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Archive for '• Gear & Gadgets':
Where Umbrellas Dare Not Go :: Flying Silks
Do you ever need something larger than an umbrella or softbox? Not quite sure if you are wanting to deal with a massive Octabank? Try a 12×12′ silk! Tie it up to some stands like these Matthews Tall Boys and presto! Gorgeous light.
Did you click on the links? Expensive aren't they? Not to rent!
PITA to carry around, set up, and use? Absolutely. Worth the pain in the ass it is to carry around, set up, and use? Absolutely. Want to do it on your own? Absolutely not. Bring a friend or two.
Silk's are great because they cut ambient light, you can blow flash into them, you can use them as background material, they look cool blowing around in videos, etc, etc, etc. Octa's are cool because you can blow flash into them. (crickets) No etc, etc, etc. after talking about big octa's. Don't get me wrong, octabanks are amazing light modifiers. LOVE them! But if you need something that is just as much a pain in the a$$ to set up, sand bag, and move around as a large octa is, then consider using a silk. I prefer the 12×12′ as it is really versatile at that size. I think we are paying about $25 a day to rent two silks. That's an affordable solution to a modifier that can do a number of things.
I can't show the goods from today's shoot but here is one that I really like from today showing the silk flying in the air like it just don't care.
Cheers, Zack
Black Rob :: An Audio Experiment
As we get deeper into video production I know that one skill I really need to work on is audio capture and editing. I headed out this evening with a Sennheiser ME-67 and an Edirol audio recorder. Big thanks to Marc for letting me borrow the recorder. The recording comes after the story.
Meg was in Little Five Points to purchase some props and wardrobe for a shoot we have next week. I met her there and walked around recording sounds of cars, people, etc. Someone called out to me;
"What in the hell is that thing? Is that a gun or something?"
The ME-67 is about 14 inches long and is kind of menacing looking in the dark. Black Rob (as he's known on the streets) was just making sure nothing crazy was about to go down. He started asking me about recording equipment and I started asking about his life.
I recorded Rob without the aid of headphones. I scurried out of the studio too quickly today and left my headphones behind. Always a great thing to do when trying to learn how to capture audio. Luckily the Edirol recorder has a nice level readout so I just kept my eye on that while recording.
I came home needing some music to lay under the recording I had made. Meg disappeared into Loretta (her recording studio) to create an original song just for me. She reappeared at 5am. I had cut all the parts out of the recording that I wanted and got to work in Apple's Soundtrack Pro. This is the first time I've used the program and it was the first time Meg used ProTools. We've both been sliding down a steep learning curve.
I'm sure you audio guys and gals would have some opinions on this. I would love to hear them.
Listen to the final project for the day.
Cheers, Zack
I'm freaking motivated! :: Drew Gardner DVD Review
Well I'm freaking motivated now. Meg and I just watched London based photographer Drew Gardner's DVD entitled "Location Lighting with Drew Gardner." I picked it up from Midewst Photo Exchange for $24.95. That is a grand theft video right there and it is an introductory offer. I think it is going to sell normally for $34.95 or $40. For UK readers you can purchase it from the Flash Centre for 20 pounds.
Synopsis of this DVD :: You follow Drew on two big location shoots. He walks you through the location, the lighting, the thought process, and finishes each section with a quick look at the post production. The reason the post production is a "quick look" is because he does as much as he can at the time of shooting instead of relying on Photoshop. Granted, these images "require" some compositing. I mean, where are you going to find five perfectly trained badgers? The following images are the final images from these two shoots…
These are big production shoots with a station wagon full of gear. Drew uses a Phase One medium format back, Elinchrom Ranger lights, the beautiful and remarkable Red Wing boom (I really want one of these), grids, Chimera softboxes, a smoke machine, and assistants to help him get all of this together. Here is the thing though… Do not think that you HAVE to have this gear to get something out of this video. I don't have any where near the type of gear he uses for this and I'm completely inspired to get off my arse and step up my game.
So what does that mean? That means I pick this information apart and retrofit the techniques Drew uses with the gear I currently own. That means I shoot 35mm based digital instead of medium format digital. It means I use my Alien Bees with a Vagabond battery in addition to my used Nikon flashes. The Rangers are incredibly wonderful and powerful lights but I can't yet justify the cost of them and chances are you can't either. It basically means I step up my skill set with whatever gear I have. I work within my limitations and that is going to make me a better photographer.
Another thing I think about is I can rent bigger lights if needed! I can rent a Ranger and a head for $55 a day here in Atlanta. Plan your shoots well and you can sometimes pick up rental gear on a Friday afternoon, return it on Monday and only pay for one day of rental. That gives you 2 1/2 days to shoot.
Some of you may be saying, "But I'm a wedding / portrait photographer. Why would I go to these lengths for my shoots?"
Because you could absolutely separate yourself from the pack of competition if you slowed down and thought through sessions with the detail Drew goes into. When you show up with something completely different than the standard you attract a client base looking for something different. You also attract better rates for your services because you put more into it than the new kid on the block with the camera from Best Buy.
Slowing down is something I have to be doing these days. I'm the kind of photographer who feels he must shoot, shoot, shoot and get this angle and that angle and the other angle. A lot of times this is great and keeps me on my toes but I know that I'm not getting exactly what I want because I feel some sort of internal pressure to move on to the next scenario BEFORE I get the best I can get from what is in front of me. I'm really attracted to tethered medium format digital right now because it makes you slow down and really think through the shot in front of you.
Seriously, exchange the girl on the water buffalo with a bride and you have a John Michael Cooper meets Drew Gardner kind of thing.
This DVD is NOT a down and dirty, nuts and bolts technical video. If you are new to lighting and photography in general then this one is going to go a bit over your head. This is best suited for those of you who are comfortable with lighting or at least you have the knowledge and understanding of f-stops and shutter speeds. If you are new to lighting then check out the OneLight DVD and/or the Strobist DVD for the foundations of lighting and gear.
It is currently being offered at MPEX in the US for $25 and that's a steal. I suggest picking one up before the introductory price is up.
Find out more about Drew on his blog at www.TheDarkArt.com. And here is a quick trailer for the DVD…
Cheers, Zack
PS – Yes… I taught with Drew in Dubai. NO… I'm not getting any kind of commission / kickback for posting this review! I really do love this DVD as does Meg. Yep! Even Meg got excited about photography after watching this and she isn't a photographer!
The DarkSphere + "What's In My Bag" ::
Many of you have asked about my DarkSphere that I used in the GPP group shot photo. It is pictured above attached to a Nikon SB-25. It is painted silver on the inside and black on the outside. I do not suggest painting it silver on the inside because it took about 18 months for the silver paint to dry on the inside. Paint it white instead or don't paint it at all. This is for the soft squishy model of the Lightsphere. That is a Speedotron 10 degree grid bunjeed to the flash.
Why did I do this? I like for grids to be placed a little bit off of the face of the flash head. I find that it gives a cleaner circle of light and it is much easier to bunjee to a small hotshoe flash. So I took a Lightsphere that someone gave me and painted it black to act as a sort of parabolic reflector like you find on 120j's and Q-flashes. It works exactly as I want it to work! The problem with painting one of these is that you can no longer use it as a food storage container or a cocktail glass. Oh well.
While we are nerding out and talking about gear, I thought I would do one of those "what's in your bag" blog posts that were popular a few years ago.
For my bag I use the ThinkTank Airport Security roller bag. This is THE best camera bag I have ever owned and it has more miles on it than I can count and every stitch is still in place. I love that I can lock the main compartments as well as lock the tethered cable to something so someone can't simply roll off with it. They have to show up with bolt cutters to take off with this thing.
I'm off to shoot a big Indian wedding in the morning and here is how it is packed.
