Tiny Studio With Cullmann And Promaster

 For the last year I have been shifting a number of interesting boxes from Cullmann around the shop shelves. The studio support sets come in various sizes - from basic to humongous with every camp known to man - and up to now I have never experimented with them. And normally I try everything that is lying around undisturbed. Ask some day about the container of hydrochloric acid and the pool chlorine...

Any rate, the Flexx Support Set is the one I raided to make the editorial studio. The desk drawer slides backward and provides and edge to attach the camera support. I elected to attach the X-10 camera to it and it is totally solid. Exposures of a second are no problem.

Fortunately the exposures can be shorter than that with an aperture of f:8 to f:16 - the camera runs at ISO 500 now and there is a Cullmann Copter tabletop tripod that acts as a light stand. On top of it is a small Promaster LED 30 light unit. If I can wangle one of the new LEDGO units we'll have even more power and shorter exposures.

None of this lighting is Steve Sint stuff - it will take a little more time to figure out  good main and fill for this tiny area - but the ability to shoot fast and illustrate as soon as an article is written in invaluable.

Anyone who shoots products or tabletop subjects would be well advised to come browse among the Cullmann accessory kits.

First Fruits Of The Furniture - The New Fuji Lens - With The Old Fuji Lens

Okay, that could have been clearer, but as long as you have read this far, you might as well continue...

The new editorial desk has been equipped with a seamless scoop to facilitate taking product shots. In the grand tradition of the Hazel Leaf Studio AKA DIY Palace, it is comprised of two sheets of A3+ matt paper and one big piece of mounting board. It wedges into the tabletop of the desk and a tripod holds the Fuji camera to take pictures of the Fuji lens.

The lighting is supplied by the Catch As Catch Can Company, but this will be improved upon. After all, we ARE a camera store...

The subject of the photograph is the latest and nicest of the Fuji X-Mount lenses. 56mm f:1.2. Sharp as on the focus plane and soft as behind it. The ideal companion for X-E2, X-Pro1 and X-T1 if you are gong to be a low-light street photographer or natural-light portrait artist.

Be prepared for a hefty lens - not as weighty as some of the DSLR lenses, but more than some of the other Fuji glass. It is a deliberate lens to use. Be prepared for a real snap as it comes into focus.

The picture of the 56mm is pin sharp itself because it is taken with he Fuji 60mm macro. Almost the same focal length but an entirely different philosophical approach to it - it is a lens that will produce extremely big extremely close images but only opens to f:4 - hence the tripod. But what a magnificent working optic for art copy or collection recording.

Numismatists and philatelists please take notice - A Fuji X-series camera and this lens will make the best images of your possessions that can be done - and you can do them yourself. You've been promising yourself that you will document the collection. Winter is coming - now is the time.

A Weekend Of Discovery

You can learn a lot when you are stupid. Of course you can learn a lot when you are smart, and it generally doesn't take as much skin off, but the knowledge gained from ignorance seems to sink in better. Thus my weekend...

Round one. Read the label. Whether you are mixing a cake or setting a camera or purchasing bookcases from IKEA...read the label. Saves you hauling three giant cardboard boxes back up the freeway in a Suzuki Swift to exchange them for one of the right size.

Round two. Hook up a mirrorless camera to the studio lighting system and try to use it in the same way that the DSLR system operates. In my case I have an adapter that lets me use the same lenses as my Nikon. Oh boy, I bet it is going to be better...! Oh boy, am I wrong.

The lenses and the sensors being equal...the images are the same size and proportion. And the depth of field is the same - thats a function of focus distance, focal length, and aperture.
No gain there.

When I am using a camera in studio mode - manual setting for both aperture and shutter speed - DSLR's  let me see through the viewfinder at full aperture and then check depth of field by pressing a preview button. Mirrorless cameras don't - they compel me to open and close the aperture by the click-stop ring and I am liable to push the whole assembly out of position as I do it. Do-able, but much more inconvenient.

Moral of the story? Use the regular heavy old DSLR for studio work in manual mode. Save the new you-beaut mirrorless for convenient field shooting.

