Portrait with the Nikkor 50mm f1.8D

Have I mentioned before that the Nikkor 50mm f1.8D makes a really nice portrait lens? ;-) Hehe!

Lighting: Elinchrom D-Lite-it 2 with a snoot from above and behind the subject pointing down at the subject from the right side of the portrait. Elinchrom D-lite-it 4 with 65x65cm soft-box from above camera and very slightly left. Edited in Lightroom 4. Vignette added.

The Power of Bounced Flash!

Nikon sb600 atop my D300s turned backwards and about 45° upwards to bounce onto the wall and ceiling behind me. This simple technique resulted in even and soft lighting from a large light source and great highlights in the eyes of the subjects!

Photographing Weddings is Fun!

Although stressful at times, and tiring to shoot when it stretches to a 12 hour day, I have always enjoyed shooting weddings! I really love to work with people, especially people who are having a whole lot of fun themselves, and at weddings mostly people are very happy, relaxed and in a great mood.

Being properly prepared ahead of time takes most of the stress out of it, however no matter how well you prepare there are always going to be a few surprises along the way, but if you have done the groundwork ahead of time then you should be able to handle the little niggles that come along a whole lot better.

What has always helped me a lot is building a very good relationship with my clients ahead of time, so that on the day they trust me and don't have to stress themselves worrying about whether I am up to documenting their one off very special event that will (hopefully) never be repeated ever again. Some photographers can't deal with that sort of responsibility and hate to shoot weddings, but it is exactly that aspect that gets me revved up! Bring it on!

Bride and Groom Kissing outside the Chapel

An oldie from my days of film, and still one of my favourite wedding photos. I was shooting with a Nikon F801s camera and a Nikkor 50mm f1.8D lens, a real workhorse combination that served me well for many years!

I would still be happily shooting film but in South Africa it became harder and harder to find anybody who could still process film properly and without leaving smudgy fingerprints on my negatives. I think that as time went on and the old film guys who knew what they were doing in the darkroom retired they were replaced by anyone (young, cheap and inexperienced) who thought they could punch the right buttons on the mini lab machine, and the darkroom art died out.

This is the way of the world and unfortunately profits drive everything. Having recently moved to Sweden I have discovered that local processing labs simply don't exist, so film use seems to be off the cards unless I decide to process my own... C'est la vie, now I have been shooting digital for a number of years and the "old days" of film remain as a pleasant memory.

Elvis Impersonator in the Mall.

...and he was really good at it too!

If anybody in South Africa knows where I can get in contact with him, please send me an email (lanthus.clark*at*gmail.com) with his email address so I can forward some pics to him.

Nikon D90, Aperture Priority Mode, Nikon 35mm f/1.8G AF-S DX, hand held, f/2.5, 1/200s, ISO400, Nikon sb600 pointing upish and bounced off the ceiling.

Venetian Painted Mask - a one light portrait.

Another version of a previous pic (in colour) from the same session that I posted here: Venetian Painted Mask

Nikon D90, Aperture Priority Mode, Nikkor 18-105mm kit lens at 105mm with VR on, hand held, f/5.6, 1/200s, ISO200, Nikon sb600 fired into a bounce umbrella to camera left.

Toni (with an "i"), photographed in my "Strobist" style studio.

Nikon D90, Manual Mode, Nikkor 18-105mm kit lens at 105mm with VR on, hand held, f/11, 1/200s, ISO200.
A Nikon sb600 bounced in an umbrella to camera left set just slightly higher than the subject, and a Nikon sb700 bounced in an umbrella to camera right and somewhat higher than the subject (about 45 degrees), with both sb's on light stands and triggered via Nikon's excellent CLS.
Edited in Corel Paintshop Pro X4.

A Quick Portrait.

Took a quick portrait this evening, setting up lights, shooting and packing back down all done in about 20 minutes!

Nikon D90, Manual Mode, Nikkor 18-105mm kit lens at 90mm with VR on, hand held, f/11, 1/200s, ISO200, two Nikon sb's bounced into two bounce umbrellas, edited in Corel Paintshop Pro X4.

Another Simple Portrait

Another simple portrait with a plain white background.

Nikon D90, Manual Mode, Nikkor 18-105mm kit lens at 52mm with VR on, hand held, f/8, 1/80s, ISO200, bunch of various small Nikon sb's and some umbrellas, edited in Corel Paintshop Pro X4.

"Walking Street", Copenhagen, Denmark.

Thousands of people and not a single smile among them. What gives in Copenhagen?

Taken with the fantastic el-cheapo Nikon Coolpix L21.

Portrait in Monochrome

I used the set-up shown here: Portraits in small places

Mor Mor

My Danish mother-in-law, a real lady!

Nikon D90, Nikkor 35mm f1.8DX, hand held, ISO400, f3.5, 1/250s, natural light from a window, edited for contrast and cropped in Corel Paint Shop Pro X4. Did I mention that the 35mm f1.8DX is a really great lens? ;-)

CAUTION!

