Happy Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day to all the mothers out there! We took time this afternoon to take a couple of Mother's Day pictures in the front yard. These were made with one SB800 in TTL to camera left. Shot in manual mode at 1/250 and f/4.0 with -3.0 EV.

Happy 30th Birthday, Brooke!

Today is Brooke's 30th birthday. She is the love of my life, and I am so thankful for her and how she loves and supports me. We spent yesterday at Universal Studios and had a hotel in Orlando last night while Brooke's mom stayed at home with both kids. It was the first night we have had to ourselves in over 3 years, and yet Brooke agreed to let me take the time to make some night-time portraits of her in Orlando. She was very patient and only got a little scared whenever people would walk by us. Anyway, here's my favorite:



For those of you who care, here's how I made this frame:

I used the 70-200mm lens at 170mm. Shot in manual mode at f/2.8 and 1/30th of a second. ISO was at 500. Had one SB800 shooting through an umbrella directly in front of Brooke in manual at 1/32 power. I forgot my tripod at home (of course) which is the only thing I would have changed. Even with the VR activated on my lens, the shot would have been a bit sharper if I wasn't hand-holding it.

Baby Shoot

Last week I had the opportunity to shoot baby Waylon at the house. We set up a white background in the studio (garage), and three lights. The key light was to camera right at 45* from Waylon and the fill light was to camera left, close to 45* from Waylon and back further than the key light. I also put a light on the background to make sure it would be white instead of gray (which is what happens to a white background when you light the subject and not the background as well).

I was a little nervous, but baby Waylon did such a good job!

Pink Jacket

It's been a while since I set up a portrait shoot in the studio (garage) so tonight I did just that with Ainsley. This shot uses three lights. The main light is through an umbrella to camera left at 45* in front of her. The rim light is diagonal from the main light behind her to camera right. It's bare and zoomed all the way in. Then one final light behind her to light the background so that it would be pure white. I fired all the lights from my D700 using CLS and its pop-up flash.

Then I put a pink "X" on the ground where I wanted her to stand, dressed her in a cute pink jacket, and she does the rest!



I know... I know... she's kind of cute.

First Academy Basketball

On Tuesday night I shot the First Academy boy's basketball game. It was my first effort at shooting basketball, and the gym proved to be a handful of problems. Of course the lighting was terrible so to combat that, I used two SB800's. One on each side of the gym. Here's a quick diagram so you will understand:



I clamped one to a folding chair and the other to the bleachers. I aimed them at the top of the key and fired them at 1/2 power. I shot from right underneath the goal. Here are some of my favorite shots:









I had a great time and hopefully will get more chances to shoot some basketball games.

Balancing Ambient Light with Strobe Light

On Saturday we did some family portraits with my mother-in-law. I will walk you through my thought process and light setup for the shoot:

When we arrived at the location, I began looking for the best place for the shoot. I wanted to keep the sun behind the subjects to make for a nice back light. I found a cool red chair and thought we would use it for the prop. I turned it so the sun was behind it and to the right. I could have taken the picture just like that, but didn't want to blow out the background in order to expose for the foreground. I wanted it to be more formal as well so I put up one light with an umbrella just to the left of the camera and close to the chair (it's just outside of the frame in the picture below).

Just as I was ready to get my subjects in place, the sun went behind some very thick clouds and totally took away my back light. I could have gotten a good picture without it, but I'm looking for better than just good. So I took the little bit of time to setup one more light behind the chair and to the right to imitate the light I was formerly getting from the sun. I put a Honl Speed Grid on it to control the beam of the light.

I put the back light on manual mode at 1/2.5 power. I set the front light in TTL -2/3 stops. Those numbers are the final numbers, of course I started a little different from that and adjusted just a little once I took a few pictures. The key is to balance the strobe light with the ambient light so people don't look at it and say, "he obviously had a light here, here, and here." What you want them to say is, "great picture!"

You can see that taking the time to setup the back light really paid off. It rims them out nicely and separates them from the background. This gives the picture dimension and takes it from a good photo to a great one.

Enough talking, here's my favorite:

Last Post Of The Year

Happy New Year's Eve to you! Thanks to all of you who read this blog for making this such a successful first year. I started this blog on May 4th, and this is my 125th post! I'm going to finish off this year with a great photo I took this afternoon of Ainsley in the studio (garage). I've even included a set-up photo for you so you can see how I did it.

What I did:

1. main light was an SB800 in my DIY beauty dish just to camera left and high above her
2. back lights were SB800's in partially closed umbrellas trying to control the spill of the light
3. back drop was a piece of white felt
4. shot with my 24-70 lens at 62mm.
5. manual mode at 1/250 and f/4.0 with ISO of 400
6. main light was TTL
7. back lights were manual at 1/10 power

Here is the final picture cropped the way I would use it:



Here is the full final picture:



Here is the set-up picture:



I know, I know... she's adorable! Have a great New Year!

