Shooting with the California Sun-Swatter part II

Am really liking the flexibility that the Sun-Swatter gives us.  This shot of Luciane was made in the middle of the day, just by suspending it above her.

Because it is suspended from a boom arm, the Sun-Swatter allows you to get it into places that would otherwise be difficult.

This was shot in a small corner of a yard, behind a wall and some recycling bins.  Our assistant used the boom arm of the Sun-Swatter to fly it up over the wall and above our model Luciane to diffuse the overhead light.  A silver Sunbounce Pro reflector is off to the side mounted on a C-stand to throw some light into this corner.  We also had our makeup artist Kahulani hold a silver Sunbounce mini below to add some fill.

We also used the Sun-Swatter in a bit of an unorthodox way.  This was shot in the living room against the windows.  There was late afternoon sun streaming in from the oceanside windows, creating hotspots in the area we were shooting in.  A technique I remembered from photographer Joe McNally was to use a white bedsheet over a window to diffuse harsh light.  Since we didn’t have a bedsheet handy, I took the Sun-Swatter and propped it up against the window – turned out to be the perfect size to cover it.

This softened the light coming into the living room, but also made it rather dark.  To compensate, I set up a WL1600 at full power outside and aimed it towards the window.

This had the effect of creating a 4×6 softbox pressed up against the window.  We also used a silver Sunbounce reflector in the living room on the opposite side of our model Whitney to fill in the shadows a bit.

Probably not one of the ways the creators of this product intended, but it worked out pretty well.

Shooting at High Noon with the California Sunbounce Sun-Swatter

Photographers usually try not to shoot when the sun is directly overhead, as the shadows can be unflattering to the subject. We usually try for early morning or late afternoon, when the sun is lower in the sky and gives us better light to work with.

That being said, this photo was taken around noon on a Saturday in Lahaina on a relatively cloudless day, with no flash.

Black and Gold Bikini, originally uploaded by Mizomi Photography.

I used a product called a Sun-Swatter, made by California Sunbounce. I actually bought it used from a photographer on Oahu and had my friend air cargo it to me on Maui the day before this shoot.

This is what the Sun-Swatter looks like:

Basically it’s a lightweight frame of translucent material that you can fly overhead to diffuse the light on your subject.  Once you have the overhead light under control, you can then modify it with additional reflectors if you wish.

It’s the same thing as finding a shaded area (like under a tree or an overhang next to a building) and placing your subject in it.  The main difference of the Sun-Swatter is that instead of moving your subject into the shade, you can bring the shade to your subject, no matter where your subject is.

For the shot with Corinne above, I had my assistant Ronald hold the Sun-Swatter over her, then had another assistant use a Photoflex Zebra Gold 4×6 litepanel to bounce some light into her face.  (I would have used a Sunbounce reflector, but the Photoflex was the only zebra gold colored reflector I had with me at the time.)

To help hide the fact that I used the Sun-Swatter (the version I have is the pro size which is just barely enough to cover one subject), I shot from as low a position as I could, practically burying myself in the sand.

Because it’s so light the Sun-Swatter is very transportable, and we were able to move from the pool to the beach and then to the trees to get a lot of different shots done very quickly.

The one drawback to the Sun-Swatter is that you need to have assistants on your shoot.  The more the merrier.  For this shot with Corinne, if we had a third assistant, I would have had them hold up another reflector to throw a hairlight from behind or come to camera right to brighten up the shadow side of Corinne’s face just a skosh.

Pinup shoot with Honey and Kat

A few weeks after the Oahu shoot, I had the chance to work with makeup artist Kahulani once again, this time doing a pinup shoot with one of her friends, Honey.

Honey does the vintage Hollywood look really well.  For this first one all we used was an AB800  with a beauty dish.  The sepia tone and vignette was a preset look in Adobe Lightroom.  Also tried a few in black and white.

I used pretty much the same bedroom set as Uilani’s boudoir shoot, minus the tulle hanging from the poles.  We were working without an assistant that day, so I didn’t want to risk having the pole falling and whacking someone on the head.  Lighting is 3 AB800s, the main in a 5′ Octodome and two behind the folding closet doors in the background.