In addition to my Speedo grids, I also keep two Honl Photo grids and a snoot in my bag. They are nice to just have something to slap on to a flash quickly. Here is the front flap compartments.
Yes, I'm packing both systems tomorrow. @Steve_Gray asked on twitter, "Isn't that like packing matter and anti-matter?" Hahaha! So true. Notice I had to separate them or else they would be fighting to the death!
Which one do I love more? Can't say. Can't say at all. I will tell you this though… when it comes time to shoot the reception tomorrow night I bet you the 5d goes back in the bag because the auto focus is useless in low light. You'd think they could do something about that. The D3 can focus in just about any dark environment I find myself in. The 5d requires you to be standing on the surface of the sun to have enough light to focus. Ok, maybe not right on the surface but pretty close. The AF system on the Canon can not even be compared to the Nikon. In this area Canon sucks and Nikon rocks. The rest seems to be up for debate.
I've been shooting with them side by side for the past few weeks and I'm confident I can keep them straight now as far as the vast difference in controls on each one. If you have any questions about gear and such hit me up in the comment section.
Cheers, Zack
GPP Group Shot = Pressure That Can Make Diamonds
On the next to the last day of Gulf Photo Plus I was informed by GPP organizer, Mohamed Somji, that I had the "privilege" of shooting the group shot of all the GPP staff and photographers. I would be given 15 minutes to set up and execute the shot with 25 to 40 people.I have done countless group shots in my young career but never one that had folks like Joe McNally, Drew Gardner, David Hobby, Chase Jarvis, David Nightingale, and on and on and on. No pressure.
Last year David Hobby shot the group photo. He did it available light and had the photo posted on the web in 30 minutes. He was smart. David kept it simple. I however had could not leave "well enough" alone. I wanted to make a picture that was a tribute to some of the photographers in the photo and I wanted to keep with the OneLight theme so I decided I would get everyone in the auditorium and light them individually with one light and then comp them together in post. I have "painted with strobes" a few times in my life but never on this scale. It isn't the most technically brilliant photograph I've ever made in my life but I had fun doing it. Everyone in the room had fun bustin' my chops for taking this on. Hobby had a GRAND time playing with his wizard in his pocket while I was setting this up too.
How I did it = Pretty simple
• I set my camera up on a tripod so that each shot would align in the final image to be created.
• I had my studio manager, Erik, walk around the room with a Nikon SB-25 mounted on a tripod. On the SB I placed a Lightsphere that I have painted black. I call it my Darksphere. I then bunjee'd a 20º grid on the front of that. I like to have my grids placed off of the flash tube to get a cleaner circle of light.
• I exposed somewhere around 5.6 at 250th of a second to kill the ambient light in the room. I just needed the light on each person. There are 29 people in the final shot and I used 28 frames to capture them all. Chase and his wife, Kate, were lit together for one shot.
• I tried a quick multiple exposure shot on the back of the D3 to see if my idea was going to work. In this you can see Erik holding the light on the stick.
This is what each individual shot looked like…
This is what the group shot looks like without the auditorium showing through…
Here is the auditorium. I would use this image to mask parts of the ambient back into the group shot.
Once the people were together I could then bring in the image above and again, using layer masking, I painted in just enough of the ambient light to mix in with the lit shots. The final shot was 34 layers tall. 28 layers of people and 6 layers of ambient light and details like the the strobe painting on the back wall panels. Here it is again…
So…To Joe McNally – I know you eat 30 Speedlights for breakfast every morning so excuse me while I meagerly try to pull it off with one.
To David Hobby – My light rig for this shot not only has a bunjee cord on it, but it has a LightSphere that I spray painted black to keep with the DIY / Modify philosophy you preach so well.
To David Nightingale – 30+ exposures to make one final image! How do you do it so well? You can see how much of a hack I am.
To Drew Gardner – If only I had a water buffalo and 300 gallons of strawberry jam then you too would have a tribute here. Maybe next year I'll shoot it on a Phase One. Oh wait! I don't have to shoot it next year! Some other light monkey will have to do it!
To Chase Jarvis – You talk about pushing yourself. Well… I pushed myself on this one!
I could have done this or that or the other to make this shot better but I had no time to really think it through. It was a good exercise for me though. I'm glad I did it this way.
I have one more Dubai post to make this week and then we are back to regularly scheduled blogramming.
Cheers, Zack
I Feel Like I'm In A Tool Video :: Julia with the 5d Mk II
The image above states the exact feeling one has when shooting at this old prison in East Atlanta.
Here are some more images I shot this week of Julia. She needed one or two new pieces for her portfolio and I needed to run the CaNikon 5z Marc Too (as I call it) through the paces. Overall I'm really happy with this camera. For this shoot I used the 24-70/2.8L and the 90 2.8 Tilt Shift. I have to be very, very, very careful with the T/S lens because if I am not very, very, very careful I will use it WAY too much. The reason I don't own a fisheye lens is because I would use it all the time. I fear I may do that with the T/S. It's like instant creativity! My initial thoughts on the 5d after the images.
In addition to the stills, I shot video as well. I don't have the time right now to get the editing done on that but I hope to cut a short clip together soon.
Things I love about the 5d vs. the D3 I normally Shoot :: • Color and Contrast straight out of the camera. • A remarkable skin tone quality when shooting natural light. • HD video
Things I don't like about the 5d vs. the D3 :: • The AF system sucks in low light situations. Every Nikon I have ever owned from the D100 to the D3 can lock focus faster and more accurately than the 5d does in low light levels. • Nikon still pwns Canon at ISO 3200 and up. • It's slow as Christmas compared to the shooting speed and buffer of the D3. • The ergonomics. The 5d feels like a brick in my hands even with the grip. The D3 feels like a glove.
And yes, I'm aware that I'm comparing a mid level Canon to the top of the food chain Nikon.
The number one reason I have this 5d is for the video as I've stated before, but I also love that there is a specific quality to the images this camera produces that I find other cameras do not have. Back in the days of film you would choose one film over another based on the characteristics of that film and the type of color, contrast, and quality that you desired for the shoot you were doing. Since we can't simply change sensors in our camera bodies like we could change film, this particular time in digital photography requires us to change the entire body. In the studio the cameras are nearly identical.
It is in the available light photography that I find the 5d to perform remarkably different. Skin tones have a smoother quality to them akin to something with warm butter all over it. The Nikon can be a little too cool and too sharp for my liking. You can spend time in post trying to replicate one look or the other but when you study enough images online and you KNOW an image was shot with a 5d without looking at META data then you know the camera has something special about it.
The same could be said for my D70. I could do things with that camera in post production that I have yet to fully replicate with any other digital camera I have owned. The camera body is now the film base and you choose the one you want for the look you desire. That's why the 5d is going to have a permanent spot in my bag in addition to the video capabilities.
Cheers, Zack
Meghan's Song "Window" + Hacking The Flip Mino HD ::
First things first. If you want a copy of Meghan's song, "Window", from the Transform video. Just click this link. She wants to remind everyone that this was just a quick recording during a practice session but it currently is the ONLY recording of this song. So, it isn't a perfect recording but you know what? This whole post is about doing it lo-fi! If that link stops working, we've gone beyond our bandwidth and I'll find another place to host it. If you want to find more of her music, you can find her on iTunes under the fantastic name of Meghan Coffee.That was her name before I ran off with her to the judge!
More after the jump… (more…)
RadioPopper Is Changing The Game ::
OMGosh… Kevin has changed the game. He may very well be going down in the history books for this.
The image above was shot with the new RadioPopper. The amazing feat is this image was shot at 1/8000 of a second with an Alien Bee. NOT TTL high speed sync. Unbelievable. I wish I was going to WPPI to shake his hand. This changes the game. If that isn't enough, the new RadioPoppers can adjust your Alien Bee and White Lightning gear… wirelessly.
