Workshop: Shooten en Shoppen

Afgelopen zaterdag heb ik de eerste workshop "Shooten en shoppen" gegeven. Deze workshop ging over het fotograferen en photoshoppen om schilderachtige portretten te maken. Als modellen was ik blij dat steampunkers Spike "Wolfcry mcDark en Minerva McDark mee wilde werken, Spike heb ik ontmoet op de FotoFair afgelopen jaar!

Hier onder staan enkele van de resultaten die ik gemaakt hebt:

Jeroen Zelle heeft geassisteerd bij de workshop en ook wat spullen van Broncolor meegenomen zodat we zowel met Broncolor als Elinchrom konden werken. Ook heeft hij wat Behind the scene fotos gemaakt:

Qua gear heb ik gebruik gemaakt van:
Camera: D610 en D800
Objectieven: Sigma 24-15 Art en 50mm 1.4 Art

 

 

Fantasy session with Jopie

Preparation

Today I did a small shoot with Jopie in the Amsterdamse Waterleidingduinen. This is a great nature reserve near my studio. Yesterday it was a great day for some a little bit spooky shoot with a lot of thick fog. Here are some of the test shots. This would be perfect for the fantasy style shoot I was planning to do. Also as a test for a workshop I want to set up next year. 

The Fantasy shoot

Today the weather prediction was also some nice fog. But as you might know. The Dutch weather, when you need fog, you get ready to shoot and the weather cleared up! So we had to improvise a little bit and also got some great images! 

Workshops

As said, these where tests for upcoming workshops. You can Enroll for the workshops now. Go to the workshops pages for the dates! 

Eerste sessies in nieuwe studio

Zo de nieuwe studio is sinds vrijdag geopend! De foto's van de opening van de nieuwe fotostudio in Nieuw-Vennep volgen binnenkort! Maar nu eerst even wat nieuw werk.

Wouter Kiers

Wouter heb ik al regelmatig in mijn studio gefotografeerd, daarom had ik hem uitgenodigd voor een fotosessie in de nieuwe fotostudio. Voor de gene die Wouter niet kennen, hij is de Jimmy Hendrix van de Nederlandse saxofonisten, heeft met alle grote jongens in ons kleine landje samen gespeeld, is front man van Blood, Sweat en Kiers, en treed op met verschillende jazz, blues en r&b formaties, kortom te veel om hier even kort op te noemen! 

Gear

Als camera heb k de Nikon D800 gebruikt met een Sigma 24-105 art lens. Qua belichting ws het de Elinchrom rotalux 150 deep octa sotbox meyt de BRX250 lamp aangevuld met een RX One met een reflector en grid op de achtergrond. Som afgewisseld met de beauty dish of Witte Soft light reflector (beauty dish) met grid. Alle foto's werden thetered geschoten naar Capture One Pro 8.1. Alle editing is ook in Capture One Pro 8.1.1 gedaan. 

Why you don't need the most expensive fast Glass

Hi All,

There is something I wanted to share for a while, so here it is. I hear al lot of people always go, you need the most expensive glass and the fasted apertures, Get the Canon 50mm 1.2L for the smallest depth of field and so on. But there is a catch especially with portrait work. And that is what I am going to talk about. 

I have for my Nikon kit one lens I do almost everything with. This is the Sigma 24-105 f4! Yes f-FOUR!!! Not 2.8. So most people say, they are bad for creating a Small Depth of Field. But they always forget there is always focal length and distance to subject in the equation. I made a small table:

 Nikon D800/Sigma 24-105 Art @! 105mm 5.6

To make it a fair comparison I calculated everything with a 3 meter (30 feet) distance, with the most common used focal lengths. What you now can see is that with the Sigma 24-105 I can have a smaller Depth of Field at F4 than you can get with the 2.5x more expensive Canon 50mm 1.2L lens at 1.2. 

This gives me also some extra advantages. I want to control my light, using strobes at 1.2 apertures is not really easy because a lot of studio strobes don't get that low and to kill the ambient light you have to start using ND filters. Also the compression for portraits at 105mm is beautifull. 50mm lenses are great for environmental portraits. But headshots are not flattering with 50m lenses. For people shooting portraits also take a look at an 85mm 1.8, you can get even smaller DOF with that than the 1.2

But whatever you do, never forget, a small DOF can be beautiful, but hell to focus. When people move maybe an inch it can make or break your shot. So a lot of time you even won't be shooting at maximum aperture, but more at f8 or f11. So you don't even need to buy the most expensive lenses to get great portraits. 

