Atlanta photographer workshop class

Many thanks to all participants, I am sure it was very enjoyable and interesting for all of us:-) Workshop  lasted for 4 hours, during this time we have covered a  basic’s of studio gear,shooting techniques, had a master class and  an actual photoshoot [...]]]>

Our first workshop just happened last Sunday! Hurray!

Atlanta photographer workshop class

Many thanks to all participants, I am sure it was very enjoyable and interesting for all of us:-)
Workshop  lasted for 4 hours, during this time we have covered a  basic’s of studio gear,shooting techniques, had a master class and  an actual photoshoot session for each participant.
At the end we had nice party time:-)

03/04/2010 Update: Lighting setup from the workshop was released.

Short description of  the workshop course:

• Studio strobe lighting units explained.
• Camera controls for studio shooting,.
• Light modifiers: types, sizes and general purpose of each.
• Lighting setup: from simple one light to complicated 5+ lights fashion-style beauty shot.
• Gels: when and why to be used.
• Workshop when each was a model and a photographer, trying to feel the thing  from both sides: photographer’s and model!

Like I said earlier, each participant had a chance not only to play with the camera and studio lighting, but also to be a model. Meaning each one got a beautiful photo-set and the end.
Below  are three images from the class, first is where we started (one light source + reflector) , the second and third (more to come!)  is what we’ve got at the end by improving our lighting step-by step.

Not jealous yet? Look at my students:

workshop studio lighting setup: at the beginning

Atlanta photographer workshop, studio lighting setup: at the end

atlanta photographer workshop fashion example

March 3  Update: Now you can check photos of all our students, taken during the workshop:

The Perfect Photo Blog

We also got a video, which I’ll publish here soon along with more details, lighting schema  and pictures soon.

I am really hope to start doing such workshops at least every month. Please feel free to post here your thoughts and ideas of what should we do next time, I’ll be glad to take into consideration everything while creating future workshop plan.
Stay tuned!

-Alex

About 30% of studio work  I do is for packaging, and  I would like to share what I have learned. Simple tips and rules  on how to make product look best on a package. Shooting  product for a package sometimes is very similar to a catalog photography, or for a web (except resolution). [...]]]>

Atlanta product photography

About 30% of studio work  I do is for packaging, and  I would like to share what I have learned.
Simple tips and rules  on how to make product look best on a package. Shooting  product for a package sometimes is very similar to a catalog photography, or for a web (except resolution). However, there are few aspects which  photographer need to keep in mind during a shoot:

• Background:
  In most cases product  will be clipped out from a background and placed on a digital one, so it is important to know what actual color of the package background it will be.
  You have to match the color (or at least get as close as possible), to avoid glowing look (in case if you shoot on a bright background and item will be placed on a dark), or  dark edges , when you shoot on dark, and product was placed on white package.  The client not always aware of this, and you have to specifically ask about color of a  packaging box. Also, make sure the background can be clearly separated from the object: white background should be at least 2 stops brighter than the object, black should be darker, so the edges of the object are cleraly visible. Do not make package designer guess where is the edges.
• Lighting:
  It is really depends on what kind of  object will be photographed, but be prepared to place your product  in a shooting box or surround with big softboxes and white reflectors.
  When I shoot kitchenware, most objects has curvy reflective surfaces, which requires to place white screens all around the product to kill unwanted reflections.  Sometime a gradient reflector will be needed, as you may not be able to create desired gradient tone on those mirror-like surfaces with the light only.

  Also, we need to make sure the object does not have deep shadows or highlights. Ideally it should look like it was photographed in the lightbox. I am saying “look like” because I’ve never used lightbox and do not recommend using it, it has too much limitations.

• Lens, DOF and Focal Length:
  We’ll need to have  as  deep Depth Of Field as possible, to have all parts of the object in a focus. Remember, this is not an AD photography, where some blur may help to create an attractive look. Here we need to make sure that all the details are clearly visible.
  To achieve this, I usually  close aperture down to F18-F22. Obviously, the lens should be able to  deliver sharp and high-contrast  image at such aperture level. Make sure you know your lens: What the maximum aperture number you can set before diffraction starts lowering contrast and whipes out details?

  I have a nice cheap Sigma 100mm F2.8 macro lens, which I use occasionally. It is very sharp between f4 and f9. Starting from f10 till it’s (unusable at all) maximum of f42(!) it lose the contrast and details. More I  close diaphragm, worse image I  get.  In opposite, my  macro Canon 180 F3.5 L lens is capable to deliver  exceptionally good quality picture till  F22.

