Finally got round to using the Lastolite Hi-Lite portable backdrop. It's the biggest size they do at 9 feet wide by 8 feet tall, unfolds like one of those kids tents, and is hollow inside. The idea is to create a high key white backdrop behind whoever you are photographing. The people can stand right in front of it without creating shadows.
So we took it to a sixteenth birthday party and were given the smallest room imaginable to work in! We set up with a Nikon SB-900 inside the lastolite on a tripod, facing the rear with the wide-angle deflector down and the white diffuser fitted. We had another Nikon SB-600 in front on a stand with a large 60cm softbox. The idea was to use the tiny flash on the Nikon D700 as the commander and work in Nikon CLS mode so we could control both light sources from the camera.
No-one online or in any forums could tell us if this would work, but amazingly the CLS system worked THROUGH the Hi-Lite background, and also triggered the softbox which was slightly behind the photographer! So thank you Nikon, just saved me about £1000 I was going to spend on pocket wizards:)
(we did borrow some in case it didn't work, but no need, always be prepared though)
We found the best settings were the SB-900 at 1/4 power as it was a huge area to fill with light, the SB-600 on 1/8th power and the camera set with the onboard flash as commander set on -- which only emits the signals the strobes needed. We shot mostly around F6 with shutter speeds between 100 and 200 depending on how active the people being shot were, and how many there were.
Using the focussing light on the Nikon is a great way to get people to smile on cue rather than shouting over the party din, we just tell them to grin when they see the light!
You can see examples of the shots at www.fullframeevents.co.uk under galleries, look for Jordans 16th. There is a direct link here
http://www.fullframeevents.co.uk/#/gallery/jordans-16th-birthday/
Feel free to ask any questions, thanks, Paul.
Monday 22 February 2010
Friday 19 February 2010
FREE Videos of your Event or Party Photographs
We were shocked when a photographer who had taken some shots of a friends daughter wanted £800 to put the photos into a slideshow ! So we worked out how to do it ourselves and it's now a very popular part of what we do. We create a video on our website of the images set to music with the special effects matched to the beat. It takes time so we had to work out what to charge.
We quickly realised we could offer this as a FREE service as a thank you to anyone who books us to cover an event! At the end of an event or party we have all the images we have editted, airbrushed and green screened stored on the system. We set these to music that is relevant to the party or event we photographed. The client can request special songs. We of course pay the proper licencing fees where necessary.
The finished video goes up on our site in a special private area where only those with a password can see it, and the customer can then send the link and password to all the friends and guests. This is all done FREE of charge!
We then realised that if we put the high resolution photographs into the same software we could produce a full resolution video suitable for viewing on a HD television and by burning this onto a DVD we can make a permanent memento of the evening. This takes a lot longer and we do have to charge for this, but we keep the costs down by doing it in-house. We charge £100 to do the authoring and editting, then just £10 per DVD.
We will post some examples shortly
Top Stories
We quickly realised we could offer this as a FREE service as a thank you to anyone who books us to cover an event! At the end of an event or party we have all the images we have editted, airbrushed and green screened stored on the system. We set these to music that is relevant to the party or event we photographed. The client can request special songs. We of course pay the proper licencing fees where necessary.
The finished video goes up on our site in a special private area where only those with a password can see it, and the customer can then send the link and password to all the friends and guests. This is all done FREE of charge!
We then realised that if we put the high resolution photographs into the same software we could produce a full resolution video suitable for viewing on a HD television and by burning this onto a DVD we can make a permanent memento of the evening. This takes a lot longer and we do have to charge for this, but we keep the costs down by doing it in-house. We charge £100 to do the authoring and editting, then just £10 per DVD.
We will post some examples shortly
Top Stories
Thursday 4 February 2010
Is Black the new Black?
The latest trend in event and party photography seems to be shooting people in front of a black backdrop with side lighting. The style is similar to Film Noir and is being called "Pellier Noir" after Pellier Noir Events who use it and there are various courses and lectures you can attend to learn how to shoot this way.
Photomart offer a talk on the subject by Paul Rogers on February 25th, and Ian Griffith at Event Photos has courses running. Speak to Paul Rogers at www.pellierevents.co.uk to book a very useful training course!
It's an interesting style and if done properly produces dramatic and moody photographs. It's fascinating that Photography goes through cycles like fashion or music, and this is going right back almost to the very beginning.
If you look at early Victorian photographs you will see dark backgrounds and side lighting that produce the same effect. That's because they had little control over depth of field and lighting. So the backgrounds were dark, and the light was usually through a side window from the North. Even the early portrait painters used this style way before photography was invented.
To produce this effect you need a black background and some remote side lighting. With clever lighting you don't actually need a black backdrop, but it's far easier with one. You don't want direct flash on your camera so you need to use a remote trigger or sync cables to fire your off-camera flash or strobes.
We offer everyone who books us for an event or party the choice of high key white backdrops, Black velvet backdrops or green screen. In fact we can bring all three to an event. Or using green screen technology we can replicate high or low key shoots by replacing the green with black or white! We also offer instant digital makeovers using software familiar to magazine and fashion editors.
You are welcome to reproduce this article in your blogs as long as you credit us at www.fullframevents.co.uk .
Photomart offer a talk on the subject by Paul Rogers on February 25th, and Ian Griffith at Event Photos has courses running. Speak to Paul Rogers at www.pellierevents.co.uk to book a very useful training course!
It's an interesting style and if done properly produces dramatic and moody photographs. It's fascinating that Photography goes through cycles like fashion or music, and this is going right back almost to the very beginning.
If you look at early Victorian photographs you will see dark backgrounds and side lighting that produce the same effect. That's because they had little control over depth of field and lighting. So the backgrounds were dark, and the light was usually through a side window from the North. Even the early portrait painters used this style way before photography was invented.
To produce this effect you need a black background and some remote side lighting. With clever lighting you don't actually need a black backdrop, but it's far easier with one. You don't want direct flash on your camera so you need to use a remote trigger or sync cables to fire your off-camera flash or strobes.
We offer everyone who books us for an event or party the choice of high key white backdrops, Black velvet backdrops or green screen. In fact we can bring all three to an event. Or using green screen technology we can replicate high or low key shoots by replacing the green with black or white! We also offer instant digital makeovers using software familiar to magazine and fashion editors.
You are welcome to reproduce this article in your blogs as long as you credit us at www.fullframevents.co.uk .
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