jpbarilguerard

Actually, the more I think about it, the more I feel you'd need a larger, softer lightsource to mimick a TV. So I'd use a gelled monolight with a softbox. As large as possible, of course.

As he said, he's looking for an exagerated way to do it, so a TV wouldn't look that TV-ish.

 

If you have a monolight handy, you could put a bluish gel on the light (to get closer to the colour temperature of TV) and play with the modeling light, turning it and off to give the impression of changing images.

I'd want at least one practice night, but since this doesn't seem to be possible, you'll have to take chances.

 

This is hard to do, since you'll have to shoot in available darkness. I'd personally use one or two off-camera flashes and experiment with gels to get an ambience I like, but since this is not possible, I'd suggest sticking with a tripod and playing with motion blur to suggest the feeling of a busy night in a bar. 2-3 seconds exposures should give you interesting motion. Plus, you'll showcase the bar's lighting, which is good if the client wants an accurate representation of reality.

My worflow:<br>

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1- I use a card reader, as Edward suggested.<br>

2- I open all of the photos right from the memory card in ACR, I discard the first round of bad shots. I only remove the ones I would obviously never take, such as obviously misfocused shots, obviously awful poses and the like.<br>

3- I apply the global RAW conversion settings to the rest of the shots, such as color correction, white balance and so on.<br>

4- I save everything in DNG to a folder on my hard drive.<br>

5- If I'm doing high-volume work, I open all of the DNG files at once in ACR, I look at each of them more closely, discarding the unnecessary or undesired shots, and apply the individual RAW conversion settings such as exposure compensation and white balance (if you're shooting in variable lighting conditions) and the like, then save everything to another folder as JPEG files.<br>

6- I back up the DNG files to another hard drive.<br>

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When I'm working on assignments where I have a lower number of shots to consider, but where I have to put more work into them, I open them one at a time, edit them and save them as PSD in another folder before converting to JPEG.

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Hope that helps. Organization is very, very important for weddings. Never forget that. ;)

Looks like a 3D render to me.

 

They probably rendered the cat thing in a position to fit with the photo and masked it in.

Make sure your foreground color is set to white. (Or is it background? I don't remember.)

Here's another shot demonstrating the bokeh.

I use it for shooting in available darkness in environments such as bars, and it's served me wonderfully. It's a bit long for portraits with the crop factor, in my opinion, though I do use it for that purpose from time to time.

 

Acceptable wide open, excellent between f6.7 and f8, if I remember correctly. I'd have to run tests again to be completely sure of the "sweet spot" for apertures, but anyway.

What focal lengths were you using on each camera? The polarization may seem less dramatic on wider lenses.

 

It may just be a camera settings thing as well. Play with contrast curves, saturation adjustments and the like or, better yet, shoot RAW, maybe you'll be able to fine-tune your results to match those of the S7000 more closely.

I've recently developped an interest in buying a ringflash to add to

my arsenal for fashion photography for that smooth, shadowless

quality. I've done a bit of homework and I found two interesting

models which seem to fall within my price range: the Nikon SB-29S and

the Sigma EM-140.

 

They are both the same price, but the Nikon doesn't support iTTL, and

it's got a guide number of 11 while the Sigma is 12. I suppose that

difference is more or less negligible. Yet when I look at it, a guide

number of 12 seems like far too little for portraits: I intend to

shoot at ISO 200 and with a fair bit of distance, so I figure I would

need something more powerful.

 

Any ideas, other models to suggest?

George, thank you for the link. I just signed up to that forum, I definitely like the place. I feel belittled by all the talent there... heh!

Some Diffuse Glow, I'd say.

 

Maybe a Gaussian Blur duplicate layer set to Screen or Lighten.

You'll definitely notice more noise in the shadow areas of a photo than in the highlights. When I'm shooting at 1600, I'm usually doing so in dark environments such as clubs, so there's a lot of shadow areas where you can see the noise, but I can cut it in half using Noise Ninja. Similarly, I notice more noise if I underexpose a shot and add exposure compensation in the RAW conversion. (Think of using exposure compensation as "pushing" a film, with the same benefits and inconveniences. I generally underexpose because I can afford the extra blur, myself.) I personally consider non-noise reduced ISO 1600 shots to be too blotchy for printing larger than 4x6, but thankfully I hardly even print them at all, since most of my low-light photo assignments are for bands requesting photos for their website.