If you don't know WHY this changes the game, you need to get in the game.
Interestingly enough, Pocket Wizard is about to unveil a new model. If it does not give us high speed sync with ANY strobe, they really need to get back to the drawing table.
Putting my order in now.
Escalate :: No… This is not a workshop announcement ::
I found these images yesterday as I was helping Marc get set up for a bridal show he is doing today.
I'm the kind of photographer who would LIKE to be the kind of photographer that always has a camera around his neck. My darling wife hooked me up with a Canon G10 for Christmas last year and I'm doing my best to take it with me where ever I go. I love this camera.
Not counting a cell phone, do you have a small camera that you take along with you on a regular basis?
Cheers, Zack
White Seamless Tutorial :: Part 4 :: Simple Changes In Post Production.
If you are just joining us, this is part four in a multi part tutorial about the many uses of white seamless as a background material. You can catch up by reading part 1, part 2, part 2b, and part 3.
For part four we are going to look at making simple changes to our photos in post production. We are going to change the composition of our photos shot on pure white or pure black. We will also look at a way to add some color back into the background on the images shot on pure white.
The first thing we are going to do is change our composition. When I'm shooting on a pure white or pure black background, I shoot 95% of those images vertically. I fill the frame with my subject as much as I can. I want to maximize the image area they take on the sensor of my camera so that I have more options for enlarging the photo later if I want. If I want a lot of negative space in the final photo, I'll add that in Photoshop later because it is easy to create white or black space and still have a full frame of the subject. Imagine the area of your camera's sensor for a moment with the photo above on it as it is captured…
That is a lot of dead space thrown away on your chip. You can maximize the captured resolution of your subject by filling the frame.
There are two simple ways of expanding your photo to change the composition. You can change the canvas size or you can use the crop tool. I prefer the crop tool because it lets me visualize the new composition I'm trying to create. For the example below I want to deliver the vertical full frame shot to the client and I want to deliver a horizontal shot as well. I'm going to keep them set to the same dimensions by locking in my aspect ratio then flipping the width and height numbers. See the photo below.
The crop tool options can be blank if you want so you can free form a crop. Here are the step to expanding it.
1. Make sure the photo is a locked "background" layer.
2. Set the BG color swatch to pure white.
3. Select the crop tool and pull it out over the image. It will not pull out beyond the edges of the photo. Once you hit an edge of the photo LET GO of the mouse button. Some bounding box tick marks will show up on your crop rectangle.
4. Grab one of those bounding box tick marks and begin to pull the crop out past your original image.
5. Once you have the composition you want, hit enter or return to apply the crop. Since your BG swatch is set to white it will become the color of whatever is beyond your original image after it is cropped. Its magic and stuff!
From looking at the next image, you would think I have a massive studio space.
This is how it was done.
Again, the original image was shot vertically to get the most bang for the buck out of my sensor…
We can do the same thing with images shot on a PURE black background.
Going through the same steps as above, I have now just changed the BG color swatch to black instead of white. I have also moved the light source around a bit.
I made a selection around the light then used the move tool to drag it around. With the BG swatch still set to black, it doesn't make a "hole" in the photo when you move it.
Here again is the final frame after about 20 seconds of work in Photoshop.
That's the simple simple stuff. Now we'll add just one more layer to the pure white image to change it up a bit more… I sit with my clients and walk them through a series of changes. I let them know they are getting an image shot vertically but with some simple changes it can go to a larger vertical image for a concert poster or it can go to a horizontal image for a promo card or CD artwork. Here is another thing I show my clients that can change the overall look of the original image. Let's make a square crop like we are doing CD artwork or something. Here is the original image as shot in camera.
I've cropped the image to a square, turned the image into an unlocked layer, and added a new layer underneath the image. I'm going to be making a radial gradient fill on the new layer UNDER the photo.
Turn the photo layer off and select the new layer you made under it. I've made my gradient fill and stretched it out a bit. I want a soft white under my subject.
I go back to the photo layer and select it and turn it back on. Then I change the layer blending mode to "multiply". Anything that is pure white will drop out and the color from behind will show through.
It looks like this.
You can change the color, density, and saturation of this type of gradient fill with levels, curves, hue/saturation, etc. Here is a change up to the bottom layer with hue/saturation.
Here is the image with this change.
This isn't the way to just drop a subject into a whole new location. You have to get into some layer masking and a few more steps to do something like that. These are just some simple steps to show you how to change things up a bit for images you want to make for your clients or promotional images you need to make for yourself. You can create the perfect amount of negative space to add logos, text, etc. If you are into textures you can then start adding those into some of these steps as well. Using the multiply mode on white backgrounds opens up new possibilities for you. Note – It doesn't work the same on images with a black background.
For the next post, I'll show a few lighting options you can have when shooting on pure white backgrounds. After that I'll have a post asking for questions you may have. I'll also be going through all the comments on this tutorial so far and answering those questions in one single post.
Then we are going to have a contest! If you are starting to shoot this stuff or have been, you can now begin adding your images to the Seamless & Cyc Flickr pool I have started. Let's see how creative you get. I've filled up the pool with my visual pollution to get it started. You add the rest. I'll have prizes for first, second, and third place. I'll give you details on it coming up soon. Add your images that have been shot with any of the techniques we have discussed here when using a simple white background. If you are just using a white wall to start you can post those as well.
Continue Reading :: Part 5 Wrap Up, Questions, and Contest!
ETA – If you have questions about any of this, drop them in the comment section here on Part 5 of the tutorial. I will be following up on this tutorial with a new post answering all the questions at once.
Cheers, Zack
White Seamless Tutorial :: Part 3 :: From White To Black.
If you are just joining us, this is part three in a four or five part tutorial about the many uses of white seamless as a background material. You can catch up by reading part 1, part 2, and part 2b.
We've taken our white seamless BG and made it pure white. The task set before us now is to get a few more visual options out of that white seamless paper or simple white wall we are shooting against.
When I got my first studio space I had few resources to fill it up with backgrounds and stuff that studios should have. The very first thing I bought was a roll of white seamless paper. I had to start using it with two lights. One on the subject and one on the background. That's all well and good but I needed to have the ability to get as many looks out of that one background. These are some of the simple and effective techniques I still use to get some different looks from a single background.
The first thing you can do is simply turn the background lights off.
The image above is the same exact photo except for the fact that I turned the BG lights off. I shot one with the lights on. Then one with the lights off. Same settings on my main light and same settings on my camera. Your white BG is now a medium grey.
Here is a full length shot with the tile board removed.
I removed the tile board because it can be a bit difficult to get it to blend seamlessly when you are lighting the BG. It can be done you just have to finesse your light and shooting angle to the point where you no longer see the edges of the tile board on the floor and maintain a consistent tone of grey while still picking up a bit of reflection under your subject. Currently I don't have an example of that on hand. I'll dig for one in the archives and post it when I wrap this tutorial up.
If you can wrap your head around things like inverse square law and feathering your light then you can begin to make that BG any shade of grey from black to light grey.
Inverse square law is an equation that talks about math stuff about how light falls off over distance. I'm a photographer. I like pictures. I don't like physics. Inverse square law to me is like that quote about electricity that I've heard before… "I don't know how electricity works but I use it everyday."
If you double your distance from flash to subject, you lose 75% of the light. To me it seems like if you double distance then you lose half of your light but some dudes and some ladies (probably more dudes than ladies though) figured out that is not the case. You double distance from flash to subject you lose 75% of the light. Not 50%.
In Myth Busters type of science that means when you double distance you lose 2 stops of light. If you double one foot that means you lost two stops of light at the two foot mark. If you double 20 feet… you lose two stops at the 40 foot mark.
Let me say this now though… Before any of you get on here with your Texas Instruments graphing calculators to show me where I'm wrong on this… Take it to DPReview and fight it out there with the other measurebators. I don't care! Like I said, this is some Myth Busters kind of science explanations.