Round three. The new you-beaut mirrorless camera can be mounted in a wooden box and triggered with a standard cable release. It is absolutely soundless when in the box, but will do perfect automatic focussing and exposure. It will also do a pretty good recording in sepia straight out of the camera. Steampunk Time!

Profoto Sun And Moon Lighting Special Offer

Don't say we aren't poetic around here. The sun and moon referred to in the title describes the special offer we have on right now of four single light plus reflector kits. The wonderful news is that they are Profoto kits.

If you are just starting out in studio photography but wish to commence with the best - to start building up a professional lighting outfit that will not be outpaced later in your career - this is your chance. We have for Profoto D1 heads on big sturdy LS-2 light stands for your main light, and a Profoto white/gold 32" reflector for the fill. This is the reflector so inexpertly handled in yesterday's post by the old guy. It is a very good reflector...

The D1 is the basis for all of Profoto's light shaping system - the attachments do not vary. It s triggered by standard synch cord, though later on you may wish to get one of their radio synch sets if you add more lights to the studio. The output is consistent, controllable, and convenient. The mounting structure of Profoto heads is superb - professional all the way and built for decades of daily use.

The Promaster LS-2 stand is large and tough and can go up to 2.8 metres. Plenty of height for a down light. Like the sun.

Four photographers will benefit from this offer, as there are four sets on offer. They normally have a price of $ 1342.........this is reduced to $ 1099 for these four sets.

Hop in for your chop pretty quick. The sun and moon will only be here a short time...

To Market, To Market To Buy A Fat Lens...

Did goe to the Photographic Markets yesterday and was greatly entertained.

The view from the seller's side of the table is different than from that of the buyer's. It reminded me of diagrams I have seen of the circulation of the blood - the individuals representing the red corpuscles drifting by. Occasionally pausing, and sometimes aggregating. Which is a nice way of saying acting like clots.

For the most part people are very nice. They look at the gear, hoist it round, put it down, move on. Or ask the price. I have learned to make a large sign with the price on it, so that we are both able to see it - it saves a deal of misunderstanding.

Of course, the nature of a market being what it is, some wish to bargain it down. I am not offended by this, though I generally pitch my prices low enough that this is not necessary. And I have learned to politely maintain my pricing...it works out well in the end. I have also learned never to offer anything that is not good value for money, nor anything that is unreliable. Better to throw it away at home than offer to sell it if it is going to disappoint someone else.

A couple of words of advice to those who would be buyers...you will get better reception for your bargaining if you do not attempt to talk down the equipment you are bargaining for. In the case of gear that has been personally owned and used by the seller, they understand it far better than you, and have at least some residual interest in it. If you pooh pooh it you are effectively criticising them...they may take umbrage.

Likewise do not try the old trick of bad ears...where you ask the price and then echo it but subtly alter it down to something that sounds the same but is 10% lower...hoping that the seller will be confused and agree. Particularly don't try this is you have a large printed sign in front of you...it won't work. Not even if you do it in a heavy accent.

When someone has no price tag on an item, you can legitimately ask "What is the price?" or " What will you take?". You cannot use this latter question if there is a printed sign - you would be asking the seller to start bidding themselves down while you stand back. By all means haggle -  but do your own haggling and don't expect them to do it for you.

Are you free to offer advice to other buyers while you are standing there on the buyer's side  about buying or rejecting something on offer? Yes, it is a free country. Of course the seller may then suggest that you are doing this for your own benefit, and raise suspicions of you being either a shill or vulture. If the feathers sound like they fit, be prepared to wear them...

All the above being said, the morning can be fun. The people who purchased some of my surplus equipment are intelligent and artistic people who will benefit from their purchases. I will benefit from the return of cash. We are both happy. And the coffee stall always has some very good home-made baked goods.

Baked goods are also necessary for the circulation of the blood.

Uncle Dick

Singhing In The Rain

Here is a post for all our Sikh* photographers.

Have you considered getting one of the Promaster 72" white umbrellas for your studio? We have one in the shop right now and it is the most marvellous light shaper that you have ever seen. It is the BIGGEST light shaper you have ever seen, with the exception of the Redwing soft box we had a few years ago that needs a commercial scaffolding firm to erect.

