Behind the scenes shot

Behind the scenes shot, originally uploaded by DrFireball.

Simple lighting set up - dragged the shutter to underexpose the outside ambient light by a stop or so. Took a few shots of another dancer here recently (Jessie Jing) and realised that I had to have the frame of the window in the shot otherwise the lighting looked really false.

Here you can see the Elinchrom 186cm Octabank. Inside is the El RX AS Speed A head fired using a pocket wizard plus II. I do also use the skyport but I like being able to trigger the pack with the Sekonic L758 DR meter. Of course when you have the benefit of an assistant you also have someone to alter the power of the pack so the skyport is less essential.

Shooting with the Hasselblad and not tethered as the amount of dust in the warehouse is unbelievable and I do not trust my laptop to it.

Shooting from slightly lower down to elongate Emms.

Post production in PS via my own personal recipe - enjoy :-)

DrF

Behind the scenes

Behind the scenes, originally uploaded by DrFireball.

Need to be more disciplined and take more shots of the lighting setups. This was taken by my assistant that day.

When at my best I write down settings etc and have even used an app on the ipad to recall lighting diagrams (or even to plan them in advance of a shoot). Typically however I like to be more free flowing and just "get on with it!".

I have been asked to speak to a local camera club though about these photoshoots - not because I am any good but rather because no-one else at the club really does this kind of thing. So I had the idea of doing a live shoot tethered to a laptop and projector. Should be good fun - will be good to have a few shots like this also though to show other alternative lighting setups.

Still enjoying the Hasselblad - even more since the Canon 5D III has been announced - I can understand why they went with "only" 22MP - but it makes me feel even happier to know that my Hassie has not immediately received a challenge to my desires :-) That said the AF on the H3D is fine in continuous but the delay between pressing the shutter and capture meant that on this shoot I had more accurate leaping captures from the 5DII. I did have the 7D for a short while (always let down by the IQ compared with the 5D) and liked it ergonomics. Will I sell the 5Dii therefore to make way for a 5Diii? Unlikely - I will wait for the ii to break by which time the iii will be a more sensible price.

As always enjoy :-)

DrF

Balletic grace

Balletic grace, originally uploaded by DrFireball.

Lovely shoot today for a ballet dancer I have shot previously - Helena M.

The location was a converted stable owned by a friend and colleague whose Wife looked after us incredibly well - coffees and a hot prawn thai soup. Just wonderful - I do worry however that my assistant Adrian and the lovely Natalie (MUA) will get used to this. A roaring fire kept us cosy. Shot with the Hasselblad once again - today had a few gremlins with Phocus. I typically shoot tethered to Lightroom and was using the autoimport feature to grab the files from Phocus (as while Lightroom supports Hassie raw files it doesn't support tethering). Still all in all well worth using the laptop to see the shots at a far greater resolution than that of the Hassie back.

These were for Helena's dance portfolio and she was happy at the end of the day - job well done therefore!

DrF

Skyler

Skyler, originally uploaded by DrFireball.

Haven't blogged for a while - not because I have been quiet - rather I just have not had the time :-)

Still this shoot today more than merits a mention. Had a good fortune to work with Skyler who was over from the US and able to fit in a shoot. The shoot took place in NDP studios (well worth a visit if you happen to be needing to do a shoot in Leeds....)

Skyler is a professional ballet dancer and very easy to work with. In the space of four hours we managed about six different set ups. Helping me was Natalie Greenwell doing the make up. We have worked together and today she provided two themes.

Not enough hours in the day for editing - but finshed with around 60 photos which I am very pleased with.

Lighting was using my Elinchrom stuff (largely due to familiarity) rather than the Broncolor in house stuff. I used the quadra ringflash extensively either as fill or key light. This shot was taken with the El Octabank camera right (with ranger), a qhadra in the 100cm deep octa cam left and a strip lit (quadra again) recta with egg box cam left.

All comments welcomed!

Cheers

Dr