 

In studio, I always shoot at ISO 200 and expose to the right, which gives me superb, almost grainless images, with even less noise than a regularly exposed ISO 200 shot. I generally manage to overexpose by one stop, sometimes even by one stop and a half, without blowing the highlights. I don't have any examples on hand, as I am not at home, but suffice it to say that if you plan on making larger prints with your D70 (I'm thinking 13x19; more than that is possible, although that's pushing it, depending on your expectations), exposing to the right will dramatically improve quality by reducing if not downright eliminating noise alisaing when upsampling.

Thanks a lot for the replies, guys. I realize the need for a stylist and a make-up artist more and more: it seems like the creation of good fashion photos is more of a group effort than anything else. I found a make-up artist for my next project, so I'll just try to find a stylist and everything will be set. I suppose I really should try adding more context to the photos (like finding interesting locations, as I said), as a cute woman wearing clothes isn't necessarily enough to project a fashion message, either. I'll keep shooting and see how I manage my progress.

 

Nello, I really like your work. The second photo on the bottom row striked me particularly: I suppose that's a good example of teamwork between stylist, make-up artist, model and photographer. Also, what background did you use on the first photo of the bottom row? It somewhat looks like a cage; I like the effect.

Thanks for the quick reply, I'll definitely have to try that out.

<a href="http://www.deviantart.com/view/8145548/">Click here</a> (not

work safe, people--this guy is a fetish photographer)

 

Look at the background: the model seems to be really close to it, and

I just don't see where you could place the light to get such a

beautiful gradation without placing it right in the picture. Any

ideas? Might be Photoshop magic, but I don't know.

 

Maybe there's no background light and the only light source is placed

on a boom to the right of the subject? That would explain the shadow

on the left side of the face.

So I got my ABs this winter, and I suppose you guys may have seen some

of the things I've tried with them so far. I've been trying to do more

fashion-oriented things, as I'd like my portfolio to take that

direction. I've been doing these shots exclusively in studio, though

the more I look at fashion photos, the more I realize the visual

context adds a lot of impact to the photo, and so I should do more

location work in the future.

 

I uploaded a batch of photos I took last Friday in my fashion folder

(the high-key shots with the woman in the black dress <a

href="http://www.photo.net/photodb/folder?folder_id=479471">here</a>)

and I'd like to hear your feedback. Setup was a single softbox with a

white reflector in some shots; the background was blown out with a

single flash head. I had difficulty placing the light so that there

was no flare: I actually had to correct some of the flare in

Photoshop, which I would rather avoid. Any ideas on how to place the

light to avoid flare?

CS2 is your redemption. Okay, that may be too strong a term, but it'll solve your problem.

 

What you can do with CS2:

 

- copy and paste ACR settings right in the file browser

- open multiple RAW files in ACR

- batch apply any RAW conversion setting and tweak each photo individually

- apply Curves right in the RAW conversion

- save the photo as JPEG, TIFF, DNG or PSD without having to actually open the file in Photoshop

 

On most of my pictures, the only processing I did in Photoshop (after the RAW conversion) was a Curves treatment, so the in-ACR Curves tool eliminates the need to open the file, which allows me to save it directly in my processed photos folder, saving valuable time.

 

So, what you would do, I suppose, is open all of your 1300 files, if you have enough RAM to do so, in ACR; apply the global settings like WB and color calibration; tweak things like contrast and exposure individually or by groups of similar photos (you can make selections within a batch and apply settings only to that selection); then save to your preferred format. If you have something else to do on your photos, such as sharpening, make an action and use it on the batch. Done. That would take far less time than it would with CS.

As if to prove their point, Noise Ninja is what you need.

What I do is offer a CD with files resized for printing 4x6 @ 300 dpi, but charge for it. I consider that by giving the clients a CD, I'm saving myself the hassle of getting the prints done for them, but to compensate, they should pay royalties.

 

I generally charge 35 CAD$ for such a CD, but this varies according to the number of files. I'm not very experienced, so you could adjust this according to your price range.

I agree, I personally prefer having an assistant hold a reflector. The most important place to fill is under the nose and on the eyes, so the reflector should be placed accordingly.

 

As for reflector size, it really depends on the distance from the subject you hold it. Generally, a standard 40-something inch circular reflector will do. (Unless you really want to fill the whole body, but that's not necessary.)

 

A couple portrait may benefit from the warmth provided by a gold reflctor. White may look more natural, though. If you have a digital camera, just try both and keep the one you like best.

You may want to look into imagingfactory's Convert to B&W pro. It's my preferred method of converting to black and white.

 

http://www.theimagingfactory.com/

Dark velvet or solid black is what I see most often in casting headshots, and it works well.

Strange, I thought it was a lot more recent. Bah, time passes by so fast. Heh.

Is it just me, or was the time frame between the release of CS and CS2 somewhat short?