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sequence: setting up the lighting at a photo shoot

August 6, 2010 Neil vN 40 Comments

analysis of the lighting setup during a photo shoot

The photo above of Jessica, my assistant, shows the final lighting setup during a recent commercial shoot.  I had to photograph various people at a medical technology imaging company for use on their website and promotional material.  I had to show some of the workplace, but put the accent on the person I am photographing. Of course, it is much easier to work with my assistant, and do test shots and changes in the setup beforehand.  Then we can change the lights and anything else we need to, until we're happy with the results.  Read more inside...

tutorial: High-speed flash sync (HSS)

August 2, 2010 Neil vN 78 Comments

High-speed flash sync / auto FP .. vs .. normal flash

There have been a number of questions about high-speed flash sync (HSS), and how it affects the output from your flash. Also check this Video tutorial – High Speed Flash Sync (HSS). It covers the same material as this article, and will help explain why your camera and flash behaves the way it does when you change from normal flash sync to high-speed flash sync. I decided to do a series of comparison photos, so we can actually see what happens before, at and beyond maximum flash sync speed.  And we can also see what happens with  Read more inside...

looking for the light

July 31, 2010 Neil vN 8 Comments

photography technique - looking for great light

This afternoon I walked around the Princeton campus with a couple, Renee and David, looking for cool spots to photograph them.  I noticed the spread of light on a wall coming through an entrance way ...  Read more inside...

flash & ambient light – reverse engineering an image (2)

July 27, 2010 Neil vN 28 Comments

off camera flash for portraits of the bridal couple

My friend, Josh Lynn, just posted this spectacular wedding photograph.  It does look like he used flash there, so I thought this would make a another good example to see if we can 'reverse engineer' a photograph in terms of his settings and setup. I first had a guess at how he set this up; and then had a look at the EXIF data, and this revealed the true story.  See if you can decipher this image yourself, without scrolling down at first ...  Read more inside...

favorite recent images – portraits of a bride

July 25, 2010 Neil vN 36 Comments

I frequently post a favorite image from the past weekend.  This time, I'd like to post a few images.  All are portraits of the bride, Denise, on her wedding day.  This might show some of my approach and style in wedding portraits ...  Read more inside...

recap: photography workshop – Jersey City & Manhattan (2010)

July 23, 2010 Neil vN 18 Comments

recap: photography workshop - Jersey City & Manhattan (2010)

As a recap of the two-day long flash photography workshop, here are some images to show you some of the areas we photographed, and used as a backdrop. In the photo above, Aleona iscaught in mid-air during the recent flash photography workshop. As part of an explanation of High-Speed Flash Sync, she patiently vaulted into the air numerous times for everyone who attended the 2nd day of the workshop.  As before, the 2nd day is the on-location fun practical segment of the workshop which takes place in Manhattan. The  Read more inside...

available light portrait (model – Anelisa)

July 22, 2010 Neil vN 34 Comments

photographing people - available light portrait

While unloading lighting gear from the van to shoot a last few images for a certain section for my next book, I turned around and noticed the way the light fell on Anelisa.  Beautiful portrait light.  The (cropped) pull-back shot will show why ..  Read more inside...

Photography composition – Look at your background!

July 18, 2010 Neil vN 19 Comments

Photography composition - Look at your background!

The impact in this photo of our model, Jessica, relies equally on her looks and pose, the lighting, and the background. The background was very specifically chosen by how *I* positioned myself in relation to my subject. The background was out of focus neon lights in Times Square. I composed the photo very tightly with a 70-200mm lens, set to 200mm. By compressing the perspective with that tight focal length, I can select exactly what I want to include in the image. And that's the key here to the composition - deciding what to  Read more inside...

using a neutral density (ND) filter with flash

July 16, 2010 Neil vN 30 Comments

using neutral density (ND) filters with flash to control depth of field

Working in bright light, the limitation of having a maximum flash sync speed forces a small aperture on us.  That small aperture means more depth of field than we might like. There are two ways to force a high shutter speed / wide aperture combination: - go to high speed sync (HSS) mode. - use a neutral density (ND) filter. Using HSS dramatically cuts down our power of our flash, so if we're working in very bright light, we might be past the edge of what our flash is capable of. Then we need to bring it  Read more inside...

overpowering hard sunlight with flash

July 14, 2010 Neil vN 35 Comments

overpowering hard sunlight with flash

With this part of a photo session with Johannie, we worked in an alley. The light was very uneven, with some swathes of sunlight falling directly on her.  (See the image below for the photo without flash.)  To get rid of this uneven sunlight falling on her, we have to add at least as much light on her as the brightest areas lit by sunlight. In the example above, our exposure is set to 1/250 @ f13 @ 200 ISO and we can see from the bright patch of light on her shoulder, that we’re at the edge of acceptable exposure. Any wider on our aperture, or  Read more inside...

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