Digital Camera News, Reviews and Tips
Here’s another great lighting setup and walk-through from Karl Taylor as he shoots a bottle and glass of red wine.
He starts with setting up the scene to create warm tones and textures. Then he walks through the lighting setup from the background and accent lights up to the key light as he builds the scene.
Obviously, he’s using Broncolor strobes in the setup but the principles apply across the board with cheaper speedlights and strobes as well.
Here’s an old video from Phlearn in which Aaron Nace walks through a clamshell lighting setup. If you’ve never done clamshell lighting before, you’ll appreciate Aaron’s thorough walk-through of the how’s and why’s of setting up and using clamshell lighting.
Keeping with the clamshell theme, below is another take on clamshell lighting from Matt Granger using a clamshell setup outdoors. [Read more…]
In this short video, Damien Lovegrove explains how to take low light portraits and retain good exposure and tonal range.
In the first shot, Damien uses a tripod and dials in manual exposure compensation to get the tonal range spot on. In the second shot, Damien uses a monopod and multiple light sources, including a rim light to add depth and separation.
Check out this video from Karl Taylor as he walks through the setup of a stroboscopic sports shot using the Broncolor Scoro packs.
Aside from the lighting setup and programming the intervals into the power packs, the notion of moving the camera during the exposure in order to separate the exposures from the strobes is a very cool technique. As Karl notes, it prevents the strobe exposure from stacking up in areas of the subject that don’t move as much and it also does justice to the composition by separating the subject across the four exposures.
If you’ve never tried stroboscopic or multi-strobe flash photography before, you don’t necessarily need the $10k+ Broncolor Scoro packs. Many system speedlights (e.g., Canon & Nikon) offer a “Multi” mode that will allow you select multiple flash firings during one exposure, along with a frequency rate and power level. Obviously, they are going to be less powerful than the Scoros but can still produce solid stroboscopic results with proper planning.
Check out your flash manual to see if it is compatible.
Looking to make your drone footage a little less like consumerish video and a little more cinematic? Check out this video with 15 great tips on making your drone footage more cinematic.
[via Tuts+]
This short video from Profoto shows how shooting with high-speed sync flashes in daylight can help bring back details in the sky. The advantage of high-speed sync is that you can shoot at much higher shutter speeds than the x-sync rating of your camera. Most systems allow you to go up to 1/8000s, which means you can bring ambient light down without needing a ton of light from your flash.
In this case, they used a single B2 head in a softbox to balance the flash and ambient light. While the Profoto kits can be very expensive, the same effect can be achieved using smaller and more affordable speedlights. If name brand speedlight kits are still too expensive, third-party speedlights are available with the high-speed sync feature for less than $100.
Here’s a great video from Linus Tech Tips that gives some insight to the 1080p/4K debate and some practical considerations for shooting, editing and exporting in one over the other. It pays particular attention to online video use (and specifically with regard to YouTube videos) and how they use the Panasonic GH4 and Sony FS700 as 4K shooting options.
I have been a proponent of shooting 4K and editing in a 1080p timeline to afford additional reframing options (or even 1080p footage in a 720p timeline if you are limited to HD cameras). The above video, however, makes the additional argument for 4K exports even if you are working in a 1080p timeline. That’s a new consideration for me but, given how YouTube treats 4K files, is certainly worth considering and testing in the future.
For those of you who shoot video, what format do you prefer to shoot, edit and export?
The flow and opacity settings for the brush tools in Photoshop can be a little confusion. Watch this video (tip: content starts 2 minutes in) from Aaron Nace at Phlearn for a great visual explanation of how the flow and opacity settings work.
The basic idea is that the Flow setting allows you to build up ink over and over again, while Opacity gives you a single value of ink on your brush. These settings come in very handy for dodging and burning on images as the above video demonstrates.
I’ve been using the new DaVinci Resolve 12 beta for the past week since its release. Not really for mission critical stuff, but duplicating projects when I have extra time and learning the work flow. I’ve said before that the new Resolve is what Final Cut Pro X should have been and I’m thinking more and more like that today.
Unfortunately, there isn’t much in terms of training or forum conversations regarding the little features that matter to my workflow. I was ready to kick Resolve 12 to the curb because there didn’t appear to be a way to add audio effects to an entire track via the Track Mixer.
It’s a little different than other NLEs but it’s not too hard to do. [Read more…]
In this video from Aaron Nace at Phlearn, you’ll see how you can use Photoshop to remove tattoos from your subjects.
He covers three main sections in the process, which are the basic removal, then painting the skin back in to remove the odd, blotchy look from the removal and, finally, he shows us how to add skin texture back to the tattoo removal area.