A couple of days I got a mysterious call from Canon Belgium, asking me if I was available today and if so, could they come by with a case with secret content? I hoped it would be the long awaited 5D Mark 3 and by yesterday all rumors on Twitter and Facebook indicated that I could be right. And yes, this morning Canon officially announced the new camera. So I anxiously awaited the arrival of the Canon guys at The Barn. Erik from Shoot Magazine also joined us and after a brief introduction, we got to play with the camera for about an hour and a half. I asked you all what I should test on Twitter and Facebook and tried to address as much as possible of your input. So here’s what I think:
THE SHORT VERSION
It’s an amazing camera! I’m getting one
I’ve uploaded full res unprocessed versions of theses files (EXIF included) to this Flickr set. Feel free to download the full res files for personal use. If you’d like to use these images any other way, please ask my permission first.
DISCLAIMER
- It’s after 10pm and I had a really busy day. I don’t like to write when I’m tired but I know you are all waiting for this post. So please don’t mind typos and stuff. I will blog more in the coming days.
- The test was done on a pre-production sample with pre-production firmware. So thing can only get even better when the 5D mark3 hits the market.
- I have to base my review on JPEG-files as there’s no support for the RAW-files in Lightroom (or any other RAW-converter) yet.
- I’m not a scientist and don’t do lab tests. This is my point of view, the point of view of a professional photographer that needs an all-round camera.
- We were too exited and had too little time to do a very organized test. It was all a bit chaotic but great fun.
- My friend and pro model Sylviane kindly offered to be our model for the test. She’s so professional, she looked even great with 4 guys geeking out around her.
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HOW DOES IT FEEL?
It might sound stupid, but I think it’s important that a tool that you use all day, feels right in my hands. And the 5D mark 3 certainly does, even slightly better than it’s predecessor. It’s just a bit easier to hold and offers a bit more grip for sweaty hands. All the buttons and dials are in the right place and it didn’t take me long to figure out the menu system.
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AUTOFOCUS PERFORMANCE
Let’s face it, the autofocus on the 5D mk2 wasn’t very good (and I’m being gentle here). So a lot of people hoped it would be better in the new version. Well, good news, the new autofocus ROCKS!!!!! It has 61 AF sensors, of which 41 are cross-type sensors. I did my best to place Sylviane it very challenging AF situations but couldn’t get the 5D mk3′s AF to fail or even hunt. The focus was instant spot-on even in very low light with little contrast.
The AF-system is almost identical to that of the 1DX and that’s very impressive. I did a little bit of testing in continuous focus on a moving subject and it seems like the camera will handle that really well too.
The new autofocus system is already reason enough for me to upgrade.
I’ve uploaded full res unprocessed versions of theses files (EXIF included) to this Flickr set. Feel free to download the full res files for personal use. If you’d like to use these images any other way, please ask my permission first.
HIGH ISO
The 5D2 was already pretty good at high ISO, certainly if you consider the resolution. For reportage-style I usually found iso 3200 the top of the usable range. With the 5D Mark 3 I tried ISO 6400 and it looks perfectly usable, even 12.800 is perfectly fine. Even 25.600 looks acceptable for weddings and events. So I figure you win at least 2 to 3 stops of usable ISO range. I’m very happy Canon didn’t jeopardize high ISO performance by putting a ridiculous amount of megapixels on the sensor.
I’ve uploaded full res unprocessed versions of theses files (EXIF included) to this Flickr set. Feel free to download the full res files for personal use. If you’d like to use these images any other way, please ask my permission first.
OTHER IMPROVEMENTS THAT I LIKE
- I’m not shooting video with my DSLRs, so you should probably look elsewhere for more info about video. As far as I can see, there is no revolution in the video part but definitely an evolution with more options and better controls.
- The on/off button is now positioned on the top of the camera, which is a more logical place
- There’s a lock-button on the mode dial to prevent accidental switching from for example Aperture Priority to Bulb.