People sometimes decry the humble umbrella, but when it is 72 inches in diameter it is not humble. It will throw massively soft light either as reflected or shoot through. It is not too heavy, though it will be necessary to consider the effect of wind if you are going to take it outside. Normally something this big in a stiff breeze has either Mary Poppins or a paratrooper under it...

If you cannot manage the full 72", we also have 60" and 45" sizes. Some of them are white and some are black/silver.

*And all those who are seeking to do good studio photos.

In The Portrait Studio No.1 - Where To Put The Hands

Newcomers to the world of photography often ask for hints and tips on how to do a really professional job. In some cases this concerns camera handling, lighting, or posing. Or billing, self promotion, and court procedures, as the case may be...

In the first of this series of helpful posts from Camera Electronic, we call upon Uncle Dick from the Hazel Leaf Studio to tell us how to deal with the hands.

" Well, the first thing to decide is whether they will be required. If the image is being taken for a passport application, you needn't concern yourself with them at all. Getting the client to keep their eyes open and their head still while you try to size the image to satisfy the Department of Bureaucracy will be difficult enough.

Secondly, if you feel that the hands will improve the portrait, ask yourself if this is because you need them to support the face, distract from it, or hide it completely.

The sitter can chuck themselves under the chin, place their finger alongside their cheek, or curl it around their upper lip. This will look lame, but at least it will be traditionally lame. They can go for the Johnny Rotten look by sticking the finger up their nose. This also works for federal politicians, but for different reasons...

If they insist on covering their eyes with their hand just go ahead and shoot. Eventually the Department of Corrections will get a clear picture.

Photographs of legal practitioners and real estate salesmen will also present the problem that their hands may not be in their own pockets.

Dancers and artist's models are really the easiest to pose in respect to their hands as they have a good body sense and know where their arms end. They can generally accept direction except when a squirrel runs through the studio, and then all hell breaks loose.

In the end, as long as the only hands appearing in the portrait belong to the sitter, things generally work out. If you add gloves, gauntlets, jewellery, or handcuffs it takes the image into a different category. "

Stop The Clothesline

We've had a couple of blog posts in the past touting Tether Tools computer trays and cords for studio and field work. They have recently sent us pre-packed essentials kits for this purpose. What starts out as an aesthetic choice ends up being a Occupational Health and Safety matter.

The kit contains a gloriously orange USB cord that goes between your camera and your computer. There is a jerkstopper clip on either end to make sure that neither you nor any part of the connected gear part company unexpectedly in the dark.

To help you find the keys on the laptop keyboard in the dark, there is also a small LED lamp on a metal gooseneck that plugs in to a USB port. It works - I just plugged it into this laptop and I can see the keys as clear as day. Actually, it IS day, but let's not get fussy.

The real life saver is that orange cord. Studios are dark in the back and light in the front and strung with hazards. One day I will be found crushed under a light stand after pulling it over on myself with the black power cord that I could not see. It will be a fitting end - Elinchrom fitting, actually.

But if I have yellow power cords and this orange USB cable strung out in the dark I may be able to avoid the fate. You might wish to join me and live...I'll be back...

Barn Doors

The iconic picture that says Hollywood - Marilyn Monroe standing on an air vent...No, no, no - enough of that. Expunge that thought*. I mean the iconic picture of a Klieg light on a stand with barn doors open on the front of it.

Those elephant-ear flaps at the side of the light are duplicated in nearly every lighting manufacturer's catalog, whether it is studio flash like Elinchrom or Profoto or strobist  gear from the little Chinese shops. The method of attachment is different in every case but the basic form is the same - four plates that fold into themselves set round about the light. They are different sizes and materials but they all have one thing in common - they are too small.

Shock. Horror. Manufacturer's representatives reel back aghast. Someone has discovered the truth. Dive for the foxholes...

I use Elinchrom lights in my studio and have a set of barn doors for the 21 cm reflectors. They are well-built and double as gel holders, but they do not restrict the light enough to make themselves useful. The flash tube ring is big enough that it always looks past the door flaps as soon as they are opened even a peep.

Don't accuse Elinchrom - the other people's offerings are no better. There is always some place that the light leaks out on all the barn doors.

