strobist setup diagrams.... why you should maintain...

20 January 2013

a lot of our blog followers are strobists and one of the most attractive subjects is strobist setup diagrams.... a very useful tool for learning lighting for sure... though its a two-dimensional tool that doesn't cover height or angle of light modifiers... still, it has a great amount of use to document things quickly... the three-dimensionality can be achieved by keeping as much info in the diagram as possible... some of the objects don't quite match with the actual setups sometimes, which can be rectified by drawing your own stuff... now-a-days I hardly have the time to draw these diagrams, but it was a very important companion for me in my early days as a strobist... it was more than three years ago when I became a strobist... and I had been enjoying this ever since... the early setups and resulting images were crude, yet they paved the way for me to grow up as a photographer....

one of the best things you can do about lighting setups is to keep a document of the setup... it can be in the form of a hand-drawn diagram in a notebook or it can be a digital file.... digital files surely help in these digital times though.... but its not like an EXIF data that comes automatically with a digital image... you have to create the diagram, and thats the pain.... I highly recommend early strobists to draw lighting diagrams.... I've become a lazy bum now, but people like Joe McNally still draw diagrams on paper even after teaching thousands of photogs through hundreds of workshops.... so, try to do this even its a pain... it also helps to keep a document of setups that you want to repeat in the future, especially of complex setups... again, you need to be as detailed as possible in terms of documentation for maximum usefulness...

digital diagram files are readily available on the web... I used the file available for download (in PSD format) for free at www.kevinkertz.com, developed by Kevin Kertz... thats a great deed by him for all the strobists out there...really admirable job...

here are some of the more popular strobist diagram posts in this blog.... may be these can be useful for you.... just click on the image to go to the relevant blog posts...

thanks for reading... please leave a feedback to help us provide useful stuff for you....


Brightening up a gloomy day - one-light strobist set-up





Lamisa's playhouse - two-light strobist set-up



Day-long strobist - two-light strobist set-up for black backdrop

whats more dynamic than a white wall?

17 January 2013

just a few days back when we produced our winter theme photo, we received some nice feedback, including a praise for the choice of backdrop (from Mahmood Hussain Mehedi... thanks, buddy!!).... it was a grey backdrop, nothing more.... but this grey backdrop wasn't even grey in reality.... it was, in fact, a white wall and the control of light produced that grey background.... it produces images a lot different from that of a genuine grey backdrop... the biggest difference between the white wall and grey backdrop is the diversity that is achievable from the backdrop... the grey backdrop will not give pure white unless its blasted with a zillion watt-second of light!... the white, on the other hand, is much easier for producing diverse background... just a tweaking of light directions can produce completely different images.... its much more dynamic...

I've used my white wall to produce lots of images that are difficult to associate with the same backdrop.... using gels or cookies produce even more drama.... but just a mere control of light with softboxes or grids can produce totally different images.... the best part of using controlled light on such a backdrop is the gradient that I get.... that gradient produces something more natural, which can't be achieved only with a backdrop.... so, I would say its the combination of lighting and white wall that produces the diversity, not just a bare white wall....

my favourite lighting tool to be used with the white wall is the Elinchrom Ranger + Simpex 50cmx120cm softbox combo... it gives so much flexibility that it almost made me crazy, as I was constantly drawn to this combo alone... sometimes its good to have some fill-light options to cut shadows or back-light options to give the images more edge...

I would be glad to produce a video podcast with a review of the above lighting combo sometime... but as my main video podcast platform Youtube is currently banned in Bangladesh, it can't be done so soon.... I'm keeping my fingers crossed, though...

please give your feedback... whats your most favourite background option when it comes to dynamism?

the power of umbrellas....