- Dual card slot: You can now have a CF-card and/or an SD-card in the camera. To me this it makes me feel safer to have all files stored on two cards but you can only make the camera switch to the second card if the first one is full.
- Better Metering: I’m a manual shooter but I’m sure that there are a lot of people who can appreciate better light metering
- Six Frames/second: Not something I need very often but sometimes it certainly comes in handy.
- Less Noisy Shutter: The shutter is not as loud as the 5D mark2 and there are some options to make it even more silent.
- I’m sure there’s other things, but these are the most important (TO ME)
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DOWNSIDES
I haven’t found any negative points about the camera so far. Except maybe for the price. Here in Belgium, it will start hitting the shelves at around 3.500 EUR. That is definitely more expensive than it’s older brother. Off-course, I would have liked it to be cheaper but I’d rather have a higher price tag than a camera full of technical compromises to keep the price lower. The guys from Canon also told me that the 5D Mark 2 will stay in production for a while so there’s still a cheaper alternative.
I’ve uploaded full res unprocessed versions of theses files (EXIF included) to this Flickr set. Feel free to download the full res files for personal use. If you’d like to use these images any other way, please ask my permission first.
CONCLUSION
Canon has clearly listened to it’s user base and build upon the still great 5D mark 2. They have improved the good things and fixed the autofocus big time. My 5D mark 2 is nearing the end of it’s life after more than three years of hard use (or should I say ABUSE) and I will replace it soon with a 5D mark 3. I am very impressed with this camera.
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THERE’S MORE
The secret case from Canon contained lots of other amazing goodies like the 1DX, the G1X, the new 24-70, the 24mm IS, the 28mmIS, the WFT-E7 (new WiFi transmitter), the GP-E2 (new GPS receiver) and … the brand new Speedlite 600EX-RT and the Speedlite Transmitter ST-E3. I mainly focussed my testing time on the 5D mark 3 but I had a little play with some of the other toys too. I’ll blog about those in the next days.
Yesterday, I posted part 1 of my GX1 review, here’s part 2:
As soon as I looked at the first pics I shot with the GX1 on my computer, I got the feeling that the GX1 could possible be more than an even better always-with-you-camera. Therefor I needed to test it in a real life situation: a photoshoot that would require me to create several different looks in a short amount of time.
I had a shoot scheduled with Sofie and she agreed to do it all with the GX1. Sofie runs a great fashion blog called Bien Sucré and needed some images for her business cards and other uses. Lots of different setups in only a couple of hours, seemed like a good stress test for the GX1. We started outdoors but couldn’t really find good locations that went with her outfit. The few decent places we found were so exposed to the cold wind, that we couldn’t shoot more than a couple of minutes. Here’s one of the few keepers:
1/200 – f/5.6 – iso 3200 – 12-42 lens @42mm
The new Panasonic 12-42 vario lens came with the test camera but being used to fast glass with a constant aperture of f/2.8, this f/3.5 to f/5.6 lens couldn’t really convince me. It has an electronic zoom which is probably great for video but not as fast and accurate to use as a good old manual zoom ring. The fact that I wasn’t too crazy about it also has to do with the fact that this must be one of the ugliest lenses I’ve ever seen. But it has to be said that the optical quality is amazing, certainly for that price. So I’m not saying it’s a bad lens, but some nice primes are more interesting (and unfortunately way more expensive) for photographers who want more control over depth-of-field and low light shooting.
After this cold adventure we decided to head back to the studio to come up with something useful. We started with a very basic setup with one speed light and a shoot through umbrella.
1/100 – f/5.6 – iso 160 – 12-42 lens @42mm
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1/100 – f/5.6 – iso 160 – 12-42 lens @42mm
We moved on to a clamshell setup with the speedlite and umbrella straight above the camera and a silver Sunbounce mini under the camera as fill. I like how the clamshell light worked on Sofie’s face in the first picture but I wanted less depth-of-field. Therefor I switched to my Canon 50mm 1.4 with a cheap e-bay adapter. On the GX1, my Canon 50mm, becomes a manual focus 100mm f/1.4. It’s pretty hard to manually focus at that wide open aperture but with lots of shots and a bit of luck, we got the eyelashes in focus like I wanted.
