Pack In A Cube - Or How To Shoot Catalog Fast

Do you have a letter box at your house? You do? Have you noticed the people who stalk the streets and fill it with advertising flyers? They are unstoppable - no matter how many signs you put up they will still stuff your letter box with paper.

Apart from the ecological question of all that paper and ink, and the moral question of being able to defend your letter box...isn't it interesting how many pack shots and product pictures modern life uses? Someone had to take those pictures, and that someone could very well be you. If you can find - or be - a retailer who wants pack shots, you can do it with your present camera equipment. Who knows - with a little research and self-promotion* you may become the doyen or doyenne of dog food dioramas...

How to do? I used to recommend the pop-up studio set with two lightbulbs that Optex make - $ 249 worth of tiny studio. Or the cloth and wire light cubes that Glanz and Promaster make - they can go from 40cm cube to 120cm cube so there is a large range of  goods that you can put in them.

I also used to recommend that the Optex mini-studio user just turn on the two flouro tube lights and shove the goods in there - but this tended to make them look like they were being illuminated by two soft boxes or strip lights.

Now - I think that there is s better way - as evinced by the can of soup you see here. It's not for sale - it's for lunch - but it's typical of the product that goes into a catalog. The challenge is to make it look good, do it in one shot, and do no post processing. If you can do that you can start a production line of illustration that means profitable photography.

The setup is easy - the Optex mini studio is turned on. A sheet of white paper is curved into a mini-infinity set in the box and taped down. The can is set in so that there is a little illumination on the 3/4 curved front side.

The camera ( in this case a Fujifilm X-10, current version X-30 ) is set to whatever size output you want. And with Fujifilm there is no footling about with RAW - the jpegs are glorious. f:9 and 1/30 second. Tripod? Good idea if all the products will be the same size.

The new illumination trick is a standard Fujifilm EF 42 flash and a diffuser on the front of it - in this case one of the old Honlphoto plastic flaps. Really, you could use a sheet of white paper taped to any speed light you owned, as long as the speed light could fire in manual and be turned down somewhat.

 A wireless link between camera and flash completes the setup, though wired could be used if you have the connectors available - the main idea is to fire a blot of diffused light into the front of the set so that it shows the front of the product but bounces around to do its own fill as well.

The result is good, fast, and repeatable. All you need is an assistant to organise the flow of products to the set and away from them and to record what was photographed to later correlate the output. If you get the settings right the client gets a consistent batch of images that can be put into a good catalog.

And then you can pull it out of your letter box and throw it into the bin.

* Self-promotion: Unusual concept little known amongst professional photographers...

Sail On Strobists - With The Sale On Honl

Regular readers of the blog will remember the ones about Honl - the accessory company for strobists. We've been selling their softboxes, grids, gels, and camera wraps for some time now.

Time has come to declare a 20% off sale for these - to continue until the current stock is exhausted. This is a good opportunity for all users of portable flash - Nikon, Canon, Nissan, Promaster, etc. - to take control of that flash out there in the real ( dark) world and do some professional portraits.

Note for users of off-camers flash systems that depend upon IR to control the flash:

The Honl softboxes that fit on the front of the flash do so in such a way that they do not obscure the IR receptors on the flash units. This is a problem for some other brands and you get misfires if the IR port is shielded. Honl can be used with the SB 700 with confidence.

Tio Dick's Feijoada

Look it up, look it up...

This tasty stew of assorted ingredients has something for every taste. As it is a cold day, we will start with a hot item:

1. Rollei 35 RF camera fitted with a Sonnar 40mm f:2.8 lens

This has just come into the s/h department and is pretty darn rare. It is a modern 35mm rangefinder camera made to Rollei specifications by Cosina in Japan. Some people will recognise the shape as being similar to Voigtländer cameras from the same stable. Similar, but that Sonnar lens will spell the difference for the user. This is a chance for traditionalists to do the 35mm RF in style.

2. Promaster 2500 EDF flash

Cheap as chips, and you can get these with either Nikon or Canon dedication. For cameras with just a plain hot shoe they'll work in auto mode so if your flash shots from the in-built flash are just not cutting it, this is a very good buy.

3. Honl Lens Wrap

Ballistic nylon on the outside and fleece on the inside with two velcro fasteners. Wrap your precious up in this and pop it in the camera bag or suitcase for travel.