One of the things I learned on this shoot is that the edge of an air mattress is really hard to hold a pose on.  Will have to think about some way of adding more support underneath the sheets to make it easier next time.

2nd shoot with wolfpup – "Black Lagoon" anime concept

 I really enjoy working with model wolfpup from MM.  She is one of those models that can work her poses and expressions so well that when she is in front of my lens, I can just go into chimpanzee mode concentrate on the shot and not worry about having to direct her too much.  She just knows how to rock the shot.

This was our second shoot together and this time we were lucky enough to be able to shoot at the Naval Air Museum at Barbers Point on Oahu, thanks to my buddy Chaz at After6Media and his friends there.

This was a great location to shoot at – tanks, APCs, Navy jets, Army helicopters etc.. Chaz said it best – like being a kid in a candy store.

Kecia Littman was our makeup artist on this shoot.  I had previously worked with Kecia a few years ago on a studio shoot on Oahu, and it was great to work with her again.

For this shoot, we went with an anime character theme – Revy from the Japanese anime “Black Lagoon”

This was a concept I’ve been wanting to do for a long time, but it wasn’t until now that everything came together just right.

We started in the afternoon a bit delayed by the heavy traffic on H1, so although there were a ton of different things we could have shot, I chose to limit it to two specific ideas.  I also kept the lighting to just one light – the White Lightning 1600 which was enough to overpower the sun.

First set was with the tank. I setup the WL1600 with a standard 7″ reflector about 20ft away from the tank and tested until I was satisfied with the angle and look.  I had wolfpup stand in front of the tank and just let her get into character.

Canon 5D 24-70mm f2.8L iso100 1/160@f16

For props she is holding a Tokyo Marui airsoft G36K rifle.  The shoulder holsters hold two custom KSC airsoft 9mm Beretta 92F pistols “Sword Cutlass Special” from the Black Lagoon anime.

Black tactical gloves, combat boots and the military belt completed the look.  For the outfit, the model just needed to bring the denim shorts and black tank top (actually there was writing on the tank top, so she wore it inside out for the shoot).

By the time we started shooting the sun was now behind the tank and model, and the one WL1600 had to provide lighting for both.

When I took the first shot, the model was exposed correctly, but the tank behind her was a little on the dark side.  Because of the inverse square law, the tank was getting less light than the model.  This was ok for the closeup shot above, but for the wide shot I needed to change it up slightly.

I repositioned the model more to the front edge of the tank and moved the light more to the right so that her shadow would not fall onto the tank.  Since the model and tank were now both about equally distant from the light, the tank looked much better.

Canon 5D 24-70mm f2.8L iso100 1/160@f16

Climbed on top of the tank for some additional shots.  Still using the WL1600 with 7″ reflector.
Ordinarily I try not to use such a small light source on a model because of the harsh shadows, but thankfully wolfpup is one of those models that look amazing no matter what kind of light you throw at her.

Canon 5D 70-200mm f2.8L iso100 1/160@f16

To get some motion in her hair for this shot, I had her turn away from the camera, then whip around and bring the gun up to acquire a target.  Shots like these I’ll usually crop to 16×9 aspect ratio in Lightroom to give it a cinematic feel.

Canon 1DmkII 70-200mm f2.8L iso100 1/250@f16

Got the idea for this from a Jack Bauer poster for “24”.  When the model saw this shot she said it would make a great recruiting poster. 😉

On some of these shots you might notice the tribal tattoo on the model’s shoulder.  We didn’t have time for our makeup artist to create the tattoo to match the anime character we were portraying, so I experimented with adding it in post.

We were starting to get into sunset, so we headed over to the helicopter gunship.

We mounted a 5′ Octodome on the WL 1600 and used that as our main light.

Wide shot of Chaz shooting with his model Rose using the Octodome.  We took turns shooting with the Octodome and the models manning the gun.

