What kind of gear/technique for these kind of fantastic portraits?

[victor_bareno]

<p>Hi, I just wanted to see if you guys could point my in the right direction. Right now I shoot with film as a hobby and it's very fun, but limited in some ways. I would like to get into portraiture a bit more, and there's a certain style of lighting that I just love - here's an example:

<p>I couldn't find a <em>portrait</em> right away that looks like that, but I have seen them. They have very detailed foregrounds and backgrounds (I love eerie gray, or beautiful blue skies), but while keeping the focus on the subject mainly due to the lighting / composition. The people in that picture look a little golden and bright; in the portraits I've seen before, the faces usually looked a little less warm and more "gritty" in the details. That's what I hope to achieve. I imagine this involves combining flashes in some way. I know a little about flashes, but if you could bring me up to speed on the sort of things I'll need, that would be great. I plan on getting a 7D for everything, it seems to be alright. Possibly a 5D if I can find one used for cheap enough. Also, any links to guides on this sort of stuff would be great!</p>

<p>FYI, I also plan to use this setup for alot more than these type of images - I love "conventional" ways of portraiture as well. Being limited by film and not willing to make too many mistakes with cumbersome flashes on a 40 year old camera, I tend to use natural light as much as possible. I'd love to experiment with flashes to get interesting pictures, but at heart I feel I will have a tendency to keep using natural light when I go to shoot. I hope the setup I have will be versatile enough to give me great artistic results (like the picture above), while still remaining strong in other areas.</p>

[roger_dennis]

<p>The photographer says this below the shot:</p>

<blockquote>

<p>Strobist: sb 800 and sb 600 full camera left</p>

</blockquote>

<p>I'd guess then, boost saturation, boost contrast, mids contrast enhancement, dodge the highlights on the hikers. The way it pops maybe he's using Topaz Adjust? Maybe this will help some.<br>

Roger</p>

[markonestudios]

Victor, how about you write to the photographer himself? He's used off-cam lighting and then post-processed. Any number of post-processing methods used in combination could yield that sort of result. He likely exposed for the sky and then used the SB flashes to light the subjects.

<p>All the responses here will be more educated guesses than factual assessments. I urge you to write to him or drop him a message via Flickr. You may well be pleasantly surprised by his response...

[tjfuss]

<p>I think Mark's got it. The combination of underexposing the ambient light and using off-camera flash to light the subjects is a technique described quite thoroughly over at strobist.com. Agree with contacting via Flickr - I've found lots of people posting there are really good about sharing set-up information.</p>

[shoppix]

<p>Likely no diffusers on the lights - just straight flash heads.<br>

then fair amount of post.</p>

 

[jadyn_huerta]

<p>Victor, Have you ever heard of the HDR technique? Here is some other examples on Flickr that might help you understand this technique: http://www.flickr.com/groups/hdr/<br>

If you Google, "HDR photographer" you will see a gallery of photos that have the High Dynamic Range effect.</p>

[james_hughes9]

<p>Jaydyn you hit the nail on the head. I was looking through the responses and while some good suggestions were made, this is definitely HDR (High Dynamic Range) photography. It's quite the rage right now.</p>

[jun_ye1]

<p>But this is a protrait and those guys were walking! Usually for HDR, the subject must be still since you have to take more than 4 photos about the same subject. Any movement of the subject will cause some issues when you combine the photos afterwards. </p>

[james_hughes9]

<p>Shoot in Raw and post process out your three images (btw you need a minimum of three, +1, -1 and one right on)</p>

[marlon]

<p>This was definitely not done using HDR. This is usually what shots look like when you use lighting outdoors and underexpose a dark, dramatic sky. Then just add contrast in photoshop, maybe a totally desaturated layer set on soft light, and voila.</p>

[radiotyson]

<p>Doubt it is true HDR - 3 or more exposures layered together in Photoshop - however it might be a combination of good lighting and "Fake" hdr. If you shoot a single raw image and process it out of something like lightroom into 3 different exposures/files and then merge in photoshop.</p>

[clark_king4]

Reminds me of the slipknot album cover! Great work!

[james_hughes9]

<p>Tyson, thank you for the confirmation. Shooting raw and then processing it out to three exposures is the only way to get HDR of moving subjects (that I know of). BTW: you can use photoshop to process the three files too. And there are programs out there that do a much better job than PS for HDR (IMHO).</p>

[texxter]

<p>I dont think this is HDR. It seems to be a combination of (1) huge depth of field, (2) underexposing ambient, (3) using high contrast flash, i.e., barebulb, and (4) processing, likely using a preset and selective burning of clouds, etc.</p>

[markonestudios]

I don't think it's HDR either. I think in addition to exposing for the sky and lighting with hard light, he may also have sharpened the image with a high pass filter...