Tag Archive for: flash

Adding a touch of color

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In the past few days you have seen some images from the workshop “on location in Emmeloord” with our model Claudia where we look for interesting locations around our own studio.
Today the final part.

One of the things I absolutely love to do on location (or in the studio) is add a touch of color.
Always remember that color evokes emotion.
Think about watching a movie without any tinting or music, you will probably pretty quickly leave the cinema disappointed, unless of course the story is strong enough. But in most cases the reason we love certain scenes/movies is because of the tinting/music used.

So today let’s take a look at some images where I added color on location.

This image is without any added color.
I’m using a Hensel Porty here with the 14″ reflector.
This reflector gives a lot more light than a standard reflector and makes it possible to shoot amazing images even in bright sunlight.
I’m using a variable ND filter to be able to shoot on a wider aperture. When using the Geekoto system I can chose for the HSS options where you can shoot on faster shutter speeds but with standard battery packs like the Hensel Porty you are stuck with the X-sync which is often between 1/125 and 1/200. In situations like this that means that you are almost always shooting at F16 or F22. By using a variable ND filter you can take away some/a lot of light and shoot wide open or on any aperture you like.

For the next shot I’m using a second Hensel Porty but this one is covered with a thick red gel.
I’m using the black diffusion filter here (from the same kit as the variable ND filter) to create a nice lens flare.

I love both shots, but the second one does give me a nice extra mood/feel.
You might say that you can add this in Photoshop in postprocessing, but I disagree, you can mostly easily see when it’s done in real life or added in post processing.

Now you might remember the blogpost where I showed you the Geekoto system for the first time with the red gels.
Let’s to refresh your memory show some of those images.

These were shot with the Geekoto GT200 and GT250.
Small strobes that can shoot on HSS. As you can see I’m creating a nice Day2Night look here and the red really jumps off ow youthe background.

Now for the next images I’m using the exact same setup in the same location but here I switched the Geekoto for the 1200W Hensel porty system.

The Hensel system does have a lot more power but doesn’t support HSS and as you can see they give you results that are incredibly close to each other.
I think this is one of the most interesting parts of the smaller flash systems like the Geekoto they don’t like like much compared to a system like the Porty but due to the use of HSS they do pack an incredible punch.

Of course they can’t compete with the Hensel on durability, recycling speed, flash duration and raw power. But if you don’t need that raw power I think you can do awesome things with the smaller systems, something that wasn’t possible in the past when we still were depending on speedlights only.

 

How to meter light on location, outside

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. PIn today’s blog post, we look at a topic that is super easy when you “get” it. But can be super confusing when you start out. Do you know how to meter light on location outside? Continue reading if this is a problem for you.

Metering outside to kill the sun

Ok, it sounds a bit harsh we don’t really kill the sun. But when using strobes outside the right way you can make it day-to-night without any problem.

See my previous article about Combining/mixing light sources

Now with the day-to-night technique, there is no real problem. So let’s start there.

When you don’t have a modern camera with an EVF you can use a light meter and spot meter for the area you want to be totally in shadow but just show a slight amount of detail. And now set the aperture for the strobe app 4-4.5 stops higher. Or meter the clouds and open up the aperture max 2.5-3 stops to keep detail in the whites.

With a modern camera, we can use the EVF (Electronic Viewfinder). Just make sure it’s set up to show you the results of the settings in the camera. I always call this the WYSIWYG method. From here on it becomes super simple. I mostly lock my shutter speed at 1/125 (Xsync) and ISO at 50/100 I will then use the aperture dial to dial in the look I like when I get the look I want that’s the aperture I will meter the strobes on.

Xsync is the max shutter speed that can be used without HSS, when you use HSS you do need an HSS-capable light meter like the Sekonic 858, everything else I discuss stays the same.

So if I love the F16 ISO50 1/125
The only thing I have to do is set the light meter to ISO50 and meter the strobe till it hits F16.

