Workshop: Shooten en Shoppen
Afgelopen zaterdag heb ik de eerste workshop "Shooten en shoppen" gegeven. Deze workshop ging over het fotograferen en photoshoppen om schilderachtige portretten te maken. Als modellen was ik blij dat steampunkers Spike "Wolfcry mcDark en Minerva McDark mee wilde werken, Spike heb ik ontmoet op de FotoFair afgelopen jaar!
Hier onder staan enkele van de resultaten die ik gemaakt hebt:
Jeroen Zelle heeft geassisteerd bij de workshop en ook wat spullen van Broncolor meegenomen zodat we zowel met Broncolor als Elinchrom konden werken. Ook heeft hij wat Behind the scene fotos gemaakt:
Qua gear heb ik gebruik gemaakt van:
Camera: D610 en D800
Objectieven: Sigma 24-15 Art en 50mm 1.4 Art
Workshop results: Dance Photography
Past weekend I gave two workshops. Here are the results of the workshop of Saturday, the workshop Dance photography. We started off with a couple of portraits of the dancers and then made a few real action dance photo's
Alle photo's where made with the Nikon D800 with the Sigma 24-105 art lens.
Fantasy session with Jopie
Preparation
Today I did a small shoot with Jopie in the Amsterdamse Waterleidingduinen. This is a great nature reserve near my studio. Yesterday it was a great day for some a little bit spooky shoot with a lot of thick fog. Here are some of the test shots. This would be perfect for the fantasy style shoot I was planning to do. Also as a test for a workshop I want to set up next year.
The Fantasy shoot
Today the weather prediction was also some nice fog. But as you might know. The Dutch weather, when you need fog, you get ready to shoot and the weather cleared up! So we had to improvise a little bit and also got some great images!
Workshops
As said, these where tests for upcoming workshops. You can Enroll for the workshops now. Go to the workshops pages for the dates!
Rythem & Jazz
Een paar weken geleden had ik het idee om een shoot te doen met een tapdansers en een drummer. Daarom had ik Marieke van de Ven en Maarten Kruijswijk gevraagd of zij het leuk zouden vinden om hier aan mee te werken.
Voor de locatie had ik de NDSM-werf in Amsterdam in gedachten. Dit omdat het een geweldige plek is met veel verschillende achtergronden en mogelijk heden. Tevens kan je hier ook goed met de auto komen en rustig/veilig werken.
Qua belichting heb ik gebruik gemaakt van de zon im combinatie met de Elinchrom Quadra RX en een grote Soft light reflector (beauty dish) met een zilveren deflector. Voor camera de D800 en D610 met de Sigma 24-105 f4 Art en de Sigma 50mm 1.4 Art lenzen.
Na de hoofdfoto was er ook nog tijd om extra portretten te maken
Joyce en Jason
Hier zijn de eerste beelden van de familie/dans portretshort van de sessie met Joyce en Jason voor hun fotoboek!
Een paar weken gelden kreeg ik van Joyce het verzoek of ik een shot met haar en haar zoon wilde doen. Haar zoontje danst nu ook en ze wilde ook gewoon foto's van hun beide samen! Dus had ik voorgesteld om een mooi boek van hun samen te maken. Dus een zaterdag ochtend zijn ze langs gekomen voor de shoot. Het was een heerlijke shoot om te doen en de CD van Frozen kan ik ondertussen nu dromen!
Hier onderstaan een paar van de foto's de in het boek gekomen zijn!
Eerste sessies in nieuwe studio
Zo de nieuwe studio is sinds vrijdag geopend! De foto's van de opening van de nieuwe fotostudio in Nieuw-Vennep volgen binnenkort! Maar nu eerst even wat nieuw werk.
Wouter Kiers
Wouter heb ik al regelmatig in mijn studio gefotografeerd, daarom had ik hem uitgenodigd voor een fotosessie in de nieuwe fotostudio. Voor de gene die Wouter niet kennen, hij is de Jimmy Hendrix van de Nederlandse saxofonisten, heeft met alle grote jongens in ons kleine landje samen gespeeld, is front man van Blood, Sweat en Kiers, en treed op met verschillende jazz, blues en r&b formaties, kortom te veel om hier even kort op te noemen!