For a bit of a retro look, I wanted to work with a white background. I could have setup a white seamless or my Lastolite HiLite but as we had little time, I just used my big Chimera Octa that was already setup in the studio. There’s an Elinchrom 600RX in the octa and it’s triggered by it’s optical slave. The main light is a speedlite. Some shots with an umbrella, some shots with just the bare flash.
1/100 – f/5.6 – iso 160 – 12-42 lens @36mm
1/100 – f/5.6 – iso 160 – 12-42 lens @36mm
For a fashion blog I thought it might be quite nice to have the setup included in the shot. And it helps you get an idea of how this was shot 
I also played around with just the pilot light of the Chimera to see what kind of results I would get at iso6400.
1/125 – f/5.6 – iso 6400 – 12-42 lens @42mm
Looking for a different background, I saw one of my silver Sunbounces and figured it would make a nice background if I could get lots of reflections of it’s surface. I’m not a big ring flash fan and I must admit that I’ve only used my Orbis ring flash adapter one or two times since I got it a couple of years ago. But somehow it seemed like the right thing to do.
1/125 – f/5.6 – iso 200 – 12-42 lens @42mm
I just noticed I’ve written very little about the GX1 in this article and maybe that’s exactly the point. During this shoot and the post processing I hardly noticed that I was not shooting a pro DSLR. This got me thinking about my current gear setup, the kind of work I do, the kind of work I WANT to do more, budgets, investments, options, … but more about that as soon as I’ve figured it out.
And the GX1, I can be short about that: I bought one and made sure it got delivered before I had to send the test camera back
About a month ago, I posted about a studio experiment inspired by Matthew Jordan Smith. Some people requested some more info about the gear used on part 1, so let me go over it, before jumping to part 2.
Here’s the setup:
In the studio I use mainly Elinchrom monoblocs because I find them the best studio flashes for a realistic budget. I’m also very happy with the support and the rental possibilities from Servix & Partners, the Belgian Elinchrom importer. For this shoot, I used a single Elinchrom Style RX300 monobloc. The RX300/600 ‘s are the reliable, fast syncing workhorses in my studio. The strobe is fitted with the small white Elinchrom beauty dish (with the silver deflector and the white “sock” to diffuse the light as much as possible). A silver California Sunbounce Mini reflector is placed under the camera for some fill from below. And that’s it. All the rest is just a matter of testing, metering, fine tuning and more fine tuning.
For the second part of the shoot I wanted to shoot half to full body with just one single hard light. Instead of going for a standard reflector, I got out my Elinchrom Maxi Spot reflector aka The Sun. This reflector is designed to bundle the light and throw it as far as possible rather than creating an even spread of light. I often used it on location with my Quadra when I need more power than I can get out of a standard reflector at full power. The Maxi Spot squeezes close to two extra stops of light out of the same full power pop of light than a standard reflector. The price you pay for the extra power is a less even light but I actually like the less perfect light from the Maxi Spot better because it looks more natural. Prior to this shoot, I’d never used it in the studio, but I will certainly start using it more. I loved the light it created. We placed it pretty far and high (about 6 meters away from the model and 3,5 meters high).
Sylviane is the most professional commercial/lifestyle model, I’ve ever worked with. She plays every role you want … except herself. It’s not that she doesn’t want to, she’s just so used to be asked to give the lifestyle smile and the commercial poses. The biggest challenge I’ve set myself for this shoot is to shoot PORTRAITS of Sylviane, pictures that say something about who she really is. I think I managed to get that. And the main reason why I got it, is that we took our time to set up and test our lights. And once we were happy with it, we forgot about it and focussed on getting Sylviane out of Sylviane.
