Two New Toys ... and some Questions

[Bobby_G]

Lee, a little trick I learned with blowers is this...I have 2 or 3 ...a floor dryer, fans, leaf blowers...etc. They all work, but what I have found is this...those work best at moving WARDROBE and becomes very difficult to manage hair...especially when the models hair is longer and FINER like the one you posted. If you are looking to have the hair move gently, use your reflector. You will need an assistant, but what I do is have an assistant hold the reflector (folded in its round shape and IN the carry bag) at about knee high, and then QUICKLY thrust it toward the models hair. I usually count down and fire the shutter as I catch the hair as I like it...its a percentage shot and takes a LOT of practice but I have found that provides more desireable results in most cases than using any type of blower...

This models hair just HUGGED her face and I wanted to "move" it just a bit, so we used the reflector technique...

#1 - very subtle effect


#2 - a little more abrupt, but still more controllable than a blower IMO

[FotoTejas]

Great idea, Bobby. Thanks.

[rolandogomez]

I'm catching up on threads, but when I saw your gel experiment and some misinformation on this thread, I figured I'd give my two centavos as I've done this many times before and have taught how to change any color background to any color you practically want. First, let me say it's great to see folks trying new things out, kudos to you, that's what makes photography so passionately fun.

The technique is called "chromozones" and yes, Dean Collins used it on his Fine-Light workshop series, but I learned and did this technique at Brooks Institute of Photography while attending their "Brooks in a Week" course many years ago--they still teach it today.

Let's pretend your studio is closed in, no windows, all lights are out except your modeling lights for your main light, not your background light. What Brooks teaches is to place two lights, one on each side of your background (mark an x on the floor so you can recreate it again) and point your lights equally across your background--so if you metereed incidental light across your background the aperture would be equal.

Next, place your gels over your flash units. Power them up 50-percent so you have room to adjust up or down. This is important because depending on the light you have, if a light has a 5-stop range, at 1/2 power you can go 2.5 stops either direction. The more light you power up, the less saturation--fyi.

Now, take your subject out of the photo, you don't need that now. Set your camera on a tripod about your normal shooting distance--though distance has no affect on the effect, I recommend 12 to 15 feet if you have the room. Now set your shutter speed at 1/125, though shutter speeds will not change the color/saturation with fast, good quality lights, 1/125 is a safe speed. When you bring out a subject the shutter speed for the subject is in fact the flash.

Now start at the lowest aperture of your lens, say F/1.8 then in 1/3 stop increments close down and take a photo, keep doing this till you get to the last aperture, usually F/16 or 22. Brooks would teach for you to do this with 36-exposure rolls of slide film--slide film doesn't lie! They would then have you process the rolls of film and cut out a long rectangular black matte board where you could see the frames of the film but no sprocket holes. You would tape the film then with a lead pencil, you'd write your F/stops on each frame. When a client walked in and wanted Budwieser Red, you'd pull the red strip taped to a matt board then lay it on the light table and pick the right one--same with all gel colors.

Now the real trick to all this stuff is if Budweiser red was F/2.8 and the client wanted to stick a model 10-feet in front of the background, but wanted to also place a can of beer 5-feet in front of the background, how would you get the depth of field and change your F/stop to F/11 without changing your lights? Simple, if you started with a white background you'd roll it up and lower a black background, thus you now have the opposite saturation as white reflects 90-percent of the light that hits it and black absorbs 90-percent.

Things to note, keep your subject away from your background as much as possible. If you place your subject ten feet from the background you would place your main light, hopefully a strip or soft box with a grid or louvers and aim the light in one direction while shooting in another to keep spill from changing your background color. You also move your subject away from the background to preven spill from the background. The other key is if the Bud red was say F/8, you'd shoot your subject at F/8 (take into account the subjects skins an power up or down the mainlight to compensate for her/his absorbtion of lack of as outlined in the 90-percent rule in the articles section.)

Brooks teaches that if you know how to use chromozones effectively, you will only have to buy black and the white seamless papers (2 rolls, 1 each) as you can make the background any color you want with this technique and gels. (for the record, I'm writing an article on this technique)

Hope that helps, wishing you the best and thanks for being a part of the G1 community and family. Happy Holidays! rg sends!

The way Brooks Teaches... 

[dustylenscap]

I have always played with gels on a black background, need lots of power, but the colors are more saturated, just my 2 cents worth.

Dusty