iso50, f1.4, 1/1600s @24mm

I love shooting at iso 50 on prime lenses in bright daylight.  The 24mm I have is the older one, which means I get free vignetting.  Here is the post-processed image:

And just so you can see the original image:

You can see that the vignetting is natural in camera.  I underexposed the couple enough to get the blue sky, only peaking the white surrounding them.  I’m shooting in JPG, so I don’t have much leeway otherwise.  The couple still has enough detail to pull in post, with iso50 giving me almost no noise at all in the shadows.  I just have to mostly watch for the JPG compression to break down my gradations.

This last Sunday I shot with Judy for her very first wedding. We were up in Pasadena and the Station fire was in full swing at the time (I think less than 10% contained at the time). Before we left that night I promised myself I would get an image with the fire in the background, and here it is:

Yeah, this one was a bit difficult to nail. For the photogs out there, I was at:

Canon 5D mk2 w/ 85mm f1.2
iso5000, f1.4, 1/20s handheld

This was all done with natural light.  I choose the high iso because of the lack of tripod of course, but I had little leeway otherwise. I wanted to stop down the aperture, but 1.4 was the furthest I could go before losing the image.

I hope this inspires other people out there to:

1. take advantage of the environment
2. push your equipment outside of your comfort zone

BTW, the noise looks worse than it is.  At 21MP, the noise is smoother as a print.  The interpolation used for resizing added more texture to the sky than you’d normally see.  Happy shooting!

Photography by Gavin Photography, assisted by Doug Chan of Furious Photographers

Modeled by Judy Le and Jessica

Makeup by Tingting L. Xie, assisted by Christina Chen

Clothing by Mae

Production Assistant – Judy Tran

These are all done on my kitchen table with a fat slice of mushy bread as my incense holder (I didn’t have any clay or play-doh).  Post-production is done in photoshop to create the colors.  I used a black background from a 50″ reflector (black cloth side) and an AB1600 strobe snooted down to minimize light on the black backdrop.  Camera was on a tripod hooked up to a Pocket Wizard for remote firing, which allowed me to play with the smoke as it rose.  I used my 5D Mark II for better cropping (since smoke is all over the place) with manual focusing @ f14, 1/200, iso200.

milk on milk

add some chocolate milk and you get …

No this is not a marble.  Liquids don’t make a teardrop shape without friction, so the viscous surface retains a spherical shape.

This is the “crowning” I was talking about

And here is the board I built, using a Hi-Viz optical kit.  One gray wire goes to the optical trigger, while the other goes to my strobe.

Now I have to go clean my kitchen before Judy kills me; it has rainbow splashes all over!

Oh yeah, strobist info: 580ex sync’d to the circuitboard at 1/128 power.  camera at iso400, f14, shutter on bulb varying from 2′ to 4′

Here is the first image.  I took it at a really high iso to let in the orangish ambient light.  BTW all images are ETTL with a stofen omnibounce on a 580exII.  It is mostly to prove a point, though I’m sure you’ve had images at some point where you’ll say “damn that background is really orange.”

Next I took an image to show Jost what kind of background I like to get.  Notice how nice and white the walls and blinds are, though Brian is looking a little blue in the face.

So here I’ve slapped a Color Temperature Orange Gel (CTO) onto my 580ex.  I took this to show how I’ve effectively changed the light in my flash to match the color temperature of the room.

All we need to do now is tell the camera that orange light is actually white (Kelvin set to 3000K) and now we have the ideal exposure.

Yeah, seeing them side by side makes a big difference.  I love having good white balancing, since I’m always shooting JPEG.  But this applies to you RAW shooters out there too.  Imagine, the RAW file only has the first two images as options.

iso50, 1/5000s, f1.4 @ 24mm – The natural defects in Canon’s original 24mm f1.4 creates free vignetting for deep blue skies.  Try shooting wide open at times where you aren’t supposed to.

iso400, 1/1000s, f1.2 @ 85mm – Custom White Balancing knocks out the green and blue tones from the shade.