You see, what we didn't really see when we looked at the classic Hollywood doors is the fact that they are sitting on big - focussed - lights and the doors are really massive. And the film crews supplement them with flag flats and drapes and all sorts of other light restrictions. In the end I decided to follow them.

I went to a firm that makes display banners. They sold big sheets of Foam-Core board in flat black, about 3.5 feet by 5.5 feet. I used gaffer tape to join three of these together on the long edges and the whole flat can then stand by its own effort like a dressing screen.

When I need to restrict light, once the barn doors are in place, I prop the flag flat up around the light stand and I can direct a blast of light very accurately. Actually, I have two of these flag flats and they are essential to dramatic lighting. Like most of the best studio gear, they are home-made.

And there is no sense locking the barn doors when the light has flown...

* Haven't expunged it, have you...?

Prop Me Up In The Corner And Hand Me My Camera

A few months back one of the piles of discarded props at the studio shifted and collapsed on the cleaning woman. Poor thing - she had a family. One day we'll have to clear the pile and send them whatever we find under it. Closure, you understand...

Studio props are like that. People give them to you ( " Oh this will be perfect for the next time you shoot Minoan snake goddesses...careful, he bites...") and you buy them and you find them on the side of the road on verge day. Some are sold by IKEA in flat packs for $ 99 and some are sold by antique shops for thousands...but none of them ever go away.

Pretty soon you have a shooting areas that occupies 30% of the studio and a prop storage area that occupies 60% - leaving 10% for the toilet and the coffee machine. Be careful when you flush. At some stage of the game you need to thin out the herd.

I tried sales - that worked for a while and some of the more spectacular bits left. Then I tried give-aways and that got rid of the plastic palm trees. and the Roman columns. Finally I resorted to drive-buy dumping. I can never go back to Government House ever again in case they review the video...

In the end I hope to be left with enough to enhance the natural beauty of my lovely subjects. Or disguise the features of all the rest. To that end I have retained the hats, gloves, and jewellery for the former, and two dressing-room screens for the latter - two in case one falls over.

Heading image: the lovely Emmy-Lou Korsett before her rampage on the road.

Fuji Yet Again - Hey, Justin!

The Model Garage is a small gas station in Wet Dog, Alberta that plays host to lot of Central Alberta's hot rodders. Actually you can read that as farm rodders, as this section of the province gets a lot of specials that are built locally - as well as visitors from Calgary and Edmonton. It isn't that far from Ponoka so Edmonton people can call in on their way down to visit their folks...

Recent visitors to the Model were a couple of hot Fords. I wouldn't give you 2¢ to ride far in the '37 but the '36 is a nice highway cruiser. I suppose you could use the '37 to cruise up and down the paved street in Wet Dog in front of Craig's Malt Shop but that's about all.

In any case, for those of you interested in the technical details, the camera used was a Fuji X100. Flash lighting.

The Inundation

There are few books available in the photographic press that actually prepare you for doing studio photography the way it is really done. Oh, there are Amphoto books and Petersen books that show lighting setups and tit shows and how to write up a contract to a New York advertising agency, but none of them ever cover the actual business of going into your studio on Christmas morning and discovering it to be an inch deep in water.

The studio windows streaming condensation from the inside were the first clue. Opening the door to the vista of Lake Huron was the second.

I dived for the property line in an effort to locate the main water supply tap. Once that was off, the electric mains was off. and then i donned my Lloyd Bridges' gear and stepped inside. A hot water hose to the studio washing machine had burst in the night.

At this point of time I must record my relief that I had purchased Manfrotto Autopoles to hold up my Superior paper rolls, Manfrotto light stands to hold up my Elinchrom mono-block flashes, and cheap IKEA cabinets on little legs. Most of the expensive stuff was well above the water line. I lost about a metre of paper that was touching the ground and that was about it.

Further knowledge gained: Christmas day is lonely - everyone is elsewhere, so if you are in trouble, it is YOUR trouble. Grain shovels make an admirable way to throw water out a door. Hard tile floors in studios are wonderful. You can get a floor really, really clean if you need to. Summer is the best time to have a flood as the warm days aid evaporation.