31 May 2012
Mohammadpur, Dhaka, Bangladesh

this blog post is about some geeky stuff... so genuine family fun this time.... yea, sorry to disappoint.... but we do have fun of some sort.... the geeky sort.... this blog is more about technical stuff than other things....

today we talk about one of the most common light modifiers... umbrellas.... umbrellas are one of the cheapest light modifiers and easy to carry, which makes umbrellas present in the hands of almost all strobist photogs.... its a no-brainer... you have to have it even if you use it much less often than some of its more illustrious light modifier brothers and sisters... but umbrellas are also some of them most under-utilised pieces of light-modifiers too... may be because its easier to get a better light modifier than trying to squeeze all the juice out of it.... yet, its always worth trying to make the best use of the things you have in your hand... it pushes your creativity and makes you more confident about possible less-than-ideal situations....

to start off, it was our intention to push ourselves... we decided to do exactly what is more difficult to achieve with umbrellas... umbrellas are a nice way to soften light, but a lousy way to control light.... and that where we decided to concentrate our effort... we squeezed the juice out of the umbrellas and made them do the seemingly impossible stuff... some of these lighting scenarios are easier to achieve in a large open space with very poor light conditions... but if we say that you have to achieve these in a more confined space, you have to scratch your head for all the ideas....

we used shoot-through and silver reflective umbrellas for this exercise.... we used go-bo's and also did various combination of the two types of umbrellas.... for one shot we used an extra reflector to throw back some light from below... we could use another umbrella for this as well.... bit can be questioned then, why we would need the umbrella to do it when a reflector can do the job just as nicely... and another umbrella would mean another light as well... anyway, we were happy with the outputs we had been able to squeeze our of the two modifiers.... don't forget to give your feedback on this....

and anyway, we're planning to conduct a workshop shortly on exactly this topic.... how to get the best out of umbrellas... if you feel interested to join, don't forget to leave your feedback here.... and stay tuned for the workshop declaration in our dedicated "Idea Workshops" page:

follow us in Twitter or Facebook to updates about workshop dates and other details...

lots more to come.... :)

the K.A.K. story..... part 3

31 March 2012
Mohammadpur, Dhaka, Bangladesh

read the first part of the blog here....
and the second part here...

did we mention how much fun we had during the photo-session with KAK?.... can't say enough of that.... really!.... and the fun only got more concentrated when we introduced the other protagonists.... the characters who now play a very important role in the composition and relationship of KAK.... the whole story now became fluid and interesting.... the pictures speak for themselves...

the idea was to show the evolution of the group.... though the group is still known as KAK, it really showed something like KAKTP!!.... well, once you introduce people like that in your inner circle, things change forever and you have to live it, and more importantly, evolve.... and that evolution also indicated to changes in future... since we shared the images in Facebook, a lot of debate started among the friends community, and why not?.... everybody loves evolution!! :)

we introduced quite a bit of light without creating a washout... two softboxes on both sides (one 24" Lastolite Ezybox Hotshoe and one 24" Shashinki softbox).... two more lights on both sides with grid-spots working as edge lights... one more light in front, bouncing off a silver reflector to act as a low fill.... a total of five lights... all small lights... four YN-560s and a Nikon SB-900.... camera was a Nikon D700 with a 28-80mm lens and trigger was an Elinchrom Skyport on two flashes... the others were all in optical trigger mode...

a lot more coming up.... stay tuned... :)
 

the K.A.K. story..... part 2

31 March 2012
Mohammadpur, Dhaka, Bangladesh

read the first part of this blog here....

if you had been following the K.A.K. story, you probably know that we had been through a lot of brainstorming... and one of the top considerations in relationship portrayal was 'friends in need'..... our second setup was based on that.... some of the tough moments in individual's life are sometimes taken care of by friends... the relationship of K.A.K. took a deeper meaning every now and then with the advent of such situations.... the ability of the group to solve problems together had always been a strong point of their relationship....

to highlight this, we decided to pick the guy most appropriate for the 'distressed' role!... and from there, it just evolved... we didn't forget to end the theme with some fun... so, we gave Kamal and Kamrul and open cheque!..... :)

lighting was simple for this.... one Elinchrom Ranger RX unit with a 100cm Rotalux "Deep Octa" on camera left.... and a couple of YN-560 flashes bouncing from the white wall on camera right.... trigger was an Elinchrom Skyport... the YN flashes were all on optical trigger mode...

