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Archive for the ‘Lighting Techniques’ Category

MIXING DAYLIGHT AND TUNGSTEN FOR DRAMATIC EFFECT

Friday, August 13th, 2010

I’ve gotten lots of inquiries about this image that was posted on my blog earlier this week so I’ve decided to talk a little about it on this forum. The lighting for this photograph is just a simple twist on my “Twilight Blues” effect discussed in an earlier post. If you haven’t already read that post you should do so now by clicking here.

This image uses the same exact technique…only indoors. As you can see this particular church has large stained glass windows running down both sides of the building. There is also a large expanse of stained glass behind me. Therefore the predominant ambient light in the venue is daylight. I used a Lowel iD light, held by my assistant, 45 degrees to the left of my camera position. My assistant focused the light in a tight spot pattern illuminating the bride’s face and the bodice of her gown. The light was set at an intensity approx. 2 stops brighter than the ambient light. The camera’s white balance was set to tungsten. The exposure was 1/80 sec @ f8 @ ISO 2000 (handheld) and everything outside the area of the Lowel Light’s illumination naturally turns darker and blue. Only a little edge burning was done in Photoshop.

Once again I can’t say enough about the high ISO, low noise capabilities of my Nikon D3 cameras. This image is virtually noise free at ISO 2000 and I haven’t used a tripod once since I started using these cameras. I’ll be reporting to you very soon about the expanded ISO capabilities of the Nikon D3s camera.

Posted in Camera Techniques, Lighting Techniques, Nikon, Photoshop, Video Lights | No Comments »

COMPLEX MASKING MADE REALLY, REALLY EASY

Thursday, July 15th, 2010

About a week ago I posted this image on Facebook, along with a link to my web site, where my clients along with their friends & family could view some of their wedding images. Emails poured in from photographers asking how this capture was made and enhanced. In this post I am going to share the extraordinary technique, that when coupled with an exceptional software product, enables you to EASILY create dramatic images involving intricate masking.

I captured this image on my Nikon D3 camera equipped with an AF-S Nikkor 24-70mm f2.8G ED lens. My assistant was positioned behind the couple with a radio fired Nikon SB 900 Speedlight. Looking at the before and after versions of this image side-by-side will help you visualize just how exacting the masking had to be in order to achieve the final result. Simply burning down the sky in Photoshop was not an option. To do so would have taken all the detail out of the tops of the trees that lined the path and put them totally into silhouette. I wanted to hold all of the detail in those trees while allowing a magnificent sunset to show through all the openings around the individual leaves.

The first step in creating this image was to darken the sky in Photoshop to create the breathtaking sunset. Simply making a levels adjustment of the RGB channels (Image>Adjustments>Levels) and lowering the mid range slider yielded this image. The sky is amazing…the rest of the image is useless. Save this image under a different file name. It will look something like this:

Now comes the fun part which has been made ever so easy by the folks at Vertustech and their unbelievable software offering “Fluid Mask 3“. I first met Mornee and the crew from Vertus at WPPI in 2008. Fluid Mask Version 2 was being shown at the trade show and was thrilling everyone that witnessed their incredible demos. I purchased this software on the spot. As good as it was then, Version 3 blows it away. I encourage you to visit the Vertustech web site, download a trial version of the software and experiment with a few images. There are extensive video tutorials on their web site showing how to use this product. I’m going to give you a short description of the steps involved but I’ll refer any specific questions on use back to the good folks at Vertus.

Open your original image in Photoshop and choose the Fluid Mask 3 filter from your filter menu (Filter>Vertus>Fluid Mask 3). Your Photoshop window will close to conserve RAM and a dedicated Fluid Mask workspace will open. You will not believe how easy and automatic this software works. Choose the local delete brush and paint a swatch across the sky and Fluid Mask intuitively chooses the areas of the sky that you wish to mask out. Any small spots it misses can be selected by clicking on those areas with smaller sized local delete brush. The image now looks something like this:

Next you will Autofill the areas of the image that you wish to keep by choosing Image>Auto-Fill with Keep. Your workspace will now look something like this:

You must now fine tune your selection mask by using the Blend Exact brush. Your workspace will now look something like this:

Finally, you’ll tweak the most exacting selection masking choices using the patch tool:

When you are happy with your selection mask click to create your cutout and Fluid Mask generates the most precise automatic mask you’ve ever seen. This one looked like this:

Copy this cutout to your clipboard, reopen the image you created with the deep sunset and paste the cutout on top of it. Voila! An amazing composite with awesome detail in the shadows and a saturated deep rich sunset.