The nice thing about using the EVF is that you can already see the end result before you take the shot. Although a light meter is a very accurate tool it’s very hard to “imagine” how the end result will be by just metering. I can predict it for about 75% but using the EVF is 100% and much more accurate. The only thing you have to be aware of is that you have to “imagine” the model to be lit in the image while in essence you probably see him/her as a dark outline.

How to meter light on location, outside. in this article I explain.

The problem area

I sometimes call it the Twilight Zone or the Outer Limits. In essence, it’s not far from the truth, and it’s an easy way to remember what the problem actually is. So what do I mean?

When we meter for day-to-night photography it’s standard that you start with the strobe on the highest setting. Let me be honest, you know you’re going to need it right?
So when you meter the strobe it will probably register as F22. And you lower it one stop and it will meter F16 and you’re there. But even when you lower the strobe another stop it will probably read F11. And probably also F8 after another stop…… Do you feel where I’m going?

There is a point where you MIGHT think you are influencing the strobe. But in essence, you are metering the clouds in front of the sun… So what’s going on, and why doesn’t it happen with day-to-night?

Fill in flash

When we shoot day-to-night we start from a high power output. And because we are overpowering the sun/ambient light we have loads of headroom to go down even more before we hit the Twilight Zone.

When we use fill-in flash, we are in essence adding a little bit of flash to the ambient light. Just to open up some shadows, or maybe just give an essence of extra mood, or mimic a lamp in the room, fill-in flash is subtle and most of the time not even visible (until you don’t use it).

So how do we set up the lights in this situation?
Indeed… where from day-to-night we went from the highest setting slowly down. We are now probably starting on the lowest setting and this is where the problems arise which I call the Twilight Zone.

It’s the light meter’s fault

When we look at how the light meter works it’s very easy to say that the light meter is the cause of this problem.
The light meter has a photosensitive cell and meters the light hitting that cell within the values you setup in your meter.

So let’s say I’m in a situation where my ambient light is: F4 ISO400 1/125
Now when I set up my light meter for ISO400 1/125, the meter will literally give me the value for the aperture with those settings. So where is this a problem? well, it also does that in flash mode, not just in the “sun” mode.

Let’s say I’m using a strobe with softbox at 1mtr from my model. I set my strobe up for the lowest setting, walking up to the model and meter the light… and wow what a piece of luck it’s F4…. That was easy. I walk back and take the shot…. And to my surprise, there is no strobe. Of course,  check the connection, and I see the strobe firing, so I re-meter and the same thing happens. I raise the output of the strobe and the meter keeps saying F4…..

Does this mean the light meter is useless on location?

No not at all, in fact, it does exactly what it’s supposed to do 😀
On some meters you will actually see a percentage, this is actually the number of strobes vs continuous light. So in my situation, the strobe is probably not outputting F4 but more likely F2.8 or even lower. The meter does respond to the strobe but meters F4 on 1/125 ISO400 which is actually the ambient light as we had determined before.

So how do we solve this?

When I set up for fill-in light I will always put my strobes a bit higher than what I think I need.
I’ll first meter the ambient light via the EVF or light meter (depending on the subject). And then I’ll meter the strobes.
If my ambient light meters F4 I will make sure I first meter F5.6 on the strobes. And from there I will go down 0.5 stops if the meter also drops 0.5. I know that I’m in sync with the meter and the strobe vs the ambient light. From there I will go down 0.1 stops just as long as the meter also drops 0.1. As soon as the meter doesn’t drop anymore just add 1/10th and you have the perfect balance between ambient light and strobe. Now in all honestly I never use this technique, but it’s important to understand it, in theory, to see that there is a zone where the ambient light simply overpowers the strobe.

In most cases, I want a little bit more on our subject. So in most cases when my ambient is F4 I will set the strobes up for F8 and lower the strobes a full stop. If the meter also drops a full stop I know I’m fine and get the effect I want.

How to meter light on location, outside for a good exposure. You will read it in this blog post.

Why not just adjust and shoot….?

I get it.
Why use light meters, calculations, etc. to get something perfect when you can also just shoot, adjust and shoot.
First of all, when you adjust, shoot, adjust, shoot, adjust, shoot it takes up more time. Plus you waste a lot of battery power. When working for a client it doesn’t really give confidence if you as a photographer can’t nail your lighting with the first shot. And if you work with a model she won’t be your best friend if you have to do that every time something changes.