As you can see, one of the scheduled shoots went ahead - others have been re-booked.

It has been an exciting holiday.

Not Too Proud To Learn

Sometimes it pays to pay attention. I found this out this last weekend.

I was asked to take series of family group pictures and as there were to be 10 people involved, I knew that my little studio would be strained to do it. Not that the little studio is a bad place - I have Elinchrom lights and shapers to deal with lots of different situations.  I use a Nikon digital system now and am very pleased with the resolution and colour rendition it provides ( particularly since I coordinated the in-camera white balance with the actual output of the lights and the Adobe Camera Raw section of the computer - I now get what I expect...).

But it is a little studio. I can do fighter jets and motor cars and ships at sea, but the Superior paper roll is still just 2750 mm wide. Some of the groups I take are 6 or more people and they tend to flow over the edges. I can composite and retouch but once they go past the edge of he paper it all gets time consuming.

So - I purchased a book by Matt Koskowski on photo compositing. One chapter was devoted to precisely the situation I was facing yesterday. And Koskowski was very specific on how he solved it - fixed positions for the subjects, light, and camera. Fortunately I practised the technique the night before using myself as  model and on the day it all worked like clockwork. The selections and final assembly were a breeze and as soon as I figure out exactly how I want the shadow to fall I can complete it. I hope the family won't mind if I give a preview.

Note as well: Big-name exclusive fashionable studios and the international award-winning legend mentors may wish to turn away and sip their hemlock cocktails now. I am going to suggest that small-name photographers with little studios that aren't exclusive at all might benefit by taking a leaf out of North American books. ( For the chronically anti-American amongst you, pretend that this is all Canadian...). Small studios there make a good ( Canadian) dollar out of high school graduation photos, Christmas card photos, and Halloween photos. Call it corny, call it trite, call it what you will - I call it money.

It might be difficult to get a chance at school pictures here in Western Australia - big firms have this sewn up and they do a good job of it. And it is a tough business - dealing with battle-hardened primary school teachers and their ravening hordes of children. I should not take it on with a Gatling, myself. But there may be high school yearbooks and senior classes who would welcome off-site studio shots of their graduating classes. If you are prepared to apply a little taste and a lot of patience, they can be the highlight of the school year.

Likewise Halloween. Throw yourself around like a pig in a fit if you will about the North American tradition of trick-or-treat, but if you advertise Halloween photo sets and then stock up with skulls and spiders and bats from Toys R Us, you can do a lot of good in October. Heavily gelled lights and photoshopped moons and graveyards are the go so don't hold back on the schlock - your customers will love it.

Christmas images for cards are a good idea, but don't get stuck with dong the cards yourself - provide good templated images on disc to the customers and get them to have the printing done by a commercial firm.

You'll end up with a lots of props to store, but take heart - the seasonal holidays come back each year and the corny props never date. And you can make pie out of the Jack-o-Lantern on the 1st of November...

Table Topple

I like table tops. You can take pictures on them, you can eat your dinner off them, and you can sleep on them after 18 bottles of beer. Actually, these days I can get there in 6, which means I can afford a pillow for the tabletop...I generally use a pile of old chip wrappings.

As photographic supports, however, they can leave something to be desired - mainly a backdrop behind your main subject. If you are doing pack shots or product photography you frequently need a bland or invisible backdrop so as not to encroach upon your subject. Herewith several suggestions:

1. Get a large sheet of cardboard from the newsagent or Jackson's art supply* and tape it to the front of the tabletop. Let it run back as far as you need for the subject to sit and then curve it up. Support it with a pile of books. Light the subject with $ 2000 worth of studio monolights or $ 1000 worth of speed lights and the pictures will look good. Light it with the sun and the pictures will also look good but you will have to contend with flies and wind.

2. Put your subjects inside a Glanz or Promaster light cube and light as before. The tent will shelter the subject but will itself catch the wind. Be cautious outside but don't be discouraged - many people light jewellery successfully with a light tent and a reflector and the Western Australian sunshine.