 When it came time for wolfpup and I to shoot, I instructed her to really exaggerate her actions, as we were emulating an anime character.  This led to one of my favorite shots from this session.

When I worked on this shot in post, I noticed that there was no pilot in the shot.  Don’t really notice it in the shot below because of the 16×9 crop, but in the uncropped original the entire cockpit was in view and it was clear there was no pilot.  To fix that (and do a slight director’s cameo), I had my brother use his iPhone 3Gs camera to take a picture of the back of my head.  I comped that into the shot where the pilot would be.  You can barely see it here, but it’s little touches like that that help to sell the shot.

Canon 5D 24-70mm f2.8L iso100 1/160@f8

We were wrapping up after the sun went below the horizon, but we were getting such great colors in the sky that I wanted to get in a few last shots.  While wolfpup got ready, we raised the Octodome up and tilted it down about 45 degrees.  Chaz then got below the light and held up a silver California Sunbounce mini reflector.  We brought wolfpup in as close as possible to this beauty lighting setup and got some great glamour shots to end the day.  An added plus was that the makeup colors Kecia used on wolfpup’s eyes was a good match for the colors of the sunset.

Canon 1DmkII 70-200mm f2.8L iso100 1/250@f8

There were so many other things we could have shot at this location, but there just wasn’t enough time.  Hopefully we’ll have the chance to shoot there again in the near future.

Boudoir Photoshoot with Kat and Uilani

A week after the shoot with Lia, Heidi and Uilani, Kat contacted me to set up a second shoot with Uilani.  We shot three different looks – two boudoir style and a fashion look.

For the boudoir look, I wanted to try something different with the set this time.  We setup an inflatable bed with a comforter cover and cream colored satin sheets.  For the background we hung white tulle from a pole supported by 2 C-stands, and four wooden folding closet door panels.

Behind the panels we setup two B800s with Rosco 305 gels and aimed them through the slats of the doors to emulate sunlight streaming in from the outside.

To help make it look more like a bedroom, we put a nightstand with a lamp next to the bed.  To get light from the lamp to match the flash units we were using, we replaced the light bulb in the lamp with an SB26  fitted with a Stofen omnibounce. Because the SB26 has a built in optical slave, it fired reliably whenever the main light fired.

Ran out of closet door panels for the background, so we used one of the white V-flats to stand in for a wall.

For the main light, we used an AB800 with a 5ft Octodome boomed above the front of the bed with a C-stand.  The power level was controlled via a wired Alien Bees LG4X controller.

For fill, we added a 4×8 silver litepanel just below the front of the bed. Below is what we ended up with:

When we started shooting, we noticed that on some poses because of the overhead position of the Octodome, we were getting a shadow on Uilani’s chest.  To help raise the shadow area, we had Quddus hold another SB 26 aimed Uilani’s face and neck.  As she changed poses, Quddus would also move and readjust to keep the light aimed correctly. 

Canon 5d iso100 70-200mm f2.8L 1/125 @ f8

Canon 5d iso100 70-200mm f2.8L 1/125 @ f8

Canon 5d iso100 70-200mm f2.8L 1/125 @ f8

Uilani changed outfits and after Kat changed the makeup look, we shot another set, this time shooting with the intention of converting to black & white / sepia:
 

 Canon 5d iso100 70-200mm f2.8L 1/125 @ f8

 Canon 5d iso100 70-200mm f2.8L 1/125 @ f8

Canon 5d iso100 70-200mm f2.8L 1/125 @ f8

For our final setup we headed out into the hallway upstairs.  Near the upstairs landing, one of the walls had a section of glass brick, with sunlight coming in from outside.

 To make this a deep blue color, we setup an AB800 with a beauty dish and 2 CTO gels (full and 1/2 cut).  Tried setting the camera to tungsten white balance , which would change the outdoor light to blue, but wasn’t getting the right color tone I wanted.  Then I tried dialing it in manually with  the Kelvin setting on the camera, but it only let me dial it down to about 2700K. Iwanted it to go a tad more but because this was really pushing the camera color to its limits, my 5D basically said to me “hey, cut that out” and I had to make do with that. Because we were shooting in RAW, we could later go into Lightroom and bring down the white balance even further than what the camera would allow.