4. B+W 1000x neutral density filter

For all those people who want to clean city streets of passers-by or to smooth out waterfalls and seas - this is a screw-in answer. Like the big rectangular stopper filters, but you can get this one in regular round shape for 62mm, 72mm, and 77mm. The heading image is a picture of a black cat taken in a coal bin at midnight with one of these filters. Notice the smooth fur tones on the back of the animal.

Getting It to Gel - The Strobist's Guide To Colour

I cannot deny that I like certain things - Manhattan cocktails, pretty girls, hot rods, and colourful pictures. Not for me the desaturated masterwork images with every tone filtered through an old teabag - while I can still see I want to see colour.

One exception - I like to see monochrome images made with Woodburytype toning. The rich brown is much preferable to weak sepia.

But back to colour, and particularly colour in the. If you are a strobist - a person who strives to use small portable flashes to make studio-quality images out in the wider world - you undoubtedly knwo about the various wireless control systems - they let you use one or more speed lights off camera with a varying level of control between the lights. In my case I use the Nikon D300 cameras and they can control Nikon's Sb 600, 700, and 910 flashes very well.

My new passion, and big thrill, is to use these flashes  with gel modification. I selected the Honl range of gels from our shop and equipped my fill and hair light with them by means of the Honl speed strap. Much less fuss than sticky tabs or clamps, it comprises a wool band that wraps around the head of the flash, and onto which the gels can stick by velcro.

I invested in three packets - a sampler that gave me basic colour correction CTO and CTB gels as well as clear primaries, a selection that was referred to as "Autumn" and one with the title "Hollywood" As you can imagine the "Autumn" has warm colours - the "Hollywood " features hot pinks and purples. You get 5 different shades in each packet and two filters of each shade - ten in all.

I also indulged in a Honl filter wrap case - and this is a wonderful way of carrying 30 filters in safety.

The first results  highlight a Khaleegi troupe of dancers - wild colour to start with on the costumes set into the pastel of the gels - these are firing into a white muslin drop.

The second is a darker evocation for an upcoming WAMED dance - here the fill and hair were gelled with a blue-green but the main was plain to bring out skin tone. A little more tone was rolled in with an Alien Skin plugin filter.

The Honls are not unique but they are certainly well worked-out and I can recommend them to anyone out shooting.

The Adventitious Photographer _ By Kaye-Sarah Serah

The philosophy of " What will be, will be " has been useful for centuries as an excuse for not planning properly, not behaving properly, and not taking responsibility for what has actually occurred. Didn't work out so well for the Austro-Hungarian empire in 1918 but was a real money-spinner for Doris Day in the 1950's...

With that in mind I packed the roller bag for yesterday evening's belly dance shoot in Wellard. Not normally known as the capital of Middle Eastern culture, the suburb was playing host to Shimmy Skirt - a Khaleegi group. Khaleegi is colourful, if noisy, and demanded equal colour in the photos.

I've decided to keep the studio Elinchrom flash units in the studio. These days for an outside shoot I pack three Nikon speed lights, three or four different folding light stands or clamps, and a small Lastolite folding softbox. Together with a dreadful old background stand kit, a couple of muslins, and an umbrella, this comprises a pretty good mini studio for groups up to 8 people.

What sort of lighting setup do you get with this? Main through the softbox, fill into the umbrella, and choose whether No.3 light will be a background wash or a hair light suspended from the crossbar of he backdrop set with a Manfrotto nanoclamp. ( Yay nanoclamp. Small and useful.)

As it was Khaleegi, I wanted washes of colour - Honl speed light gels did that - I have indulged in two more packets of assorted colours. If you fire through them onto a light backdrop the colour is pastel - if you fire into a dark backdrop it is intense - so simple. If you look straight into the flash when you fire it you don't see squat for the rest of the evening.

Note that in the small space of a mini studio, the command system of the Nikon D300-series cameras ( and the others of the ilk...) is great - you can order the intensity of two additional groups of flashes as well as the one on the camera and you can vary these right from the camera position itself. It is a light-code control rather than a radio signal, but as long as the remotes can see the command flash, it works brilliantly. If you need to, you can code it up so that the flash from the camera does not actually appear in the final exposure.

So - what was, was. Thank you Doris. And what was looked pretty good - because I planned the shoot and took the right gear. Please come into the shop and let me bore your ears off with other how-to information. They pay me to do it.

Uncle Dick

Under The Radar At A Wedding With Lightsphere

Please note the dome in the heading photograph. This is not the targeting guidance system for an Atlas E missile - though they are nice as well. It is a Gary Fong Lightsphere - in this case one of the collapsible ones. Beside it is a packet of gel filters made by Honl. They are the absolute bullet for event and wedding photographers.