  Focal length: For some products I use long lens (usually Canon macro 180mm), which let me to retain object proportions, which  is good when I shoot object frontally. Longer lens makes object look flat, so we have to use lighting to accentuate object’s shape.
  In other cases I use  wider angle lens (35-50mm focal length), good when object being photographed at the angle. Here is the example of wrong use of long focal distance lens:

  

  180mm lens, an example of unproper use of a long focus lens for a product photography

  See how unusual and wrong it looks.
  And here is a wider lens used for the same object:

  

  50mm lens, good example of correct use of short focus lens for a product photography

  The grill looks more realistic, angle and perspective is more pleased to human eyes.

  When front view shot is required,   longer focus lens  work better, helping to remain proportions of the object.  Image below was done with 70mm lens,  which gives me a good balance of real proportions and still wide enough not to flatten the object and  to show the internals of the oven:

  

  Long focus lens product example, front view

  Below an example of use 180mm lens, I use gradient light to show the volume of the product:

  

  An example of good use for a long focus lens:kettle, 180mm lens

At the end I would like to show  an example of    GE Grill  packaging photography, from a the camera Raw file to a final  result after designer compiled all the pieces together. (Designer have used similar image but without a pasta bowl).
As you see, in this case white background was OK for clipping object out and placing it on a red.

Atlanta product photography: grill press as-is image

ready for print packaging box tear sheet

I hope this has been helpful and would love to hear your comments. Especially if you are on other end of the chain, meaning you are a packaging professional designer. Would you agree with what I have here?  Did I miss anything important? Any feedback is highly appreciated.

-Alex

The intention was to compare Hasselblad with tilt shift adapter  with my Tilt-shift adapter system for Canon EOS I am currently using.

In studio [...]]]>

I had an opportunity ( many thanks to John Williams from Hotwire Digital) to play with this beast, Hasselblad H3D -31 few month ago, eventually got time to write this short review.

The intention was to compare Hasselblad with tilt shift adapter  with my Tilt-shift adapter system for Canon EOS I am currently using.

In studio test Hasseblad H3D-31

V.S

Tilt/Shift camera system for 35mm DSLR

Unfortunately, we did not have a macro lens for Hasselblad and used  non-macro 80mm f 2.8 H lens. I am not going to write a technical review, as there are so many on the web, as I did  not have enough time to test every aspect of the camera. Instead, I am going to tell what I liked and what I did not about this Hasselblad, compared to my Canon 1Ds Mark III.

Do Not like:

• The camera is big and slow. Slow- meaning it is slower that my Canon 1Ds Mark III. Slower focus, slower operations

• Only one focusing point (center),  which sometime forces you to use manual focus for a product shots. Not a big deal though.

Do Like:

• Bright, big viewfinder. Very good for low light work. Very good and precise matte focusing screen.

• Good use of “live view” feature (which I’ve never used with my Canon), as it let me precisely adjust focus by  looking at the monitor. Focusing can be controlled  from a computer, wile working tethered. However, for some reason we couldn’t get good focus using this feature, but i do not blame the camera, rather my limited experience working with hassel

• The most I like in Hasseblad, (true for any digital medium format) is: resolution, color depth (16 bit v.s 14 bit per channel)  and .. removable back! Yes, ability to take back out and clean sensor is what I am ready to pay for! DSLR’s deep hidden sensor gets so dirty when I change lens a lot, or even more dirty if I attach the camera body to a large format system bellows. And it is so hard for me to clean DSLR sensor! Sounds familiar? You clean it with wet swab, than wipe,  wipe, … close a shutter, mount a lens just to find few leftovers on the sensor.  With medium format digi back tt should be much easier to detach back, wipe it and put it back again.

Ok, back to the test. I can’t get close enough to the bracelet  to match the same magnification ratio as I had with my Mark mounted on modified Cambo MAster PC rails, but I think extra resolution of the 31 Mpx sensor will help to minimize the difference. Below is the full uncropped image from Hasselblad  with it’s own tilt-shift adapter HTS 1.5 and 80mm F2.8 lens set at F16,  no sharpening or any other adjustments were applied:

Jewelry shoot with Hasselblad H3D-31, 80mm non-maco lens, F16

100% crop:

Hasselblad with HTS 1.5 jewelry example 100% crop

Now the same setup with Canon 1Ds Mark III mounted on Cambo Master PC rails with Rodenstock 80mm f/4 APO-Rodagon N Enlarging Lens set at F16:

Canon mounted on large format (Cambo PC) jewelry, F16

100% crop:

100% crop Canon with Rodagon 80mm lens

I clearly see that Haselblad’s  HTS 1.5 tilt-shift adapter has more limitation on it’s tilt angle, which makes impossible to get all object into the focus, even when aperture was closed to F16  (maximum useful number due to a diffraction). Large format camera allows much more  movement to tilt a lens, providing a real advantage when shooting object at such low angle. ( One more example of what it is capable is here). The overall details and clarity seems to be even. I guess if I would use   Hasselblad with true macro lens it will beat my little $900 enlarging lens by amount of details, but  couldn’t do anything with  the distant part of the object I shoot: it just can’t tilt  enough to get focus there..

