a fashion shooter » canon 1ds mark iii

one light wonders: a magazine + video shoot with just one light

AFS — Sun, 03 May 2009 22:30:43 +0000

So I am posting some unedited video clips from an editorial shoot from last year for SOMA magazine. The still shots have been on my photo web site for some time, and were in the 2008 Fall Fashion issue of the magazine. Theses will hopefully give some idea as to the lighting setup. I like to keep it simple, and on this particular day I used one light only. The lighting seen here is a Profoto strobe pack with one head inside of a 4×6 softbox with the two baffles removed, in order to give it a hard shadow – hopefully resembling sunlight. The model is one of my favorites – Juliana Imai at Ford Models. The assistant and video shooter was Arturo Sanchez. (we shot the video on a whim, as I had a Canon G9 sitting on my desk at the time…) Anyway, as I said, it’s unedited, a little jerky, and loud…but you can also see some of the excitement which can occasionally he had when you’ve got the right crew. (To be sure, most of my shoots are not quite as fun as this one was…)

Camera used for the stills was a Canon 1Ds mark III and lenses were the 85mm 1.2 and the 50mm 1.4.

(Of course, since we happened to be shooting video for all the web to see, the studio looks a shambles! But some of that mess is needed as you will read below…)

In these clips you can see the big black soft box to camera right, there are a couple black boards on the floor which are there to soak up some of the light so the shadows on the wall will go deeper black. Also, the black board on camera left at the back of thet set is there to make all of the shadows deeper – as we are in a small studio with white walls and a white ceiling, it’s very difficult to get dark shadows without the ugly black foam core boards scattered throughout

The below image is a fuzzy video still showing my setup for the SOMA shoot. Click it to enlarge it so you can read the labels which explain why the set is so cluttered

Untitled from afashionshooter on Vimeo.

afashionshooter.com SOMA clip 2 from afashionshooter on Vimeo.

Juliana tells them how it’s done from afashionshooter on Vimeo.

afashionshooter.com SOMA shoot – gorgeous Juliana 1271 from afashionshooter on Vimeo.

Either later today or tomorrow I will be posting several more clips…in the mean time, here’s what the stills looked like:

5D2 AF in dim light: :-(

AFS — Sat, 20 Dec 2008 21:41:04 +0000

So this week I got a change to use the 5D2 for a real shoot, using daylight which is my favorite way to shoot. Unfortunately, for full body shots, I got many frames where the model is out of focus. I counted 50% of the shots out-of-focus using the outer AF points and my 85 1.2 on a tripod! A few were due to movement of the model, but mostly just due to misfocus with the outer AF points which were positioned over her face. Fortunately I noticed this fairly early on and switched to the center AF point, which worked fine.

A week prior I found that these outer AF points work like a charm with the 85 1.2 lens in fairly bright light outdoors, but they apparently are not stellar performers when it’s dim. This is very disappointing in a $3000 camera. You will definitely do better with the 1Ds2 or 1Ds3 if you are shooting dim available light as I often do. However if you are in a situation where you can use the center point 100% of the time the 5D2 AF should work fine.

This was not nearly my most adventurous photography, but the exercise did show me that the 5D Mark II files look fine in low light (when focused correctly,) as the 1Ds3 files do. Though the bad AF is an issue, I think the main problem here is that the red focus indicator lights up as if the shot is in focus, when it’s not. The 5D2 seems not to work better than the original 5D in terms of low light AF using the outer AF points. But at least with the original, the AF point does not light up if the shot is not focused. For $3000 it should indeed be better. Too bad they didn’t have the nuts to put all cross-type sensors in this camera like the $1000 40D has!

here’s one example of the AF issue:

off-center-af-issue-5d2.

And here’s one which focused ok:

5D Mark II

Here is an older shot where the 5D Mark I focused effortlessly, even though it was darker:

5D Mark I

UPDATE 12-22-2008

OK, so I just combed through a bunch of old shoot using the original 5D in essentially identical situations as the aforementioned bad AF shoot with the 5D2.

Where the peripheral AF points were used on the old 5D, I counted 40 in focus shots, 10 out of focus in one example; 40 in focus vs. 7 out of focus in another; 20 in focus vs. 4 out of focus in a third shoot. The lenses used ranged from the 50 1.4, 70-200 2.8, 85 1.8 – all used in the neighborhood of 1/30 or so, ISO 200, around f 2.8 or 4, and all on tripods. These were all full body shots like the example posted earlier in this thread. Facial features were used as focus points.