For fill, we used a silver photoflex litepanel.  As you can see from the picture, the section of glass brick is only 9 bricks wide, so there wasn’t much room to play with. Uilani had a very limited area in which she could pose for this set.

Canon 5d iso100 70-200mm f2.8L 1/160 @ f7.1

Using the 70-200L helped compress the space and hide the edges of the glass brick wall.  Also shooting at 1/160th allowed me to drop the light level of the outside light coming in, which resulted in a darker blue background.

Canon 5d iso100 70-200mm f2.8L 1/160 @ f7.1

Octodome shoot part 2 – Sunset shoot with Crystal

 Canon 1DmkII 70-200mm f2.8L lens iso 100 1/250@ f8

After seeing the results photographer Aaron Riveroll gets with his Octodome, I was anxious to try it out on location.

This time I was lucky enough to have two assistants – Ronald and Quddus, and this made the shoot so much easier. (Thanks you guys!)

For this photoshoot I worked with model Crystal Gregg from Model Mayhem.  This was a really fun shoot.  Not only is Crystal a great model to work with, she also had her family along to provide support and humor.  All we were missing was a barbeque and a cooler full of drinks.
(of course, if we DID have all that, we probably wouldn’t have ended up with as many shots as we did.) 😉

We started at Polo Beach with several outfits, shooting around the park area. Since I had been having issues with my Vagabond battery pack, I chose to hold off on using the Octodome until we got to the beach.  We used 2 silver California Sunbounce reflectors (medium and pro sizes) for our initial lighting setup.

Canon 1DmkII 70-200mm f2.8L lens iso 100  1/500@ f2.8

This was shot with just natural overcast light and Ronald holding the silver medium Sunbounce to camera left.

Canon 1DmkII 70-200mm f2.8L lens iso 100 1/500@ f2.8

When Quddus arrived, we assembled the larger Sunbounce Pro and used both reflectors to Light Crystal.  Quddus is holding the Sunbounce Pro to camera left to act as her main light.  The natural sunlight acts as a rim light on her legs, right arm and hair.  Ronald is standing behind the tree with the medium Sunbounce to throw additional sunlight into the back of Crystal’s hair and her left arm.

I also wanted to experiment with creating sunset light.  While Crystal posed against a shaded wall, I had Quddus block off the stray sunlight with the Sunbounce.  I then had Ronald hold an SB26 with a CTO gel aimed at Crystal and I fired off a few frames.  Wasn’t quite satisfied with the look, so I had Ronald turn the flash toward the Sunbounce and shot a few frames with the SB26 bouncing into the reflector to get this shot.

Canon 1DmkII 85mm f1.8 lens iso 100 1/250@ f2.8

We then headed to the road to a nearby beach (Polo Beach was a little too crowded for us).  Thanks to Quddus and Ronald, we had the Octodome set up on an AB 800 in just a few minutes.

There are 4 reversible gold/silver panels in the interior of the Octodome which can be setup to give different looks.  Since we were shooting at sunset, we used 2 gold and 2 silver panels to warm up the light from the Octodome.

 Canon 1DmkII 70-200mm f2.8L lens iso 100 1/250@ f8

For this full length shot, the Octodome is off to camera right and the sunset acts as the rim light.

Surprisingly, the Vagabond battery pack held up through the entire shoot this time.

I also tried out the Canon 7D on this shoot for some of the wider shots.

 Canon 7D 24-70mm f2.8L lens iso 200 1/160@ f8

 I can see why photographer Aaron Riveroll uses the Octodome on location. The look from this light modifier is really sweet!

Shooting with the Photoflex 5 ft Octodome

Finally got a chance to use my new 5 ft Photoflex Octodome on some photoshoots.  This studio shoot was done with 3 models – Lia, Heidi and Uilani.  Makeup and hair was done by Kahulani and we were again assisted by Quddus Ajimine.

