152. Low-Key - May 8-14, 2016
Kevin-
Well for this week’s theme I wanted to go all out, in a low key sense. So I recruited Bharati, a beautiful young model with an East Indian background to come to the studio. Adding to the black seamless background was Bharati’s dark hair, and the black clothing I asked her to bring to the shoot. Just two lights were used. One, a gridded softbox, behind Bharati on the left side of the frame, and one on the right side of the frame, with a grind and a snoot, putting just a tiny bit of light on Bharati's hair. Truly low key, yes?
Nikon D4s, handheld. 85mm f1.4 Nikkor lens. ISO 100, f/8 @ 1/250th of a second (flash sync).
Nikon D4s, handheld. 85mm f1.4 Nikkor lens. ISO 100, f/8 @ 1/250th of a second (flash sync).
Paul-
I liked this theme as it required me to do something I either rarely do, or have done and just haven’t paid much attention to how the picture turned out that way.
My original plan was to use my daughter as the model. I think she would have come around to the idea. (Though the poses I wanted to try would have been more conservative that the one you see here. I’m a father, guys.) I probably snapped off about 200 hundred shots and went through two batteries (Live View will do that) before I got something remotely like I was looking for. I wanted a slightly brighter foreground. A combination of ISO settings, EV switches, lighting position and diffusing; fooling around shooting Manual, limited shooting space, and metering without the subject in from of the camera proved daunting. (I eventually took a bone folder—a topic for another time—and taped it against the black fabric to give the camera an a faded white to focus/meter on…with mixed results.)
I think this is a technique I would like to come back to in order to see if I learned from the many things I didn’t do quite right and (maybe) the one or two I did. Hey…it seemed to work for Thomas Edison!
Some Dark Details: 18-55mm lens set at 55mm; aperture priority; ISO 1250; matrix metered; -2.33 EV; 1/5 sec. at f/6.3. I was approximately 7” from the camera. The spot was clamped to and located near the bottom/front of the tripod, and I experimented with some translucent foam I found to cut down on the intensity. Next time I will probably employ a recently-released product I heard about: The Deluxe Byro (Shower) Curtain™.
My original plan was to use my daughter as the model. I think she would have come around to the idea. (Though the poses I wanted to try would have been more conservative that the one you see here. I’m a father, guys.) I probably snapped off about 200 hundred shots and went through two batteries (Live View will do that) before I got something remotely like I was looking for. I wanted a slightly brighter foreground. A combination of ISO settings, EV switches, lighting position and diffusing; fooling around shooting Manual, limited shooting space, and metering without the subject in from of the camera proved daunting. (I eventually took a bone folder—a topic for another time—and taped it against the black fabric to give the camera an a faded white to focus/meter on…with mixed results.)
I think this is a technique I would like to come back to in order to see if I learned from the many things I didn’t do quite right and (maybe) the one or two I did. Hey…it seemed to work for Thomas Edison!
Some Dark Details: 18-55mm lens set at 55mm; aperture priority; ISO 1250; matrix metered; -2.33 EV; 1/5 sec. at f/6.3. I was approximately 7” from the camera. The spot was clamped to and located near the bottom/front of the tripod, and I experimented with some translucent foam I found to cut down on the intensity. Next time I will probably employ a recently-released product I heard about: The Deluxe Byro (Shower) Curtain™.
Jerry-
My original and final plan was to get a low key portrait of my daughter's hamster, Madame Fuzzy Butt. Problem was that Fuzzy Butt would not stir from her cage after me rattling her cage over two days - I feared the worst - the she had passed on and I would have to tell Kathy some bad news. So while pondering how to see if the fur ball was really dead and how to announce the passing, I took photos of an old sheep bone, and then an interesting photo of my wife. But low and behold, Fuzzy Butt began to stir! Hallelujah! So here we have the beast in a black colored soup bowl (to keep the furtive creature from running off) which I held in my left hand and with my camera in the right hand, I clicked away. Light came from that LED thing I got from B & H. I made kind of a cardboard Byro-Snoot and attached it to make the light very directional and not fall on the black background.
D750 with 105mm Micro, 1/320 @ f11, ISO 12,800.
PS: My wife was not happy about being upstaged by a hamster.
D750 with 105mm Micro, 1/320 @ f11, ISO 12,800.
PS: My wife was not happy about being upstaged by a hamster.
Don-
This picture I attempted and I was hoping I could
get it right. I needed a large back drop that I did not
have resulting in my using the burn tool in Photoshop.
I also cropped the photo of course.
D850 with a 24-70 lens set at 29mm; f/4; 1 second shutter
and an ISO of 400.
get it right. I needed a large back drop that I did not
have resulting in my using the burn tool in Photoshop.
I also cropped the photo of course.
D850 with a 24-70 lens set at 29mm; f/4; 1 second shutter
and an ISO of 400.
Byron-
The theme this week gave me an opportunity to try a technique I have rarely used. I first heard about it from the late, great Charlie Lazer back in the 70s (19 not 18). It involves cutting a hole in the background to let light through. For this picture I cut 2 holes on on the bottom, directly under the base and the other directly behind the subject. I had to place the the background and subject on a sheet of glass to allow the illumination to pass through. The background light shot directly through the hole. I shot this in my living room. I experimented with various shutter speeds to give my model drastically different looks. The slower the speed the more reflections of the windows would show. That certainly defined the bottle more and gave it a plastic look. I preferred the faster shutter that removed the reflections. I call this model "Honey Bear" because I don't know it's actual name. The nickname seems to fit.
ISO 200, 1/200, f8 to flash units set to TTL.
ISO 200, 1/200, f8 to flash units set to TTL.
Deron-
Look, I've got no idea what I'm doing, or if I did this correctly. I had to get a hold of Master and Commander, Sir Byron Braton, for a tutorial of how to go about this. Camera set to M, 4.5, yada yada yada. (Apparently, M means manual...huh.)
What you see is a prop from the Salvador Dali week.
What you see is a prop from the Salvador Dali week.