When using a light meter in all setups (except the 100% balanced fill-in flash) you only need to meter twice. Once for the current output, adjust the strobes and meter again to check, and if you trust your strobes…. Well, you don’t even have to do the second one.

When you understand the concept and get some speed in balancing your lights you can very quickly change the total mood of a setup. Like these images I shot during a workshop in Sweden in the meeting room. We go from fill-in flash to more extreme settings.

If you have questions, feel free to leave them here or on our social media.

Rogue magnetic flash system review

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There are always those products where you think “that’s not made by photographers”. You probably know what I mean, it looks fantastic (on paper) but to use it in real life is of course something completely different.

Let’s face it, this isn’t the first magnetic system, but it’s probably the last one you need.

But let me first make something clear. This is a very flexible set. And although I use it in the studio for this review and the enclosed live stream, it’s the perfect tool for weddings, events etc because it’s not only flexible but also a very fast system….. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Rogue
If the name Rogue sounds familiar to you… that’s very well possible, Rogue released the flashbender on the market years ago, and together with Rogue we have put together the Frank Doorhof signature Flashbender which I actually used almost exclusively on my speedlights, until now ……

The Flashbender is great, let’s be clear about that, and I still use the Flashbender on my speedlights, but not exclusively anymore….

Rogue Magnetic flash system
As mentioned, there are more magnetic systems, but Rogue has listened very carefully to the complaints and wishes of the photographers using them and adapted their system exactly to what a photographer needs. So, let’s take a look at the system.

First, you should know that this system is designed for the wildly popular “round” flashes such as Goddox, Westcott and the Profoto A series for example. Special adaptors are available for both Profoto and standard rectangular speedlights. I use the standard speedlight adapter for my Nissin speedlights, the adaptor is available in “standard” and “small”, for most speedlights “standard” will work perfectly. In the case of the Nissin speedlights I did remove the zoom head (it also works with the zoom head on the flash but without the zoom head everything is a lot firmer) Note… not every speedlight has a separate zoom head.

I am going to review the complete set in this review, but you can also buy parts separately of course.

You can see the kit in 3 parts.
First we have the Dome.

The Dome
Let’s get straight to the point.
Of course, we are not going to get super soft light from a small light source, everyone who promises such a thing is not aware of how light works. A small light source will always give a harder light than a large softbox.

But still, the Dome does something very beautiful.
Due to the entire structure of the Dome, the light becomes omnidirectional instead of focused and this makes a HUGE difference. I’m not going to say that you get the effect of a large soft box, but this is very close to what you can expect from a medium/small soft box. This is actually a very smart way to turn a small light source into something that comes very close to really soft light, and that in such a small Dome, I’m impressed.

The “disadvantage” is that the light goes almost everywhere, but this will not be a problem for most people, on the contrary it helps enormously with lighting up the entire scene or a large part of the model, I use the dome also as fill in for color gels and it literally does a perfect job for that.

During the livestream of Digital Classroom, I used the system for the first time, the reason was actually very simple, I wanted to give people an impression of how easy the system is to use, even if you have never worked with it before. I could already predict the light, but I had the Dome, well it could go both ways, especially since using something like a dome is not really my thing. But as you can see in the stream I became more enthusiastic with each photo.

Using the dome and gel for fill in with color is absolutely awesome with this system

The Dome is perfect for a beauty portrait, as you can see in the examples.
But where the Dome really comes into its own is as a fill in with or without colorgels. During the livestream you will see me doing this as well. And the beauty of the Dome here is without a doubt that you can illuminate the entire scene with standard or colored light without too much effort. This gives a lot of flexibility in terms of highlighting a model / set but also a lot of creativity by using the gels. If you still use shadows in your RAW convertor, start using fill in flash, trust me you’ll thank me very soon.

Gels
And then we of course arrive at the gels.
Under the dome I usually mount the gels.
Changing gels is super simple, you remove the ring with the dome and place the new gel and… well you click the Dome back and done.

