, for example close ups of components, and a shot of an entire bike, with a white background. So here is the tutorial.

For these shots I decided I needed to come up with a way of blowing the ground white as well at the wall. Something I had not previously done. I have adapted my technique from that of Zack Arias who has been shooting portraits on seamless white for years. He has used a technique of positioning the subject on tile board that is sort of glossy to give some grounding to his subject by providing a reflection. It is a great medium for blowing white and it is also very cheap. I picked up 2 sheets of white melamine mdf (1200 x 900) for $14.50AUD each at my local hardware shop. I think you can get it in larger sizes also.

Here is the setup I used for the latest Bike shots. I have 2 Cactus KF36 strobes pointed at the back wall both set as 1/4 power. They are also both an equal distance from the back wall to give an even coverage of light. The wall will now become the 4th light source as it reflects light back at the camera and onto the floor.

The bike must be positioned further from the wall than the 2 cactus stobes so that no light from the strobes directly hits the bikes frame. You may need to flag your strobes like I have on the right hand strobe.

Another Cactus KF36 is used to expose the bike with the use of a shoot through umbrella. This will give a nice wrapping light to the bikes components. This would probably be best positioned directly behind the camera. The lower to the ground your camera is the better the reflection you will get from the mdf boards.

For the close up component shots, like gears and derailleurs, keep your camera settings the same and zoom in or move yourself closer to the components. The lights will work the same as long as you don’t directly stand in the path of the umbrella.

When it comes to the post processing it is much the same as I explain in my video blog post about white seamless shots. Simply up your exposure so that more areas are blown out white and then bring back some of the detail in the bike by increasing the blacks. Then run a curves adjustment layer and do a sharpen to the image. In the end I decided to delete the reflection the mdf boards gave me on the entire bike shots as they didn’t fit in with the eventual advertisements my brother will use the shots for.

If you have any further questions or want me to do a post processing video on the bikes let me know. I’m more than happy to do tutorials on anything you guys want. Just drop me a line on the contact page.

Donnie Bishop Shoot

Scott — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 06:11:57 +0000

Back at the start of the year I did a photo-shoot for an Australia Clothing label called Donnie Bishop. Starting with the simple concept of wanting to bring an edgier style to the standard menswear market in Australia, owners Jason Sandhar and Viggaenesh Kanniah have spearheaded this lifestyle brand to encompass a hip hop style while working with underground and up-and-coming artists, models, musicians and sports persons like Brisbane Roar’s striker Reinaldo. The A-league Brisbane based star is the new ambassador for Donnie Bishop’s Clothing.

I was approached by Donnie Bishop’s Co-Owner Jason Sandhar to come up with a theme for a shoot with Reinaldo. With Donnie Bishop Clothing being such a casual/dressy urban style, and Reinaldo being such a skillful professional footballer, I wanted to bring the two elements together with a Street Football feel. Brisbane has some great alleyways in the city, and these provided us a great environment for the theme. Anna and I inspected the alleyways the week before the shoot to formulate some ideas. Its amazing what you can learn about your city if you just go for a walk with your camera and get lost in the back streets.

We decided to do the shoot on a Sunday afternoon as A) Reinaldo had time to recover from him Friday night match and B) the streets would be a little quieter. The majority of the shoot was done with 1 Cactus KF36 strobe on a shoot through umbrella mixed with available light. Oh and here is a tip for if your planning on doing a shoot in alleyways anytime soon. Take a towel to lay or sit down on as there can be a fair bit of broken glass and generally yucky stuff in the alleys.

Reinaldo was a champion subject for the whole shoot. He had a very relaxed attitude to the shoot and it is apparent in the photos. His football skills are amazing, the ability to juggle a football with those square toed dress shows was awesome to watch. I was somewhat star struck to be shooting such a great athlete.

Checkout more pictures and the clothing @ – www.donniebishopclothingco.com

Happy Easter!

