We did this just outside the room where Mike Larson was giving one of his great seminars organized by Calumet and Sunbounce. We even borrowed his beautiful model for an hour or so.

So what about the H4D then? First of all, this wasn’t any kind of scientific test. I basically just snapped away some pictures like it was a compact camera and that’s probably not what it was intended for. (Although a friend of mine said he saw a tourist with an H4D in Venice.)

Let’s start with the bad news: ergonomics, build quality and handling sucks big time. And I mean really big time, my 450D feels a lot more professional. The H4D looks and feels like it’s made of the same plastic as my first DSLR, the 300D (aka the digital rebel). It’s very slow in writing pics to the card (not even 1 pic/second). I do understand that these are very large files but then the camera should have a larger buffer / more processing power. The autofocus is slow and simply doesn’t work at all if the subject is backlit. The menus seem to be designed in the 90’s. The LCD-screen is plain rubbish. If Canon would fit such a bad screen on an entry level DSLR, the forums would be filled with complaints. I could not tell anything about the pictures when watching them on the lcd.

Is there anything good to say about the H4D? Well, it has something that my 5D mkII nor my 1D-bodies have … a pop-up flash. Yes, that’s right, a pop-up flash.

But wait, there’s more: Once you download the huge files to your computer, you finally discover what Hasselblad has been famous for during decades: SUPER QUALITY. The resolution is just mind blowing. If I zoom a picture to 100% in Lightroom on my rather recent Macbook Pro, I can go and make myself a coffee while it’s rendering. To some this resolution is essential for their work but most of us can easily get by with a Canon or Nikon. To me, the biggest advantage of the Hasselblad files is the depth. The gradients are way smoother than any digital camera I’ve ever seen.

Since I met him for the first time, I’ve been wanting to take a portrait of Waldemar. You may not know him, but he’s the one that drives the van on the European Sunbounce workshop tours. He’s also the one that bends the ultra strong German steel in the Sun-Movers. He looks like a very tough guy (and I’m sure he is when needed) but he’s also a very generous man. And he’s the owner of a face that just screams to be taken a portrait of.

These were shot outside in the middle of the day. I underexposed the ambient so it didn’t play any role in the picture. We lit this with just one beautydish overhead.

I know the H4D is not supposed to be a replacement for a 5D mkII. It’s probably expected to be used tethered to a computer, in a controlled environment. But still, for that price I would have expected a decent construction, good lcd and excellent ergonomics. I wouldn’t even mind if they would have to drop the pop-up flash for that. If you need the resolution and/or the depth it’s probably still worth the hefty price tag and I’m not sure if the other digital medium format solutions are any better.

Conclusion: The H4D is certainly “haute cuisine” when it comes to image quality, too bad you have to consume it with a plastic fork on a cardboard plate. But still, I wouldn’t hesitate to rent one, if I need the image quality.

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For more info and purchasing, please visit www.motivationallight.com

We drove ourselves to exhaustion to get it finished but that’s easily forgotten when I look at the end result. The goal was to make a 90 minute instructional DVD, but we ended up with two and a half hours of video about learning how to light. We also tried to squeeze in as much small practical hints and tips as possible. On top of that, there’s an hour of video about how I post processed a number of pictures I shot for the DVD. And then we still have a long section about gear that we just couldn’t fit into the DVD. We’ll release those videos and some more unused footage soon as free online bonus material.

I’m very curious about your reviews, comments and reactions, so please let me know what you think in the comments.
We also would be very thankful if you would help us to spread the news about Motivational Light.

And even then, it took Pieter and me many months of hard work to plan, shoot and edit all this together. Right now we are editing like crazy to get the final details right. I’m extremely happy and proud about the way it all comes together in the editing booth. So I’m very excited that it will be available really soon now.

Here’s another sneak peek that will give you an idea of what we got out of our first days of recording.

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We are flooded with questions about the DVD, so let me give you some answers:

- The DVD is in English (or at least my interpretation of English).

- We are still editing but the final result will run somewhere between two and three hours. The biggest part is about lighting but there will be also some sections on gear and postprocessing. We also tried to squeeze in as much small practical tips as possible.

- We’ll offer the DVD as a download. That way you can access your purchase immediately and we avoid having to ask a higher price to cover costs like handling, disks, packaging, shipping, taxes, … We also shot everything in High Definiton and with the download you can enjoy the full quality. For those who want to have a physical disc, we’ll offer a slightly more expensive download + double DVD version. So as long as you have an internet account and a credit card, you can buy it anywhere in the world.

- We still need to finalize some last calculations but the final price for the download version of the DVD will be around 125 EUR / 175 USD

- We are honored that so many of you want to preorder but since you can have immediate access to the download, there’s no need to preorder.

If you have any more questions about the DVD, I’ll be happy to answer them in the comments.

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The idea of doing a DVD has been ripening for about two years now. I didn’t want to start it head over heels. Instead I’ve been writing and rewriting the script many times just to make sure that it’s a useful addition to the lighting videos that are already out there.

Here are already a couple of shots we made for the DVD.

More info will follow soon!

I must admit that the last two weeks of the project were the hardest, I really had to keep pushing myself to make some pictures and on some days I didn’t produce anything that’s worth keeping really. But then again, that’s probably the most interesting part of the project.

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After the last day of the 50/50 project I was relieved that it was over but much to my surprise I didn’t feel like putting away the 50mm lens for 6 months. I use it now much more than before. My 70-200 probably saw most action before, but now the 50 is my most used lens.