Lucie surprised me with the intensity she threw herself into the second part of the shoot. Her energy blew me away. This was one of those few instances where you just have to concentrate on preventing your jaw to drop onto the floor and push the shutter button.
It helps that Lucie has lots of experience at high end fashion shoots. But she also told me afterwards that the atmosphere has to be right to reach her full potential. That made me realize to pay even more attention to setting the mood: music, drinks, a warm studio and even more important … the right team.
Inge Van den Broeck is more than a make-up artist. She does hair too and has a great sense of styling. On top of that she’s just great fun to hang out with. She certainly had a big part in making these pictures more than just a lighting experiment. Steve Bayens had the most unglamorous job on the set: the assistant. But his eagerness to learn, kept me focussed not to make stupid mistakes and his hard work, let me focus on the big picture and not on all the small but important details.
This was such an interesting experiment and lots of the things I’ve learned will find a way into my daily work. This proves to me again, that as a photographer you’ve always have to keep pushing yourself. What was the last time, you did a shoot, just to learn something new?
Having a personal style is important as a photographer but it’s probably harder to achieve than gaining good technical working knowledge. It takes years of hard work to find and then perfect your own style and vision. I’ve come to the point that I sort of know what I stand for and I think my clients recognize that too.
So style is important but to me it’s also a dangerous thing to have. You can get too confident and too experienced. It’s at that point that your style stops evolving. I can only talk for myself but I’m pretty sure a lot of my friends face the same problem. We’ve build a large comfort zone and the larger it gets, the harder it is to get out of it. It’s the been-there-done-that-got-the-t-shirt disease. But it’s an imagined disease. You may have been there and done that but there’s always another higher level at which you can be there and do it.
A long introduction to tell you that I did a test shoot which contained pretty much all things that I already knew how to do and a number of things that I don’t like. The inspiration to do this anyway was the Creative Live class by renowned beauty/fashion/celebrity photographer Matthew Jordan Smith.
The first part of the course is build up largely about a relatively simple beautylight/clamshell setup (see above): with a beautydish above the camera and a silver reflector below. This setup gives you very even light that makes every woman shine. The background is a white seamless and is let with the same single light source We moved our whole setup (including model) back and forth until we got the right amount of light on the background.
I’ve never been a big beautydish fan, it’s not that it’s bad but it’s just not my taste … or haven’t I tried hard enough to master it? The answer is … YES. It’s just easier to go back to the umbrellas and softboxes I know so well. It took some time of experimenting with all the possible variations in the setup but eventually we settled for the small Elinchrom white beautydish with the white deflector and the diffuser fabric (aka “sock”). I needed to push myself hard to try to make it work and I needed to push myself even hard to admit to myself that the beautydish can actually produce a kind of light that I like.
Does that mean a beautydish always works? Hell no, it depends on the model, the make-up, the story and the feeling. And that brings me to the TEAM. Most of my assignments (and budgets) dictate me to work alone (or with one assistant), without make-up artist, hair stylist and usually I work with “regular people” (no models). I’m good at getting good results by improvising. But if I want EXCELLENT results, you sometimes need to assemble the best possible team around you. So I called out for help on Facebook and got myself a real dream team.
I’ve been working with models Lucie Goossens and Sylviane Alliet before and experienced their combination of a great personality with great modeling skills. Both are very experienced models but they are still driven by a passion to create better and different images. It’s that passion that got them to drive over 100 kilometers to an unpaid test shoot with knowing any decent pictures would come out of it.
The same is true for make-up artist Inge Van den Broeck who performed her magic on Lucie and Sylviane. And she brings so much more to the shoot than just a case full of expensive make-up products. She brings vision, style and creativity to the shoot. Stylish and fashionable as I am, my directions didn’t go much further than: “uhm, yeah … I want that kinda sorta commercial beauty look … but not really commercial, you know … just a bit different … uhm … edgy without being edgy …” But Inge somehow understood my idea and did truly amazing things.
