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Digital SLR / DSLR Camera Question / DSLR Thread 2

C'mon guys, you know you're just itching to:

A. Donate to a worthy cause
B. Learn from Nick about the dark art (pun intended) of strobe usage
C. See a hot naked girl and take her picture

vendetta_BARF.jpg


Bueller? Bueller???

We'll even do it at Doug's - hooge garage, I mean, studio, he has the outdoor kitchen thing going on, we have a white backdrop setup as well as several new backdrops. I'll donate beer/mint juleps, depending on your preference.

Now I found out my hosting service won't show directory contents, use the links below to see some more.

NSFW - DO NOT CLICK THESE LINKS IF YOU DON'T WANT TO SEE NUDITY

Bap - lemme know if this still not kosher and I'll yank and PM the links instead.

http://www.yahphoto.biz/hosted/vendetta/vendetta01.jpg
http://www.yahphoto.biz/hosted/vendetta/vendetta02.jpg
http://www.yahphoto.biz/hosted/vendetta/vendetta03.jpg
http://www.yahphoto.biz/hosted/vendetta/vendetta04.jpg
http://www.yahphoto.biz/hosted/vendetta/vendetta05.jpg
http://www.yahphoto.biz/hosted/vendetta/vendetta06.jpg
http://www.yahphoto.biz/hosted/vendetta/vendetta07.jpg
http://www.yahphoto.biz/hosted/vendetta/vendetta08.jpg
http://www.yahphoto.biz/hosted/vendetta/vendetta09.jpg

To put it in perspective, most group photog days charge from $85 for a coupla poses and about 30 mins of 1-1 time, through to $500 for a couple of hours 1-1.

You'll be donating to charity, you'll have tutelage too, plus borrowing lots of sexy equipment.

Any donations directly to the model would be gratefully received, she has to somehow pay $6K for a hip replacement for her dog (!). She didn't ask me to say that, I just think she deserves something for her time.
 
Hmm, seems to be working now. Weird. I was getting a "server not found" error earlier. I like #8 over any of the others. #1 and #5 are good too.

Not a big fan of any the cigarette ones.
 
< not impressed with GoDaddy's hosting :|

I didn't do a thing. Others complained of broken links elsewhere (that I had previously tested as OK) and when I went into the host server, some files were 0K...

Didn't have this issue, using the same FTP software, with any other hosting service.

FYI, I didn't take these. Hope to do a shoot with her soon tho, maybe for Fabulous Furs or something.

EDIT - it's official, GoDaddy sucks ass, my entire site is down.
 
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The links are fine. Just no actual porn. These nudes are ok as long as they are linked.
 
I could be into this as well. Had a grand time at the last shoot, would def'l love more model directing experience. Price is a touch steep, but the good cause makes it sting a lot less. And I'd love to learn some strobe chops from Nick, as well as just meet the guy and shake his hand.

Keep me posted.

Bap, how'd the weekend go with the new glass?
 
Didn't have much time at all to shoot. Worked all day Saturday, but did get to play around with white balance settings and the built in flash for some pretty interesting (good) results. I'll try to post some pics up later in the week.
 
My mom has some book club thing tonight and wants me to do a group shot of them with my strobes. Will be first time trying to shoot multiple subjects with this lighting setup, could be interesting, even if the models are not :p
 
This was from Saturday's shoot. Do you guys think it looks better with the arms down or arms up? And, with or without the shadow?

5179_101758972482_605697482_2486349_3855224_n.jpg


5179_101758977482_605697482_2486350_5688876_n.jpg
 
by the way, I was happy with this one. It was my first time using a snoot. I rolled one together out of a few sheets of engineering paper and gapher (sp?) tape. It came out better than I expected. This was a single EX430 set at 1/64th power shot through a snoot aimed at her face.

