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85mm f/1.4 portraits in the studio

January 13, 2014 Neil vN 30 Comments

Studio portraits with an 85mm f/1.4 lens

Shooting portraits with fast lenses for that distinctive shallow depth-of-field look, works in the studio too. In fact, it works exceptionally well. But it is perhaps an unexpected way of working in the studio - the usual way is to work with apertures in the range of f/8 or f/11 for great depth-of-field and superb image sharpness. That super-fast aperture portrait lens - such as the 85mm f/1.4 - really focuses the attention exactly where you want it …  Read more inside...

Wedding photography – Big bounce flash

December 23, 2013 Neil vN 34 Comments

Wedding photography - Big bounce flash

In photographing groups with weddings, I have a preference to keep the light soft and even. This makes posing a large group easier, since you don't have to worry about odd shadows. A big light source, just off to my side, is the simplest way of lighting this. Previous articles described how to do this with speedlights and an umbrella. (Check links at the bottom of the article.) Often enough though, you'll find yourself in a scenario where one or two speedlights just don't have enough juice, and then you need to bring out something bigger and  Read more inside...

review: Profoto B1 flash

November 6, 2013 Neil vN 68 Comments

review: Profoto B1 flash

I'm a bit of a fan of Profoto gear. When I first started looking at the more serious on-location lighting systems, my initial purchase was the Profoto 600R. I was drawn by their reputation for reliability and features such as consistent color balance even when you change power settings. The wide variety of light modifiers, as well as the ease of use and setup also had me favor Profoto, even thought it is the more expensive system on the market. Of course, the sleek elegant look of Profoto gear also counted. As far as lighting gear goes, Profoto even looks  Read more inside...

Controlling off-camera flash with a gridded stripbox / softbox

October 28, 2013 Neil vN 13 Comments

Controlling off-camera flash with a gridded stripbox / softbox

With this photo session of Carina and Carolina, (yes, they are twins), I decided to start off with a landmark spot in New York - Staple Street. That bridge walkway between the two buildings, and this surprising alley has somehow become a landmark. Yet, it works. That walkway makes a perfect frame at the top of photographs.With the tall buildings in Manhattan, you usually get brighter areas or sky towards the top, or you get more buildings in the background. But here, you get that neat visual border. Nice! Shooting on  Read more inside...

Studio photography: Low-key lighting for a dramatic portrait

October 3, 2013 Neil vN 9 Comments

Studio photography: Low-key lighting for a dramatic portrait

Randy has a look reminiscent of Ava Gardner, so I asked her to be a subject for my book, Lighting & Design. I wanted to create a portrait of Randy in the Hollywood Glamor style of lighting, similar to the vintage styled boudoir photo session (with Olena). And it looked great! But while I had someone so photogenic and with such dramatic styling, I wanted to take further photos of Randy, and she happily indulged me. For one of the setups, I wanted to explore again using the Profoto beauty dish (affiliate) as a  Read more inside...

Photographing a vintage motorbike on location with Profoto lighting

September 23, 2013 Neil vN 19 Comments

Photographing a vintage motorbike on location with Profoto lighting gear

I'm getting to meet so many people while photographing interesting subjects for my book, Lighting & Design, that I was bound to meet some truly interesting characters. John collects vintage ... oh, everything. Most impressive in a way, is John's workshop where he maintains his two vintage era motorbikes and a Model A Ford. The tools in his workshop are all authentic to the era ... and they work. The way John describes it, it actually makes sense in the way he maintains  everything with hand-tools and lathes  Read more inside...

Wedding photography – Adapting the use of light & flash photography

August 19, 2013 Neil vN 29 Comments

Wedding photography - Adapting the use of light & flash photography

When I posted the photographs of a recent wedding in an album on FB, there were a lot of questions regarding my lighting. The answer is an easy one - I change it up as needed, throughout the day. Whatever is needed to give me the best results the fastest. It's rarely just one thing. So with Alesha and Patrick's wedding, I used on-camera flash, off-camera flash (with a soft box), Profoto on-location lighting kit, and of course, if it worked, then I just used the available light. The one only lighting option that I  Read more inside...

Photo session – Modern Gypsies – golden birds

August 1, 2013 Neil vN 9 Comments

Photo session - Modern Gypsies - golden birds

Another series from the recent publicity photo session with the Modern Gypsies, with two of the girls in costume, as golden birds. With costumes this detailed and complex, I wanted a simpler background. One that didn't intrude, and somehow complemented the subjects. Classic architecture! Here are the behind-the-scenes images to how we came to some killer photographs for them ...  Read more inside...

Camera & flash settings: What do you want to achieve?

June 4, 2013 Neil vN 10 Comments

Camera & flash settings: What do you want to achieve?

In one of the multitude of photography groups on Facebook, I saw a newcomer to off-camera flash say that she bought an Alien-Bee set, but she has no idea what to set it to. My reply was that she needed a light-meter. My thinking is that then she'd know what the specific output of the flash or strobe would be, and then be able to set her camera to it. But then, thinking about it some more, I realized if there is hesitation there or confusion, it is about what specific camera settings (mostly aperture) should be in the first  Read more inside...

Using a neutral density (ND) filter to control DoF with flash

June 2, 2013 Neil vN 41 Comments

Using a neutral density (ND) filter to control DoF with flash

When working in bright sunlight with flash units that can't go into high-speed flash sync, we have a ceiling in terms of our shutter speed / aperture combination. The shutter speed limitation then would be our maximum flash sync speed. The bright daylight would then imply a small aperture - most likely around f/11 Why f/11 ? The Sunny 16 Rule dictates that in bright sunlight, we're most likely working at 1/100 @ f/16 @ 100 ISO. This translates into a handy short-cut of: 1/200 @ f/11 @ 100 ISO, where 1/200 is the maximum  Read more inside...

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