Meet Black Cat
I wasn't actually at Comi-Con. This was a photoshoot I did for Black Cat, she requested I take some nice photos of her before she headed out to San Diego.
This is basically a portrait shoot, a zone I'm very comfortable with. It just happened that the client was dressed in a costume. I guess it wasn't so strange, I seem to do a lot of these weird kind of photoshoots. I should just rebrand my self as a cosplay photographer.
And this type of portrait shoot, I can jump pump out the photos, since I don't need to do any post-processing. The make up and costume pretty much does all the work for me, and I'm here to document the work (the cosplay) anyways, not create my own painting in faux-shop.
Outdoor Garden. We got a couple looks.
And this type of portrait shoot, I can jump pump out the photos, since I don't need to do any post-processing. The make up and costume pretty much does all the work for me, and I'm here to document the work (the cosplay) anyways, not create my own painting in faux-shop.
A few shots for green screen.
Black Cat leads Frodo out of Moria
But... I did take some photos in green screen so I can make some weird comps.
You can find a few of the photos at my flickr!
She was popular enough to be interviewed by NBC Here
Nerd Stuff:
For this photoshoot I chose the Canon 7D
with a Super Takumar 50mm 1.4 lens, and a Pentax Spotmatic F with portra 400 film
.The Super Takumar has a soft focus kind of effect when used wide open, giving a slight glow on the subject, but when stopped down, it becomes pretty sharp and contrasty.
The crop factor allows the Super-Tak to be become a nice portrait lens, with an option to use the same lens as a normal with the film camera. Using two different mediums is something I do normally for certain projects, the film works as proofs and a backup. Ofcourse, no way I'd bring film to a regular event or club photography, manual is way too slow for that. But for other things like portraiture, posed photos, nature shots, manual film camera is a good backup to have (doesn't need batteries, pretty much can't fail.).
For lighting, I used two lights: A arri 750w HPL on a softbox and a arri 300w for hair light and a reflector for fill (this is what I usually bring, it fits in my pelican case). These photos were either taken at f/1.4 for the soft effect, or 5.6 for the sharp contrasty look.
Although, I've been contemplating swapping over to speedlights for photoshoots. Less to carry around, and I've seen some really good looking photos with them. I was trained on constant lights for portraiture, and I only use flash
for events and TFP stuff, but I'll look in to investing in to a speedlight array.
I carry around a few of the MPEX Lumopro HSFs, and combined with triggers I've always been really happy with the results...
ReplyDeleteHaving said that, an AlienBee/Vagabond rig is usually what I lug to location- there's just something about the light in higher powered strobes for me.
Having said that- I'm tempted to drop cash on some on the arri pocketpar 100s: gorgeous light.
Yeah, the real concern (annoyance) is the power: a 4-light kit with batteries and rig is about 100+ lbs (baaarfff). A 4-strobe kit with batteries is about 40+ lbs. A speedlight kit with 580exII is probably less than 10 lbs, and runs on AA.
ReplyDeleteI'll do some more research and try these set ups out some time. Concerned about cycle speed, but if I put 2 or 3 speedlights on a stand together, they shouldn't need to go max power.
The mpex lumopro looks good though, I used vivitar 283 until I got the 580exII, and laughed as I put all of the old vivitars in a bin. multiple cheap slave flash may be the way to go.
(the obvious answer is "get everything". I'll consider that for next year's budget)