Tag Archive for: light meter

A cool set with clickbackdrops

/in , /by

Building a set can be easy

Using a set in your photoshoot adds a lot.
When I started out with modelphotography I mostly shot on seamless (paper) and although it was a lot of fun working with different colors at one point you get a bit bored with it and I started with using custom walls with paint, structure or wallpaper.

A few years ago we came into contact with clickbackdrops and loved their huge selection of prints and the materials vinyl and especially pro-fabric (which mimics the old vintage canvas backgrounds without all the disadvantages)

Today in the blog some images I shot during a workshop with Felisa.
During this workshop I used the “boho drapes” background which can be used without anything extra and gives a real sense of shooting on an old fashioned set.
But it becomes much more interesting when you start to add some props.

In this case I added a chair for the model but also some branches with faint lights and a nice lamp.
For the workshop this is was a great setup to experiment with mixing light sources, finding interesting angles and of course also shoot some images without the strobes.

By using props in front of a scenic backdrop and taking into to account the way the shadows fall on your backdrop you can quickly create something that looks like it was shot on a cool vintage location.

During the workshops I always try to include several “challenges” into the sets and mixing light sources is always one that is often requested.
In essence the technique is not that hard, but you need to realise some important facts.

The continuous lights are of course a lot less bright than the strobes.
The strobes however are just a pulse, and after the pulse they don’t emit light anymore, so when you shoot images like this it can be cool to leave the modelling lights on, but if you need longer shutter speeds it’s important to disable the modelling lights, if you use the longer shutter speeds the strobe will freeze the model, but the modelling lights will start to register on the model at one point, so if you don’t want this make sure you only use the pulse of the strobe.

Let’s set the shot up

For a quick setup I’m using a lightmeter.
The Geekotos I’m using can go really low in their output, which is a huge benefit for these kind of setups where you mix faint light sources with strobes.
With the Geekotos it actually often means that I don’t have to use them on the lowest setting, which gives me more headroom to correct the balance without having too much noise in my images. If you use strobes that are more powerful or can’t go lower on their output it can help to choose a different light shaper, for example a striplight with grid will eat light while a metal reflector will boost your output. If you tried everything and just can’t go low enough think about adding a ND filter to your strobe (not the lens).

But let’s continue with my setup.
First I will meter the strobe on the lowest setting, when I know my aperture I will raise the ISO on the lightmeter till I hit that aperture (the light meter will calculate the aperture in real time when you change the ISO values).

Now it’s important to put the camera in the “exposure compensation” mode when using an EVF.
Look at the EVF and change the shutterspeed till you like the output of the lights.
Longer shutter speeds means more light from the continuous lighting, and as long as you don’t change the output of the strobes and ISO the shutterspeed will have to influence on your strobe output (as long as you take into account the Xsync of your strobes, max shutterspeed).

As you can see it workshops great when you mix continuous lighting with strobes.
I love to keep the color of the continuous lighting warmer than the mainlight, but if you want to correct the strobe to mimic the color temperature of the continuous  lighting you can use so called Color Correction gels.

Workshops

During the workshops we always try to shoot at least 3 different setups with different challenges, if you want to visit one of the workshops visit fotografie-workshops.nl
The workshops are in Dutch but if you let us know a few weeks in advance we can switch to English.
We are also now offering online 1:1 workshops live from our studio, where you can ask questions, see all the light setups via 4 cameras and see the whole retouch process.

 

On location photoshoots : how to kill the ambient light part I

/in /by

Locations are awesome

 

But what if they are not? Well, it’s up to you to make them awesome.
Sounds difficult?
Well, it can be, but with the proper lighting and lighting techniques you can create stunning images in locations that are far from awesome. Killing the ambient light is one of those techniques.

Workshop “On location in Emmeloord”

During this workshop, we scout locations close to our studio that look uninteresting but have the potential to become awesome. This is a great workshop to get more secure when working for clients in locations that are a bit less inspiring (or in other words 50% of the time).