3. Promaster product table. Now you're talking. Attachment points for lighting supports and a translucent curved base - you can fire a flash up from below to eliminate shadows. Not expensive and folds out of the way. Our preferred product platform. in store now. No, you can't have the one on the floor because WE need it...we have more upstairs.

* Same cardboard but you can get Lotto tickets from the newsagent. And a smile.

Cubists Of The World - Unite! You Have Nothing To Lose But Your Ballheads!

At long last the Arca Swiss Cube has arrived and we can throw away our ancient three-way heads that have been sitting on the studio tripod since Fox Talbot was a kitten. This device has been advertised on our window for months...with never a sniff of the real thing. Well, the real thing is here and it is wonderful.

Please note that I am not restricting the sales pitch to studio shooters; landscapists, architectural photographers, and panoramicists will also benefit from this piece of gear. It is simply the most precise way to orientate a still camera on the top of a tripod that I have seen.

I use a Gitzo tripod in the studio - it has either a Linhof pan and tilt mounting or a Gitzo 3-way head on the top, but neither of these alternatives come close to the Arca Swiss.

The Cube has precise rack control of two axes, and a positive lock mechanism for tilt. It has variable pressure for the knob controls, so that you can match the effort needed to move the camera with the weight of it. It has a precise panorama turntable at the top of the totem pole...so you can level everything before you spin around in the pano shot.

It is well-built. The Swiss are like that. Their cheese may have holes in it but their camera gear is pretty solid!

Hands Across The Table - Cullmann Studio Set

I wish I had an underwater studio. Then I could employ an octopus as an assistant and whenever I was trying to photograph a complex setup on the tabletop there would be extra arms available to hold things.

As it is, what might look like a simple bunch of toy cars and their associated scenery might be propped up with toothpicks, Blu-tac, double-sided sticky tape, folded matchbooks, piles of rice...the variations are endless as I try to show he object but hide the support. Photoshop is helpful to erase shadows but the more you can do at the time the less fiddling you do later.

Enter the Cullmann Flexx Studio set. A whole kit wrapped in a nylon carry bag that attaches to table edges, or smooth flat surfaces, or cranes over from a light sand. there are clamps, grips, and a ball head with a cold shoe for a speed light. There are extension poles and goosenecks. It should allow me to get a steady shot while holding a lot of the heavier little components at awkward angles.

Guess what I am going to push for as a Christmas present...

PS: You can get smaller sets as well, but this is the big daddy and I deserve the best...

Ooh - Look At All The Coloured Lights!

1960's and 1970's - heyday of the coloured gel in the studio. With the new flash systems you could put a piece of extremely expensive cellophane in front of the and fire them off and get funky effects. We knew they were funky because we saw them in advertisements in German magazines. A lot of us weren't exactly sure what funky meant, but...

Reel forward ( Reel? I will explain reels to you later children, once the arthritis medicine kicks in.) to now and the necessity of applying delicate touches of colour to studio work. See the heading illustration. All major flash makers produce some form of gel holder for their light shapers - generally it will clip onto the front of a standard reflector:

You can enclose the gel in a cardboard frame or you can slip it in there palin. What you cannot do is slip in a piece of cheap newsagency cellophane over a modelling light (I'll explain cellophane children, as soon as the gout medicine ramps up.) as it will melt, catch fire, or start twerking. You have to use real gels designed to withstand heat.

Enter the Rosco Gels. Here are a variety of them in convenient packets. You can get colour correction, violent tints, diffusion sheets, or theatre colours. Better still, I see the Rosco people can also supply the stuff in rolls - 48 inches wide and 100 square feet on he roll. This means you could gel a soft box as easily as you could do it on a standard reflector. The big rolls are a special order through us but the small packets are in-store now.

One thing to remember with gels. Too much is rarely enough.

Stool Sample

You'd think that the business of taking a portrait photograph would be easy, wouldn't you.

Pull out your $ 3500 camera with the $ 2200 lens and turn on the $ 3000 studio lights and press the button. Then feed the file into the $ 2500 computer and the $ 2000 printer and add a $ 2 sheet of paper.

$ 13,202 later and there you are - a lovely A4 picture to frame.