With a point light source like a straight flash it looks like this…
From f22 to f16 that is 7 inches. From f5.6 to f4 that is 3.5 feet. If your subject was standing where the f22 tick mark on the wall is and the white seamless BG was over there by the 5.6 tick mark then by the time you expose properly for the subject at f22 then your BG would be (16, 11, 8, 5.6) FOUR stops under exposed from your subject.
Here's the basics that a public school educated guy like me can understand. If you get your subject some distance away (like 10 feet let's say) from the BG and your light source really close to the subject (like 1 or 2 feet away) then once you properly expose for the subject…. the light falling off toward the BG falls off to the point that your BG can be 2 or 3 stops under exposed from the subject. The more you under expose the BG the darker it gets.
Again… The larger your ratio of exposure is from your subject to BG the darker the BG gets. The smaller the ratio gets, the lighter the BG.
Huh? What? Yeah, I know. It looks like this without any use of Photoshop.
I'm going to post that same photo right after this explanation…
For these two images I kept the subject the same distance from the BG. He was about ten feet from the wall there. For the image on the left the softbox was about 5 feet away from him. Exposure on him was f2 or something. Then I moved it in really really close. Just outside of the frame. Once I closed down my aperture to compensate for the light being much closer to him, the light ratio between his face and the wall was now a larger ratio thus making the BG darker.
Still don't get it? Reading my explanation over again won't help much because I think it confuses me as well so let me try to sum it up another way. All you engineers out there are laughing your butts off at me because this stuff is elementary. Like I said, I went to public school.
Get your subject about 10 feet off of a wall and get your light source 7 or 8 feet away from your subject in a position that light is hitting your subject AND your background. Make a proper exposure for the light hitting your subject and look at the white BG. It will be a lighter shade of grey.
Keep your subject right there and more your light in really, really close to your subject. Like one foot away (just outside of your frame). You have now changed the exposure so you are going to have to stop down your aperture until you have a proper exposure on your subject. Once you have the proper exposure on your subject, that white BG will now be a darker shade of grey than image you shot before with the light 7 or 8 feet away.
If you are reading this and don't get it… Get off your arse and go shoot it. You'll see it pretty quickly.
You can further eliminate light falling on the BG to get the BG to go darker and darker still until you just "blow it to black" as I like to say. Or, you make dark with light. I typically do this with feathering my light and getting my subject even further away from the background.
When you "feather" a light you are positioning your light in such a way that it isn't pointing directly at your subject. Instead, it is pointing a little bit away from subject yet not pointed so far away that you are no longer lighting your subject. You are just wanting the subject to catch the feathered edge of light coming out of your modifier. Point that light AWAY from the BG yet still getting some on your subject.
If you tweak your feathered light just right and have a good distance from your BG then you can take that white seamless (or just about any other color of BG) and it will become black.
Here is a four light set.
Two lights on the BG, one light with a grid to light his arm, one light zoomed in to light his face. Here is what it looks like on white…
Remember how I talked about my philosophy in all of this is I light my subject independently from my BG? With my lights on my subject set up properly, those lights aren't adding any exposure to my BG. So if I turn the BG lights off and just use that tight grid and a zoomed Vivitar 285 I get this…
I did NOT change the white background out for a black one! I pinky promise! I just kept that grid and that zoomed light positioned in a way that none of that light hit the BG. NOTE – I'm staying at my sync speed on my shutter speed to make sure I'm killing any and all ambient light falling on the BG. Shutter speed controls ambient light. Even though there was light in the studio when I was shooting, I was shooting at f8 at 250th of a second or there about so I wasn't exposing any ambient light in these images with black backgrounds.
For the image above she was about 15 to 16 feet away from the BG. I had a big softbox pointing just in front of her. Enough for the feathered edge to light her. Then I had a second light add a bit of a side light for separation making sure that the side light did not hit the background.
Grid spots are awesome. You can use those things to keep light off of any BG you may be using like this…
Grid spots have a small feathered edge of light. You can point the main circle of light in front of your subject and just get their face into that feathered edge and it looks like this…
You can grid a subject again, add a background light pointing toward your subject and get this…
You can take a big ol' softbox, move your subject away from the BG as much as possible (like 15 feet or so), under expose the whole thing just a bit and get this…
Take it light grey…
Take it darker…
Set your BG lights to a low power setting and get them evenly positioned on the BG and match the BG exposure with the subject exposure and get a very even tone of grey through an image…
Position your light in just the right spot where you get just a bit of separation from dark shirt or hair to a darker BG…
Keep the light on your subject but OFF of your white BG so that the BG goes black. Then double or triple stack some colored gels on your BG lights and set them to a fairly low power setting and you can now add color to your white BG…
IF you let the clean white light from the subject light hit the BG when you are trying to gel it to a color, then you are going to contaminate that gelled color back there and you'll lose the saturation of the color you are trying to achieve. I used a grid spot in the image above to keep light just on the subject and off of the BG. I kept him far enough away from the BG that the red light from the BG didn't wrap around him and give me some funky color shift on the subject.
White. Grey. Black. Red. Blue. Whatever. One background. Many options.
The next tutorial will be about what we can do with some of these images in post production. I'll show you things I do in 30 to 60 seconds of time that changes things up even more. After that I'll post a few different lighting techniques for lighting your subject on the white seamless. Then I'll have a post where I'll be open to questions in the comment section and I'll cover the questions already in the comment section now.
Then I've got something fun for us after that and that will conclude this tutorial! You can expect for this to be all wrapped up this month. My schedule is a bit hectic right now.
Continue reading :: Part 4 :: Simple Changes In Post Production.
ETA – If you have questions about any of this, drop them in the comment section here on Part 5 of the tutorial. I will be following up on this tutorial with a new post answering all the questions at once.
Cheers, Zack
White Seamless Tutorial :: Part 2b :: Full Length With OneLight
I felt challenged today to see if I could shoot a full length portrait on a plain old white seamless background with a single battery powered light source. There is this thing I do with barebulb flashes that blows the background to white and I use an adjoining wall near the subject to catch light from the bare bulb to bounce back to light the subject's face. The problem with trying to do a full length with a single light source is dealing with the light stand getting in the way. Positioning it out of the frame is a pain. You say four letter "f" words (like film) trying to keep the light stand out of the way and lighting the walls and trying to keep light from the flash off of the
wall (edit – I mean subject).
The challenge I gave myself today was to shoot without a light stand. I figured I would try placing the bare bulb flash on the ground behind my client and use those bi-fold cutter doors as reflectors to catch the light from the flash and bounce it back to the front of the subject. I taped the Sunpak 120J and Pocket Wizard with white tape to further conceal the rig in case I was in the frame. The challenge was to not have to remove anything in Photoshop.Here is the taped rig…
Here is the result…
Not bad really. A little flare around the ankles that is giving me a color shift on the legs. I can live with that and "fix" it if needed. Better than trying to remove light stands from photos. Here's another shot with the same lighting scenario…
It was a slight PITA keeping separation of her light hair on the white BG. Just a hair of the "fill" slider in Lightroom helped bring the exposure of her face up. Here is wider shot showing a bit of the bi-fold doors acting as reflectors…
I was out of time so I didn't try the same scenario with the tile board. I'll try that another time.
There is another way of doing this with a single light source but you need more power than four double "A" batteries and a pretty dang large light source. I'll shoot one of those when I get back from my week teaching OneLight's in California.
Speaking of that, I have to be at the airport in seven hours. I'll be working on the next part of this seamless tutorial on the plane.
On a side note…
Fellow photographer and all around amazing guy, Troy Stains, stopped by today while we were shooting. I have to share this image I shot of him. He's pimp. This was part of our shooting for the OneLight DVD coming out this summer.