During the workshop, I explain the techniques but also tried to create something different in each location.
For this workshop the model was Nadine, and as you can probably see she’s is pregnant so that was a great option to also shoot some pregnancy shots of course.

Today one of the sets from this workshop.

I’m using our Geekoto strobes on HSS in this video.

 

And, the final results

killing the ambient light

We took this picture during a sunny day and killed the ambient light

killing the ambient light

 

Day2Night

Killing the ambient light is also called Day to Night (Day2Night). Pictures are taken during the daytime. But it looks like it was taken at night. A lot of my students are interested in this technique. And I always try to incorporate such a scene in the workshop outside.

 

In this video I went to Times Square in New York, and I’ll give you some tips to look like you took the pictures at night

Check out another video on location with Nadine ad styling of course 

We also did a workshop outside with a Tesla car and model Lois 

 

The most amazing deal of the year

/in /by

It’s time for the 5DayDeal again

If you want to get the most amazing deal for your photography, I think the 5daydeal is exactly that.
Every year they deliver the goods and also this year the deal is jam-packed with awesome tutorials, e-books, filters, presets and software.

We made a special page for the 5 day deal.
If you use our link you also support our work.

This year you will also find 2 of my new tutorials in the deal.
Did you know… Lightroom
And
A full length lighting tutorial for portraiture and fashion.

Add those two together and you already have the value of the total package 😀
So head on over to the page and order your 5daydeal today and start learning for.. well at least another year (yep it’s that jam-packed).

The problem with a global shutter that a lot of people will miss

/in , /by

Yes, Sony revolutionised the photography market

Without any doubt one of the biggest steps forward has been released by Sony, and it’s called the A9III
But why is it this huge step forward?

One might think that when we talk about huge steps we talk about MegaPixels, ISO etc. But this is all just adding to something we already have. When I talk about a huge step forward I of course mean the new Global Shutter.

Global shutter?

So why is this global shutter thing such a big deal?
When you work with strobes you probably know that the term X-sync.
The X-sync is the maximum shutter speed you can can use without seeing an annoying black bar due to the second shutter curtain.
For most cameras with studio strobes if you stay at or below 1/125 you will have no problems at all, and in the studio this is actually no limit. Most studios are dark so the slower 1/125 shutterspeed is no problem.

However when we go outside things change.
When we work with strobes we now have to compete with the ambient light.
Take into account the limit of 1/125 and you quickly understand why a lot of those shots with loads of strobe power have a DOF from here to eternity 😀
In other words, outside we often have to shoot at f22 to get the balance we need due to that 1/125 limit.

Solutions

Luckily there are solutions.

  1. Make sure you don’t place your subject close to the top. This way you can shoot at 1/160 and sometimes a bit higher without noticing the black bar. It’s still there for the strobe but the ambient light will not show it and the subject is somewhere in the middle so it will still get the strobe. A quick fix but far from perfect due to the huge limitation for composition (but it’s a nice one if you have to and can for example crop later in Photoshop).
  2. A bit more serious are solutions like HSS, HS
    With HSS your strobe fires a lot of flashes during the exposure making sure the sensor is always lit by the strobe. This eats both power from the strobe but also from your batteries, it’s also a system that’s not 100% stable in output and can overheat a strobe pretty fast.
    HS is a system that uses the cut off and raise of the strobe, not to make it too difficult it uses a very slow strobe to get faster shutter speeds, same issue here is that it eats power.
  3. It doesn’t help with the shutterspeed but you can use ND filters to get a shallow DOF, although this can work great there are some disadvantages, first of all a good ND filter for use with strobes will be a pretty strong one, or a variable (I have the KF concept in my kit and really like that one) And with the stronger ND filters you will get into some problems with focussing speed. Also some ND filters will give you a light drop off in the corners.
  4. Leaf shutter lenses
    Leaf shutter lenses are awesome but expensive.
    The shutter is inside the lens and this means it breaks the limit of 1/125 with ease, there is still a limit (for example 1/1500) which in most cases however is more than enough, especially because most of these lenses are found in the Medium Format cameras.
  5. Cheap cameras
    Believe it or not but years ago I shot with a very affordable small Fuji camera which was able to shoot up to 1/1000 with strobes. This was a far cry from a professional camera, but I decided to include it to make the list complete.