But wait - you have forgotten that your portrait sitter has nothing to sit on. It is discourteous to tell them to sit on the floor or an old apple crate - you need to provide some better way of supporting them. Enter the posing stool from Promaster - adjustable up and down and 5-legged so that they do not tip over if you ask them to lean to the side. Black so tat it does not intrude visually into the composition - padded so that it does not intrude anatomically into the customer.

A justifiable expense for the studio and a valuable piece of furniture. And chicken feed compared to the rest of the costs.

Beauty Is As Beauty Does

I thought I was committing the height of folly a decade ago when I bought a 44 cm Softlight Beauty dish for my Elinchrom studio flash heads. After all, I had three lights with 18 cm reflectors and umbrellas and a soft box and a snoot. I mean how many more looks could there possibly be in the studio...?

So when was I going to use this thing?

Luck would have it that I had a job at a costume society dinner that week. I was given a small stage area to put up a backdrop ( faithful old three-part framework and mottled muslin...the muslin gets more mottled every year. At the end of the decade I am going to boil it for soup...) and one power point. As I was to be within a metre and a half of the subjects i decided on one 250 w/s head and the beauty dish. Best decision I ever made.

The curve of the dish that close to the subjects allowed for a slightly specular light that dropped down from the crown of the head but still curved into the eye socket and under the nose. It was almost like having a main and fill in one piece. With only a very small amount of light shifting I was able to light all the different people in their different costumes and it was one of the most successful sessions for that club.

Last night I decided to put into operation a lighting scheme that Matt Koskowski recommends in one of his Photoshop books; two medium strip lights at the 10:00 and 2:00 position in relation to the subject  and a beauty dish at 6:00. He shows in his book that it will facilitate easy selection of the subject for subsequent compositing. It seemed to be contrary to what I had done before but what the heck...

The heck. It works. The heading image is one of he first off the screen, and as it was done on a double martini and late at night, it could stand a bit more care, but it is a lot easier than any thing else. Of course it helps when the subject has definite curves and a glorious costume and is heavily armed, but then doesn't that describe a lot of dates...

SALES POINT. Beauty dishes work - they make people look like cover girls - even when they are little wizened gnomes or large hairy madmen. I mention these because I shall be showing some of the other images from the shoot in future posts. In the meantime consider one for your Elinchrom or Profoto lights as the ideal solution for a one-light setup.

Getting It to Gel - The Strobist's Guide To Colour

I cannot deny that I like certain things - Manhattan cocktails, pretty girls, hot rods, and colourful pictures. Not for me the desaturated masterwork images with every tone filtered through an old teabag - while I can still see I want to see colour.

One exception - I like to see monochrome images made with Woodburytype toning. The rich brown is much preferable to weak sepia.

But back to colour, and particularly colour in the. If you are a strobist - a person who strives to use small portable flashes to make studio-quality images out in the wider world - you undoubtedly knwo about the various wireless control systems - they let you use one or more speed lights off camera with a varying level of control between the lights. In my case I use the Nikon D300 cameras and they can control Nikon's Sb 600, 700, and 910 flashes very well.

My new passion, and big thrill, is to use these flashes  with gel modification. I selected the Honl range of gels from our shop and equipped my fill and hair light with them by means of the Honl speed strap. Much less fuss than sticky tabs or clamps, it comprises a wool band that wraps around the head of the flash, and onto which the gels can stick by velcro.

I invested in three packets - a sampler that gave me basic colour correction CTO and CTB gels as well as clear primaries, a selection that was referred to as "Autumn" and one with the title "Hollywood" As you can imagine the "Autumn" has warm colours - the "Hollywood " features hot pinks and purples. You get 5 different shades in each packet and two filters of each shade - ten in all.

I also indulged in a Honl filter wrap case - and this is a wonderful way of carrying 30 filters in safety.

The first results  highlight a Khaleegi troupe of dancers - wild colour to start with on the costumes set into the pastel of the gels - these are firing into a white muslin drop.

The second is a darker evocation for an upcoming WAMED dance - here the fill and hair were gelled with a blue-green but the main was plain to bring out skin tone. A little more tone was rolled in with an Alien Skin plugin filter.

The Honls are not unique but they are certainly well worked-out and I can recommend them to anyone out shooting.