I can literally stand directly in front of this softbox when shooting the model. It’s gianormous. And this is only their medium sized Octodome. They come in small 3′, medium 5′ and freaking large 7′ (you know, in case you ever need to light Godzilla someday).

I really like the way the light from the AB800 in the Octodome wraps around Lia. Silver Photoflex Litepanel for fill.

We were kinda pressed for time that day, since we had 3 models doing headshots in studio at the same time, so I didn’t get to do much variation in the lighting.  I did try a slightly different setup for Heidi below, where I switched to the beauty dish.  I also had Quddus hold up a Lastolite Trigrip Diffuser in front of the beauty dish to further soften the light on Heidi.

 For Uilani, I switched back to the Octodome and also added a silver litepanel for fill, another AB800 with a strip softbox for the back light and a round silver reflector on the floor in front of her.

 What’s really nice about the Octodome is that because of the size, it’s really good for lighting groups.

For this last shot of the three models together, the Octodome is boomed above center , with 2 AB800s with red and blue gels behind for rim lighting.

Bridal Fashion Shoot

This past Monday I had the chance to do a bridal fashion shoot with makeup artist Wendie Lindsay and model Cassidy Baker .  The dress was provided by Queen’s Bridal.

 

This was a great opportunity to experiment with lighting styles that I normally don’t get to do during an actual wedding.   For most of the indoor shots I used an SB26 (about 1/2 power) on a stand with a shoot-thru umbrella triggered with a Pocket Wizard.

We had originally planned to shoot  at Makawao Union Church which has really beautiful stained glass windows.  However on the day of the shoot, just as we were about to begin we learned that there was a wedding scheduled at the church later that morning.  We were able to get a couple of shots done, but then went to a second church to continue shooting so as to not interfere with the wedding.

Canon 5D 24-70 iso 400 1/30@ f5.6

I really liked the light from the shoot-thru umbrella. We positioned it far to the right so that the light would skim across the front and bring out the detail of the dress.

 

Canon 5D 24-70 iso 400 1/30@ f5.6

At our second location down the road at Holy Rosary Church, we were able to take a little more time and get some very different looks.

One of the things I always wanted to try was ground-posing the bride.  Since we had to be very careful with the way we handled the dress, I spread out a white towel and had Cassidy position herself on it.  We then tucked the edges of the towel in so that we wouldn’t see it.

Canon 5D 70-200 iso 400 1/2500@ f2.8

The light was really nice in this spot, so no reflector or flash was needed.  I used a 70-200 lens wide open to blur the background out as much as I could (her feet are practically touching the flower bed behind her).

From there we had her move into a seated pose on the towel and shot from above with the 70-200 lens. I had to stand on a chair to get the angle.  (Sucks being a short photographer)

Canon 5D 70-200 iso 400 1/1250@ f2.8

We also took a few shots with the veil before changing up the look.

Canon 5D 70-200 iso 400 1/1600@ f2.8

Behind the scenes as Wendie adjusts Cassidy’s makeup.

Canon 5D 70-200 iso 400 1/1000@ f2.8

Shot from above using a chair.  Natural light only.  Used the 70-200 lens for a lot of these shots.  Don’t have the IS version, so these were all done with a tripod.

Canon 5D 70-200 iso 400 1/1250@ f2.8

We tried a few shots here with Wendie holding the dress up and releasing it to try to add some motion, but in the end the best look was when the breeze did it naturally.

Towards the end of the shoot, I wanted to try some dramatic lighting. We went over to the shaded side of the church and setup 2 SB26s @ 1/2 power on lightstands (no umbrellas). One was positioned in the raised flower bed to the left and the other was setup behind Cassidy. Took several attempts before we got the light looking right.

Canon 5D 28-70 iso 400 1/200@ f16

Those little SB26s really put out a lot of light.  Even at 1/2 power it was starting to overpower the daylight and darken the sky a little.

Canon 5D 28-70 iso 400 1/200@ f16

At one point, Cassidy shifted her pose and I accidentally caught the flare from the rear SB26. I liked the effect, though.