The last crucial member of the team was assistant Steve Bayens (who also assisted and shot video on the 70 EUR Studio shoot). Steve is a young photographer who’s just starting out with studio work. What he lacks in experience, is easily made up with spirit, a good eye and his ability to ask questions that challenge me.
I should have added another member to the team to really pull this off: a professional retoucher. I’m sure I could have found someone to retouch these pictures to perfection. But I just needed to get some quality time in Photoshop. I’m pretty good with Lightroom and about 95% of my work is Lightroom only. It suits my love for the beauty of the small imperfections and it allows me to work really fast.
But I wanted to go for this crisp commercial look and it requires lots of small corrections in Photoshop. I figured it would be a good challenge to brush up on my rusty (and limited) Photoshop skills. On the commercial jobs I can rely on professional retouchers but I have some personal projects coming up which will require me to do my own Photoshop work, so this was a good exercise.
I pushed myself so far out of my comfort zone for this shoot, that I was actually pretty nervous at the start although I would be working with all people that I know and like. But in the end I’m pretty pleased with the results. It’s not that I will suddenly shoot nothing but this kind of pictures but I learned a lot that will certainly have an impact on my work.
This was just the first part of the shoot. I’ll keep the second part for a future blog post.
In this workshop we’ll help you get started in studio photography. You will learn about equipment, the basic techniques, working with models, studio workflow and how to setup your own studio whatever space and budget you have available. At the end of this day you’ll be able to create beautiful studio portraits.
THE DAY
We’ll start the day with a guided tour of the studio and explain all about equipment and how to use it. We’ll spend a lot of time exploring the basic techniques and setups with one to three lights and different background effects. We’ll explore high and low key portraits with different kinds of main light. While you are learning all that, we’ll throw in a ton of practical tips about organization, studio etiquette and getting the most out of your models. We’ll also look for solutions for your needs, available space and budget.
WHAT TO BRING
You basically only need a DSLR and a standard zoom lens. If you have a telephoto lens, even better.
Thanks to the support of Servix & Partners and California Sunbounce, you’ll be able to play around with lots of great toys from Pocketwizard, Manfrotto, Lastolite, Chimera, Elinchrom, Sunbounce, …
PRACTICAL
Location: The Barn, Dijkstraat 42, 1820 Steenokkerzeel
Time: 9h30 to 17h (I’m notorious for going over time)
Number of participants: max 4
Language: English (unless all the students speak Dutch)
Price: 195 EUR excl. VAT (235,95 EUR incl. VAT)
Workshop fee includes teaching and a tasty bread lunch
DATES AND BOOKINGS
- Tuesday June 12 : book your spot (3 spots available)
more dates will be announced soon
You got yourself a nice camera but what now? During this very hands-on day you’ll learn how to shoot great pictures of your family, your travels, events, … You’ll learn all about the essential camera settings, composition, exposure and lots of practical tips. I guarantee you that your pictures will be dramatically better by the end of this day. In a small group of maximum six participants, you can be sure of a very personal learning experience and a fun atmosphere.
THE DAY
To kick this day off, we’ll start by going over the most important camera settings like the shooting modes, white balance, image quality and everything else you want to know. As soon as your camera is setup in the best way, we’ll take a good look at how to get a perfect exposure by choosing the right shutter speed, aperture and iso-setting. You’ll practice this in a series of exercises that will make you understand and remember these crucial pieces of information.
After lunch we’ll dive into how to make pictures with a lot more impact by making interesting compositions. You’ll also learn to recognize and even make great light. On top of that we will bomb you with lots of small practical tips for better pictures. We end the day by combining all that knowledge in a final assignment.
WHAT TO BRING
You only need a camera that allows you to make manual settings. Any DSLR or mirrorless camera (like the Panasonic GF1, Olympus PEN or Sony NEX). Some compact cameras also allow complete manual control. In case of doubt, contact us. Make sure you’ve got enough memory cards and batteries to last through the day. It’s a good idea to bring your camera’s manual too.
