brooks short

<p>Michelle, I don't see any reflections of beauty dishes or umbrellas in the subjects eyes, do you? Look at the double shadows, one from each side of the subject, in the white jacket in the second shot. See the yellow tungsten light balance of the shadows? Terrible disunity of light from two lights on opposite sides of the subject and poor color balance. Come on.</p>

<p>Looks light available light from hard light fixtures in the ceiling. Not a very attractive lighting, or color balance.</p>

<p>Thanks, Marc.</p> <p>It's always refreshing when someone not only answers a question with real knowledge and experience but then also backs up that answer with examples of THEIR OWN work! </p> <p>Good job, Marc.</p>

<p>Lighting looks good. If you want a softer shadow on the ground, use a larger light source closer to the subject.</p> <p>If you are worried about wear and tear on the paper surface that the model is standing on, use a 4'x8' Formica on a 4'x8' piece of plywood for the floor. Paper will mark up almost immediately.</p>

<p>If you're going to be shooting slide film the you should meter the highlights. Not the brightest highlight in the scene but the brightest highlight where you want to hold detail is the most critical area for proper exposure. Then, open up the exposure (f/11 to f/5.6 for example) to place that highlight in Zone VII, two stops above middle grey. That will place your textured highlight at the proper brightness on the film.</p> <p>You should test that 2 stop exposure compensation because Velvia might require only a 1.5 stop increase in exposure instead of a 2 stop increase.</p> <p>The way to test for proper textured highlight exposure is simple. In bright sunlight with the sunlight coming at an angle 45 degrees, photograph a thick white towel that has detail. You can spread the towel out by fastening it at each corner to a flat vertical surface.</p> <p>Set the camera at a distance to facilitate infinity focus to eliminate any bellows factor from a close focus. Meter the towel so that it's image fills the view of the spot meter. Using that meter reading, use a shutter speed that creates an exposure at the tighter (f/16) of the f/stop range for the lens being used. Include a sign that indicates this is a normal metered exposure. A piece of paper with a large N taped just below the towel and in view of the camera will do.</p> <p>Increase the exposure by 1/2 stops using just the f/stop, to eliminate any film reciprocity from lengthening shutter speeds, and make an exposure at each 1/2 stop over the Normal exposure for at least 3 or more stops. <br> Process the roll of film without mounting the slides. You can then see the compensated exposure that has some detail in the towel, just before the white towel becomes a blown highlight.</p> <p>There are two reasons that you meter the highlights instead of the mid-tones. One is because once the information in a textured highlight on slide film is lost it's gone forever. The second reason is that it's much easier to identify a highlight where you want to retain texture that it is to find a real mid-tone.</p> <p> </p>

<p>Depends on the dynamic range of the film or sensor that you're using. <br /> If you're shooting a positive medium like transparencies or digital capture, you want to preserve highlight detail so measure the brightest tone in the scene where you want detail and over expose that reading by probably 2 stops, with the number of stops determined by testing.</p> <p>If you're shooting a color negative medium such as color negative film, or a BW medium such as BW film and will be scanning the negatives, meter the darkest tone in the scene where you want detail and then underexpose by 2 stops.</p> <p> </p>

<p>Put the baby 6-8 ft in front of the background and attach a flag to the back of your speedlight to block light from the background.</p>

<p>Get a grip head and 40" arm and you can use them to raise your light above the height of the stand or, more importantly, lower your light below the top of the stand when you need to.</p>

<p>I have 3-4800ws and 3-800ws Speedotron Power Packs and use the 4800ws packs everyday. I sometimes use them at full power when I'm pushing light through a large soft box AND a 1-stop diffusion panel at the same time and need to shoot at f/32 on a FX DSLR. Or when I'm pushing light through a 13" Fresnel spot or 3" optical spot containing a cookie.<br /> The shot below is an example of using a soft box through a diffusion panel to soften and enlarge the light source.</p><div></div>

<p>I have 3-4800ws and 3-800ws Speedotron Power Packs and use the 4800ws packs everyday. I sometimes use them at ful power when I'm pushing light through a large soft box AND a 1-stop diffusion panel at the same time and need to shoot at f/32 on a FF DSLR. Or when I'm pushing light through a 13" Fresnel spot or 3" optical spot containing a cookie.<br> The shot below is an example of using a soft box through a diffusion panel to soften and enlarge the light source.</p>

<p>You can always dial a 400ws or 800ws flash down to 250ws but a 250ws flash can't be dialed up to 400ws or 800ws. Think ahead and buy something that your photography can grow into. </p>

<p>You don't have to use a fill light.<br> Just use a single white 3'x4' (or larger) piece of foam-core as a fill card. Clip it to your second light stand, the one that would hold a fill light, and position it where you get the desired shadow fill.</p>

<p>Michael, I realize that the OP mentioned infants and children as her subjects. The average height for a 5 year old child is 43". If you mark on the floor a distance of 6' from a wall out into a room and then stand with your back to that wall, stoop down to be on the same level as a 43" tall child and raise a camera to your face you'll see that your body and camera together take up almost 3' of that 6' space.</p> <p>That leaves you with just a few inches more than 3' in front of your lens. You'll need a wide-angle lens to shoot a full length portrait of a child that's only 5" less than 4' tall. You might be able to fit a head and shoulder portrait if you use a normal lens. This assumes the child is right up against the far wall, shadow and all, and as far from the camera as possible.</p> <p>These are not good distances or lens choices for portraits even if the subjects are children.</p>