This was a fun shoot.  Got to experiment with a few new ideas that I’ll try to incorporate into future weddings.

Boudoir Photoshoot with Kat and Sasha

 (Cool phone prop courtesy of Kahulani)

About a week ago I had the chance to team up with makeup artist Kahulani and model Sasha C for a boudoir photoshoot. We were assisted once again by Quddus Ajimine.

Since this was a boudoir shoot, the set was a little more elaborate than usual. However, I wanted to keep it flexible and built only what would be seen in the camera frame.  It was designed so that we could shoot it two ways and get two different looks.

The bed is an air mattress from Sports Authority and is covered with satin sheets found at Ross Dress For Less.  I rigged a semi open bed canopy using wooden poles mounted on 4 C-stands and draped with lengths of tulle from a local fabric store.  Because the top poles would never be seen in the photos, I used clothespins to attach the fabric to the poles.  Two freestanding folding closet doors and some artificial plants were used to hide the rear C-stands.  Behind the bed is a white wall and to the right of the bed is a black curtain.  This way we could shoot through the canopy and get one look with a blue background, then shoot from the left without seeing the fabric and get a black background.

For lighting the set we used a total of 5 AB800s.

Setup #1 (through the canopy)
Main light – AB800 with beauty dish.
Fill – silver 4×6 Photoflex Lightpanel reflector.
Rear Rim Lights – 2 AB800s with small gridded strip softboxes and 1/4 CTO gels.
Background – AB800 with background shovel reflector and a blue gel to light up the white wall behind the bed.

Setup #2 (shooting from the left of the bed)

Main light -AB800 with a small softbox.
Rear lights – the Main light and one of the rim lights from Setup #1 became our rim lights for Setup #2

 

To end the session, we switched to shooting from above.  We took down the 2 front C-stands and pole and wrapped the tulle around our model.

For lighting we lit the bed with two lights – the softbox on the left and the beauty dish on the right.  These were lowered until the light skimmed across the surface of the bed.  We then took one of the rear AB800s and replaced the strip softbox with a 7″ reflector and a 20 degree grid and aimed it at the mask of the model’s face.

 

Wish we had more time to work with this model as we were just starting to get some really cool shots by the end of the session.

Bedroom shoot with modeling lights

Bedroom 2, originally uploaded by Mizomi Photography.
Canon 5D 24-70mmL lens ISO 800 1/6@ f5.0

Towards the end of the photoshoot with Rachel, there was this amazing bedroom that I wanted to take some shots in. It was nicer than suites I’ve seen in 5-star hotels.

Unfortunately while setting up the lights for this shoot, for some weird reason my triggers stopped working. Tried going to the backup PC cord directly to the strobes, still no luck. No matter what I did, I could not get the strobes to fire reliably.

(Of course, when I got back home after the shoot and tested the strobes, everything worked fine. Doh!)

We were rapidly running out of time, so I decided to wing it shoot it differently.

There were two AB800 strobes in this shot. One was behind the model on the other side of the bed. The other was to camera left, halfway into the closet which I was also standing in (it was a small room).

I took off the reflectors on both lights, aimed them bare bulb up into the ceiling and cranked up the modeling lights on both strobes.  Since the modeling lights are tungsten bulbs, they already matched the interior lighting so there was no need to add gels to anything.  I set the iso on my 5D to 800 and mounted the camera to my tripod.  Used a slow shutter speed and asked the model to hold really still.  The strobes did not fire, I used just the modeling lights.

Bedroom 1, originally uploaded by Mizomi Photography.
Canon 5D 24-70mmL lens ISO 800 1/6@ f4.0

It wasn’t quite what I had originally planned, but I was pretty happy with the result as it was close to the look I wanted.  The fact that the 5D can handle higher isos helped a lot. It also helped that the model was very patient with me while I set the lighting up (thanks Rachel!).

If I ever have the chance to shoot this bedroom again, I’m thinking to try to see how it would work using a bunch of CTO gelled 580ex or SB26 flashes instead of the bigger AB800s.