Christmas Portraits

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas Day! We enjoyed my parents and Johnny & Jess being in town. We had a ton of food, played the Wii, and spent way too much time trying to get a family portrait where everyone, including both kids, were smiling and looking just right. I'm not sure if we got it or not, but here is the keeper from the bunch:



Here's the setup: I used two SB800 with shoot-thru umbrellas at 45* on each side. I then used another bare SB800 behind us to give some separation from the background. The setup really wasn't the hard part, it was getting Ainsley to smile! A huge "Thank You" goes out to our neighbor Lynn who came over and stood at the camera to keep the kids attention and make them laugh.

When we were done with this one, we moved to the Christmas tree with one of the umbrellas and had to position it so you couldn't see its reflection in the windows. Here's my favorite shot of the kids:



Have a great weekend and I'll see you here next week!

Christmas Morning

Are you excited about Christmas morning? I'm sure you can't wait to get great pictures of the tree, food, and all the presents! David Hobby (pictured above) over at Strobist.com wrote a blog last year on photographing Christmas morning. You definitely need to read it so you don't miss a shot! Here's a link to the post.

On-Axis Fill Continued...

Tonight I continued to experiment with on-axis fill. This time in a more controlled environment in the studio (garage). The setup was as follows:

1. main light (SB800) high and at a 45* angle from my subject camera right - shooting through a Lastolite tri-grip diffuser
2. fill light (SB800) directly behind me and the camera just above my shoulders - also shooting through a tri-grip
3. ratios - I used TTL and set the fill light to -2.3 stops beneath my main light

So the thought is that I could fill in some of the shadows without creating a "new" light source from a different direction. I'm starting to like this technique. There has been a lot of talk about it lately over at Strobist.com. My model tonight was my beautiful daughter Ainsley, however, that meant I only had a couple of shots to get it right before she got bored. Here are a couple for you to look at:

Piper

This afternoon I had the opportunity to shoot some family portraits for the Barshay family. They were all together to celebrate the 40th anniversary of their parents. 40 years! What a blessing! Stephen May helped me out with the shoot and I owe him big time. You see, Thursday night I ended up in the emergency room after getting hit in in the back during a flag football game. My ribs are totally bruised and I could barely move Thursday night and all day Friday. I was feeling much better today, but there's no way I could have gotten through the session without Stephen's help.

Back to the title of this blog... the little girl in the family was named Piper and she was NOT happy about getting her picture made. In fact, she did not look too happy in most of the pictures. But we were about done with her immediately family's shots when her parents started to tickle her. Everything to that point had been very formal so I was loving it! Finally some emotion! I zoomed in on Piper and got the shot of the day! I don't think it was what this family was looking for, but I loved it! For this shot, Stephen was to my left holding an SB800 in one hand shooting through a Lastolite Translucent Diffuser which he held in the other hand. Easy lighting!



Put it in a magazine!

Blanchard Family Portraits with On-Axis Fill

Yesterday I had the opportunity to do a family portrait session for some very close friends of mine. We had a great time and got some good pictures. I wanted to try using a technique called on-axis fill where your fill light comes from the same line your camera is on. For yesterday's shoot, I used one SB800 to camera left shooting through a Lastolite diffuser for my main light and one other SB800 in my DIY Beauty Dish directly above me and the camera for my fill light. The key is to make sure the on-axis fill is only a fill light... not being a detriment to the key light you set up. So I set the fill light at 3 stops less than my main light which just brought in some detail without overpowering my key light. Here are some pictures of the setup courtesy of Ben Rogers:





I used that setup in two different places and was very pleased with how things turned out. In the second picture, you can see Randy holding a reflector, but it was not being used as a light source, just blocking the sun. Here are a few of my favorite pictures from the session:

Family Portrait Session

This weekend I had the opportunity to do a family portrait session for some good friends of mine. He is the Pro at one of the local golf courses so we did the pictures there where there is a lot of nice landscaping. I needed to use just a little flash because I wanted to keep everything else looking as good as it did. So I set up one SB800 high and camera left shooting through a Lastolite Tri-Grip Diffuser. Then I was able to expose for the landscaping behind them and put out just enough light to fill in any shadows on their faces. Here are two of my favorites:

Fred & Bekah

This past weekend I had the opportunity to do a portrait session for Fred & Bekah. They were wanting a picture to use for their Christmas card this year, and I was happy to help them out. When I first talked to Bekah, she told me she wanted to do something with a "woodsy" type background. Once we chose the location, I knew I would need some lighting. Of course I could make a good picture with available light there in the shade of the woods, but would it stand out and "pop" the way it would if I used a little lighting?

I set up one light shooting through a Lastolite Tri-Grip Diffuser and balanced it with the ambient light in the shaded tree area we were in. Because they were both wearing black shirts, have dark hair, and we were in a relatively dark place, the camera was tricked and thought "hey, I need to slow down and let more light in because this picture is really dark." But the camera was wrong and ended up blowing out their faces. So I had to dial down my exposure compensation two whole stops to get the proper exposure. Here's the keeper:

Rachel's Senior Portraits

I shot senior portraits for Rachel tonight at her dad's building in downtown Leesburg. It was a great setting for the pictures, and we had a great time. For most of the shots, I used two SB800's and Lastolite Tri-Grip Diffusers. We got a little creative with some of them, but most were very straightforward. Shot all night with the 70-200 2.8 lens. It's definitely become my favorite lens for portraits. Here are a few of my favorite shots from the session.