Continue Reading :: Part 3 :: From White To Black.
ETA – If you have questions about any of this, drop them in the comment section here on Part 5 of the tutorial. I will be following up on this tutorial with a new post answering all the questions at once.
Cheers, Zack
White Seamless Tutorial :: Part 2 :: Setting Lights & Exposure
UPDATE – Moved servers and lost these old images. I'll be doing a new series on white seamless. Sorry!
We are now going to look at setting up a simple headshot on a pure white seamless background, or, "BG" for short during this tutorial. Click here for Part 1 of this tutorial.
The philosophy I have when shooting on pure white is that I want to light the BG and the subject independently from each other. Meaning; The light on the subject isn't making a change to the exposure on the background and the light on the background isn't making a change to exposure on the subject. As I talked about before, those cutters on the sides of the set are key to making this happen. The next consideration is keeping the subject a fair distance away from the background as well. In this first example my subject, Thomas, is about 11 feet away from the white seamless hanging behind him. The closer he gets to the background, the more likely it is that light reflecting off of the seamless is going to add exposure to him in the final image. The further I get my subject away from the seamless, the less light coming in from the background will get to him. I'll talk more about that specifically in a bit.
For the sake of being as technical as possible for this tutorial I have wiped the dust off of my light meter and put it back into use. I rarely, if ever, pull it out when setting up this type of set simply because I've done it so often and I know what I'm looking for when I chimp. If you have a flash meter already, good for you! Pull it out and put it in the incident mode. If not, I'm going to give you examples of the visual clues I am looking for when I'm shooting so I know how to adjust my lights without using a flash meter.
For this set up I have two lights on the background. One on each side. I also have barn doors on these lights in addition to using the bi-fold cutters. Since my ceiling in here is so low and those white walls are so close to the set I use the barn doors to flag light from the BG lights off of the ceiling and walls. The light on camera left is pointing just left of center of the BG. Camera right light is just right of center of the BG. I want an even spread of light across the BG so that if I were to take meter readings from the left edge to the right edge of the seamless, I would get identical readings from edge to edge. If your BG is within a quarter stop from edge to edge you'll be fine. If your BG has more than half a stop difference from edge to edge, position your lights in such a way to even that exposure out. If you don't have a light meter, eyeball the dang thing and go for it.
For those of you new to lighting I am only going to be talking about exposure in terms of f stops. Shutter speed controls ambient light exposure and aperture (f stop) controls flash exposure. The ambient light in this scenario means nothing to me since I'm lighting everything with flash so my shutter speed is always going to be near my sync speed of 250th of a second. If you don't know your sync speed you'll have to RTFM. If you don't know what RTFM is then you'll have to Google that and ROFL. If you are lost on ROFL… how did you even get to this web page? Colon right parenthesis.
Also, these are always shot at my lowest ISO setting so that I have the cleanest images. No need to shoot this stuff at high ISO settings especially if you have some decent power coming from your strobes. If you are doing this with hotshoe flashes there can be occasions you need to up your ISO a bit.
For the subject I have one light source. For this particular shot I'm using a Westcott 50″ Apollo softbox. The light inside of the softbox is set to 100 w/s (watt seconds). For the pure white BG it doesn't really matter what kind of modifier you use. Like I said, I'm lighting my subject independently from the BG so I choose my modifier based on the kind of light I want on the subject. You can use straight flash, an umbrella, a grid spot, a beauty dish, etc, etc. Actually, my favorite these days is a beauty dish. I just love that thing but for this, I chose a big softbox.
From my meter I'm getting a reading on my subject of f8 from that softbox (main light). To make that white BG pop I know that I need to have the BG at least 1.5 stops hotter than the subject. My target then is to get the BG reading to be f 11.5 because my main light on the subject is f 8. I'm going to expose for the subject at f 8 once I shoot a frame. I don't really want the BG to be any more than 1.5 stops hotter than the subject's reading. You'll see why in the examples below. f 8 on the subject and f 11.5 on the BG is my standard set up. You can set the ratio anyway you want it. If your main is f 2.8 then you want the reading on your BG to be f 4.5. If you get f 5.6 on your subject then you want the BG to be at f 8.5. Nerd note – If the EXIF data is still in these images and you're reading it you'll see I actually exposed at f 9. My meter is about 1/3 of a stop off from my camera.
Let's look at a properly exposed image first ::
In the image above I have a nice white background, no significant amount of flare coming back into the lens, no chromatic aberration (CA) around the edges or in the hair, a good exposure on Thomas, and I'm getting just a bit of "wrap" on the shadowed side of his face.
For that "back of head" reading I took my meter and placed it at the back of his head and pointed it toward the white seamless and took a reading. This is measuring the amount of light coming back to the subject from the BG. The more light coming back, the more wrap, and possibly more flare, you are going to have on your subject. That "wrap" is seen as a highlight on the camera left side of his face. That is coming from the light reflecting off of the white seamless. Some folks HATE wrap and work to eliminate it. Some folks like to have more of it. Personally I go both ways. Country AND Western.
There are times I want it eliminated. Maybe I want a really deep shadow on the side of the subject's face. Lighting wrapping in from the back would fill that shadow in too much. Another example of the need to eliminate the light wrapping around your subject is when you are shooting someone wearing pure white. I want to keep a very clean separation of white on white. We'll see that coming up in a minute. Sometimes I love to have more wrap because it accentuates the subject's facial features. Most of the time though I'm fine with just a bit of it. The wrap above is something I won't say cuss words about and I won't lose any sleep tonight because of it.
If you want less wrap, move your subject further away from the BG but keep the same 1.5 stop exposure ratio from subject light to BG light. If you want more wrap, move your subject closer to the BG while still maintaining the 1.5 stop exposure ratio.
For those of you without a flash meter here are some examples showing you when your BG lights are over or under exposed. These are shown with the idea of you have a good exposure from your main light on your subject. Find that exposure first by turning off your BG lights and shooting a series of images of your subject with just the main light on. Remember, we are lighting the subject independently from the BG. If you have this set up correctly then you can take a shot at the proper exposure of your subject with the BG lights off and then with them on and your subject will remain properly exposed in both images with the exception of some wrap coming in from the BG when those lights are turned on. Make sense? No? Shoot pictures with your BG lights off and find the right exposure on your subject from the main light. Then turn on your background lights and adjust the power of those up or down to get a clean white BG.
Here is an example of when your BG gets too hot and starts giving you problems.
I had set my main light on my subject and got a reading of f 8 from it. With my BG lights cranked all the way up to full power I'm now getting so much light off of that BG that it added a stop to the meter reading of my subject. I suspect that the face of my softbox was even acting as a reflector to help add to that extra stop of light coming in the front. Looking at the image above it is pretty evident that the BG lights are set too high in power. Look at all the flare coming in over his shoulder on the camera left side of the frame and look at the overall loss in contrast in the image. I talked in the previous post about some lenses work better than others. My 50mm 1.8 lens shoots images that look like this on a properly exposed set. So if you are dead sure confident that your light ratios are correct and you get that much flare and loss of contrast, try another lens.
Here is an image with the BG underexposed.
There is nothing wrong with the image above here. In fact, you may want some density in your BG from time to time and we are going to talk about that in the next part of the tutorial. BUT… we are talking about setting your BG exposure properly to get a PURE WHITE background in your image and that BG ain't white. If that is your image and you want it white, the curse words show up in post production. If this is what you are getting then you simply need to up the power settings of your background lights.
Two additional things to look at in this under exposed BG image :: Notice the lack or wrap coming in from the BG and how much darker the shadow on the camera left side of his face is. Also notice that my lights aren't set to give me a dead even exposure across the width of the BG there. One side is a bit hotter than the other. Each light is set exactly to the same power setting but the camera left side is a bit hotter than the camera right side. This is a visual indication that I need to change the position and/or direction of my BG lights so I'm getting even light across the BG. It isn't that big of difference here. But it is noticeable and there are times when I want density in that BG and I want it to be perfect from edge to edge in continuous tone. Again, we'll talk about that in the next part of the tutorial.