Thanks to the support of Servix & Partners and California Sunbounce, the studio is equipped with lots of great toys from Pocketwizard, Manfrotto, Lastolite, Chimera, Elinchrom, Sunbounce, … Most of these go beyond the scope of this workshop but feel free to try it out.
PRACTICAL
Location: The Barn, Dijkstraat 42, 1820 Steenokkerzeel
Time: 9h30 to 17h (I’m notorious for going over time)
Number of participants: max 6
Level: As long as you can hold a camera in your hands, you’ll be fine
Language: Dutch (for an English version of this workshop, contact us)
Price: 103,30 EUR excl. VAT (125,00 EUR incl. VAT)
Workshop fee includes teaching and a tasty bread lunch
DATES AND BOOKINGS
- Saturday February 18 : book your spot (6 spots available)
more dates will be announced later
4 DAY+ MASTERCLASS
This full immersion 4 day+ photography boot camp will rock your world and challenge you like you’ve never been challenged before. It’s about technique, lighting, posing, business, post processing but it’s also about identity, ideas and vision. You’ll get to experience all this in the great atmosphere of a small group (maximum 6 participants), creative subjects and great food & drinks.
We have prepared a great mix of lectures, practice sessions, product presentations and post-processing sessions. At the same time, we have build in the flexibility to adapt the schedule to the needs of the group. Thanks to California Sunbounce and Servix & Partners, we have a whole range of toys at our disposal for our experiments: lights, modifiers, reflectors, medium format camera, …
Lunches on Monday and Tuesday are included. The two days we are on location, we’ll make sure you can get lunch at very good rates. Drinks are on me when we are in The Barn. The welcome dinner and diner on Tuesday are also included in the workshop fee.
SCHEDULE
We’ll start this masterclass with a welcome dinner at the studio on Sunday night, so we can all meet and talk about what you can expect in the following days.
Monday is safe portrait day. I strongly believe that a safe portrait is the perfect starting point for a creative photoshoot. It keeps your clients happy, is het perfect insurance for anything that can go wrong and it builds confidence for both the subject and the photographer. We’ll teach you bulletproof lighting techniques, tricks to loosen up nervous subjects, posing tips and much more. This day will give you a toolbox of techniques to get the job done even in the most extreme situations.
Tuesday will be all about lighting. We’ll spent most of the time in the studio to create both natural looking images and extreme lighting setups. At night we’ll have a nice dinner together followed by a lecture about the business of photography with some surprise guests.
On Wednesday we’ll be working on location. The morning will be dedicated to run-and-gun techniques that will allow you to make spectacular pictures in no time with a minimum of gear. In the afternoon, we’ll take “spectacular” to a new level for a big and crazy shoot. We’ll all have to work together to pull this one off.
Thursday morning is special request time. If there’s anything we’ve missed during the previous days or that isn’t clear, we’ll handle it. In the afternoon, you will be presented with a great subject and a challenging assignment. Before we say goodbye, we’ll do a last image review / cocktail hour.
FOR WHO
his masterclass is not for the faint at heart. This is only for passionate photographers who are prepared to work hard to take their work to the next level. If you really push yourself you might even take it to the level beyond the next. We expect a good basic knowledge of photography, your gear and your post processing software.
WHAT TO BRING
A bag filled with a DSLR, some lenses and a laptop are all you really need but if you want to bring lighting equipment or your large format printer, we won’t stop you.
PRACTICAL
Location: The Barn, Dijkstraat 42, 1820 Steenokkerzeel BELGIUM
Number of participants: max 6
Language: English (unless all the students speak Dutch)
Price: 910 EUR excl. VAT (1101,10 EUR incl. VAT)
Workshop fee includes teaching, model fees, equipment rentals, 2 lunches, 2 dinners, drinks at The Barn
DATES AND BOOKINGS
No dates set at the moment. Contact us if you would like to book this workshop.