CAUTION!
Photographer at play! ...er, work. I meant to say work... Drat, caught out...

My Santa Set-up

Since the 5th of December I have been taking the typical Santa in the mall pics that we see every year! It's actually quite fun, but a lot of work as it has been crazy busy. While I have been there a lot of "pros" and amateurs alike have expressed an interest in my lighting set-up, how I do it, and why! It seems that the "strobist" concept hasn't caught on in South Africa the same way it has elsewhere in the world. So here is a short explanation and a few sample pics.

My basic setup is a couple of Nikon sb flashes, one sb700 and one sb600. I bounce both of these into umbrellas in order to diffuse the light and get a nice even lighting over the entire set. I use a shoot through umbrella and a black backed bounce umbrella, and the reason these two? Because it's what I have of course! If I used studio lights it would become much more complicated and require cables running electricity around for people to fall over, it wouldn't be as easy to unpack and pack, etc. Here is a pull back pic of the entire set-up:

There is a very large skylight directly above the area where we are located and the light coming in is constantly changing because of the sun moving, clouds, rain, etc. so in order to keep the light and colour consistant I totaly underexpose the scene by setting my camera to manual at 1/200s and f11. Without flash it looks like this:

My flashes are set to TTL and they automatically bring the exposure back up to normal. I fire them wirelessly via Nikons very cool CLS system. The final result looks like this:

Perfectly exposed, sharp, and with very consistant colour! I don't have time to download these to a computer, tweak them and then print them, so I shoot jpg and make sure that all my settings are correct in camera to achieve the fastest workflow and print them directly from my SD cards at the lab in the mall. The resultant prints are just great!

So if you want to put that nice shiny new dslr to good use and actually make some money to justify the expense then you now know how to do Santa pics for Christmas 2012! Whoohoo!

There's no BizNiz like ShowBizNiz!

Another "Portrait in a small place"

Click HERE to see the set-up shot and more info for this photograph.

Venetian Painted Mask

Face painting is not just for children!

Portrait of a Man

The eyes are the windows to the soul, and in photography we can capture that part of the reflection of the human soul for all the world to see. Isn't it all the more important then to make sure that all of our photographic skill is focused on capturing a persons eyes first and foremost and deal with the rest of the person as being only secondary to a successful portrait?

Two Speedlight Portrait

So I have been trying to lure another victim into my photographic snare solicit another eager and willing volunteer to try out a slightly edgy looking two speedlight portrait when I spotted my son Ben in an ACDC t-shirt looking very much like an 18 year old and I conned asked him to pose for me. Of course he was a little reluctant very eager to please as always and jumped to the opportunity to be featured on my blog!

Nikon D90, manual mode, 18-105 kit lens, zoomed to 105mm, f22, 1/200s, ISO200, Nikon sb600 to camera left and behind Ben shot bare and sb700 camera right with shoot through umbrella with both fired wirelessly via Nikon's nifty CLS system. Edited in Corel Paint Shop Pro X3 (which is going for a bargain price right now btw!).

The 50mm f1.8 as a portrait lens

On a crop sensor camera a 50mm lens gives an equivalent focal length of about 75mm for Nikon and 80mm for Canon. This gives a greater distance between camera and subject, and crops out part of the image from the lens, and therefore two things happen:
1.) Distortion from being too close to your subject with a 50mm lens is eliminated because you have to stand further back to get the same framing. This pushes it a little closer to being a standard "portrait" lens, especially on a Canon.
2.) The weakest part of the cheaper 50mm lenses are the edges where fringing, aberrations etc. occur. But because the sensor is smaller these weaker areas are effectively cropped out all together and we are left with only the best part of the image! Oh yeah!

At the ridiculously low price of the "standard" 50mm f1.8 lens this means that it makes perfect sense to invest a small bit of cash to get near "pro" results! To get the same quality from a zoom you will be spending a LOT more money, and it will be larger and heavier to boot.

More "pros" than will care to admit it carry the nifty fifty in their bags, just ask them for a peek in their bags, it will be there somewhere. Ask Chase Jarvis, he has one in his bag too.

And if you are an "oldie" photographer and like the 50mm focal length because that was your favourite back when you still used a film camera (remember film?) then consider the Nikkor AF-S 35mm 1:1.8G DX  for a crop sensor Nikon cameras as it gets closer to what is considered a "normal" focal length which in this case equates to 52mm. I also hear good things about the Sigma 30mm f1.4 DC HSM for most brands of crop sensor cameras. These are both great for half body, full length or environmental portraits and also for small group shots, giving superb performance for a low cost, although I from what I hear the Sigma might not be as cheap as the Nikkor.

So if you have examples of portraits with the "nifty fifty" then please post a link to them below for the benefit of us all!