Once you nail your exposure and everything is set correctly, you can shoot someone wearing a black shirt on a white background and have them switch to a white shirt on a white background and shoot the same exact exposure and maintain separation.
Let's take a look at a series of images with the lights in different states of being on or off.
See that second image in the series where there is a tad bit of light hitting the front of Thomas? That is light coming off of the BG, hitting the ceiling, and adding a slight touch of exposure to the front. If I had taller ceilings and / or my ceiling was black, I would have more of a silhouette there. I'm seriously considering painting my ceiling black but I haven't decided if I really want to stay in the space beyond my lease. I want a cyc wall again damn it and I'm not going to build one here! Anyway……
Also notice the "all lights off". I wasn't shooting in pitch black but an exposure of f 9 @ 200th of a second at ISO 100 made a black frame because the studio is not that dark but not bright enough to have any ambient exposure come into the final frames I'm shooting. If I had some really hot spot lights on the BG or a bright window near my set we may see a little something in that image but not much. Once those strobes fire it would kill that kind of ambient light. So changing your shutter speed all up and down here doesn't matter. Just set to your sync speed and adjust exposure on your camera by aperture only. You further change exposure by changing power settings on your lights…. but to reiterate. At camera level… set to your sync speed and just adjust f stops.
So that's a basic headshot. You don't have to have a roll of seamless for this application. Any old white or off white wall will do. Let's look at a full length next. I'm going to cry 7 tears and say 3 or 4 cuss words as I visually take you back to my last studio with the big cyc wall. That thing was bigger than my house. Developers came in and bought the place up and I can have it again in a few years at 3 or 4 times the cost per square foot once they pimp the place out and do stupid things to it. Like… Bring it up to code and stuff and take the lead out of the water.
I pull this off in the new space pretty easy until I have a band of 4 or more in front of me and I'm restricted to the 9′ width of white. It can be done with only moderate cursing. I've shot a family of 7 on a 9′ seamless before. For now let's look at just shooting a full length of one person. Here is the back of the set.
This is what the back of the set looks like. Notice that straight shadow line the bi-folds are making. I keep my subject in "the shade" of the bi-fold doors so to speak. Also note that I hang the tile board out into the BG light area just a bit. The BG lights blow that little edge out so it isn't seen in the final image and I don't have to go into Photoshop to remove the hair line it creates if I don't have it hanging out in the BG light.
Here is the front of the set.
Note that without that tile board, the white floor area is grey. Getting a subject standing on white paper and shooting a full length shot so that the floor and the BG are all white is a pain in the arse. You can do it but it's a different way of lighting that I just don't do. Call me lazy but $20 worth of tile board makes life easy. And no… those Home Depot work lights in the back are not being used on this set. This is three lights firing. Two on the background and one on the subject.
Let's add a subject and a big industrial fan.
I show the image above to give you another glimpse of what the floor would look like without the tile board. It would be grey right up to the shadow line the cutters are creating from the BG lights. The tile board acts like a mirror in that you are seeing a reflection of the white BG in it.
Here is an image straight out of camera with only adjustments being made to color and contrast.
Clean. Simple. Effective. Done right on set and in camera so I don't have to cuss like a sailor in post production. Notice the good separation of the white dress on the white background. Notice the nice little wrap on the camera right side of her face. I really like the wrap here and would not have worked to eliminate it. It was just enough to have some wrap but not enough that I lost the edge separation of the dress.
That wraps up Part 2 of the tutorial. Thanks to Thomas for being my exposure subject today and thanks to ya'll for the comments and links and all that so far! Once I finish this tutorial I've got something kind of cool planned for all of you.
Continue reading – Part 2b :: Full Length With OneLight
ETA – If you have questions about any of this, drop them in the comment section here on Part 5 of the tutorial. I will be following up on this tutorial with a new post answering all the questions at once.
Cheers, Zack
White Seamless Tutorial :: Part 1 :: Gear & Space
UPDATE – I know the image links are broken. Moved to a new server and something went wrong with these posts. It's been awhile since I posted this and I don't have the web images anywhere. It's time to redo this series anyway so I'll be working on that.
Richard Avedon, Herb Ritts, and countless other great photographers have rocked the white background for decades. I recently went to a huge bookstore here in Atlanta and counted the number of magazine covers shot with a simple white background like we are going to investigate here. 87 COVERS SHOT ON WHITE OR A VARIATION OF A WHITE BACKGROUND. Eighty-seven magazine covers at one book store. Its everywhere and it is everywhere because it is simple and effective and makes your subjects pop. It beats the bloody hell out of any wrinkled up grey/blue/brown muslin any day of the week. Walk into a Target store this week and look at the in-store signage. How did I learn to shoot like this? Because this is how we shot JC Penney's catalogue clearance images when I shot for them. Need to add text and other artwork to a photo? A simple white background lets you do so all day long.
If I had but one backdrop to use for portraiture I would choose a simple roll of white seamless paper. With one roll of paper you can create many options. For the rest of the week I'm going to break it down for you. We are going to look at getting it to pop to pure white, making it various shades of grey, getting it to go black, gelling it to any color in the rainbow, and doing very easy and quick changes in post production to further the visual options available to us when using such a simple background.
As simple as it is, it can be easy to mess up too. I hope to help you out like other photographers have helped me along the way.Before we get into the shooting technique for this, let's start from the start and look at the gear and resources needed to pull this off.
1. Space Considerations :: The more room you have the less bad words will come out of your mouth. A 20×20′ room with 10′ or higher ceilings is a great place to start. You can do it with less but you'll have more challenges to face and make this more of a pain in the arse then it needs to be. Trying this in a spare bedroom with 8′ ceilings is going to drive you mad and you'll sound like the dad in A Christmas Story as he worked on the furnace. You can do it… you'll just use more cuss words doing so. A hard floor surface is desired. Plush carpeting will bring more cursing. If you are doing this on carpet, lay down an 8'x8′ foundation of 1/2″ plywood so you have something sturdy for your subjects to stand on.
My current studio allows me to have a space that is about 15′ wide by 40′ in length. I really wish I had 20′ in width. I would say 80% less cuss words if my area was wider. My ceilings are about 11′ in height and I wish they were 14′ but you do what you can with what you have. My old studio had a cyc wall that was 20′ wide by 40′ long with 14′ ceilings and I never ever said a single bad word when lighting a set.
BTW – Cyc is short for "cyclorama". Also known as an infinity wall. Think of it as a permanent roll of seamless paper from floor to ceiling that can be painted over and over again. They are worth every bit of the few thousands of dollars they cost to have built properly. You only want one built if you know for sure you will be in your space for a long time because you'll never want to leave it.
2. Lights :: Three lights are pretty much the minimum you are going to need for this. They'll do everything you need to have done for the most part. 95% of my pure white background images are shot with 3 lights. I don't care what kind of lights they are. 3 Alien Bees, 3 Travelites, 3 Norman heads, 3 Canon 580's, 3 Nikon SpeedLites, whatever. I will say that you want more power than less for much of this. You can pull it off with hotshoe flashes but you'll use 47% more cuss words with small flashes as opposed to more powerful strobes like Alien Bees or Dynalites etc. You can rock the pure white with OneLight and/or two lights but if you want to make life better and your studio to be more of a PG rated environment, go with three lights.
3. Seamless, stands, and misc. grip gear :: You are going to need to 2 solid stands to hold your 9′ wide roll of seamless paper up. You'll need a sturdy crossbar to go through the roll of paper that gives you at least 3 inches of room on each side of the roll. You can use a 10′ long section of 1.5″ PVC pipe from Home Depot or the like. I then use super clamps to attach the pole to the stands. The following links will take you to B&H.