for the third setup, we decided to portray 'fellowship'... its true that it happens to all friend circles... people have their differences... but in the end its friendship that clears everything up and wins the day... friends just end up following a single path even though there's disagreement.... we again needed to pick the right guy to show the dispute or tension.... every friend circle have people with roles... it wasn't that hard to pick, obviously.... the fun factor was important for this setup.... and yes, it was lotta fun! :)

we had two softboxes on two sides.... one Lastolite 24" Ezybox Hotshoe and one 24" Shashinki softbox.... two YN-560 flashes in them.... we wanted the light to be a bit moody.... so, we didn't want light all over the place.... the placement of the two softboxes made sure of the low spill of light on the backdrop... camera was Nikon D700 + Nikkor AF 28-80mm lens... Elinchrom skyport was the trigger for one flash... the other one was on optical trigger mode....

stay tuned for a lot more.... :)

the K.A.K. story..... part 1

31 March 2012
Mohammadpur, Dhaka, Bangladesh

the original proposal for this photo-session came from Kamrul, an old photographer buddy of mine... a very popular photographer among the online photographers' community here in Bangladesh.... the basic idea of this photo-shoot was to highlight the exclusive friendship of Kamrul, Arif and Kamal... K.A.K., which is what they choose to call themselves... ("kak" in Bangla means "crow")... these three friends had a lotta photos taken as they're part of a pretty large photography group... so, it was a real challenge to do a photo-shoot that would not just tell a story of relationship, but would be different from all others photographs of theirs previously taken...


with Arif and Kamal already married, and Kamrul still being single, the story had some twists and turns that were dramatic in themselves... but we had to figure out where to start and where to finish up... we had a lotta brainstorming before we touched the camera... practicality prevented some of the photos... but that also opened the opportunity to tell an even better story...

every story has a start... and to start with, we decided to concentrate on the very backbone of their relationship... photography.... photography is the thing that brought them together and made them bosom friends... this friendship is a lot different from friendships that start in student life... having found one another during a more matured period of their lives, their story had more matured thoughts... anyway, their closeness was carried on by social networking.... that networking included physical hangouts, web chat, and mobile chat.... another very important thing that brought them on the same level field was their professional backgrounds.... they all work in the field of information technology.... that made it much easier for them to integrate different technological advances and put them to use....

to show this base of their friendship, we decided to make a photo that would not just show photography as the real base, it should also show their tech savviness and networking skills... this called for a complex lighting scenario.... we used a total of six lights for this one.... three YN-560 flashes were hidden on each of their laps which illuminated their faces and resembled the lights coming out their electronic gadgets... a fourth flash, a Nikon SB-900 was on top with grid-spot to put a focus light on the camera... we needed some fill light, as some details needed to been seen as well... the devices in their hands and also the networking cables coming out of their devices and joining up with the camera needed to be seen properly.... fill light was given by an Elinchrom Ranger RX + 100cm Rotalux "Deep Octa" unit on camera left and a fifth speedlite, a YN-560 was on camera right bouncing from white wall... the fill flashes reduced contrast to some extent.... camera was D700 with 28-80mm lens.... one Elinchrom Skyport radio trigger was used... all the other flashes were in optical trigger mode...

stay tuned for much more... :)

put some light on your life.....

19 May 2012
Mohammadpur, Dhaka, Bangladesh

it was the first ever Idea Workshop at Idea House.... it was the first "Step into the Light" workshop; a basic workshop on lighting.... we had some great guys there as participants.... we did a lot of experiments and learned all the way.... and more importantly, we had a lotta fun.... it wasn't possible if we didn't have the kind of participatory environment there.... it was important to make mistakes and learn from those.... starting from a perfect world never gives us the feeling of improvement.... and the rationale behind a good lighting setup would've remained hidden.... as such, the learning would've remained incomplete....

we picked the only available flash in our camera bag and took it off camera.... we stared with hard light and tried to erase the misconception that only soft light could produce good images.... we had some great volunteers from our audience.... Hasib, Sunny, Sabbir and Tushar, all were great participants and were ready to feature in front of the camera for the sake of learning... this also showed one very important thingg, and that is, you don't need professional models to produce good pictures.... remember that not all of your subjects have a model look.... and its important that the portrait shows some traits of the subject....