As I suspected, the older camera was FAR better at achieving focus with the non cross-type AF points in non-bright situations. So either this particular camera is not right, or something went awry with the AF update in the new camera.

one light wonders – using a single light source in the studio

AFS — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 01:50:08 +0000

While admiring photographers who can handle many lights very well, like Joshua Jordan, I usually like to keep things on my sets as simple as possible. Why? Because I find that I feel freer to work with the talent when I am not thinking too much about equipment. Also when the lighting is more simple, the models can move around more freely without messing the whole thing up

Keeping it simple often that means using only daylight, or just one studio strobe – and maybe mix the one studio light with daylight. And often it means using a reflector or two. While it might sound limiting, it really isn’t. And if you are just starting to learn how to light things, or just like to travel light, it’s a good idea to explore all that can be done with one light source.

Using only the sun (daylight) is a good way to start. Everyone has taken photos using daylight, and everyone has seen some incredible images made using just the sun. The below gallery is all shot indoors with just daylight. Sometimes there was just one window, and in some cases there were multiple windows.

Seeing as you can do all these things with daylight inside, it should follow that one artificial light source in the studio could be just as be fruitful, no? Well, it can be. Soon I will post a few shots using single-source strobe lights (usually with large softboxes for diffusion.) I’ll do my best to describe exactly how I used them.

black dots, black dots everyewhere…

AFS — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 02:36:31 +0000

So, the internet seems to have exploded with “black dot syndrome” complaints about the Canon 5D Mark II.

A few can be seen here, here, and here.

As it happens I came across a 1Ds3 image from Paris last year – and wouldn’t you know, there are some artifacts similar to this “BDS.” And if you zoom in close enough, and tweak the levels enough, they will become more clear. This image is at a mere 100% view so you can not see them that clearly

1Ds3 lights, ACR conversion

Fact is, these 1Ds3 cameras have taken millions of images which have been published untold thousands of times, used for international advertising campaings, etc. And as far as I know, no one has complained about “black dots, lines, etc.” Why? I think it’s because pixel peeping at these levels (200%, 400%,) is not useful and has no purpose out here in the real world. After all, when looking even at a 100 percent view, you are effectively looking at what would be a 6.5 foot print (as rendered on your 72ppi screen) from 12 inches away and then complaining about the image quality. Have you ever looked at a print that large from that close? How’d it look?

Anyway, while Canon may try to fix this “problem,” I do not think any new technical flaw has been uncovered here. I think we are just witnessing a slew of new eyeballs using Photoshop to view images which are zoomed way in, exposures jacked up, over-sharpened, etc. to reveal digital characteristics which for the most part are not really relevant in the real world.

I encourage everyone to zoom their images back out to a proper viewing size, and get back to work. Your time is probably better spend working on improving your lighting skills :-O

the Canon 50mm 1.2 L lens

AFS — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 02:16:35 +0000

For a long time I’ve been considering buying the Canon 50mm 1.2 lens. The 50mm focal length has always been a favorite of mine, and some of my best images have come from 50s. Here are a few commercial images I have shot recently with either the 50mm 1.4 or the older metal-mount 50mm 1.8 lens:

Canon 50mm 1.8 on 5D

In my research I found a number of helpful reviews of the 1.2 lens as compared to the othe Canon 50s. Here are a few:

http://www.astrosurf.com/buil/50mm/test_us.htm

http://www.wlcastleman.com/equip/reviews/50mm_1.2L/index.htm

http://www.the-digital-picture.com/Reviews/Canon-EF-50mm-f-1.2-L-USM-Lens-Review.aspx

http://www.jimarnold.org/blog/2008/02/canon-50mm-f12l-versus-the-ef-50mm-f14/

Here is a test gallery which someone posted, and i think it shows some cool images shot wide open:

http://www.markuspuustinen.com/galleriat/08/02/pictures_with_canon_50mm_f_1_2_l/

Of course I won’t be getting rid of my cheaper 50mm lenses, because I love the flare that they produce, and while the 1.2 lens looks great, it produces much less flare. And flair, at times, is just what I am looking for:

http://www.pbase.com/r_p/image/95978053

I will also have my hands on a 5D Mark II shortly and I will post notes on it as soon as I can.