The gels themselves are from the well-known brand Lee and are super strong and specially coated so that they do not tear (easily). This is a problem with many color gels, but the Rogue kit feels nice and strong and if you buy the special gel package you get a huge selection of cool named colors, if your favorite color or shade of that color is not among them it would surprise me.

Besides the colorgels there is also an extensive color correction set available. These are a must have for every photographer that needs to balance the strobes with other light sources.

Grid(s)
A good flexible system also needs a grid, and as expected… the grid is of course also present in the kit. If you (like me) use a lot of focused light and want to have a bit more flexibility in terms of grids, you can of course just stack a few grids on top of each other for a super focused light source.

Speedlight adaptor

As mentioned before I’m using the system on standard speedlights, and that’s where the adaptor comes into play. The adapter is made of a flexible material and slides easily over the speedlight when you stretch it. When fitted, it is “fixed” but is also easy to remove by stretching it slightly again.

With the new magnetic system Rogue puts a product on the market that solves many problems which photographers encounter in real life. Sometimes it’s little things like the way you click the rings together, they click together very easily but try to remove them in a straight movement, and you really have to pull it off, but once you understand the trick you literally click them loose with ease, just push it up on one side and it’s easy to remove the ring, place a new gel or accessory and back to shooting in seconds.

Personally, I find it important that the system really locks, I do not want parts to come off during a photo shoot, but I also don’t want to be messing around with changing color gels because I can barely get my system loose. This is literally the best of 2 worlds, it is both locked very tightly but can also be easily removed by the proper move, very cleverly done.

What will make many people very happy is the way the magnets are fixed inside the rings. This system is designed in such a way that the magnets remain stuck in the rings, so no magnets that fall out and have to be found again, they are fixed in there to stay.

Conclusion
Rogue has a super flexible system that will perfectly match any photographer who likes to work with speedlights or round flashes but does not want to limit him/herself to 1 style. With the magnetic system, a lot is possible switching from flat (beauty) light with the dome to very high contrast with the grid(s) and of course every combination and order, you can even take the dome off the ring.

If you also the color gels you will quickly understand why I became more and more enthusiastic during the livestream, this is really a system I am 100% psyched about. Personally, I use 3 speedlights on location with 2 magnetic systems and a flashbender with strip light and one color gel kit.

If I’m honest, I wouldn’t know what else you’d need.
And the best thing?
The whole system is affordable and doesn’t take up a lot of space in your back, in fact you can probably fit it in your pocket during the shoot.

The magnetic system is for sale via our webshop or in the better camera shop
For international sales please check www.rogueflash.com
See the live stream where I introduce the system for the very first time here.

See the introduction video here.
Join the Home of Rogue Facebook group for loads of information and inspiration.

Hensel views and thoughts on a new system

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If you’ve been following my social media stream and youtube channel you probably already know that after many years being active as an ambassador for Elinchrom I’ve made the switch to Hensel. Let me first explain why this is.

In short, not a bad word about Elinchrom, they’ve been amazing and helped my career without any doubt and I still consider all of the dealers and head-office as close personal friends, and this will not change. Over the past year I’ve been in talks with Hensel USA and I feel that at the moment they are more in sync with what I want and need for both giving you guys a platform to learn and also the gear I use to create my work. But as you guys know I’m incredibly brand loyal and leaving a brand I’ve been in so close contact with from the start is very hard so it took us over a year to make the final decision but both Annewiek and I decided that Hensel is the company that first and foremost has the gear that I strongly believe will open up loads of creativity for photographers in almost every genre of photography, plus I’ve seen what’s coming and that made the switch A LOT easier to say it gently. Add to this the drive at Hensel to push education, help out with events and you immediately see why I’m so enthusiastic.

Photography is creating art, but also inspiration and education.
Hensel is a company that is willing to help me reach more people to help out with their photography, inspire and work with, in the end that’s the most important part for me as an educator, and I also believe it’s one of the most key elements in a brand, education and inspiration is key.