Gear
Als camera heb k de Nikon D800 gebruikt met een Sigma 24-105 art lens. Qua belichting ws het de Elinchrom rotalux 150 deep octa sotbox meyt de BRX250 lamp aangevuld met een RX One met een reflector en grid op de achtergrond. Som afgewisseld met de beauty dish of Witte Soft light reflector (beauty dish) met grid. Alle foto's werden thetered geschoten naar Capture One Pro 8.1. Alle editing is ook in Capture One Pro 8.1.1 gedaan.
Why you don't need the most expensive fast Glass
Hi All,
There is something I wanted to share for a while, so here it is. I hear al lot of people always go, you need the most expensive glass and the fasted apertures, Get the Canon 50mm 1.2L for the smallest depth of field and so on. But there is a catch especially with portrait work. And that is what I am going to talk about.
I have for my Nikon kit one lens I do almost everything with. This is the Sigma 24-105 f4! Yes f-FOUR!!! Not 2.8. So most people say, they are bad for creating a Small Depth of Field. But they always forget there is always focal length and distance to subject in the equation. I made a small table:
Nikon D800/Sigma 24-105 Art @! 105mm 5.6
To make it a fair comparison I calculated everything with a 3 meter (30 feet) distance, with the most common used focal lengths. What you now can see is that with the Sigma 24-105 I can have a smaller Depth of Field at F4 than you can get with the 2.5x more expensive Canon 50mm 1.2L lens at 1.2.
This gives me also some extra advantages. I want to control my light, using strobes at 1.2 apertures is not really easy because a lot of studio strobes don't get that low and to kill the ambient light you have to start using ND filters. Also the compression for portraits at 105mm is beautifull. 50mm lenses are great for environmental portraits. But headshots are not flattering with 50m lenses. For people shooting portraits also take a look at an 85mm 1.8, you can get even smaller DOF with that than the 1.2
But whatever you do, never forget, a small DOF can be beautiful, but hell to focus. When people move maybe an inch it can make or break your shot. So a lot of time you even won't be shooting at maximum aperture, but more at f8 or f11. So you don't even need to buy the most expensive lenses to get great portraits.
Fuji !00 @ f2 with 1/1000
With Cropsensor camera's
The table above is calculated on 35mm/Full Frame camera's. Nowadays there are also a lot of great (mirrorless) crop sensor camera's like the Fuji's. The Fuji 56 1.2 is a killer portrait lens! And for the table, on 1.2 at 56mm you can get a 0,14 DOF! So don't come with the story you can't get a small DOF with a Crop Sensor camera!
With Medium Format
Or take a look at an old Hasselblad like the 500c/m with a 80mm 2.8. These baby's may be analogue, but still rock! I currently use to and love shooting with them and the quality and look is so great! For the table, at 2.8, 80mm you get an 0.38 DOF, so also small. And I can tell you, you will shoot the camera at f8 or f11 almost every time, because getting focus at f5.6 or lower is a challenge!
And with some nice film like Tri-X or Fuji Velvia, Scan them big (you can scan then up to 60mp eqv) and print them.
So I hope this helps you not to feel bad at not having the most expensive fast glass. You can do it with less. And yes the expensive lenses will be sharper and faster and all that. But it is still the photographer who seek the light, creates the composition and takes the pictures!
Christmas Ballerina
A couple of week a go I had a photoshoot with beautiful woman and ballerina Nienke Knop. We wanted to mix ballet with christmas. Below you see the results.
Specs:
Camera: Nikon D800
Lens: Sigma 24-105 Art
Light: 1 Elinchrom BRX250 with a 5' Elinchrom Rotalux deep indirect octa
After the christmas ballerina photo's we had some spare time to do some more modern Fosy like photo's. Same gear only aded a large white beauty dish as a fill.
Behind the Scenes: Kees Visser Portrait
Hi All,
I made a small time-lapse during the shoot with Kees Visser. It has been made with the SONY HDR AS30V Action Cam on interval modus. The timelapse had been made with Adobe After Effects and Premiere Pro.
Want to have more informative on the hotshoot? read it
Portrait Session: Kees Visser
Yesterday I did a studio portrait sessions with comedian Kees Visser. For an assignment I am working on I asked Kees Visser to model, but more on the assignment later...