iso400, 1/1600s, f1.4 @24mm – example showing to look for free glow in bright light, especially with white lace and veils.  Just be careful how much you are blowing out though

iso800, 1/250s, f1.4 @ 85mm - just a good moment of Steve Hoffmann getting a great shot (he’s laughing from the bridesmaids being silly)

iso800, 1/800s, f1.2 @ 85mm – EVERY wedding photographer should have this type of image.  I used to do this one with my Canon 10D with the 50 f1.4, so you don’t need an 85mm f1.2 on a full-frame body to get it.   Shoot wide open and wait for flowergirls to look up at their parents or at the bride.  And yes, I do want to add some contrast.  Note that the white balancing is custom to deal with the blue shade and a touch of orange from inside hotel lighting.

The next series of images are harder to pull, since I used Alien Bees (studio strobes) outdoors with my Pocket Wizards and Hypersync jammed to -2500 microseconds.  But note the alternate light source coming for the side opposite of the ocean.

iso50 1/3200s, f1.4 @24mm – The sun is on the right and the AB is on the left firing at full power (about 40 feet away and 15 feet up).  Post would definitely use some fill light for the girls’ faces.  Not as pronounced as the upcoming images.

iso50, 1/3200s, f1.4 @ 24mm – note the light trailing the whole side of her face and body.  It adds dimension, though it doesn’t crop Hoffmann out of the picture .  Notice the rich blue tone of the sky, especially wide open.

iso100, 1/1600s, f2.8 @78mm – this just shows how composition is really important.  Look outside the box, or in this case through the cracks.  All this needs is a quick contrast adjustment to make is moodier.

iso160, 1/8000s, f1.4 @ 24mm - yes, this is a strobed image at 1/8000 of a second.  The crop from the hypersync being so high is actually on the right side of the image, or intentionally placed on the part of the image that doesn’t need it.  You can see the strobe’s light on her face.

iso100, 1/8000s, f1.4 @ 24mm – Not an amazing picture, but an important moment.  Make sure you are ready for that all-important after ceremony “we did it” kiss.  It doesn’t get more genuine than that.

iso200, 1/640s, f2.8 @ 160mm – Pay attention to the moments during formals.  This is where a second photographer or having a second camera on your shoulder pays off.

iso100, 1/1600s, f2.8 @ 70mm – Again, think outside of the box.  Plus it let me crop out the insane number of tourists on Laguna Beach on an April weekend.

iso100, 1/1000s, f2.8 @ 200mm – this image is here to talk about controlling backgrounds.  F2.8 at 200mm will mush out most backgrounds in a nice blur, especially if you are closer to the couple.  I used the ocean as a backdrop, since it looks nicer than hotels and sunbathers (well, some sunbathers).  Exposure is insanely important here, since too much gets you white faces and too little means dark faces (which means more noise when you do post).

iso100, 1/1000s, f2.8 @ 200mm – same as above, though use moments to get natural faces.  Also, any lower on the exposure would make her shaded face unusable.

Now this is where things get kinky.  Again, no post done to these images.

iso800, 1/8000s, f1.4 @ 24mm – Sun coming from right, AB strobe on left.  I get free vignetting from my 24mm.  The glow is from the mixing light sources that took me a few test shots to nail down.  Note that the falloff on the dress and hands is from the second-curtain sync.  I love this image.

iso200, 1/250s, f1.4 @ 24mm – This time I’m using my strobe (all the way up on that ledge) to glow my bride while she gets bustled.

iso500, 1/60s, f1.4 @ 24mm – Yes I know this one is backfocused, which also shows off the unpleasant chromatic abherration from the 24mm (fixed in the mk2).  More important is that this image is very usable with minor post (sharpen, b&w, pull in shadows).

iso500, 1/100s, f1.4 @ 85mm – Again, I’m glowing her.  Whites are totally blown, but the skin tones rock.

iso500, 1/100s, f1.4 @ 85mm – Again, nice rimlight and glow.  I like the slight forward focusing on the bracelet, though I know I shouldn’t have done it.  But I’ll fix that when Canon gives me an AF system that doesn’t par with my 30D.

If you have any questions, leave comments or toss me an email.  You can also call to talk shop, but make sure it’s at night (I’m a night owl).