The entire process took me about five or six minutes and I don’t use this software very often. The pros at Vertus could probably have effected this composite in under two minutes. With practice you and I could too.

Detailed tutorials on the use of this software product are available on Vertus’ web site. Any technical questions should be directed to the folks at Vertus. Give this great product a try and check out the galleries on the Vertus web site to see how other creative imaging professionals are using this product to handle challenging masking projects.

Posted in Camera Techniques, Compositing Techniques, Lighting Techniques, Masking Techniques, Nikon, Photoshop, Remote Speedlights, Retouching and Image Enhancement, WPPI, Workflow | 1 Comment »

BRIDAL REFLECTIONS

Friday, May 28th, 2010

A week ago I posted this image on Facebook along with an announcement that Elizabeth & Michael’s wedding images could be seen on my blog. Over the next few days emails poured in from other photographers asking many different questions regarding how I made this image. I’ve decided to share, here on The Pro Spot, the techniques I used creating this image.

I want to start by saying I saw this image in my mind’s eye before I ever placed this beautiful bride into position. When I entered the magnificent Garden City Hotel on Long Island my eye immediately went across the lobby to where I saw a wedding gown on display in one of the windows of the myriad boutiques in this world class hotel. I knew right away that I would be posing my bride there for this fashion style image. I wanted to isolate the bridal gown display from the other displays adjacent to it and eliminate, as much as possible, the handrail on the right side of the frame. I chose a Nikkor 70-200mm f2.8 lens for my Nikon D3 camera and positioned myself at a relatively long distance to my subject. The narrow angle of view enabled me to crop the image tight and the long focal length made it easier to keep the vertical lines in the picture straight. When shooting straight into vertical lines (like the ornate frame around this window display) make sure that your camera height is as close to bisecting the vertical plane of the image as possible. This will keep the vertical lines in the picture straight with no skewing inward or outward.

A quick meter reading gave me the proper exposure for the illuminated background of this image. Then a single Lowel iD video light was used to illuminate my subject. There are many different video lights on the market but the Lowel iD light is the most diverse of the offerings giving me three distinct ways to adjust light output to match the ambient light in the scene. For starters the light has an infinitely adjustable dimmer to dial in the right amount of light to match the ambient exposure. The light also has the ability to focus from a wide flood pattern to a more intense concentrated spot. Finally the light output can be adjusted by increasing or decreasing the distance of the light to the subject. True, there are LED based lights on the market that offer a more compact, convenient solution but none of those lights can match the quality, consistency and flexibility of the Lowel iD light.

My assistant positioned herself 90 degrees off camera to the right, focusing the light in a tight spot illuminating the bride’s face and the top half of her gown. I had her dial the light output up to where it was just the right intensity. The bride’s face was turned towards the light to avoid any unsightly shadows on her face. Keeping the bride’s dress perpendicular to the light source insured that all of the detail of her gown would come out. The manual exposure was 1/50th second at f3.2 with my ISO set at 800. The vibration reduction feature in the lens enabled me to confidently hand hold this shot with this long, heavy telephoto zoom lens at a relatively slow shutter speed. Only some minor editing was done in Photoshop to remove a few distracting reflections in the glass and to burn down the lower left corner of the image.

Posted in Camera Techniques, Fundamentals, Lighting Techniques, Nikon, Photoshop, Posing, Video Lights | 1 Comment »

FREE WEDDING PHOTOGRAPHY MENTORSHIPS WITH MICHAEL ONEILL

Monday, February 15th, 2010

The 2010 WPPI convention and trade show is just about two weeks away now. Last year I had the honor and privilege of presenting my platform program “FUNdamentals” to some of the more than 12,000 photographers who attended WPPI 2009. As a speaker you get to look out at your audience and see the desire to learn in their attentive faces. As rewarding as the speaking experience is, I was overwhelmed by what transpired after I wrapped up my presentation. Members of the audience rushed to the podium after I concluded my presentation to ask more questions and seek more answers to their particular challenges. A few offered to come to New York for the opportunity to assist me and learn from me on actual wedding assignments. I accepted some of those offers and they turned into the catalyst for some great 2009 wedding experiences. Photographers came in from all over the United States…Illinois, Mississippi, Massachusetts, California…to accompany myself and my team on a number of wedding assignments here in New York.