<p>No matter what lighting you choose, a shooting space 5' wide and 6' deep is too small for camera to subject to background shooting distances.</p>

<p>On December 23, Ellis Vener said.. "in the past Speedotron Blackline 202VF and 204VF heads had a similar method of achieving the same effect in a limited way.."</p> <p>Ellis, Speedotron Blackline 202VF and 204FV flash heads are still being manufactured and today, just as in the past, they still offer that feature.</p>

<p>Joe, have you used a 13" Fresnel Spot in the studio? I've been using one for over 20 years and am quite familiar with the quality of light that it produces.</p>

<p>Here's another shot where the 13" Fresnel Spot is a bit farther away from the set and the light is harder yet still relatively soft.</p> <p>There's really no comparison in the quality of light between this Fresnel Spot and a snooted or gridded raw light</p><div></div>

<p>Here's a shot using that 13" Fresnel Spot as the key light</p><div></div>

<p>Fresnel spots that use flash heads come in several sizes. I have a Calumet Fresnel spot that mounts a Speedotron Black-line flash head. The Fresnel lens is 13" in diameter and produces a focused light that has both a hard and soft quality. When used up close to a table-top product or food set the light is soft because of it's relatively large size yet the light has the directional quality of a hard light.</p> <p>The 250w modeling light in the Speedo head shows exactly the same light pattern as made by the flash tube because it's mounted inside the flash tube.</p> <p> </p>

<p>I like Thunder Gray and Fashion Gray</p>

<p>John,</p> <p>I think the issue you're having when working with window light at the restaurant is the mixing of interior restaurant lighting with the window light. The interior ambient light is warmer than the outside light coming through the window. When you color balance for the interior ambient light, the window light is blue and blue light is not a good thing on food.</p> <p>North light through a window on a sunny day will by its very nature be blue because it's light reflected from the blue sky. You can mitigate the blueness by hanging a piece of diffusion material such as vellum or drafting paper between the window light and the food, as close to the food as possible. That will mix the color of the blue light with the interior light and add its own warmth from the vellum.</p> <p>I shoot good bit of food and occasionally have to shoot in a restaurant location. I bring my own strobe lighting and setup away from any windows. When I say strobe lighting I don't mean speed-light flash. I use a pack and head system of studio lighting with soft boxes, grid spots, diffusion panels and a Fresnel spot. Because I bring my own lighting I can shoot at anytime of day or night, independent of the weather.</p> <p>The sample photography from the blogs that you linked to shows very soft lighting which is popular for food and has been for a long time. Current trends now seem to favor a mix of hard light and soft light with the hard light simulating the sun, emphasizing texture and providing a strong directional quality to the light.</p> <p>Add a soft box or diffusion panel from the same direction for a softer treatment of the shadow and highlight transfers and you have the best of both worlds. Place your key light at the side or rear/side to create a form of short lighting with the shadows falling toward the camera and add fill with either soft white cards, harder silver foil cards or even small mirrors from the opposite side or front. <br> We always bring light stands, booms, flags and reflectors so every possible lighting scheme is available and we always shoot tethered to either a laptop or iMac for image lighting, composition, focus, exposure, and client approval.</p> <p>With all that said, the photography and lighting is the easiest part by far of food photography. It's the food stylist that makes the real magic.</p>

<p>"The problem with the 24mm Nikon PC (and all the others of that ilk) is you can't do a swing and a tilt at the same time....it's one or the other...."</p> <p>True but I've seldom had to do both a swing and a tilt at the same time on a scene such as yours above. You can do a swing or tilt along with a shift at the same time. More importantly, a tilt of the lens in your photo above would help get the DOF deep across the entire scene at a wider f/stop and shorter shutter speed. That's going to help when you're including people in a shot like that.</p> <p>You can fix those verticals in Photoshop or Capture One easily enough, but you can't add more DOF at the same f/stop without a tilt lens. Focus stacking would be impratical to use when people are in the shot.</p>

<p>Nicely done Steve!</p> <p>Back in the 1970's I was shooting 4x5 on shoots like this. It would have been easy to straighten the verticals with large format. Today the 24mm Nikon PC lens would do the trick.</p>

<p><em><strong>"...what is a 'GEARED' stand exactly? I did a search for them, and wow!.....they are expensive, but I can't tell exactly how they work. I suppose if I had a permanent studio set up (which I hope to do), it would be great to have. Can a huge octobox fit on one of</strong></em><strong> them?"</strong></p> <p>A geared stand has a hand crank that is used to raise and lower the vertical shaft of the stand. There's a geared mechanism inside the crank that mates with holes in the vertical part of the stand. As you rotate the crank handle the gears mesh with the holes and raises or lowers the vertical part stand. A geared stand also has the benefit of having a very large footprint and is very stable. A geared stand will also have wheels because there's no way you're going to be moving such a heavy stand and boom without them.</p> <p>I showed both a geared stand and geared boom in the location setup shot earlier in this thread.</p> <p>A geared stand and geared boom is very handy in the studio and can also be used on location as shown.</p>

<p>I'm with Marc. A small roll of 53" blue seamless paper is $25 at B&H. It stores on a roll with a 5" square footprint when it's standing on end. I don't see how the cost or the storage of something like this can be a problem in any way. Doesn't make sense.</p> <p>As far as gelling a color onto white paper, if the camera exposure records the paper as white, game over. Once it's white that can't be changed. The way you can add a color to a white background with gels is by moving the white paper away from any lights so that it darkens relative to the camera exposure. The darker the white paper, the purer and more saturated the color will be when it's gelled.</p> <p> </p>