Tangents

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Lingerie photo session in the studio – Lighting, light & textures

February 5, 2015 Neil vN 7 Comments

lingerie photo session in the studio – light, lighting & textures

Lingerie photo session in the studio - lighting, light & textures

This photograph of Melanie, one of my favorite models, is one of a sequence where we played with different lights and lighting styles in the studio. I wanted lighting that was both soft and dramatic. Both feminine and bold. The lighting is the same idea - using a big gridded strip-box / soft-box - as I used in a previous photo session with another model, Anita DeBauch. The final image above, is the result of adding texture layers in Photoshop. I wanted to retain her shadow and other detail in the wall, while  Read more inside...

An informal portrait with the 85mm lens

January 28, 2015 Neil vN 25 Comments

An informal portrait with the 85mm lens - Sarah S.

Like pretty much every photo geek that I know of, I carry a camera with me wherever I go, for my personal photography. Now when the photography isn't for an actual planned shoot or professional shoot, but just for fun walk-about - then the choice of gear somehow becomes more involved. What lens should I take - wide, normal or tele. Fixed or zoom. The bulk and weight become considerations - you don't want to schlep around too much gear. Creativity and motivation quickly dissipate when your back and feet start to hurt from a camera  Read more inside...

review: Bolt VB-22 bare-bulb flash

January 27, 2015 Neil vN 92 Comments

review: Bolt VB-22 bare-bulb flash

review: Bolt VB-22 barebulb flash

These are good times for photographers who love using off-camera flash. There are more and more options coming out for us to choose from and use. B&H has rebranded their own version of a popular series of flashguns. The Bolt VB-22 bare-bulb flash (B&H) looks like the Cheetah Light CL-360, and the Godox Witstro AD360, and the Neewer AD-360. They all seem to have similar spec. So if you've been browsing for any of those options, B&H has the Bolt VB-22 flash at a competitive price. For the photo at the top, I had my camera set  Read more inside...

High-speed flash sync (HSS) with the Profoto B1 flash

January 25, 2015 Neil vN 35 Comments

High-speed flash sync (HSS) with the Profoto B1 flash

The already impressive Profoto B1 flash (B&H / Amazon) became even more awesome in Dec 2014 when high-speed flash sync (HSS) capability was added through a firmware update. The photo above was taken at 1/2000 @ f/1.4 @ 100 ISO. I wanted that super-shallow depth-of-field, and I wanted the light to be more flattering than you'd get from a bare speedlight. In this case, I used a Profoto RFi 1'×3' softbox (affiliate), with the Profoto B1. (I kept both baffles on the softbox.) The summary: it  Read more inside...

Lighting and Design: (de)-constructing a photograph

December 8, 2014 Neil vN 9 Comments

lighting and design in photography: (de)-constructing an image

Lighting and Design in photography: (de)-constructing an image

For me, Design in photography relates to the way an image is constructed at the time of shooting. Composition and content. Lighting. Every element which forms part of a successful and eye-catching photograph. Some of the elements in the photograph are pre-visualized, some of it a kind of serendipity that is then expanded on at the time. Some of it might only be understood afterwards in looking at the photograph. My latest book, Lighting and Design for Portrait Photography, looks at exactly that thought-process  Read more inside...

review: Zeiss Otus 85mm f/1.4 vs Canon and Nikon

December 2, 2014 Neil vN 34 Comments

review: Zeiss Otus 85mm f/1.4 vs Canon and Nikon

review: Zeiss Otus 85mm f/1.4  vs  Canon and Nikon

Even when taking photography only slightly seriously, you'll have come up against the legendary name, Zeiss. Renowned for innovations in optical designs that helped shape the history of photography, the Zeiss brand name is also synonymous with precision engineered lenses and impeccable attention to build quality. With all that behind them, Zeiss has released a new range called Otus. The first lens is a Zeiss Otus 55mm f/1.4 (affiliate) which Zeiss describes with phrases such as "the absolute measure of perfection" and  Read more inside...

review: High-ISO performance – Nikon D750 / D4S / D4 / D810 / D610

November 20, 2014 Neil vN 27 Comments

review: High-ISO performance – Nikon D750 / D4S / D4 / D810 / D610

With the initial quick test of the Nikon D750 high-ISO noise performance, I was quite impressed. But it really is only in comparison to other cameras that we can see how good it is. With that, I took 5 of the current full-frame Nikon DSLRs to compare them against each other to see their high-ISO noise. Nikon D750 Nikon D4s Nikon D4 Nikon D810 Nikon D610 The Nikon D4s (affiliate) is currently the high-ISO king, so it was specifically interesting to see how the 24 megapixel Nikon  Read more inside...

review: Sigma 50mm f/1.4 ART lens

November 12, 2014 Neil vN 27 Comments

review: Sigma 50mm f/1.4 ART lens

The moment you hold the Sigma 50mm f/1.4 ART lens (affiliate) in your hand, you know it is a serious lens. It is hefty. It feels like quality. It just feels like they took craftsman-like care in designing and manufacturing this lens! Sigma has somehow turned their image around from being just a third-party lens-manufacturer, to a company that needs to be taken seriously for quality optics. It started with the Sigma 35mm f/1.4 ART lens, which proved to be a spectacular lens! (Here is my review: Sigma 35mm f/1.4 DG HMS art lens.) There's  Read more inside...

Photography: questions & answers (FAQ) – Exposure metering

November 8, 2014 Neil vN 21 Comments

Photography questions & answers (FAQ) - Exposure metering

Looking at some of the questions about photography that appear via Google searches, I wanted to more directly answer some of the questions. This article is a selection of questions that I decided to amalgamate into one longer article. The questions mostly center around exposure metering and selection of camera settings. A related page looks specifically at questions about flash photography.  Read more inside...

Comparing output: Studio lights vs. speedlites / speedlights

October 14, 2014 Neil vN 36 Comments

Comparing power: Studio lights vs. speedlites / speed lights

Speedlights pack a huge amount of light for the size. Very portable, and loaded with sophisticated features, owning a speedlight is a must. A simple choice. Studio lights and the larger portable flashes such as the Profoto B1 TTL flash (B&H / Amazon) , offer a lot more power than speedlights. Exactly how much more powerful, isn't all that easy to gauge. There's very little available as direct comparison. Even the specs aren't directly comparable. Speedlights' power is given as a Guide Number (GN), and studio  Read more inside...

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