I know Hasselblad with it’s 31 Mpx 16 bit color depth sensor will outperform small Canon’s 14 bit   sensor, but in a studio, where I have all lighting under full control, dynamic range is not that critical like on location, where you fight against sun, bright sky, etc. However, everything has it’s price, and 3 years ago I did not see any reason to invest 3 times more to a digital medium format system (comparing to high-end Canon). My client’s simply did not need that extra details and dynamic range for the price. Now, when  medium format systems with 30+ Megapixel back’s being sold below $20K , the gap is closing.
Next year I’ll have a medium format monster in my garage:-) Not sure if it will be a hassel, as by nature I never liked closed architecture, always prefer more freedom of choice:-)
And it will be really cool to have digital back mounted on a large format camera, tilting and shifting it to any usable angle while using any large or medium or even enlargement lens with it! Must work perfect for product and food photography.

Watch photography using tilt-shift DSLR

The lighting schema is simple: two [...]]]>

I continue to use my tilt-shift adapter for DSLR, and now I explore the limits of the system.  Below is the watch, at a very narrow angle, shoot by using  Rodenstock Rodagon APO 80mm F4 lens at aperture set to F16.

Watch photography using tilt-shift DSLR

The lighting schema is simple: two narrow soft boxes on top, each highlighted top and the bottom part of the watch.  There should not be direct reflection form  a watch’s glass, as it immediately become dull and low contrast.

Front lest was tilted to about 25-30 degrees, the maximum I can get without   lens projection circle going out from a sensor.

Lighting schema watch photography: using tilt-shift adapter fro DSLR

The focus plane was tilted accordingly (see the schema), produced image was exceptionally sharp across a whole watch’s dial. Something which you can’t never get without tilt-shift adapter or  focus bracketing.

There are few trade-offs from such setup:

• Little increase of chromatic aberration and diffraction, increasing with the tilt angle.

• Manual operations focusing  (aperture is manual as well)  only available, done by moving the lens plate on and off from a camera. Which require precise gearing on the large format camera. (Cambo Master PC I use, is really good, very precise movements).

• Weight. The whole thing weights a lot, heavyweight head and tripod a mast.

Overall the system works very well for me, despite I never used Large Format cameras before.

Quote: “The picture was made with the Canon 5D mark II and a 400mm-lens. It consists of 1.665 full format pictures with 21.4 megapixel, which was recorded by a photo-robot in 172 minutes. The converting of 102 GB raw data by a computer with a main memory cache of 48 GB and 16 [...]]]> Found an amazing:

Quote: “The picture was made with the Canon 5D mark II and a 400mm-lens. It consists of 1.665 full format pictures with 21.4 megapixel, which was recorded by a photo-robot in 172 minutes. The converting of 102 GB raw data by a computer with a main memory cache of 48 GB and 16 processors took 94 hours. With a resolution of 297.500 x 87.500 pixel (26 gigapixel) the picture is the largest in the world.”

Enjoy: 26 Gigapixels image (http://www.dresden-26-gigapixels.com/dresden26GP)

Below are several images from these [...]]]>

That day was one of unusual for Atlanta windy, cold and low humidity days, when we gathered with our friends from PhotoSniffers.com to shoot a spectacular Atlanta Downtown sunset.  We found a few  places for the shoot, got a permission to shoot form one of it (one month of waiting).

Below are several images from these photo-sessions, more you can buy at our stock collection: AKELphoto.com

Sunset in Atlanta, GA

Night at Atlanta, GA. skyscrapers

Night Atlanta downtown

Sunset in Atlanta, GA. HDR

Atlanta sunset view of downtown

Evening at Atlanta

Atlanta scenic sunset, panorama from 4 images

Atlanta downtown, atlantic station view

Atlanta downtown sunset

Some of the photos are true HDRs , combined from 2 or more exposures, some is one exposure. Setup was usual for such photography: rigid tripod (Manfrotto 055XPROB ) with geared head (Manfrotto 405 Pro), remote release for 1Ds Mark III, 70-200 F2.8 ISL  , 24-70 F2.8 L  and 17-40 F4 L  lenses, aperture was between F12 and F 16.

BTW, I did one mistake: Because it was windy, and camera sometime was sharked by the wind, I’ve decided not to turn of IS (Image Stabilizer) on my 70-200 f2.8.  Well, with exposures from 10 to 30 seconds, that was a bad idea. Here is why, on my understanding:
What will happen if camera will shake for a fraction of a second during 30 sec exposure? Nothing, it won’t be visible on the image due to significantly less time comapred to the exposure length. However, if you’ll have IS turned on, the image will slowly “float”  when stabilirez will fight rapird camera movements. So,  you’ll be getting much longer movements. This is what happened to me. I was lucky enough to figure out after reviewing one of the imges on a camera LCD, and turned off IS, but lost some time while re-shooting my blurry ones.