This year I’ll be returning to WPPI 2010 as a judge in the Accolades of Excellence 16 X 20 print competition. Though I won’t be speaking at this year’s convention I do have quite an eager audience nonetheless…more than 2,400 subscriptions to The Pro Spot and more than 4,000 friends on Facebook. So using this, The Pro Spot, as my podium I am extending an offer to any photographer who wishes to learn from me…on the job…on an actual wedding assignment here in the New York area…to contact me. Send me an email with a link to your web site and a brief statement of why you would like to work with me. I will choose a number of you and arrange a mutually convenient time for you to come to New York and work with my team. I seek no compensation from you for this experience. I just ask that you pay your own travel expenses and bring your camera gear, your enthusiasm and an open mind towards learning while creating some new and exciting images. (Stick around an extra day after the wedding assignment and you’ll witness my two hour editing workflow to finish 1,000 images and learn some of the Photoshop enhancement techniques I employ to create award-winning images). This is a win-win scenario for everyone involved. You will learn, firsthand, the posing, camera and lighting techniques I employ and will go home with some great images for your own personal portfolios. I get the benefit of having a second creative professional on my assignments; not only enhancing my client’s product, but also challenging me to perform at the top of my game.

The team at Michael ONeill Fine Art photographed 54 weddings in 2009 and will photograph a similar amount in 2010. Opportunities will be very limited so I encourage you to contact me as soon as possible if you are sincerely interested in spending some quality time in New York with myself and my crew. I expect the response to this post to be staggering and I apologize in advance as I certainly won’t be able to accommodate all of you. I look forward to creating some spectacular wedding imagery with some of you and to helping you grow your businesses in 2010 and beyond.

Posted in Camera Techniques, Customer Relations, Lighting Techniques, Photoshop, Phtographic Education, Posing, WPPI, Workflow | 8 Comments »

YOUR GUIDE (NUMBER) TO EXQUISITE SUNSET IMAGES

Tuesday, February 9th, 2010

In this post I am going to share a fundamental technique that enables you to create dramatic sunset images in your camera with little or no Photoshop enhancement. To get started you must know the manual guide number of your flash unit and how to use it creatively to achieve predictable results. I have found that nearly all guide number ratings are exaggerated by the manufacturers and suggest that you determine an accurate guide number for your particular flash unit and commit it to memory. A good flash meter is helpful in determining the guide number of your flash, but it is not essential. A few test shots in a darkened room will serve the same purpose.

Start by placing both your camera and flash unit in the manual mode. The guide number of your flash unit, at any given ISO value, is determined by multiplying the flash-to-subject distance by the aperture value required to make the correct exposure. As a simple algebraic equation: Guide Number = f stop X Distance. At ISO 400 my flash unit, a Nikon SB900, delivers a proper exposure of f22 at a distance of 10 feet. The guide number of my flash therefore is 220. It is important for you to understand that in a darkened room, with no ambient light affecting your exposure, your exposure will be f22 at 10 feet regardless of your shutter speed. When I teach Guide Number to my students I demonstrate this by making a series of exposures, in a totally dark room, from 1/8 second to 1/250 second at f22 with my flash 10 feet from the subject. In that darkened room all of the exposures are identical. In manual mode your flash output will be the same on every single shot, and, in the absence of any ambient light, all of your exposures will be identical, regardless of the manual shutter speed chosen.

Now the fun starts. Take your camera and flash out of that darkened room and point them at your subjects who are standing against the sky at sunset. In this image I have my assistant positioned 20 feet from my subjects. My Guide Number tells me that a proper exposure will require an aperture value of f11. Remember, Guide Number = f stop X distance or, in this case, 220 = f11 X 20 feet. (11 X 20 = 220…Simple). In this image I set my camera in aperture priority mode and the camera determined that a proper exposure, based upon the ambient light, would be 1/60 second at f11. The camera returned this image in which the background is properly exposed and accurately rendered. My subjects are properly exposed by my off camera flash unit positioned 20 feet away from them.

Knowing that my subjects will be properly exposed by my flash unit, regardless of the shutter speed, I am free to alter the ambient light in this scene to my liking. I put my Nikon D3 camera in manual exposure mode and select a shutter speed of 1/250 second. The shorter shutter speed underexposes the background by two full f stops while my flash unit still properly exposes my subjects with it’s predictable, constant manual output. This time my camera returns this dramatic image with a deep saturated (underexposed) sky!