Savage 107″ (9 feet wide) white seamless paper. :: $40 :: You don't have to have "super white". A light, light grey can work as well but just plain ol' white will do it. Try to find it locally as shipping can sometimes cost more than the seamless. It is heavy stuff. Also note – Store your seamless paper standing up. DO NOT store your seamless laying flat on the ground. If you store it flat you will get ripples through the whole roll eventually.
Avenger 10.8′ light stands or the 12.8′ version. :: $78 ea. for the 10′ and $84 ea. for the 12′ :: You'll need two stands to hold your seamless.
Matthews Super clamps (you need two of them) :: $27 each.
OR… Just buy a background support kit like this Impact set-up. For $99 you get 2 stands, a crossbar that fits on the stands, and a bag to carry it in. I prefer using stronger stands, super clamps, and metal cross bars but a kit will work for you. You get what you pay for though. Cheaper support kits are going to give you more problems. Pick up two sandbags ($22 each) to help keep the whole thing grounded.
1 or 2 A clamps :: $4 each :: You need these to hold the paper on the roll once you have rolled it out. Get a good roll of gaffer tape as well. Don't be so ghetto that you cheap out and use duct tape. Have a little dignity and use some good industry standard tape!
3. Cutters / Flags / Gobos and tile board :: When we set up to go with a pure white background in our photo we want 2 lights on the background and we don't want that light to spill on to our subject directly from the strobes. We need some sort of cutter/flag to keep the subject from being lit by those lights hitting the white seamless. You can score a 4×8 sheet of 1/4″ foam core down the vertical center to stand them up. I used those for a long time but they fall over easily. I have now moved to using 2 bi-fold doors that I bought at Home Depot for $20 each. I painted one side of each set white. You can use barn doors on your strobes or whatever. You just want to make darn sure that the light from the strobes hitting the background DOES NOT directly hit your subject. Using tall cutters like the bi-fold doors makes things much easier on you.
Tile Board :: $11 per 4×8′ sheet at Home Depot. This stuff rocks. This is going to give you a nice white floor and a reflection under your subject. You need a few sheets of it. Check out the photo below to get the exact stock number. You can find it at Lowes as well. You'll find these either in the area where they keep paneling or in the bath fixtures department as it is used to wall in showers and bathrooms. You want the pure white smooth kind. They have some that has a bit of a pebbled texture to it. Don't bother with that stuff. It is brown on the back side which actually photographs beautifully as a background when thrown a bit out of focus. Its a floor! Its a background! Make the most out of what you have!
Here is a photo of the basic set up for going pure white.
And here is the tile board you want to get…
Here is the Super Clamp attached to a light stand and holding the cross bar.
Setting up the seamless is going to be the biggest pain in the arse for you. Get it on the stands about face level and roll it out to the floor until it starts to roll back on itself on the floor. Roll out as much slack as you can but don't allow it to wrinkle or crease. Attach an "A" clamp to the roll and crossbar to keep it from rolling out any more. Extend one stand up a bit. Then go to the other side and extend that up a bit. Then go back to the other side and extend that up a bit. Rinse and repeat until you get the roll all the way to the ceiling. Having another person makes it MUCH easier. You'll make sailors blush if you are doing this on your own. It could be an olympic sport really.
Get on a ladder and let out some more paper from the top and pull it out toward and lightly tape it to the floor. Let out some more paper and pull it back some more. Crap. Not only is it a pain to do, it is a pain to describe. If any of you can't wrap your head around the set-up, I'll shoot a little video on it or something.
Here is the "A" clamp holding the paper from rolling out any more.
DO NOT just let your seamless sit up there without being clamped. When that stuff starts to unroll on it's own, you'll just want to jump off a bridge at that point. Trust me. I know.
One last thing on gear notes here…
Lens Choice :: When you start shooting into the background when you have lit up like a roman candle you will find that one lens may perform better than another in this situation. When you light that white background you are essentially shooting INTO a very large light source. You can run into all sorts of flare and chromatic aberration (CA) problems with some lenses. I know that my Nikon 35mm f2 and my Nikon 105mm f2 lenses perform really well for this. My Nikon 50mm 1.8 looks like butt. Ugly butt. It is worthless when shooting on a pure white background due to flare and CA and it adds a big ugly purple spot right in the dead center of the photo. A Nikon 50mm 1.4 holds up much better. My 80-200 f2.8 also looks horrible. My 85 f1.8 does "ok" but it isn't that great. You'll just need to test a few of your lenses for this. You may find that a zoom works better at one end of the focal length than the other.
That wraps up Part 1 of this tutorial.
Next, I will be talking about setting up the lights and finding your exposure without a light meter. A light meter sure does help for this but I rarely, if ever, pull the light meter out simply because I have shot this stuff so many times I have my formula worked out.
Continue Reading – Part 2 :: Setting Lights And Exposure
ETA – If you have questions about any of this, drop them in the comment section here on Part 5 of the tutorial. I will be following up on this tutorial with a new post answering all the questions at once.
Cheers, Zack
TTV Technique – "Through The Viewfinder"
Here is how I shot the images from the previous two posts. It is a technique called "Through The Viewfinder" or TTV for short.
My friend and fellow shooter, Kevin Abeyta (pictured above), came over the other day and picked up an old camera I had laying around as decoration and asked if I had seen the TTV work people were doing with these old cameras. I had no idea what he was talking about. He told me to search for it on Flickr. That search turned up a ton of hits.
So you take an old twin lens camera that can be found for a few bucks at flea markets, thrift stores, ebay, etc. and shoot the viewfinder of the camera.
This would work a lot better if I had a macro lens. This was shot with my 35mm f2. Then you can just crop out the rest of the frame….
This is the set up with the ghetto Lego box put around the camera and lens to cut out light falling in the viewfinder…
Like I said, I am late to the game. Check out this Flickr group. There are currently more than 3,000 members who have contributed over 21,000 TTV images into this particular pool.
Check out this variation of TTV.
There you have it. Look for these old camera that have a good amount of mold and fungus and crap in the viewfinder to add texture to the images.
Cheers, Zack
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Community education programs at Nashwauk-Keewatin High School are well attended, the ISD No. 319 school board was told at its regular meeting last week.
Board members received a community education update that detailed the activity of the past year and projected the future growth of the programs.
District officials said the department will assess the needs of the community, improve the quality of youth programming, host a youth activity resource page, encourage cross-district programs, and nurture a well-rounded advisory council.
Persons responsible for the technology within the Itasca Area Schools Collaborative said there has been vast improvement and increased community education options. In addition, technology upgrades have put the partner districts in the forefront of school security, they said. The security includes key fobs (a type of security token with a small hardware device with built-in authentication mechanisms) and surveillance cameras. The mechanisms in the key fob control access to network services and information.
The board heard a report from Elementary Principal Peter Hardy that included information regarding the continuation of the reading and math grant, which has supported 1.5 persons for additional help at the elementary level. Secondary Principal Jeff Britten's report included an update by Shelly Flaten and Troy Grunenwald on Marzano Leadership Training for staff. He also reported on the most recent work with Blandin and the student success program.
In addition to the regular items of business, the board approved:
• The consent agenda, which included coach hirings for baseball and softball.
• The district calendar for 2014-2015.
• One full-time employee leave of absence from Feb. 16 to Mar. 17.
One item of old business – the election of a chairperson for the coming year received board attention. Nominations were taken and Barb Kalmi and Mary Jane Damjanovich were the nominees. With a vote of three to three, Damjanovich withdrew her name from consideration for the sake of board unity. With herself as the only nominee, Kalmi pronounced herself chairperson for the upcoming year.