But that’s from my standpoint as an educator…. now why should YOU buy/switch or even look at Hensel. That’s of course the million dollar question. So I decided to make this blog post as a start in series of articles/reviews in both print and video. And don’t worry… it’s not an advertisement thingy, you guys know I never talk about gear that way because in essence there’s only one thing that counts…. how does the gear makes it easier for you to create your art and push new boundaries.

So here we go.
In this blog post I will give you some pointers on the system.
Do remember I’ve been shooting with Hensel for quite some time, one of my friends owns a studio that is 100% Hensel and I’ve taught some workshops there also the weeks before the switch I’ve worked with their gear, so it’s not something I write down after 2 workshops (heck I wouldn’t switch if I didn’t know the system well enough).

First off the mount
The mount is the best ever.
How often do you struggle with getting your heavy softbox on your strobe, or how often do you find out that it was not securely fastened with all the dangers connected (or not connected, pun intended). In the past I’ve worked a lot with Profoto gear and always loved the simplicity of their mount, but the Hensel mount ranks right up there. It’s a very simple and fast mount, you just pull a lever, put the modifier in and release the lever and well that’s it. And added VERY big advantage is that you can rotate every single modifier with ease. Especially great with striplights.

Here you can see the mount on an Integra, you can see the clamps and the lever on top, it’s really an incredibly easy and fast system. Especially when you change modifiers a lot (like me) this is a major strong point.

The reflectors
Reflectors are often regarded as the most basic modifiers but in essence they are very sophisticated. Did you know for example that choosing the right reflector outside can literally mean that you can twice as long on a battery pack?

Reflectors bundle the light and throw it on your subject.
If you look at my work you already know I love the high contrast look. You can achieve this with for example Fresnels, small softboxes with grids, but the best modifier for this look is for me personally the reflector (with or without grid). The cool thing about Hensel is that their reflectors are very prone to focussing the light right on the subject and are rather deep, meaning you get an amazing quality of light from them. Add to this the 14″ reflector which will give you a very focused beam of light outside plus a lot of extra power from your strobe and you see the reason why I actually ordered a selection of reflectors to play with.

The disadvantage of reflectors is that they are often, as people expect, a bit too harsh, too wide etc. The ones I got are actually the opposite and I think I’ll be using more reflectors than in the past for the simple reason they have an amazing focus and throw. It really fits my style perfectly. Add to this a nice selection of grids that is available for all of them and you can do whatever you want. (added bonus…. reflectors are actually often the cheapest modifiers, and therefore often overlooked by both the user and the manufacturer).

 

Grids
I love to have total light control and of the key elements for this is being able to steer the light. The best aid for this is called a grid or as some people like to call it a Honey Comb grid. Now in all honesty for most softboxes and reflectors you can get grids, but in a lot of cases these grids are not made for these modifiers and can cost you an arm and a leg plus extra work. For all the modifiers that I use Hensel actually already had grids so I could order them all from one location and they all fit the modifiers like a glove. Especially for softboxes and striplights this is a huge deal, but also for the 14″ reflector this was a delight.

Easy battery replacements
This might sound like a “Yeah… well what do you mean” kind of thing.
But try to replace a battery in the freezing cold or blistering heat, some battery systems are far from perfect. Now I won’t say that something is perfect but the Hensel comes pretty darn close. Take a look at the picture of the Porty for example. You just click and pull and it’s out and you can charge it in little over 2 hours. That sounds not that impressive but…. this a 1200W strobe which actually packs 300-350 pops on full power.

 

 

Remote
The remote is simple but works.
You can select 3 groups and with a small but easy to use switch you can select 1-2-3 or all.
Via the remote you can change the output of each strobe and turn the modelling light on or off plus trigger the strobe for a test. As far as I can see now the performance is very good but let’s be honest now a days a remote should indeed just work, the time of line of sight or shoot 10 and miss 2 should be way behind us.

This is probably the only thing I’m really gonna miss from the Elinchrom system, the new Skyport system is incredibly handy in the way that you can see all the strobes (if compatible) and you can easily change outputs. But changes are coming I’ve heard.

