Strobist | Dan Perovich's Cyberfront Property

A First Time for Everything

On 01.31.10, In photo365, photography, strobist, By Dan Perovich

Photo365-20100131 – A First Time for Everything, originally uploaded by HokiePerogi.
1/250 sec @ f/4.0, ISO 400, 70mm (EF70-200mm f/4L IS USM)

Today I can say I had my first real gig as a photographer. My friend asked if I could help him out by taking a corporate head shot for his boss’ web site. Of course I told him it would not be a problem and that it was perfect timing as I am heading to my company’s winter meeting to do head shots of all my coworkers later in the week. The setup for this shot was three small strobes. One in a soft box at camera right as the key, one in a reflective umbrella on camera left as the fill and a third gridded and pointed up at the background from behind the subject. It turns out that the intended fill light became the key. I guess I am still learning the ETTL and ratios functions in the Canon system. However, even though they got switched on me, I like the overall picture. The lighting is clean and there is good separation from the background. Maybe next time I will leave just a bit more head room in the shot to allow for future clients to be able to frame their images.

Tagged with: available light • background • corporate • grid • portrait • reflective • softbox • three light • umbrella

Back to the 80’s

On 01.30.10, In photo365, photography, strobist, By Dan Perovich

Photo365-20100130 – Back to the 80’s, originally uploaded by HokiePerogi.
1/100 sec @ f/4.5, ISO 800, 35mm (EF-S18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS)

Our friends had an 80’s party tonight to celebrate a thirtieth birthday. We decided to take some high-key galmor shots to help remember the event. I broke out the white seamless paper and set up three flashes to achieve the almost completely blanked out background, a.k.a. high-key, photograph. Two flashes were used to light the subjects, one high and camera right and one high and camera left. Both flashes were equipped with a reflective umbrella and tilted down at forty five degrees to get complete coverage. The third flash was behind the subjects at camera right. It was only a few inches away from the background and aimed in such a way so the light was feathered across the background. I did this to avoid a hot-spot from appearing on the seamless papear close to the where the flash head was on the right side of the frame. To prevent any of the light from the background flash from getting on the subjects or into the camera lens, I used a gobo on it. While not a perfect high-key photograph, I think it is not bad at all for a first attempt at this type of shoot.

Tagged with: background • bare bulb • gobo • high-key • portrait • reflective • three light • umbrella

Don’t 4get Me

On 01.21.10, In photo365, photography, strobist, By Dan Perovich

Photo365-20100121 – Don’t 4get Me, originally uploaded by HokiePerogi.
1/80 sec @ f/1.8, ISO 2500, 50 mm (EF50mm f/1.8 II)

I was walking around the house tonight looking for an interesting subject for the project when I wandered out into the garage and found this snow shovel casting an interesting shadow. The note my fiancee left on the shovel made it an even more compelling subject. I had the camera set on aperture priority mode and the ISO set to Auto. The camera needed to use ISO 2500 in order to get the exposure. While I am still not pleased with the low light performance of the Canon 7D body in general, I was pleasantly surprised with the outcome of this high ISO shot.

In post processing I applied a Lightroom preset to get the dark vignetting and orange-ish tones.

Tagged with: ambient • available light • preset • still life

Glasses Practice

On 01.20.10, In photo365, photography, strobist, By Dan Perovich

Photo365-20100120 – Glasses Practice, originally uploaded by HokiePerogi.
1/250 sec @ f/9.0, ISO 400, 75 mm (EF70-200mm f/4L IS USM)

I added a third flash to my arsenal in preparation for my company’s corporate head shots in February. I ask Jaclyn, my fiancee, to be my model so that I could test out the setup with the third light. I also wanted to make sure I would be able to handle the handful of people in my company who wear glasses. By placing the key and fill lights more towards the sides of the frame instead of closer to the lens, I was able to prevent the reflections of the lights in Jaclyn’s glasses. The setup that I used tonight will most likely be the exact setup I use for the photo shoot in a couple of weeks.

Tagged with: background • grid • portrait • softbox • three light • umbrella

Fairwell Flowers

On 01.19.10, In photo365, photography, strobist, By Dan Perovich

Photo365-20100119 – Fairwell Flowers, originally uploaded by HokiePerogi.
1/250 sec @ f/8.0, ISO 200, 50 mm (EF50mm f/1.8 II)

My fiancee was given some flowers on her last day of work by one of her coworkers. I decided to put the flowers in front of the portrait backdrop and snap some shots with the softbox and reflector. I am really impressed with how the shots came out. This photograph, in particular, has some great tones and sharp details. The purple flowers and the yellow rose are my favorite parts of the photograph. The gray background does appear in frame as it was off to camera right at this angle.

Tagged with: background • flower • grid • nature • reflector • softbox • still life • two light

Bottoms Up

On 01.18.10, In photo365, photography, strobist, By Dan Perovich

Photo365-20100118 – Bottoms Up, originally uploaded by HokiePerogi.
1/250 sec @ f/4.0, ISO 100, 50 mm (EF50mm f/1.8 II)

To unwind from a hectic day at work today, I poured myself a small drink to enjoy while my fiancee and I watched some television together. I brought my camera bag with me down into the basement in case any bright ideas came to me while we were relaxing (no pun intended). I did not even get to take a sip of my drink yet when I thought of an idea to bottom light the brandy sniffer glass. The glass coffee table top was finally going to be put to a good use rather than constantly getting dirty.

I whipped out the 430 EX II flash and set it up below the glass table top so that it fired directly up into the base of the drinking glass. I do not remember if I was using manual mode, or if I was using ETTL with flash compensation. More recently I have found myself using ETTL to control the power of the strobe for me. I have found that setting the camera on manual mode and letting the ETTL system set the flash power has resulted in very satisfying images much sooner in my shoots when compared against having to set the flash powers manually. I plan to continue working in both manual flash and ETTL flash, but I believe it is a good approach to know both methods well.

Tagged with: bare bulb • food • one light • still life

More Headshot Practice

On 01.17.10, In photo365, photography, strobist, By Dan Perovich

Photo365-20100117 – More Headshot Practice, originally uploaded by HokiePerogi.
1/200 sec @ f/8.0, ISO 200, 50 mm (EF50mm f/1.8 II)

I am still trying to perfect the setup for my company’s corporate head shots that I will be taking in a couple of weeks. For this trial shot, I used the softbox at camera left and a reflector on camera right. The background was lit up with a second strobe with a gird placed on it. I am thinking that I will need to order three more pieces of equipment. One to get the exact look that my CEO is looking for and two others to make the setup flexible enough to use in even the most unprepared locations.

The first piece I think I will be buying is a third flash. I have not been able to get the ratio of light on the dark side of the face using the reflector. This may be because I do not know how to use it effectively yet. A third flash will allow me to get the exact ratio I am looking for more easily.

The second piece will be a background light stand. The stand will make for quick setup and adjustments of the background light flash.

The third piece is a posing stool. I would love to get an adjustable one, but they seem a bit pricey. I will have to do my research to see if I can get something effective, but cheap.

Tagged with: background • portrait • reflector • self-portrait • softbox • two light

Are You Done Yet?

On 01.15.10, In photo365, photography, strobist, By Dan Perovich

Photo365-20100115 – Are You Done Yet?, originally uploaded by HokiePerogi.
1/250 sec @ f/10, ISO 200, 50 mm (EF50mm f/1.8 II)

It has been a very busy few weeks since my last posting. I have completed my first two official photo shoots for clients and been traveling here, there, and everywhere. I also ran into an issue with posting to the blog from Flickr. The issue has since been resolved and now I plan to try and get caught up with the project once again. Do not fear, I have been taking a picture every day of the project. I am just incredibly backlogged with editing the photos, uploading them to Flickr, and creating the posts here on the blog. Without further a-du…

This shot was set up using a single bare bulb strobe. I bounced the light off of the white-walled kitchen island at camera left. I really like the details seen in the throw rug and Mela’s fur.

Tagged with: animal • bare bulb • bounce • one light • portrait

Bed Jump: Attempt 1

On 01.14.10, In photo365, photography, strobist, By Dan Perovich

Photo365-20100114 – Bed Jump: Attempt 1, originally uploaded by HokiePerogi.
1/250 sec @ f/10, ISO 800, 50 mm (EF50mm f/1.8 II)

I read a blog post several weeks ago about a fun type of photo which lends itself to being taken in hotels. The best way to describe these types of photographs is “bed jump” pictures. It all sounds so simple: set the camera on the timer setting and then time jump on or onto the bed to coincide with the shutter releasing. This is exactly what I tried to do tonight. I set the camera up on a tripod and used a bare-bulb flash bounced off of the ceiling. After each of my first few jumps, I took the time to remake the bed as best as I could. It did not take me long to grow tired of this routine. I settled on just touching up the sheets between attempts going forward. It took me about twenty-five to thirty attempts until I was certain that I had a useable shot in camera. My 50mm f/1.8 lens limited how much of the scene I could fit into the frame. However, I like the end result. I named the photo “Bed Jump: Attempt 1″ because I know, for certain, this will not be the last time I attempt a bed jump type photograph. As soon as I have a wider lens with me during an overnight hotel stay, I will be bed jumping once again.

Tagged with: action • bare bulb • one light • portrait • self-portrait • tripod

Strobist Ball

On 01.02.10, In photo365, photography, strobist, tribute, By Dan Perovich

Photo365-20100102 – Strobist Ball, originally uploaded by HokiePerogi.
1/250 sec @ f/8.0, ISO 400, 138 mm (EF70-200mm f/4L IS USM)

In an attempt to get caught back up with the nearly 3 weeks of blog posts that I am behind, I will be keeping the next few weeks text entries rather short.

Today’s photograph is an emulation of a card in the Strobist Favorites Gallery Vol. 1 Trade Secret Cards set. Unfortunately, I do not have the cards in front of me as I write this blog post so I cannot share the details such as the original photographer or title. However, I can tell you that the subject in the original piece of art work is a basketball rather then the dog toy feature in my version.

The lighting was archived by using a long shipping tube as a snoot to direct a point of light from a strobe directly down onto the ball. To make sure I could show the details of the lower half of the ball, I placed a second strobe flat on the ground and pointed it at the front face.

Tagged with: bare bulb • snoot • still life • Trade Secret • two light

Dan Perovich's Cyberfront Property

May 22, 2009 – May 21, 2010