No matter how much I learn about lighting and how much gear I buy, I’m still a big fan of the simple beautiful soft light of a big window. One day, if finances allow I’ll have one installed in my studio. In the mean time, my friends at Servix and Partners suggested I’d give the Lastolite HiLite Background a try as an always available big window.
The HiLite is developed to be a self standing white background that is lit with one or more strobes from within. It’s designed as a simple and fast solution to produce an even white background on events and stuff but I immediately saw it as a giant softbox. I’ve always likes extreme lenses, lights, and modifiers so I went all out and got the biggest HiLite, which is 2,50m by 2,15m. They come in four sizes. Coming from the company that have turned collapsible reflectors into an art-form, it’s no surprise that this huge HiLite folds down to a circle with a diameter of about 1 meter. It’s incredibly easy to setup and pack down again. See how big it is:
I powered the HiLite with a single Elinchrom 300RX strobe. I’ll blog about my new Elinchrom equipment soon. For now, let’s just say that I love it and that the guys from Servix & Partners were extremely helpful and knowledgeable when choosing the right equipment to turn The Barn into a full blown rental studio. The HiLite is equipped with zippers on both sides, so you can put a strobe on each side. Two strobes will definitely be better if you want to use the HiLite as an even white background. But I found that the HiLite does a really good job in evening out the light from a single strobe too. Despite the huge large source and the rather low powered strobe, I had no problem to shoot at small apertures and the Elinchrom wasn’t even at full power. My guess is that you could even power it with a Speedlight (or maybe two).
Here’s the Elinchrom 300RX in the HiLite:
I tend to use this kind of very soft light mostly for female subjects but when Stijn volunteered to model for a test shoot, I figured, why not try it on a male subject? Here are a couple of the shots we did:
This one is done with the HiLite only inches behind Stijn and a silver California Sunbounce Mini above the camera as fill. When I shoot on white, I usually don’t let the background light blend in with the exposure of the subject but I found it pretty cool here.
We then started to use the HiLite as the main light and added another Elinchrom monobloc with a Maxi Spot reflector behind Stijn. Here’s how the setup looked (all setup pics by Ioannis, who happened to drop by and helped us out):
I really enjoyed the freedom of working with such a big light source. It was more like working with natural light, where you change the position of your subject rather than changing the light source. It feels more natural and you don’t keep breaking the connection with your subject every time you need to move a light. Such a big light is also very forgiving when it comes to position and exposure.
Here are some more pics:
The HiLite is a big, soft light source just like my shower curtain setup but the light seems more “marinated” by bouncing around inside this big box. Sure, the HiLite is way more expensive than a shower curtain but I’ve got a medium size softbox that costs more.
Conclusion: I still have a lot of experimenting to do with the HiLite but I already know that it’s going to be one of my goto-modifiers from now on.
I got lots of reactions on my first and second 70 EUR Studio post, and even more on Facebook. I also felt like exploring this idea a bit more and arranged a second shoot (in the mean time I did a third one too). This time we kept the video camera rolling (thanks Steve) to give you an idea of what equipment I got for 70 EUR and how I used it. The beautiful and fun Stefanie was brave enough to be part of the experiment.
Without further ado, here’s the video:
Let’s break it down a little more:
LIGHTS – a double halogen work light (2x350W): This throws out a lot of light at first sight, but when you diffuse it, there’s not much left. You can still shoot handheld but then you’ll have to shoot at iso 800-1600 to avoid camera shake. On the 5D mkII these iso’s show very little noise, so I don’t hesitate to use them. I shot most of the soft light pictures on a tripod at 200 iso and around 1/10th of a second. I would normally never have done that but I found out that it’s perfectly possible to get a good keeper rate when the model, sits down and doesn’t have Parkinson. We played with very small subtle movements because I think they can often make a picture more “real”. That organic feel is exactly what I was looking for because I found my studio pictures where always to artificial.