Thanks Rachel for allowing me this opportunity!

Quick Family Picture

My parents were in town this past weekend and wanted to get a family portrait on Sunday after church (since we all looked so good, ya know). It was hot, but I agreed to set up a couple of lights and a backdrop in the garage.

For those of you who are intimidated by off-camera lighting, it's really not that hard... or scary. I set up one SB800 high and camera right shooting through a Lastolite Tri-Grip Diffuser. That light was set to TTL (through the lens metering) with the exposure compensation set to +1.0. I set another SB800 high and camera left but further back than the light on the right. It also was shooting through a Tri-Grip. I set it to TTL and adjusted the exposure compensation to -1.0.

With the further distance and less power, the left light becomes my fill light.

I set the camera in manual mode, 5.6 and 1/60th. White Balance to "Flash" since I was using.... wait for it, wait for it.... flash. I took one practice shot and I nailed it. Why? Because it really is THAT easy.

Homecoming King and Queen

On Saturday night I had the opportunity to shoot the Homecoming King and Queen of First Academy before they left for the dance. The setting was her house that had access to a dock out by the lake. We took some shots in the yard and then went down to the water. We started pretty late and had hardly any sunlight left. Here are a few of my favorite shots with a quick explanation on how I got the shot. I used my 85 f/1.8 the entire time.


This shot was in the backyard, no flash. I just dialed down the exposure compensation to make up for the dark background. Great formal looking portrait.

This was our walk across the street toward the lake. I got on the ground to allow for the street to lead up to them. I usually don't like keeping some color in a black & white picture but the shoes being red turned out pretty cool and Rachel loved it so the shoes will stay red!

For this shot, I got up on top of the railing going around the dock. Getting a different perspective will really make your pictures more interesting.

My favorite shot! I feel like this could be an ad for some fancy perfume or something. I cranked up the ISO on the D700 for most of these shots on the water because it was DARK!!! I love that sensor!

Flash. If you know what you're doing, you can make great looking shots at anytime of the day. I had Tyler (Rachel's boyfriend... I mean King) hold the SB800 high and to camera right while standing on the bench going around the dock. I lowered my shutter speed to 1/5 of a second and held my breath like crazy! Any faster shutter would have made the sky totally black and I wanted to show as much color as we had left for this shot. I kept my aperture all the way down at 2.8 because any higher, and Rachel and her dad would have been totally blown out. It sounds like a lot of stuff to think about, but when you understand it, you can get this shot on your first or second try.

On this shot of Rachel and her dad, I exposed for the beautiful blue sky and the moon which totally put them in a silhouette. Nice moment.

Thanks Rachel and Tyler for letting me be a part of your special night. Congratulations on being the King and Queen of the First Academy Universe!

Joe McNally in the Desert

One of my favorite photographers is Joe McNally He's a genius when it comes to his gear, and he is so creative when using off-camera flash. He also gets to shoot some incredible subjects thus making some very memorable pictures.

This video is of a shoot he did in the Dubai desert using Nikon SB800's. If you are at all intimidated by off-camera flash, watch this video and then go subscribe to David Hobby's blog, "Strobist". It's so important to understand how to be able to take pictures using your flash.... good pictures. If you are a Nikon shooter, consider purchasing the DVD titled "Speed of Light" featuring Joe McNally. It's well worth the $25!

Headshot

I did a headshot for a friend of mine today who is trying out for a part at Disney this weekend. As far as a setup, it was very simple. We hung the black background, fired an SB800 through a Lastolite Diffuser from camera right at about 45*, and that was it. With a woman, I probably would have added an extra light to fill in the shadows, but when you are shooting a portrait of a man, you can get away with more shadows because of the shape of our faces. Here's the one he chose:



Jonathan, thanks for letting me work with you on this. Good luck this weekend!

Lighting Your Background

Last week I showed you a picture of Ainsley where I used a white background, but because I did not use a light on the background itself, it actually turned gray in the picture. Here's another look at it:



Last night I took a couple of shots of her with the same exact background, only this time I put a strobe directly behind her facing the white background. This gives us the kind of look you see in many magazine shoots that look very clean and crisp. The way you do this, is to make sure the light on the background is about 2 stops brighter than the light you have on your subject. Here's the keeper from last night:



So the setup for this shot was one SB800 shooting through a Lastolite Tri-Grip Diffuser to camera right and above Ainsley (see the catch light in her eyes). I had a white Westcott reflector hanging beside her to camera left to fill in some of the shadows on that side of her face. Then one more SB800 directly behind her facing the background exactly 2 stops more powerful than the main light. I fired the two strobes with the SU800.

You can just imagine the cover: