Motech Photo Shoot

Sorry it's been a little quiet recently - shot quite a few weddings and may blog about those soon, but I thought you might be interested in a car photoshoot from the weekend for Motech. (http://www.motechperformance.co.uk/)

[Thanks to Mike of Motech and James / Dave for the 'loan' of their cars for the shoot.]

(You can see the full gallery of the shots here: http://www.philhackettphotography.com/motech)

Photographing cars is a challenging business - it's difficult to avoid getting hotspots from the lights; reflections can also ruin the shots.

I decided to use a 5x7 Lastolite HiLite with two Lencarta ElitePro 2's inside. I love the ElitePro 2's as I can control the power remotely - this proved invaluable when tweaking the output in the car shoot.

This was the basic setup:

The black background gave a plain backdrop and removed unwanted reflections from behind the cars.
I angled the soft 'wall' to give some variation in illumination from left to right, although I ended up increasing the power of the flashgun furthest from the car to make the drop-off less severe.

This shows the general effect:

In the first shot above you can see an octobox - I experimented with this as a fill light for some shots, but had it switched off for most.

You can see the reflection of the softbox here - note the more even lighting across the car:

For straight engine shots I used a softbox on its own:

When I wanted the front and engine I used the soft 'wall' to light the front of the car and a 70cm beauty dish to pool some light onto the engine bay:

We used a couple of ramps to angle the rear of the car for details of the exhaust system:

Camera / lens combinations - I mostly used a 1DsIII with the 70-200 f/2.8 II. For the engine shots I used a 50mm and I did take a couple of wider angle shots of the front of the M4 using my 16-35 & 24-105 zooms.

Jem's Glassware

http://jemsglassware.weebly.com/

https://www.facebook.com/Jemsglassware

 



 

Canon EOS-1Ds Mark III, f/7.1 @ 135 mm, 1/200, ISO 100

 

Canon EOS-1Ds Mark III, f/8 @ 135 mm, 1/200, ISO 100

 

 

Canon EOS-1Ds Mark III, f/7.1 @ 135 mm, 1/200, ISO 100,

Jade on seamless white

Here's a seamless white background shot.

To get this I had a Hilite with vinyl floor. Two lights into the Hilite measuring f/16 off the background, two lights hitting the join between the vinyl and the Hilite @ f/11 and the key light was f/8. Worked reasonably well - perhaps the floor lights were a tad strong as I got a little 'wrap' on her lower legs.

 

I sampled the colour for the lettering from Jade's collar.

 

Canon EOS-1Ds Mark III, f/8 @ 85 mm, 1/200, ISO 100,

 

Jade - headshot

Lit with a single @Lencarta 30cm white beauty dish above camera left (only just out of shot). Processed in Silver Efex, CS & Lightroom

Canon EOS-1Ds Mark III, f/8 @ 85 mm, 1/200, ISO 100

 

Jade - Window light effect & behind the scenes

@Lencarta - first try using the EP mark II!

Impressed with new triggers that allow remote control power adjustment.

Had a fun shoot with Jade today.

In this shot I tried to imitate the light from a large window by using a Lastolite Hilite as the key light and a reflector to model left.

This is the result:

Canon EOS-1Ds Mark III, f/8 @ 85 mm, 1/200, ISO 100

 

And here is the set-up:

Photographing glass

So...how do you go about photographing something that is both transparent and highly reflective?

This is what I tried. I used a little table top collapsible studio thingy with a grey background draped at an angle - held there by the weight of the glass.

I need the glass itself to not be lit directly otherwise the edges would have disappeared. Instead I used a snoot pointing at the background and the subject was lit from behind. The glass edges now appear slightly darker than the background rather than just reflecting the light.

Canon EOS 70D, f/8 @ 135 mm, 1/250, ISO 100, No Flash

 

Bleach bypass Andy

Canon EOS-1Ds Mark III, f/13 @ 50 mm, 1/125, ISO 100

Andy in thought

Processed in Analog Efex 2 to give a film-like feel. I added a 'light leak' which gives a gentle feeling of haze without killing the contrast.

Canon EOS-1Ds Mark III, f/11 @ 50 mm, 1/100, ISO 100

 

Andy in profile

Andy was looking into the middle of a silver brolly to provide the wrapped lighting.

 

Canon EOS-1Ds Mark III, f/13 @ 50 mm, 1/100, ISO 100, No Flash

 

Geoff borrows a body

Canon EOS 5D Mark III, f/16 @ 50 mm, 1/125, ISO 100

Jackson Creek @ the Northampton Bluegrass Festival 19th April 2014

Organised by my friend Chris Street, today was the first Northampton Bluegrass festival in aid of dementia and cancer charities.

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Northampton-Bluegrass-Festival/178362145693766

I was fortunate in being the photographer for the event. I took lots of action shots and a few studio ones too.

This is a studio shot of the superb band, Jackson Creek. https://www.facebook.com/jacksoncreekband

Lighting was an octobox above camera left and gridded strip boxes either side of the band.

Canon EOS 5D Mark III, f/9 @ 50 mm, 1/125, ISO 125

 

Texture

One last one of Pete - I love the texture created by the tone mapping in this one.

Canon EOS 5D Mark III, f/11 @ 50 mm, 1/125, ISO 100

Pete Tone-mapped

Single image tone-mapped in HDR Efex

Canon EOS 5D Mark III, f/16 @ 50 mm, 1/125, ISO 100,

Surrounded

Had a little play in Photoshop tonight! :)

Pete Triptych

Toned to look like an old photo.

All shot @ f/8 on the 5DIII with 50mm f/1.2

Fond memories

Pete and Geoff using a bare reflector above camera left and a large parabolic umbrella providing fill behind camera right.

Canvas extended in Elements and then Conversion to Bleach Bypass in Color Efex, upping saturation slightly from default.

You could argue for a rim light on this shot from behind Pete, but I like the way he emanates from the background rather than being separated from it.

Canon EOS 5D Mark III, f/16 @ 50 mm, 1/125, ISO 100

 

Pete in thought

 

@Lencarta: A very quick edit from a fun shoot tonight with Pete. I used a forty-five degree bare reflector above camera left and a parabolic brolly for fill from behind camera right on EP600 heads.

 

Toned in Silver Efex.

 

 

Canon EOS 5D Mark III, f/16 @ 50 mm, 1/125, ISO 100, No Flash

 

Benj the dog!

A quick preview of a shoot today. Challenging on a number of fronts - I was concerned with getting the exposure right so as to retain detail in both the dark and light areas of fur. It was also more than tricky getting dear Benj to stay the right place without the owners hands on him!

 

I lit Benj with a 70cm gridded silver beauty dish camera left - this gives a directional punchy light and pleasing catchlights in the eyes. I also had a gridded reflector shooting in from behind Benj on camera right to assist separation from the background.

 

Canon EOS-1Ds Mark III, f/8 @ 70 mm, 1/125, ISO 100

 

Francis Solo

@Lencarta gridded strip softboxes either side.

 



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