Fuji !00 @ f2 with 1/1000

Fuji !00 @ f2 with 1/1000

With Cropsensor camera's

The table above is calculated on 35mm/Full Frame camera's. Nowadays there are also a lot of great (mirrorless) crop sensor camera's like the Fuji's. The Fuji 56 1.2 is a killer portrait lens! And for the table, on 1.2 at 56mm you can get a 0,14 DOF! So don't come with the story you can't get a small DOF with a Crop Sensor camera!

With Medium Format

Or take a look at an old Hasselblad like the 500c/m with a 80mm 2.8. These baby's may be analogue, but still rock! I currently use to and love shooting with them and the quality and look is so great! For the table, at 2.8, 80mm you get an 0.38 DOF, so also small. And I can tell you, you will shoot the camera at f8 or f11 almost every time, because getting focus at f5.6 or lower is a challenge! 

And with some nice film like Tri-X or Fuji Velvia, Scan them big (you can scan then up to 60mp eqv) and print them. 

So I hope this helps you not to feel bad at not having the most expensive fast glass. You can do it with less. And yes the expensive lenses will be sharper and faster and all that. But it is still the photographer who seek the light, creates the composition and takes the pictures!

 

 

 

Christmas Ballerina

A couple of week a go I had a photoshoot with beautiful woman and ballerina Nienke Knop. We wanted to mix ballet with christmas. Below you see the results. 

Specs:
Camera: Nikon D800
Lens: Sigma 24-105 Art
Light: 1 Elinchrom BRX250 with a 5' Elinchrom Rotalux deep indirect octa

After the christmas ballerina photo's we had some spare time to do some more modern Fosy like photo's. Same gear only aded a large white beauty dish as a fill. 

Portrait Session: Kees Visser

Yesterday I did a studio portrait sessions with comedian Kees Visser. For an assignment I am working on I asked Kees Visser to model, but more on the assignment later...

The set up

For the lighting I mainly used my big friend the Elinchrom Rotalux 150 indirect Deep Octa. On some Images I used the 35x90 Strip soft box with a 30x50 grid in it. But somehow this looked a little to modern. So I removed it and used just the white side of the 5-in-1 reflector handheld by my assistent.  The background was just used a roll of grey seamless.

For camera I used the Nikon D800 with the Nikon 85mm 1.8g or 50mm 1.8g. The settings where around ISO200, 1/250 f5.6 or f8.

Post processing 

During the shoot I shot straight into Capture One Pro 8. Normally I just do basic RAW-editing in Capture One Pro 8 and all the rest in Photoshop CC. But this time I wanted to do all my editing in Capture One Pro 8. And I must say, Capture One pro 8 is great for RAW-editing, but some how for the complete editing workflow I don't know... Masking and working with curves keeps feeling easier in Photoshop. Also the dodge and burning stuff is easier in Photoshop.

But for sharpening and correct lighting Capture Pro 8 rules! I think Capture Pro 8 is great for full workflow on like weddings or landscape. but for commercial and  portrait jobs I will keep Photoshop on the side!

Please keep in mind that I am still learning Capture Pro 8, so my opinion may chance in the feature. 


WHAT'S IN THE CAMERA BAG PART 2 THE NIKON BAG

This week part 2 in the series "What's in the bag", the Think Tank Airpot Airstream Nikon Bag! For the people who mist the last one about the Fuji Kit. You can read it here: WHAT'S IN THE CAMERA BAG PART 1: THE FUJI KIT. 

This is my big production Nikon kit. Which I take with me on bigger productions and studio jobs. I must say I really like my Fuji's, but with no thetering options, only 16 megapixels and the writing speed, I still prefer my DSLR Nikon kit on bigger jobs!

The Think Tank Airport Airstream Bag

Did I all ready said I love Think Tank bags? Well, I do. They are great. In small packages they offer great space. You can easily adjust the lay-out to your needs with nice extra pockets on the outside and offer great protection for you gear. Beside the option to lock your zippers there is also a security cord in it so you can lock it to something else like a desk.

So this is how I configured mine:

Think Tank Airstream

My Nikon Gear

As told before I keep all my Nikon gear in it:

  • Nikon D800
  • Nikon D610
  • Nikon 85 1.8G
  • Nikon 50 1.8G
  • Nikon SB-700
  • Sigma 24-105 f4 Art
  • Sigma 70-200 2.8 
  • Hohnle Grid
  • Color checker
  • Gossen Digisky Lightmeter

In the other pockets are other thing like:

  • Business cards
  • 8 Sanyo Enelope AA rechargeable batteries  
  • Extra Batteries for the camera's
  • Connection cords
  • Cleaning cloth
  • Thetering cable

So this is my Nikon Big production kit. Next time I will take you through my Analog bag and my small production Nikon kit.