The thing that I do really like is the alternative remote control called the “wifi remote”.
This is very cool and would be great for people that do a lot of fixed setups where they have multiple strobes and want to be able to just switch between sets, let’s say only the back, only the front, a mix with sides etc. etc. you can store presets and call them back incredibly easily.

We actually mounted a small android tablet on a Tethertools holder and have the software running you can see all the strobes and changing settings is fast and easy. The cool thing is that due to two way communication if you change something on the remote you can see it also on the wifi remote. For my kind of work it’s cool but it’s not a necessity, I’ll have to see if I still use it after a few months, but again for other setups that use more fixed setups this is absolutely awesome.

Speed, speed, and did I already say speed…..
At the moment we have 3 expert 500D strobes in the studio and those are crazy fast, and I mean crazy fast. Yesterday we shot with some cameras that handle 14 frames per second and they didn’t even blink or missed shots and trust me that was not on a lower power setting. I’ve done similar tests on other systems and although for example the ELCs are real speed demons too they don’t have the short flash duration of the expert 500D.

Now of course you have the flash duration that the manufacturer tells you, but in all honesty you can just forget about those. The faster the flash duration the more stopping/freezing power and the crispier your shot so it’s important to really “hype” that speed.

In all honesty if your strobes are above 1/2500 of a second you’re fine. You can use it for freezing motion with hairs and jumps, but just don’t expect to have perfect frozen “everything” but you’re fine. I always held 1/2500 as the bare minimum for what I wanted. It gets really interesting when you break that 1/5000 barrier. Images get a certain crisp or micro contrast whatever you want to call it but it just looks different. And when you let a model move the motion is frozen perfectly.

Now comes the “not so fun” part.
Often manufacturers will claim insanely high flash durations but they don’t tell you that it only works at the lowest power setting… which well is absolutely useless because you can’t make a model jump and shoot her on f2.8 ISO400 there simply isn’t enough depth of field to have focus correctly. For a portrait it will work but a jump or movement will never be spot on when you don’t have some field of focus where the model can move in. So you need that stopping power on at least half and preferably even on full power. The last two workshops I’ve used my Sekonic 858 in the “metering speed mode” and I’ve actually never seen the Experts drop below 1/4000 of a second, but I’ve metered a top speed on 1/12000 (that’s insane) and that was not on the lowest setting but I believe somewhere at slightly above midpoint. Next week I’ll do a small test with the Sekonic and make a video on this.

Now you might say that this is only important when you freeze motion, but please read the first part again. It’s very hard to explain but you really see a difference between a really fast strobe and a slower one. The images just come out a bit more crisp. For me this is perhaps one of the points where I’m most enthusiastic about.

Build quality
For most people not that important, for some very important so I’m just gonna say it.
They’re build like fricking tanks. Same goes for the Porty and it’s heads, you just know it will be with you for years and if you drop it…. well don’t but if it happens… you can probably just continue shooting like nothing happens (no I’m not gonna try it). And to be fair in all these years I only dropped an Elinchrom a few times and they always continued working I only broke off a handle once. But I’ve seen some other brands that literally scattered in a million pieces after a very low drop.

But it’s not only the strobes. The softboxes, reflectors, grids etc. they all look like they will last years and years.
Giving the pricepoint of the modifiers I think this is a great selling point. It’s not cheap, but compared to the build quality of only slightly lowered priced alternatives there is a huge difference that would be well worth the investment.

Soft-boxes
I’ve mostly ordered the soft-boxes in the grand series because I just LOVE deep octas. And I think that with the 85 for location, 90 and 120 you can do almost anything when you combine them with grids. If you need bigger there’s also a 190 Grande, but I think I would hardly use that one myself, but if you’re into more softer and broad light that one would be absolutely awesome. Oh and there is one thing I do have to add concerning the soft-boxes. You probably know that most deep octas have a diffusion panel on the inside and outside right? Well these also have that of course but the inner diffusion panel is actually a translucent reflector which can actually help you out on location when you want to shoot with ambient light… just take out the diffuser and use it like you would normally use a reflector…. awesome idea.