Those of you who reel back in horror at the thought of a flash at a wedding - like M. Cartier-Bresson - are welcome to move further down the car. By all means ramp your ISO up and clap a 2.8 zoom to the front of your DSLR and hover over there in the shadows. I'm sure your photographs will be all the better for your artistic decision. I should de-saturate a few of them and tilt a horizon to provide variety. Remember to browse the salad bar at the reception...

I shall be running around in the meantime popping up out of prepared positions to ambush the bride with my camera and the flash attached. That'll be me down there at the front of the aisle as they exchange vows - look for the balding head and the occasional electrical discharge. Note that I will have the Fong Lightsphere firmly attached ( and it does attach firmly ) to my DSLR and a short zoom on the front. And I will be elbowing interlopers out of the way.

If the wedding is to be held in the warmth of a tungsten-lit church I will push one of the amber Honl filter gels down the throat of the Lightsphere to match the prevailing light. Likewise I will push in a slightly weaker amber if I am filling an outdoor shoot in the last hour of the day. My flash will be about the same as the sun then and the subsequent computer work will be so much easier.

If, horror of horrors, the wedding is in a filling station lit only by flickering fluorescent bulbs and the demonic eyes of the guests, I will substitute one of the green filters. Don't laugh - I once covered a wedding where the groom chased the bride through a burial ground with an axe. Nice colours. Nice axe.

The Lightsphere softens and spreads the flash so that there is s pretty good agreement between the illumination on the main subject and the stuff that filters through to the background. Of course you can force the flash to put out more or less light with the controls on the back - all flashes can do this to some extent - and you can force the light to spot the subject by your choice of positioning and distance, but generally you can set a ratio and then just chase the bride at will.

The amazing part of it is that even if you think that your flashes are disruptive, it is unlikely the happy couple will notice. I spoke with the bride from two weeks ago and she did not realise I was working as much as I was until she saw the video from another guest. Thats under the radar. Mind you, if I wanted to promote the brand I would have to have a sign on the back of my shirt advertising the studio to the wedding guests.

Plugging Into The Power Grid With Honl And Elinchrom

How many of you out there watch YouTube? I mean for detailed instructions on the use of professional photographic equipment as well as the videos of kittens falling in toilets? If you restrict yourself to the latter you may be missing out on a real training resource.


I thought of this when I was rigging out the studio for a shoot this last Sunday. I wanted to achieve a deliberate lighting effect of a pool of light falling on the models' shoulders. I went searching. Sure enough someone wanted to do the same thing and showed how.

It was simple. If I shot an Elinchrom mono block straight down it would work but it would splash far too much on the floor - and it would have been far too powerful even at the lowest setting. But the simple addition of a honeycomb grid in the reflector narrowed the beam and attenuated the light - and the model looked fabulous.

I use the 18cm general purpose reflectors - Elinchrom make a set of three round grids to fit. They are progressively restrictive ( don't ask me the arc of degrees - I don't know. Big, medium, small...) and leave a nice soft edge to the pool of light. If you are using the 21cm reflectors you can get an analogous set of grids - $ 145 all up.

No spare Elincrom head for the overhead or hair light? Got a speed light? Trigger it with the IR pulse from your main lights and do the same grid thing with a Honl 1/" or 1/4 " speed grid. You velcro this onto your speed light and get the same effect of a restricted pool of light. We can sell you the neatest little mounting feet and clamps you ever saw to attach it to an overhead support.

Colour Your World - with Honl

It is often tempting to colour a backdrop with our lighting systems - whether it is flash or steady , we have all been fascinated by the business of shining the light through something translucent and seeing what happens on the backdrop. If you pop a piece of coloured glass or cellophane in there you can get amazing tints. Tempts you to just keep one roll of paper on the back and change the appearance from the flash.


Well, if you are using a roll of backdrop paper that is white or very light grey, you may be disappointed with what you get. You can generally see a strong colour when you are  setting up the shot but when full power goes through the gel and records on the sensor surface, it can be nearly a complete washout. You see a little colour round edges or where there is some shadow, but very little else.

What you need is a mid neutral grey or even a black. These give some "tooth" for the gel to bite on and depending upon the level of lighting, you can get some very strong colours.

Honl make a number of small gel sets that can be attached onto most speedlights and you can choose Hollywood, Colour Correction, Deep Colour, Autumn...well you can match the foreground mood no matter what it is. They are not expensive, and are the best way to experiment with this form of illumination.