We have more Georgia landscape photos available at our dedicated stock collection FancyGeorgia.com

1. Great businessmen  who are very successful on selling their work, but I do not understand nor like  photography they do.  Another words, they know how to sell, but I see nothing which can inspire me.

2. Unknown photographers, they have amazing portfolios, but they are known [...]]]> There are 3 types of photographers by my own classification:

1. Great businessmen  who are very successful on selling their work, but I do not understand nor like  photography they do.  Another words, they know how to sell, but I see nothing which can inspire me.

2. Unknown photographers, they have amazing portfolios, but they are known by very limited numbers of people, so there is not much chances I can find them online. (Know one? Let us know!)

3. Successful photographers who had achieved amazing results in photography and also highly successful on promoting and selling their work. This is who inspires me a lot,  I like the clean and crisp style  and technically challenged work they do.

Most of them extensively use photo editors to enhance and finish the images,  all of them commercial photographers , mostly food , advertisement and fashion.  All of them has very bright and professional looking web portfolio.

As I’ve mentioned before, I only selected photographers who work in the same area as myself, there are  more great artists around us, but I was learning from these:

Rick Souders:   http://www.edibleimagery.net
Matthew Klein: http://www.matthewklein.com
Jose Manuel: http://www.jmv-studio.com
Nejat Tallas: http://www.nejattalas.com
Jill Greenberg: http://www.manipulator.com
Kutlu: http://www.kutlu.com/photographs
August Bradley: http://www.augustbradley.com

And the last one, probably youngest most successful  stock photographer:

Yuri Arcurs: http://www.arcurs.com

Updates: Libby has pointed to Michael Ray:  http://www.foodportfolio.com/ , he was definitely missed ..

Missed these two, amazing photographers:
KEATE: http://www.keate.net
Francesco Tonelli: http://www.francescotonelli.com

Carl Warner :http://www.carlwarner.com Especially love his foodscapes!

Michael Ray: http://michaelray.com

Let me know if I’ve missed some:-)

When I start asking money for my photography, I start feeling  that I really [...]]]>

Well, I did not have flash meter back 10 years ago, while was shooting on film.  But I was not a professional photographer that time, and camera exposure meter plus  my prediction  along with experience was working well for me.

When I start asking money for my photography, I start feeling  that I really need to have a flash meter! Every pro has it, so how could I be a pro without it?

Bought Sekonic L-358. Not the most expensive and advanced, but I felt like it was just right for me: It measures flash and ambient light, separately and combined, small and not expansive.

Sekonic L-358 Flash Master Light Meter

After I’ve got it in hands and played   in studio and out, I found that I do not  need it at all.. It was completely useless  in a studio, as I always connect camera to a computer, and after first test shot I can clearly see where I need more or less light. And, looking on the image directly I do have much more info where and how much I need to change lights comparing to dry numbers  flash meter tells me. I know, to get correct exposure you have to measure lights from every direction, calculating the final exposure settings. But for me it sounds the same   as if I would use  calculator to count my taxes. I prefer to use turbotax or  similar software instead
Also, how about this: What the use of exposure   for a given light intensity flash meter provides you  if it does not take into consideration surface which will be reflecting the light? A bright one could be overexposed, dark may be underexposed, both with the same light output from the light source.

The only use for a flash meter I can see is to get first test shot to look close to the final result.  But do you really need to spend all this time measuring  light all around, instead of just shoot and see the result on a monitor or camera LCD? I do not know how fast others work , but usually, on assignment, I do not have such time. Have your assistant to play as a model for  and  get lights ready in a few minutes. Fast and simple:-)

And to illustrate my thoughts and feelings, below is the photo I did 8 years ago, on a film (that was Fujifilm Velvia 50, if  not mistaken). This is a composite image, 2 exposures on the same frame, no photoshop at all, the image was only re-sized  after a scanner.
I have used colored  light brush  (light painting technique), orange color for the orange and   blue ( I was using LED flashlight with interchangeable filters) on the knife.. You can even see bluish reflection on the orange, where I’ve must accidentally hit it with blue light beam.
The total exposure was about 1 minute, 30 second for each object.The shoot  was done without any metering devices, except camera meter (EOS Elan 7E). And remember, that was a film, I had the first results next day after film was processed at the lab. Now, what meter do you need while shooting digitally?

orange with knife lightbrush technique example

Obviously,  I do not know everything about photography, nor I had experience in every possible type and task exists  for a photographer. Would be glad to hear your opinion, especially how and where you  do use a flash meter, and what disadvantages is not to have it.