we changed position of light to demonstrate how it changes picture.... we worked on manual settings all the way to show what can be achieved with a little bit of manual control.... we didn't touch the shutter speed and ISO for the whole session.... we only played with aperture and flash power... we even changed our camera and switched to Hasib's D90 to show that cameras didn't matter at all.... then it was the turn of softening the light.... we used a reflector with the flash and then replaced the reflector with a Lastolite 24" Ezybox Hotshoe softbox.... we practiced controlling the light without sacrificing soft light....

it was then the turn of controlling the light even further.... we introduced a grid spot and changed the whole context.... we also played with the shadows as well, not forgetting that shadows can give mood to a picture....

before we switched to the last part, we also experimented with a reflector as a second light source.... we tried to soften the light by eliminating some of the shadows... the last part of the experimentation was with gels... we created a colourful backdrop and only worked with silhouette.... we wish we had more time with gels to play with... but at least we had some time with it.... all the while, we didn't switch from our basic theme of sticking to one speedlite, and also keeping it practical for most kind of shoots.... we didn't want to indulge in learning things that would never 'see the light'....

during the whole session, our setup was a D700 + Nikkor 85mm f1.8 lens and a D90 + Nikkor 50mm f1.4 lens.... flash was a single YN-560; trigger was an Elinchrom Skyport radio trigger.... we had great assistants among our participants who acted as voice-activated-lightstands (VALs).... that also gave the participants an understanding of light placements.... we used different grip equipment to help with light placement....

depending of the feedback of the participants, we may consider lengthening the workshop time by some hours to have more time behind some more setups and also to introduce some practice shots from the participants.... we may also have another session like this in the near future depending on our reader feedback.... lets see where it goes....

stay tuned for a lot more.... :)

switch to the dedicated "Idea Workshops" page:

the drama that was always there.... part 4

10 March 2012
Mohammadpur, Dhaka, Bangladesh

for an intro on the session, please visit the first part of this blog....
also, have a look at the second part of the blog here....
the third part of the blog is here....

Pretty and Kamal are one of the most interesting couples we have had the chance to do a photosession with... as usual, we were thinking of building a story around them... a story that they live through everyday... we thought of bringing that story out within a dramatic context... the story would remain the same, but the screenplay would be from a drama series of some sort...

we wanted to bring out some usual happening in day-to-day life... so, we concentrated on one specific kind of conflict... a conflict that not only created distance, but also closed the gap quite quickly... every relationship has conflict... and its the wonderful way of chemistry that always finds a way to glue them together... every conflict ends up with a stronger will to get closer... that common theme of couples is portrayed here by a specific story of these two... and of course, presented in a dramatic way....

in the previous episode, we showed how Pretty comes up with her revenge after Kamal takes pleasure in his own indulgence!!....  this time we dramatise something more common.... they were both very spontaneous with their expressions.... it had to be, as it was the story of their own life.... so, it came almost naturally.... we just put them in a dramatic context to bring some action in it...

we kept the lighting as simple as possible.... we didn't want a wash of light, as we were after some uniqueness of the two characters... there had to be two sides of the characters... so, we kept a play of light and shadow on their faces.... two softboxes on two sides (one Lastolite Ezybox 24" Hotshoe and one Shashinki 24").... they were placed in a way so that the background doesn't get washed and there still remains some contrast in the image... two YN-560 flashes did the job in the two softboxes... 28-80mm lens was on the D700 and the trigger was an Elinchrom Skyport on one of the YN flashes... the other one was on optical trigger....

stay tuned for lots more... :)

Idea Workshop: "Step into the Light"

13 May 2012
Mohammadpur, Dhaka, Bangladesh

Idea Workshop
"Step into the Light"

Ideas_R_Bulletproof wishes to announce its first ever workshop on photography! Due to growing interest in artificial lighting among the young photographers of Bangladesh, we had been keeping a close watch on the numerous requests from your end. We made it a priority and finally came up with the idea of the first ever "Idea Workshop". This particular workshop, "Step into the Light" concentrates on the power of one small speedlite in your camera bag that can change your photography forever!