The set up
For the lighting I mainly used my big friend the Elinchrom Rotalux 150 indirect Deep Octa. On some Images I used the 35x90 Strip soft box with a 30x50 grid in it. But somehow this looked a little to modern. So I removed it and used just the white side of the 5-in-1 reflector handheld by my assistent. The background was just used a roll of grey seamless.
For camera I used the Nikon D800 with the Nikon 85mm 1.8g or 50mm 1.8g. The settings where around ISO200, 1/250 f5.6 or f8.
Post processing
During the shoot I shot straight into Capture One Pro 8. Normally I just do basic RAW-editing in Capture One Pro 8 and all the rest in Photoshop CC. But this time I wanted to do all my editing in Capture One Pro 8. And I must say, Capture One pro 8 is great for RAW-editing, but some how for the complete editing workflow I don't know... Masking and working with curves keeps feeling easier in Photoshop. Also the dodge and burning stuff is easier in Photoshop.
But for sharpening and correct lighting Capture Pro 8 rules! I think Capture Pro 8 is great for full workflow on like weddings or landscape. but for commercial and portrait jobs I will keep Photoshop on the side!
Please keep in mind that I am still learning Capture Pro 8, so my opinion may chance in the feature.
WHAT'S IN THE CAMERA BAG PART 2 THE NIKON BAG
This week part 2 in the series "What's in the bag", the Think Tank Airpot Airstream Nikon Bag! For the people who mist the last one about the Fuji Kit. You can read it here: WHAT'S IN THE CAMERA BAG PART 1: THE FUJI KIT.
This is my big production Nikon kit. Which I take with me on bigger productions and studio jobs. I must say I really like my Fuji's, but with no thetering options, only 16 megapixels and the writing speed, I still prefer my DSLR Nikon kit on bigger jobs!
The Think Tank Airport Airstream Bag
Did I all ready said I love Think Tank bags? Well, I do. They are great. In small packages they offer great space. You can easily adjust the lay-out to your needs with nice extra pockets on the outside and offer great protection for you gear. Beside the option to lock your zippers there is also a security cord in it so you can lock it to something else like a desk.
So this is how I configured mine:
My Nikon Gear
As told before I keep all my Nikon gear in it:
- Nikon D800
- Nikon D610
- Nikon 85 1.8G
- Nikon 50 1.8G
- Nikon SB-700
- Sigma 24-105 f4 Art
- Sigma 70-200 2.8
- Hohnle Grid
- Color checker
- Gossen Digisky Lightmeter
In the other pockets are other thing like:
- Business cards
- 8 Sanyo Enelope AA rechargeable batteries
- Extra Batteries for the camera's
- Connection cords
- Cleaning cloth
- Thetering cable
So this is my Nikon Big production kit. Next time I will take you through my Analog bag and my small production Nikon kit.
I switched from Canon to Nikon
After a long of wanting to switch I finally switched. I had Canon but was unhappy with canon as a company and especially their arrogance.
D800 vs D4 vs D4
Last year I had the opportunity to work with the D800, D4 and D600 from Nikon for my Dutch Jazz Portraits Project. I love the High res of the D800 but the file size of the camera was huge. The D4 is a speed monster, but it didn't felt the camera I would love to work with. It is great for journalists,but not for me ad a commercial music and dance portrait photographer. The D600 was also a really sweat camera. But I missed he resolution of the D800 sometimes.
The Decision
So now almost a year later I was still doubting adding D610 or D800, and I couldn't choose. So I took the next solution, I took the D800 with the Sigma 24-105 f4 lens and traded in all my Canon gear for the D610 and the Nikon 85 1.8 (a lens I really love for portrait work).
Upcoming weeks I am planning some shoots to test the camera's out and post some new work with them.
Fuji's
Some off you might think now, what about you Fuji's. Well I still keep them and love them, especially for traveling work. Because the Nikons great, but heavy! In two week sI will go to Paris for some new street work, and I will only take my Fuji's. Also the Fuji's are not good on video so I will use the Nikon for that. So the Nikons will for most be my studio and big shoot camera's and for when I have to more post work. The fuji will keep being my reportage/documentary camera's.