Canon 5D Mark III

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Single light source portrait.

Here is a portrait done with a single light. Since the light source was relatively large compared to her and it was not far, I was able to get the look I was after without the need of additional lights or bounce cards.

The strove was an Einstein from Paul Buff fitted with a 35″ octabox. I attached a grid to the Octa to direct and guide the light more precisely. That “on my opinion” makes the light a bit punchier adding a touch more contrast and also it kept the light from spilling over to the background.

The portrait was shot with a Canon 5D MrkIII and a Canon ef 70-200mm f 2.8 is L. A Pocket wizard Mini TT1 and Pocket Wizard power MC2 were transmitting and receiving to power the strove.

And that is how I shot this portrait with a single light source.

Here is a diagram with the light set up.

Natalie's

Natalie's Portrait

 

This last portrait here shares the same lighting concept of the first one with the exeption of … You guess right, a rim light coming from camera right behind the subject. “In relation to the subject the light was positioned at about 2PM”

Since he was not rearing a cute fuzzy white hat like she was. I wanted a bit of separation between the dark background and his dark hair, and that light did exactly that.

Dani's Portrait

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Portraits with Canon 5D MrkIII

This past weekend I tried a simple lighting set up with my daughter Sofia prior to shooting some head shots of Lucca, a cute young actor.

The lighting set up was basically a main light. Paul C Buff Einstain E 640 with an Octabox and a grid on it to better direct the light. The strobe was placed overhead at 45deg angle. Lucca (the model) was holding a small gold and sliver reflector on his lap to bounce light back into his face as a fill. The other light source was a rim/hair light. This was a Travelite 750 fitted with a 10″ reflector and a 40deg grid to avoid light spill and lens flare. The pictures were done with a Canon 5D MrkIII and a Canon 70-200 ef 2.8 IS L set at f8.

Below it’s a simple diagram of the lighting set up for this two portraits.

Lucca Lighting set up

 

Sofia's Make up

Lucca-Monti

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A dash of color.

I recently took some pictures of Kassandra. Las night I revisit some of the images and decided to try something different. Since she often change her hair color and look, I decides to add a DASH OF COLOR to it and I came up with this image.

The original image was taken  with a Canon 5D Mrk III set at ISO 100 and speed of 200. White balance was manually set at 5600K. The lens is Canon EF 70-200 f2.8 IS L set a f9. The light is from a Paul Buff Einstein E640 and a 36″ Octa with a grid positioned very close to her face at 90 Deg and as a rim light I used a Canon EXII 430 set to manual mode. Black background and everything was triggered with pocket wizards.

Nothing extraordinary or new in concept, but fun and different. I did this playing around with layers and blending modes on Photoshop.  When I can’t sleep, I find it therapeutical to do some edits or watch  tutorials that will teach me some new photoshop tricks and techniques.

Adding a DASH OF COLOR to an image every now and then could be fun. I like the result. I will keep on playing with this idea and see if I can come up with something else along the lines.

#dash of color

Touch of Color

Dash of Color

 

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Chihuahua dog portrait.

Here is a portrait of the animal in our family. This time is not me.

Our little Chihuahua dog, named Peggy got her dog portrait session. Taking a portrait of certain active dogs is not the easiest of the tasks. Of course our Chihuahua was not the exception. After moving around for a long while here is one of the few shots I was able to rescue.

For this dog portrait I used a Canon 5D Mrk III with a Canon ef 24/70mm f2.8 L set at 48mm f8.0 ISO100 and shoot at 200th. The light was a Paul Buff Einstein with a 36″ octabox with a grid.

Thanks for Looking.

Portrait of Chihuahua dog.

Portrait of Chihuahua dog.

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Self portrait. Half winter Half summer.

This is the year when I get to celebrate half of my birthdays on the northern side of the glove. The first half where celebrated on the southern side of the Ecuador, Argentina to be more precise.

Due to the occasion, I thought to make a SELF PORTRAIT showing half of me in a summery look and the other half of my face resembling winter, like a Jack Frost kind of look.

For this project I used a Canon 5D Mrk III with a Canon EF 85mm f 1.8. I used a single light source, which was a Paul Buff Einstein E640 with a large silver beauty dish with a sock “diffuser”. The light was placed high-up  right in from of me, pointing about 45 deg into my face.

The rest was done as you might imagine with Photoshop. A bunch of layers and some hours of moving pixels around.

Thanks for looking. and Happy Holidays to you all.

Half winter Half summer

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Christmas picture idea. Portraits with Christmas lights.

Another # Christmas picture idea. Nothing totally new but I love the look of it. Christmas portraits using Christmas lights

The only lights here are those on the floor. I used a Canon EF 85mm f1.8 on a Canon 5D MarkIII set at 1600 ISO, White balance to tungsten, speed 125, and aperture at f 2.2. Shoot some frames and then work your magic on post. The pictures will come out a bit warm “color wise” I desaturated the color a bit on post.

Thanks for watching.

ImageImage

Image

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Picture of the day. The new iPad III pictures

For Christmas 2011 My dear wife got me an iPad that I have been enjoying  a lot. Now that her birthday it’s coming, it is time to get even and I got the new iPad for her.

The  original lighting setting for this pictures was done with one Travelite 750 set to 1 o clock with a 11″ reflector and a 30Deg grid. I used a flag beneath the reflector to block the light a bit on the white background behind the box. At 7  o clock I position a white bounce card to open up the shadow on the front left side of the box. After a few shots I decided to add a second light to color the background and that was done with a Canon 580 EXII with two cuts of blue gel. All the lights were triggered with a Pocket Wizard Mini TT1 and Flex TT5.

The Camera I used is a Canon 5D Mark III with a Canon EF 24-70 f2.8 L. White balance I think it was set at 6000K,  iso 100  F14  speed 200th.

Here is the original shot I took

Click on it to enlarge.

I kind of like the first picture but I wanted to incorporate the actual iPad to the image.

 Click on it to enlarge.

Then I decided to be creative and start playing with colors and that is when the Canon 580EXII came in. Also I turned on the iPad so it would look cool with a picture on the screen.

Click on it to enlarge

When saw that third image I did not care for it.  The exposure was not nearly enough to record the screen (IT WAS ON FOR THIS PICTURE)  and I think the crop did not look right at all, it was like a black square in front of the box. Then I recomposed the image and started trying to light the display with a third light in such way that it would show the image. Needless to say it did not matter what I did or where I positioned the light, the darn display was too dark or I ended up reflecting light into it or got a bunch of glare on a black screen. That is when I did something I don’t do often… Think. The answer pop right into my head.

The exposure for everything but the screen was already done with the flash, the camera was steady on a tripod. The flash duration is quite fast, therefore it did not mater the shutter speed being at 200 when nothing is moving. Now are you thinking what I’m thinking? You’re right. Turn of the ambient light and work on total darkness, take a picture for 30″ and see what happens. Bingo, the box and background are exposed by the flash and the screen it exposed using it’s own light. (I had to play with the exposure time to get it right, it ended up being 5″or 10″) and that is it.

Click on it to enlarge.

By the way, the picture on the display is my wife reading my iPad. I took that picture a few months ago and I thought it was going to be cool to use that image for this one.

If you have any comments or thoughts I would certainly appreciate if you leave some feed back.

Regards to all.

PS: If you made it all the way to the end here is a bonus picture of the settings.

Click on it to enlarge.

iPad setting