I have employed this fundamental technique for more than 30 years. It worked with film and it still works in today’s digital environment. The digital technology we enjoy today has opened up new creative possibilities that we only dreamed of in the past, but they can only be fully exploited by those photographers that have a thorough understanding of the fundamentals. I encourage you to take your cameras and flash units out of the automatic exposure modes and practice some of the basics that will enable you to predictably create stunning imagery on a consistent basis. Guide Number is a great place to start…I’ll be sharing some more “secrets” in future posts.

Posted in Camera Techniques, Fundamentals, Guide Number, Lighting Techniques, Nikon, Photoshop | 18 Comments »

TWILIGHT BLUES

Saturday, January 2nd, 2010

Here’s a very simple lighting technique that produces quite dramatic results. I call it the “Twilight Blues”.

I try to stage these shots shortly after sunset, when the sun is gone but there is still a little bit of light left in the darkening sky. I switch the color balance setting on my Nikon D3 camera to the tungsten setting and illuminate my subjects with a tungsten light source. I personally use the Lowel ID light. This light allows me to adjust the light pattern from a flood pattern to a tight spotlight pattern and also has a dimmer by which the intensity of the light can be varied. My assistant directs the light on my subjects in a tight spotlight pattern and dims the light to a level where it overpowers the ambient light. Exposure is correctly made for the lighted subjects and everything not being lit by the video light turns a deep blue shade due to your use of a tungsten white balance setting in an environment that is essentially still lit by daylight.

I find that the color temperature of the Lowel ID light drops as you dim it. This actually works to your advantage when creating a “Twilight Blues” shot. With the camera set in the standard tungsten white balance mode and the video light dimmed, the images will be much warmer toned than they should be. No problem. Simply make the appropriate color temperature adjustment when you process your RAW images. The flesh tones will come back to where they should be and the blues will get even deeper. I can’t imagine that there are any photographers out there that don’t shoot RAW, but if you don’t you can still employ this technique. You will just have to set up a custom white balance for the dimmed video light to keep the flesh tones looking natural.

Posted in Lighting Techniques, Nikon, Video Lights | 36 Comments »

LITTLE LIGHTS • BIG RESULTS

Sunday, December 27th, 2009

For my first instructional post on this forum I have chosen to share a lighting technique I’m often asked about…How do I achieve that beautiful light painting effect on my detail shots? This one is so simple you’ll go out and get great results the very first time you try it. My assistant carries a Sunpak Readylite 20 in her pocket all day long and we pull it out throughout the wedding day for detail shots of wedding invitations, jewelry, flowers, shoes, menus…almost every little detail we wish to photograph.

Today’s high performance digital SLRs like my Nikon D3 cameras deliver outstanding high ISO/low noise performance. You don’t need a lot of light for these shots. The Sunpak is a twenty watt unit, but I’ve seen photographers get amazing results from small pocket-sized flashlights that you can buy at your local hardware store for 99 cents!

In the image below the Sunpak light is placed flat on the surface, to the right, next to the wedding invitation. It is pointed almost directly at the bride’s engagement ring as evidenced by the direction of the shadow being cast off of the ring. The light, being very close to the setup, simply streams across the invitation creating a swath of light that fades off very quickly on both sides of the beam. No burning or dodging in Photoshop required. This is how it looks right out of the camera.

In the following image my assistant held the Sunpak Readylite above and slightly to the right of the wedding rings. I used a 105mm f2.8 Micro-Nikkor lens on my Nikon D3 camera leveraging the camera’s high ISO/low noise capabilities and the VR (Vibration Reduction) feature in the lens. Shooting at ISO 1600 I was able to make this exposure handheld at 1/1000 second at f32! A little edge burning was done in Photoshop along with a bit of extra sharpening on the wedding rings.

In the next image the Readylite was held far to the left, slightly above the shoes creating deep shadows in the image of the bride’s shoes hanging on the back of her gown. I try to create deep shadows when I make this photograph to keep the designer’s label (inside the shoes) from becoming a focal point in the image. Once again, this image is right out of the camera with no Photoshop enhancement.

In this final image I used the daylight coming through a window above and behind to illuminate the bride’s shoes. I used a daylight white balance and had my assistant point the Readylite at the shoes creating a warm tone on the jeweled heels and casting an interesting shadow on the wall behind the shoes.

So there you have it. Some food for thought on getting big results from little lights. Go out and give it a try. E-mail me pictures and a description of your techniques and I’ll publish some of the best ones on this forum.