The work lights come with some downsides too. For a start these things get incredibly hot. You really have to watch out if you want to work with them. When I just started experimenting with artificial light, I used some of these too and managed to let them perform double duty: making light and acting as a smoke machine by setting the diffuser on fire. An ear drum piercing fire alarm, a burned carpet and a scared model later, I decided to buy a couple of flashes instead.
The stand that comes with the lights isn’t exactly as well build and stable as a nice Manfrotto stand. And it doesn’t go up very high so I had to improvise platforms to raise it above eye-level.
In time, I might replace the work lights with some really nice photo/video lights. But apart from being safer, easier to handle and better looking, light is just light.
Diffuser/Scrim – 2 White Shower Curtains: Many people who’ve been to my workshops, know that I always carry a plastic shower curtain in my lighting kit. It has come in handy numerous times as a diffuser, background and picnic blanket. These things are dirt cheap (10EUR for a 2×2 meter light modifier), light and pack very small. I usually clamp or gaffer tape the shower screen to whatever I can find. For this shoot I taped them to my background support system. I guess you could also make some kind of frame for them.
Just like the lights, there are commercial alternatives on the market for the shower curtain diffuser. In fact I have some of them because they handle well and look more professional. But if budget is tight, a shower screen or white bed sheet will get the job done just as well.
Background – 2 textured rough blankets: I like texture in the background, often it looks even better out of focus. When I work on location it’s usually pretty easy to find a textured background but in the studio you have to supply it yourself. I keep some old doors with rust and chipped paint in the studio to be used as a background but it’s not always easy to handle these heavy things. I also wanted to have something lighter that I could use in different ways. When I went buying the lights and shower curtains in the local DIY store, I saw these blankets, and knew immediately that they would be great backgrounds. The rough texture will create interesting highlights and shadows when light strikes the blanket from an angle.
These things are rather small, so I’m thinking about buying some more and stitching them together.
After having seen the video, I’m sure at least half of you are thinking: “Fuck the light, when is he going to tell more about that wireless tethering to the iPad?”
Well … I’ll save that for a future blog post. I first need to go over the hard light pictures.
The two pictures are above where the result of a happy accident. During a break, Stefanie was working on her tan by standing close to the lights. The light looked quite nice even though it was hard and coming from below eye-level. So we started playing with it.
It’s got that timeless, glamorous Hollywood look from the 40′s and 50′s (and even earlier). There are a couple of reasons why this hard light works. First of all, Stefanie has a great bone structure and smooth skin. It’s not impossible to make hard light work with less good looking people, but it sure is hard work.
The second reason is that the hard light, isn’t actually that hard. A work light is a lot bigger than a bare speedlight. If you place the light source meters away from the subject there won’t be much of a difference but when used up close the relative size of a work light is a lot bigger then a small flash, so it gives you softer light.
And then the light becomes even softer because it’s a DOUBLE light. This off-course doubles the size of the light source. And because the two lights are slightly apart one will fill in some of the shadows that the other creates and vice-versa. This is much like those classic Hollywood pictures. In the days of slow film and not-so-powerful lights, they didn’t use much diffusers. Instead they used multiple movie lights to create a bigger surface.
I hope you enjoyed the new Confessions video.
A couple of days ago, I showed you the first results of my studio experiment with a 70 EUR setup (lights, modifiers and background). I basically shot most of the pictures with my 5D mkII so I could see the results instantly but I just had to use my old Hasselblad and shoot some film too. It just felt right. In the end I managed to shoot only a couple of rolls of film because we’ve spent quite some time testing the light and finding the right amount of movement or the lack thereof. But I’m pretty pleased with the results.
I tried out some different films, to see which ones would suit the setup best. The next three pictures are shot on Ilford HP5+
This only color picture is shot on Fuji Pro 400H which captured the skin tones surprisingly well.
And the last one was shot on Fuji Neopan. It’s only the second roll of Neopan that I shoot, but I really like it. I’m going to try it a bit more often.
Too bad all the developing, scanning and dust spotting is such a pain in the ass. If it wasn’t for that I would shoot a lot more film.
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