So what’s the big deal with a global shutter?

In short….
There is no real limit anymore.
You would be able to shoot strobes up to 1/16000 or even 1/80000 when using Sony compatible strobes.
Sounds awesome right?
And it is, but there is one limit I have to tell you about that will prevent some nasty surprises.

The speed is important

The idea of shooting at 1/16000 will excite a lot of photographer but it could also be a huge disappointment, but that last part can be solved with a bit of technical information.

When we use our camera we all know that the shutterspeed will determine the “freezing power” of your camera.
The faster the shutterspeed the more action is frozen.
When we use strobes we often just look at the output. And in the past this is 100% understandable, most strobes are fast enough to freeze motion in the studio so we often don’t link shutter speeds to flash durations.

When we look at the specs of our strobes we do however see a value that links the two.
The t0.1 and t0.5 values. You might notice that those values are often mentioned in a range from very fast to slower,
Maybe you also found out that the way the motion is captured does vary depending on the power output of your strobes, especially with cheaper strobes it’s very possible that there are only a few power settings that will freeze the motion, where with the others there always is a slight blur.

When I look at the strobes I’ve worked with over the years there were strobes that topped out at 1/1000 and 1/60000.
As you can see this is a huge difference.
So what is the link with a global shutter?

Let’s shoot a mountain biker at 1/16000 with our strobe on full power.
Now let’s shoot the same mountain biker at 1/16000 with our strobe at 75% power.
I can almost predict that the 75% setting will be brighter.

So what’s going on?

You can shoot with the shutterspeed at 1/16000 and there will be no black bar in the frame, however the strobe has to be just as fast as the shutterspeed otherwise the shutterspeed will be cutting off the power of the strobe while it stills flashes.

This is very difficult to visualize because our eyes can’t see how fast a strobe fires, so we need a special tool for this.
To measure the flashduration of my strobes I’m using the Sekonic 858 lightmeter.
When I measure my Geekoto strobes I can clearly see that they are incredibly fast in the lower settings, as soon as I pass half power they are still fast enough to freeze any motion (1/5000+) but when I reach full power the flashduration gets a serious hit. Now this has nothing to do with the Geekoto strobes, but it’s all strobes and brands, it’s simply how it works.

So how does this fit in the global shutter story.
When you read the reviews and specs on the A9III you might expect that your strobe will behave the same as in the studio and this can lead to not getting the maximum performance out of your brand new camera.

The best way to make sure you get the maximum out of your system is to shoot a series of images on a white wall with the camera on a tripod. Don’t change anything on the camera itself but only change the output of the strobe. Do this for several shutter speeds and watch where the strobe starts to get dimmer and put a sticker on the strobe with those settings.

Why is this important?

When you use a lightmeter on location the meter has “no limits”, so it will give you the value of the full strobe, if the strobe has a flash duration of 1/800 or 1/16000 it doesn’t matter for the meter. Now that we know that the shutterspeed of the camera can cut off the strobe it’s also clear that when we are shooting above the “speed limit” of the strobe the value on the meter will not correspond with what you get in your photo.

Besides the trick with the white wall there is a solution for this, but it’s not cheap, but it will make it much easier.
When you use the Sekonic 858 there is a setting that doesn’t just meters the light but also the flashduration. This can be a very useful tool where you can not only find the setting with the fastest flashduration, but also to know how fast you can set your cameras shutterspeed.

A feature that was handy for reviews in the past has now become an essential tool to use your flash system to the max, and that’s a good thing, a really good thing. We can do amazing things with global shutters and flash, can’t wait to test it out myself.

 

To be clear, I have not shot with the A9III, this why there are no examples (I don’t fake examples), the technique however is universal.
Use the links on our site when ordering from Amazon and you support our work.