I also ordered two 30-120 strips with grids by the way, just in case you wanted to know.

Beauty dish
One of the modifiers I use most is the beauty dish, it’s a sort of “it will always work” modifier.
I’ve always used the Elinchrom beautydish for a lot of my work and really liked it, but it was not one of the most “refined” modifiers. In essence it’s just a dish with a deflector and a one sized grid. I tried the larger beautydish a few times but never liked it and always returned to the smaller silver one.

The beauty dish from Hensel is something you really should check out. I was deeply impressed the first time I saw it.
It’s not just a dish with a deflector but it actually has some really well thought out light modifiers inside and the deflector part also has a holder for a gel which will come in incredibly handy because I love to use gels. Where some modifiers don’t differ that much the Beauty dish really is a HUGE step up for me.

I love modifiers that are versatile and this is a really well though out modifier.
But I can talk about it… let’s just see some images.
I actually ordered the silver one. There is also a grid that covers the complete dish by the way.
Want a lot of looks from one modifier?
Well here you go.

 

Compositing
Not really my thing “yet” for the simple reason I simply don’t take the time to spend hours extracting hairs. But if that would be easier…. well I would really like to play with it some times like for example with our cos-players, or what if you’re shooting children or working as a school or event photographer. Wouldn’t it be cool to just take a shot and not think about it and get a “perfect” cut out in Photoshop ready to placed on a backdrop (or even better, in the case of events, just do it automatically)?

Well enter… freemask
You do need strobes that are compatible, and you do need a special remote (and optional software, although you can also do it in Photoshop yourself). But when you invest in the remote and you already have compatible strobes (most Hensel gear is freemask compatible) it’s incredibly simple.

In short you use two groups.
One you just light your subject the way that you want.
The second one lights the backdrop.
Now when you shoot you shoot 2 frames (set camera on continues)
First the front will fire, and secondly the backdrop.
Now you have your model and a silhouette.
Do some magic and voila you have a perfect cut out.
Yep it’s that easy.

Again this is not a selling point for me, but I can imagine that if you’re indeed into shooting events, cos-players, schools, families etc. this is a HUGE money maker, but also for commercial photographers of course, no more money spend on extraction just shoot it and you’re done, well ok that sounds too easy of course, you still have to make sure the backdrop and subject fit together like shadows, lighting, composition, angle etc. but the extraction part went from “complicated and timely” to literally one shot.

Final thoughts
pffffff, I was planning on writing down just some thoughts and I ended up with a huge story, so sorry for this guys but I just wanted to be complete and while writing more and more ideas popped up, and I think that’s the incredibly cool thing about this, a brand that moves you, that literally pushes your buttons and gives you more ideas to get more creative that’s what in the end we all want. Take for example that freemask option, I started writing that it was not really for me, but while writing all these ideas popped up and now I also ordered a freemask remote… so let’s see what happens with that.

Now if this was the first time you heard about Hensel…. ok well…. I forgive you.
It’s a brand that has been on the market since 1963 and was the choice for many professional photographers for decades and watch my words you’ll hear a lot about them in the coming months, they have a very exciting strobe that is about to be released in the form of the Foris 400/800 which would be the perfect strobe for shooters that work both on location and in the studio and want to make absolutely no compromise on quality and easy of use or speed or…. well just check out the Foris here and that’s just the start, so keep your eyes out for updates.

Want to know more?
Of course you want.

I started a facebook group on https://www.facebook.com/groups/273169130099901/ for English
Or a Dutch page that is actually run by the Dutch distributor https://www.facebook.com/groups/442891952854692/

Find Hensel at : https://hensel.eu/en/
And the official Dutch distributor at : https://www.hensel-studiotechniek.nl/

If you have any questions… feel free to ask.
If you want me to test certain things just let me know.

Here are two BTS videos we shot from the first two workshops with Hensel
https://youtu.be/hgKUeWc4klM
https://youtu.be/R9nfyNBoKU4

And a small selection of the first series of photos shot with Hensel.