5179_101759132482_605697482_2486357_4253812_n.jpg
 
My mom has some book club thing tonight and wants me to do a group shot of them with my strobes. Will be first time trying to shoot multiple subjects with this lighting setup, could be interesting, even if the models are not :p

My advice if you want a good keeper rate: Set the strobes up in the corners, diagonally opposite, and aim them at the ceiling. Light up the whole room that way, and then vary your shooting angles based one which corners are hot. The light won't be that interesting, but it's very predictable, guaranteed to work, and will look good on anyone, no matter where in the room they're sitting. This is what I usually do on Christmas morning, etc, when there's going to be unpredictable locations and I want to be able to shoot freely.
 
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My advice if you want a good keeper rate: Set the strobes up in the corners, diagonally opposite, and aim them at the ceiling. Light up the whole room that way, and then vary your shooting angles based one which corners are hot. The light won't be that interesting, but it's guaranteed to work, and will look good on anyone, no matter where in the room they're sitting. This is what I usually do on Christmas morning, etc, when there's going to be unpredictable locations and I want to be able to shoot freely.



That is some fantastic advice! :thumbup
 
It works for me, and once you get an aperture figured out it's idiot proof. Put it in manual, dial aperture until the exposure is right, then dial shutter speed to bring in some room lighting if you'd like. With the WB set to daylight or flash, this brings a warm glow to the lamps/etc that nicely matches the mood for a book club meeting or some other heartwarming event. :p
 
Yea when I've shot stuff indoors with a flash, I found bouncing the flash usually gave good results. However, theyprobably are going to be shot outdoors though. Got a few ideas in my head, we'll see if it works... I also have no idea how many there will be :p
 
Aris - arms down, no shadow. LOVE that hair! Looks almost surreal.

John - thanks man. Links should be working again. Of course, tech support just said, 'Looks fine to me' :| My guess is the server crashed and someone EVENTUALLY got around to re-booting it. Ugh.

Tyler (and everyone else) - donations are TAX DEDUCTIBLE! We'll be able to give you a receipt and everything :teeth

And +1 on the bouncing off the ceiling, especially if you only have smaller brollies or off-camera flash with tiny diffusers. It definitely makes things more flexible.

And on the note of 'set the aperture and go', here's my first attempt at a white-backdrop:

http://www.yahphoto.biz/musicians/aivar/g_aivar.html

Here's my fave of the shoot:

aivar_03.jpg



Was/is:

2x 45w/s non-adjustable strobes with home-made barndoors (thanks aluminum flashing!) hung on the ceiling pointing at the paper

3x 8x4 sheets of 'Thrifty white board'

2 Interfit 150w/s strobes, set on full on the right, 1/2 on the left (except the group shots, where both were on full and I notched back to F6.3)

2x60" Softlighter II brolly-softboxes.

Used my 'nifty fifty', 1/200 at 7.1 for almost every single shot. It was liberating to get it dialed in and then just worry about shooting.
 
Ian, just a little advice on the post. If you have photo shop, you can go in there with the dodge tool set to dodge the highlights at 5%. (set your background color to white) You can use that tool to clean up the background so that all of it is white. You can use it on the background without worrying about accidentally shaving part of your subject off like you would with the eraser tool.
 
Ian, just a little advice on the post. If you have photo shop, you can go in there with the dodge tool set to dodge the highlights at 5%. (set your background color to white) You can use that tool to clean up the background so that all of it is white. You can use it on the background without worrying about accidentally shaving part of your subject off like you would with the eraser tool.

AGGH! FUCK!

SO OBVIOUS! lol!

Thanks man! Holy shit, can't believe I've wasted all this time trying to PAINT the last bits of white out, or use Curves to 'Push' it to 255 all round. What a dumbass.

I use the Dodge tool all the time (teeth, eyes, lip highlights). Don't know why I didn't think of this.

I just did a quick-n-dirty test, hit refresh and it should be better. You're right, the bottom left was really blue. I need to re-calibrate my monitors, totally didn't see it until I dragged the window over to my other monitor.

THANK YOU!
 
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