Studio Day

We started early today with our studio photo shoot. Emily and Amanda were once again models. Jerry and Melissa stopped by to assist, and they were a BIG help. Normally I am left to deal wtih lights, backdrops and setup all by myself, but having someone to assist was quite a luxury.

Our goal today was to create "pinup" style high fashion images. We wanted to use a white background this time and have the girls be the focus of the images.

It took me a while to get the lighting the way I wanted it, and even then we were constantly tweaking throughout the day. Our key light was a big softbox with a grid, which was located to the photographer's left. Another light was on the background, an SB-800 was used as a hair light, then we alternated with a fourth light for rim lighting and a fifth light to brighten up the floor. I started by shooting just my prime lenses, a 35mm F2 and a 50mm F2.8. These worked fine except that I was getting some glare at times. Neither lens had a shade so I am not sure what was causing this. Eventually towards the end of the shoot I switched to a 17-55 AFS zoom that I am more familiar with using. I will practice with the prime lenses later when I don't have so many people standing around during a shoot.

This setup used lots of lighting, a fan and several gobo's. We transmitted the images to a laptop as we shot so we could tweak poses and lighting as the session progressed. I really like the poses and the clothing, but I am still not totally wild about the lighting. All during the session I kept thinking "man, there is just too much light" and I couldn't adjust my strobes any lower for less light. It was only after I got home that I figured out what a "duh" I had made. I had left my D2x set to ISO-250, which added two and a half stops of light! DUHHH. No wonder I had too much light. This also added a bit of grain to the photos but not noticably so unless you zoom in really tight.

Overall I was pleased with the session and as always, I learned by doing. It was a challenge to get the white backdrop completely blown out without affecting the remaining exposure. I had a great time and I think the girls did also.