We kept an eye on recent photography workshops in this sector and decided to concentrate on the most essential parts of it. Cutting short the theoretical part of it, we bolstered practical demonstration. We are not in favour of a lesson that gets lost with time. So, maximum effort would be made to learn things that are 'actually' possible to practice on a day-to-day basis. Complex theories with little chance of implementation under most practical conditions would take a back seat. The concentration of this lighting workshop would be on 'portraiture'.

The workshop would cover the following generic topics:
-Understand light
-Utilise lights available in your camera bag
-Take your flash off camera
-Where do I put my light?
-Control the quality of light
-Control the spread of light
-Balance flash with ambient light
-Add colour to your photos

The workshop would also require participants to have knowledge on basics of photography. E.g. exposure (aperture/shutter speed/ISO), basic camera controls, etc. It would be highly recommended to watch the video podcasts from Ideas_R_Bulletproof on basics of lighting (links are given below). This would help quicker understanding and also save time to concentrate on more practical demonstrations.
Speedlite basics: TTL or Manual Flash?
How speedlites can change your photography
Four ways to trigger your flash off camera
Optical triggers for off-camera flashes
Built-in flash as trigger for off-camera flashes
Control light with a snoot

Additional knowledge on lighting is not necessary. But it would be appreciated if participants have their queries (if any) listed out for discussion during the session. It is not mandatory for participants to bring their camera or flash. But it would not be discouraged, as this would help to clear confusion (if any).

-The first session of this workshop was on 19 May 2012 (Saturday) at 3:30PM BST. Stay tuned for the second session of the same workshop.
-The venue of the workshop would be Idea House. For more details, call use at +880-1711055524.
-The time of the workshop should be about 6 (six) hours.
-The fee for this session would be BDT 3,500/-
-A maximum of 4 (four) participants would be allowed for the first session. The first four persons booking would be the participants in this session. In case you miss this session, please do inform us; we would be happy to conduct more such sessions.
- To book participation in the upcoming sessions, please keep an eye on our updates on Twitter or Facebook.
- For payment instructions, please call: +880-1711055524
- Fees are non-refundable.
- A participant can give a replacement participant in case a last minute inconvenience puts him/her out of the session. No additional fees for the replacement participant would be charged.
-Participants are requested to be on time, keeping respect for others' time.

switch to the dedicated "Idea Workshops" page:

the drama that was always there.... part 3

10 March 2012
Mohammadpur, Dhaka, Bangladesh

for an intro on the session, please visit the first part of this blog....
also, have a look at the second part of the blog here....

Pretty and Kamal are one of the most interesting couples we have had the chance to do a photosession with... as usual, we were thinking of building a story around them... a story that they live through everyday... we thought of bringing that story out within a dramatic context... the story would remain the same, but the screenplay would be from a drama series of some sort...

while playing with the contrasts, we decided to go with some unique liking and disliking... that uniqueness is what defines relationships among couples.... each couple is different and each couple have their own little story..... people may say that such stories are common... hmm... are they?.... probably they are common... but when you combine all those stories we begin to realise how unique each relationship is... its not that easy to bring out the uniqueness in each relationship... and thats why when you succeed in doing it, the satisfaction is so much more.... not just for the photographer, also for the protagonists.... they begin to understand that they are protagonists in their own drama!!

in the previous episode, we showed how Kamal was indulging in his own world.... this time, Pretty comes up with her revenge!!.... well, sort of.... she knows what puts Kamal off.... they were both very spontaneous with their expressions.... it had to be, as it was the story of their own life.... so, it came almost naturally.... we just put them in a dramatic context to bring some action in it...

we kept the lighting as simple as possible.... we didn't want a wash of light, as we were after some uniqueness of two characters... there had to be two sides of the characters... so, we kept a play of light and shadow on their faces.... two softboxes on two sides (one Lastolite Ezybox 24" Hotshoe and one Shashinki 24").... they were placed in a way so that the background doesn't get washed and there still remains some contrast in the image... two YN-560 flashes did the job in the two softboxes... 28-80mm lens was on the D700 and the trigger was an Elinchrom Skyport on one of the YN flashes... the other one was on optical trigger....

stay tuned for the rest of the story... :)