Kalmi then declared the board in closed session to undertake the evaluation of Superintendent Mark Adams.


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A prototype device from a team at Stanford acts as a super-charged, twenty-four-hour cold pack when heated over a fire and then left to cool. Its purpose? To keep vaccines at proper temperatures in areas with no electricity.
How a Zero-Electricity Fridge Will Bring Medicine to the Developing World [Esquire]


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Ehrenhalt's "Great Inversion" is part of a cycle of migrations that happened throughout America's history. The first migration was out of eastern cities to the West during the 1800s to 1850s. The second was a migration from farms to factory towns during the mid to late 1800s. Thirdly, was a migration to cities in the early 1900s, both to take advantage of industrial jobs and due to an influx of immigrants from (mainly) Europe. The early 1900s also had the introduction of the street car and automobile. While this allowed some people to flee the pollution, noise, and overcrowding of the central city – it limited the scope of the outward migration to inner suburbs. Until the end of the second world war (1945), cities remained the epicenter of commerce and culture.
In part to meet the housing demands of returning veterans and their growing families – many suburbs were built in the 1950s. However, the housing shortage was also due to no new housing being built during the Great Depression of the 1930s or war of the 1940s. Furthermore, due to racism, poverty and prejudiced policies – the suburbs remained an opportunity almost entirely for white Americans. The fourth migration was a massive "white flight" during the 1950s and 1960s, as anyone who could take advantage of the new housing in suburbia left. This was also a reaction to the increasing tensions between white and black Americans at the time of the Civil Rights Movement and desegregation. The ubiquity of the automobile and the interstate highway system made the transition to the suburbs quick and easy for many.
A side effect of this great migration was the concentration of minorities, immigrants, poverty and crime in central cities. The loss revenue caused many businesses to leave central cities and relocate to the suburbs. The loss of tax revenue caused many cities to nearly go bankrupt. The growth of commerce in the suburbs during the 1960s quickly lead to edge cities in the 1970s and 1980s- in which residents rarely, if ever, needed to go into the nearby city. They could live, work and play entirely in their mainly middle- to upper-class enclaves. Simultaneously, improvements in technology and outsourcing caused a massive deindustrialization of the inner city – causing fewer working-class jobs that were traditionally held by low-income residents, minorities and immigrants.
Could the "Great Inversion" be migration number five? There is a clear interest in urban living from many descendants of baby boomers, and the baby boomers themselves (empty nesters). The increasing price of gasoline, the cost of commute time, the decreasing crime rates, the relatively low pollution and the liveliness of street-life all make cities more desirable than ever. As demand and real estate costs rise in inner cities – minorities, immigrants and the poor are being pushed out – or can't afford to settle there in the first place. If this is a fifth migration, will it be for middle and upper class whites only?Sources: Teaford (2006) and class lectures


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Faculty Research Agenda
LTU Online encourages its faculty members to maintain an active research and publication agenda in their own disciplines and in areas related to online teaching and learning including:
- Assessment of student learning
- Program evaluation
- Course development methodology
- Learning communities
- Continuous improvement
- Use of synchronous tools to support asynchronous learning
- Online program administration
- Online marketing and search engine optimization
Examples of recent publications by LTU Online faculty include:
McCord, A. "Staffing and Supporting a New Online Initiative." Innovate Journal of Online Education, 3(2), December 2006-January 2007.
Castelli, P., Stavros, J., with Seiling, J., Hinrichs, G., & Moss, C. "Creating and Sustaining Vibrant and Virtual Learning Communities." Academy of Management Midwest Conference, October 2006.


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Jay Peak Owners Purchase Burke Mountain Resort
Thursday, 05/24/12
Kirk Carapezza
Ownership of a pair of ski areas in the Northeast Kingdom has been consolidated. The owners of Jay Peak Resort have bought Burke Mountain Resort.
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Burke's Town Clerk Sees Changes In Northeast Kingdom
Tuesday, 11/02/10
Charlotte Albright
As voters filed in and out of the Burke town office Tuesday, Town Clerk Priscilla Aldrich talked about some of the changes in the way votes are cast in her corner of the Northeast Kingdom.
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PSFK's Gift Guide: Top Fashionable Finds
Gifts salvaged, styled and refined enough for your recipient.
Whether it's style, fine materials or a famous designer name that your recipient covets, the innovative wearable design and spruced-up technology we've found over the past year are great for anyone who likes to make an impression. Some items we've found are obviously striking; others have impressive, but hidden, backstories, such as these elegant scarves that are based on digitally processed videos of New York neighborhoods. Other wearable items with unusual inspirations include a cuff made from melted-down illegal guns and MIA's 19-piece collection for Versace that's based on counterfeits found in the streets of London.
Technology itself is also increasingly attracting big names in fashion and design as designers take their critical eye to the gadgets we're increasingly inseparable from. As Jonathan Adler and Designer Alber Elbaz at Lanvin have shown us, utilitarian plastic and metal are no longer your only options for important items like your recipient's iPad or its battery pack. A thoughtful gift from you will help your recipient appreciate his or her device anew every day.
Check out more of our favorite fashionable finds here, and be sure to explore PSFK's Gift Guide for more ideas.


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2012 Mercedes-Benz ML550 4MATIC
Turbo V-8 power without the AMG price tag.
When it was all said and done, the ML550 we tested rung up at $72,950—some $24,000 less than a comparably equipped ML63. Although Mercedes has rejiggered some of the standard and optional equipment for the ML550 this year, you can buy a similarly equipped 2013 model for a few hundred more dollars than our late-in-the-model-year 2012.
So the ML550 scores points for brisk twin-turbo-V-8 performance and good value relative to the ML63 AMG. From the first M-class in 1997, Mercedes strove to impart its SUV with carlike driving dynamics and comfort in a segment that previously had been defined by more trucklike qualities. The idea was that any Mercedes sedan owner would feel right at home driving a mid-size SUV. The newest ML is marginally larger—0.8 inch lower, 0.9 inch longer, and 0.5 inch wider—than its predecessor, yet it doesn't feel any larger from the driver's seat than does the compact Mercedes GLK-class.
On the road, our ML550 equipped with optional 20-inch 265/45-20 all-season rubber, roll-reducing Active Curve Control, and adaptive damping set in Sport mode felt stable and composed, with grip and braking control commensurate with the healthy amount of power on hand. In particular, the 4.7-liter twin-turbo felt responsive over a wide range of operating conditions, developing its peak torque from 1600 rpm up to 4750 rpm.
The sole major complaint, and one every ML shares regardless of which engine provides propulsion, was a lack of steering feel. The wheel felt impossibly light in Comfort mode, and switching to Sport didn't help. (Sport mode didn't have much effect on suspension stiffness, either.) We imagine the lightness of the wheel would come in handy while navigating the parking lot of your local Pier 1 Imports, but we had to make countless minute corrections around town and on the freeway, conjuring memories of experimenting with steering vagueness in mid-'90s minivans. Despite our feeling of discontent with the feedback provided from the road, the vehicle felt planted in cornering—thank you, meaty rubber—and body roll was surprisingly minimal regardless of which suspension setting was selected. Ultimately, though, the light steering and the level attitude fit the classic ML philosophy: Be an SUV, feel like a car.
In the Zone
The ML550 might not make 500-plus hp and it might not gurgle on overrun and when shifting like the ML63 AMG, but it's a 400-plus-hp SUV that does sub-five-second 0-to-60 times. It's more than comfortable picking up the groceries and hauling the kids to band practice and is far easier to wield than luxury utes such as the Cadillac Escalade and Lexus LX570. At tens of thousands of dollars less than its ultra-high-performance AMG counterpart, the ML550 occupies, yes, a sweet spot directly between bang and buck in the mid-size-luxury-SUV market.


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