I’ve learned so much from this project. If I would put it all on the blog, I’d probably have to rename it to the 50/50 blog. I was also pleasantly surprised that so many people gave feedback and got inspired by the project to start their own personal project. A few people even suggested to make a book out of it and I’m considering to do just that. My idea would be to to show my 50 favorite pictures and tell you 50 things I’ve learned. Let me know if you would consider buying a decent priced (e-)book with that kind of content.

Thanks for all your support on the 50/50 project.

In Amsterdam the weather wasn’t great but at least it didn’t rain. I felt I needed some air, so I decided to move outside for my speedlight/sunbounce demo. In this kind of industrial area, there’s lots of nice background to be found but maybe not suited for pictures of a bride. But the blue sky with some fluffy clouds seemed suitable. Backgrounds don’t always have to be vertical things. Don’t forget to look up and down when searching for backgrounds too. I needed to raise the fantastic model Julia a bit to get rid of the buildings in the background so Stefan and Waldemar (or something like that) went asking for some pallets at the nearby Calumet store.

Exposing for the sky gave me a nice background but turned the model into a silhouette. Sunbounce Pro and speedlight to the rescue. The flash was set to full power to get enough light on the model. We choose the gold/silver zebra fabric to warm up the skin tones a bit. The warm light contrasts nicely with the blue tones of the sky.

Thanks to Mike for taking these setup shots.

And here are the results:

I had an amazing four days on the road but I must admit that after the long drive home from Amsterdam I was absolutely exhausted. I’m still looking for my usual energy levels. Big thanks for all who helped organizing these workshops and to all the people who attended.

Off-camera flash speedlights are a good match for photographers who have to work without assistants, under time pressure and on a tight schedule in situations they don’t control. I think that’s pretty much the definition of a wedding photographer. Direct bare flash would be the easiest to use but it’s often way too harsh. Umbrella’s and small softboxes make the light softer and more pleasing but to me they often look just a bit too perfect. That’s why in those circumstances I often bounce the flash into a reflector. This creates the soft light of a bigger lightsource but it still allows the light to influence and be influenced by external factors. The catchlights also look more natural.

For these pictures we used a Sunbounce Mini reflector as this is to me the most versatile size. As you can see you can light a headshot to a 3/4 shot.
I often get the question on which Sunbounce reflector to buy: well, I think the mini (which is not so “mini” by the way) is a good choice for most photographers. I’d buy it with the zebra/white fabric (that’s what we used here). The zebra gently warms the light up without going over the top.

I finished my session with a couple of quick shots without flash. Just the sun as a hair/back light and the Mini reflector to light the face from camera left. Judging by the catchlights we might have used another reflector to fill in the shadow side, but I forgot.

It’s always difficult to get thrown in front of a crowd and perform some tricks but I guess that again is what wedding photography is all about.

On Saturday Calumet hosted a workshop in Antwerp with Mike where Fotofolio and I also gave a little demo of how we use reflectors (pics are coming later). Yesterday Mike and our own Pieter Van Impe, joined forces for an orgasm of wedding photography information during a LIME workshop in “the Barn”. It was nice to welcome lots of new and old friends from Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Norway, Russia and the USA.

Mike framed by Filip and Sarah during a live engagement shoot:

Mike even took the participants to my back yard for the shoot:

Sunbounce guru Peter Geller is shorter than the models:

Peter documenting the workshop on the left. A reunion of the Blues Brothers on the right:

Mike stresses out the importance of building a friendship with your clients:

Today the circus moved to the Rotterdam in the Netherlands. I gave a little demo of how I use Sunbounce Reflectors in combination with off-camera flash to create natural looking light. The workshop was held in a big studio that’s great for … well … studio photography but doesn’t offer much available light. I only found some small tungsten lights aimed at photographs and used these as an out of focus background. I lit the model with a single speedlight bounced into a Sunbounce Pro Zebra. We also added a silver Mini on the right as fill.

Let’s catch some sleep because tomorrow we have another workshop in Amsterdam.

This time I was still nervous. Not because she’s even more experienced now or because it was going to be lingerie, but because I didn’t have much of a clue what to shoot. I knew I wanted to work with just one light and a grey backdrop but that was about it. Luckily Peggy came to the rescue with some clever outfits and some amazing poses.

I still feel I’m struggling a bit in the studio. When I play it safe I’m sure I can come up with decent pictures, but I want more than just decent. I’m pretty happy with the results of this session as I think it’s another step into the right direction to develop my own studio style. As usual, your input is very welcome.

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When I started this personal project, I did expect it would be hard on some days but I didn’t anticipate the difficult days to turn up so soon. The previous week I’ve been to London and visited the traffic control tower but at the moment I’m spending most of my days at home postprocessing, writing, doing paperwork, finishing up projects, … All important stuff but not really visually stimulating. I can hardly take screenshots all day. We also entered the last big phase in the construction works on our house (new roof on the house) which requires me to be home most of the time. There’s a lot to photograph in this daily routine but I start to feel that I did it all. Don’t mistake a “desk period” for a quiet one, lots of deadlines to meet. So it’s not like I have the time to schedule photo trips and TFCD shoots.

It is to be expected that a project like this puts some strain on your daily life and I’m fine with that but not to the point where it disturbs my family life. So sometimes I put the camera away on what is probably the best moment of the day to take pictures.

But you know what, I don’t care. In fact, I’m happy with these difficult days. These are the times when I grow the most as a photographer. I have to improvise, look for another angle on something I’ve shot many times before or go out at 11pm because I haven’t made a decent picture yet that day. I’m perfectly fine with some bad picture days as long as they push me forward as a photographer.