Scott — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 04:04:17 +0000

Easter has arrived once again and I have seen some great shots over on flickr marking the occasion. I have been trying to think of the perfect Easter themed strobist shot when I noticed the Easter Raffle being held at my work. It was a massive basket full of chocolate. I had an idea for a shot but I had to win the basket first. So I bought my 3 tickets and on the day of the draw told everyone to come along to morning tea and see me win. I was rather cocky about it all. Sure enough the winning ticket was mine. I double fisted the sky like an F1 driver who had just won the championship. Just goes to show that as long as you believe in something enough you can make it happen.

So I went about drawing up my idea that had developing in my head over the previous week. I wanted to do a not so pleasant family shot. More of a chocolate lover treating the basket like Gollum and his precious ring. It would need some harsh lighting on my face and a deep red gel behind on a wall giving some separation and mood. As you can see in the setup shot below it deviated a little from my initial sketch.

I used my reflective umbrella with a Cactus KF36 @ 1/16 but pointed up so that just feathered light fromthe edges of the umbrella would fall in the basket. Then I positioned a Cactus KF36 with a red gel @ 1/4 on a seat behind the basket. I would straddle this seat for the final shot. After a few test shots things were looking good. I was time to introduce another KF36 @ 1/2 power with my short snooted grid positioned directly above the camera and pointed towards my face. It was secured with a Nasty Clamp which took a few attempts to get positioned correctly as the gridded snoot gives a very narrow light beam. Any wider and it would have ruined my red gel from behind.

So other than the lighting I melted 2 small eggs in a cup and went about pouring it on my face and napkin. Then drank the rest and quickly went about bursting off 30 or so shots before the chocolate had set on my face. I had hidden my remote shutter release behind the basket and set a 2 sec timer. Camera was set at f20 for a dark environment and shutter speed on 200th of a sec for syncing with my remotes. ISO was at 400.

Post Processing was rather light on. I boosted the contrast with a basic curves adjustment and added a little more darkening to the edges of the frame. Little bit of dodging and burning to the chocolates.

Anna wasn’t so keen on the final image, actually she had seen all 30 shots and was disturbed by my eyes in each of them She said I looked like Gollum or a Zombie which was exactly the look I was going for so I guess its a winner.

Seamless White Video Tutorial

Scott — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 03:30:39 +0000

My Self Sportraits on white backgrounds have really generated some interest in the first 60 days of my 365 Photo Journey,. A few people have asked how I do them. So for day 63 I setup my very dodgy Fujifilm D5000 and recorded my setup and then did a quick post processing tutorial. Sorry for the lack of video and sound quality. Its my first go at something this in-depth.

I’d love to hear your comments and see your result from following the tutorial.

Capping off a big weekend – Product Shoot

Scott — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 01:49:09 +0000

After a massive weekend of photographing babies one day and a formal themed Christmas party the next, I finally had time late on Sunday afternoon to do a few test shots of Hats. A Queensland clothing company has approached me to shoot their hats and shirts for advertising and online sales. I needed to present them an idea of what we can do for them.

The setup for this was very easy. Obviously for the actual shoot I will use a table and not my super comfy lounge.

I made use of all 3 of my lights. 2 bare bulb @1/4 power and the other shot through my umbrella @ 1/4 power.

Using my large white foam core boards I setup one as the base and the other about 2 feet behind the hat as my background. This board will provide fill-light that will bounce back at the hat.

I shot from underneath the right corner of the umbrella. This gave me a nice angle on the hat with its leading logo on the peak of the hat.

I achieved a black shadow inside the hat by rolling up my black reflective umbrella material into a ball and sticking it inside the hat. Not sure I will go with this in the actual shoot as the hats will be the truckie style.

I then headed off to Photoshop to cleanup the image and make sure my white backdrop was pure white.

Added a Levels Adjustment Layer, and made sure my surrounding white areas are pure white
Added a Curves Adjustment Layer with a slight S Curve
Added a Colour Adjustment Layer to improve the yellows and greens
Added a Vibrancy Adjustment Layer and boosted the colours a little
Cropped the image to a tighter fit

The Client is very happy with the results of the test shoot and has set me up with 9 different hat designs to shoot and a heap of Mens shirts. I will blog about the actual shoot soon and let you know who the Clothing company is. Oh and BTW the designs of their gear are very funky.