If you need to do bigger lights such as LED panels, or hot lights, you need Lee theatrical gels. These can also be bought in a large set, or ordered in rolls. Generally you have to make your own holder depending upon what sort of light housing is used. It is not hard - my studio has several sets that flop onto the front of Elinchrom lights and the holders are variously 1/8" ply or a couple of sheets of stiff cardboard. There's nothing quite like a hatchet lighting scheme with magenta and electric green to liven up a portrait. Add a smoke machine and a pile of plastic skulls and you have a wedding to remember. 

Uncle Dick's Feijoada

Well, it's that time of the week, folks. The icebox is full of leftovers and the only decent thing to do with them is put them all in the pot and heat it up.

1. Lens Bling - I kid you not. Thats the name of the product and you won't forget it as it will be staring you in the face every time you open your camera bag.

If you've got  bunch of lenses for your DSLR that sit face-down in the bag, all you see when you open it up is a line of similar back caps - you can be hard pressed to know which lens is which and you end up pulling each one out and staring at it before you find the right one. By then the HINDENBURG has settled to the ground and they are toasting marshmallows on the remains....

Lens Bling rear caps are indelibly lettered for whatever lens you have and are readily visible at a distance. Available in either Canon or Nikon fitting, they are a great dress-up idea as well as a practical step to organisation.

Come in and Bling.

2. Honl filter packs - these are not new but I just discovered a new use for them that solves a problem for pro shooters.

A lot of us use diffusers on the end of our speed lights - different ones depending upon the shoot circumstances. I have recently started to use the Gary Fong Collapsible Lightsphere and am very happy with it for weddings. Soft, even lighting and it helps to take into account the lighting in the backdrop as well.

Imagine my annoyance at being faced with a light environment markedly different from what i proposed to shoot out of my speed light - it was a dear old church with massive stained-glass windows that illuminated the participants well but did so with a wildly yellow tint. I cast about to find some way to meld the flash and the daylight. Fortunately I had a packet of the Honl light correction gels in the bag. In this case instead of velcro-ing them onto the front of the light, I put on the Fong and crammed ( technical term...) the gel in over the tube. A couple of test shots to see which strength was best and away we went.

The good thing is it is easy to cram or hoik ( another technical term) these gels in and out as you move outside or into other mixed lighting. For ghoul weddings you use strong green and for goth weddings a solid black does it...

3. Father's Day - I have been a father for 34 years and have the ties to prove it; some have even been worn. This year I have scored a Wacom Bamboo tablet for the laptop and a ticket to a musical show.

You might do as well, if you get cracking and start to guilt the kiddies and the wife right now about the coming day. Toss out the Big W flyers as they hit the door or you will be facing more socks and jocks. Likewise the adverts from places that sell tin bar signs and cheap pewter flasks. Go to our online shop and pick out what you REALLY want and let them know. It is wise to give them alternatives, so if you are hoping for a lens, list a couple of big ones, and a new DSLR body as well as the one you really expect to get - then it does not look like such a difficult task. For heaven's sake tell them clearly which camera system you use - write it clearly for them; on their little foreheads with a texta if necessary.

Try to act surprised when you get the box. If it is heavy and does not rattle you are into paydirt. If it is filled with plain dirt, you might consider how things are going at home.

4. Zacuto - just a heads-up. We've got a new batch of Zacuto Z-Pro finders in.

David Honl

For all you strobist's out there: Without a doubt you've used or heard of David Honls sets of filters & flash modifiers for speedlight flashes... 

and if you havent then go check them out now @ www.honlphoto.com

These are great for people who want the same quality of light and flexibility of studio heads but without the price tag or for location shooters that want to travel light but still be able to do more with their existing flashes. Now comes the David Honl Light DVD...

Light like a pro, with minimal gear! Photographer David Honl has traveled the world, with his photographs appearing in People Magazine, Newsweek, Men’s Fitness, and countless others. On this DVD, David shows you his non-intimidating, quick, portable, and painless lighting setups and techniques, most of them shot in just 5-10 minutes.
 

Featuring photo shoots with Claudia Christian (The Hidden, Hexed, Babylon 5), Bill Mumy (Lost in Space, Papillion, Babylon 5), Pat Tallman (Night of the Living Dead, Babylon 5), Yvette Nelson (Maybelline & Frederick’s of Hollywood model), and a rare portrait shoot with an original Planet of the Apes character:
 

 *Get wet: Poolside fashion with model Yvette Nelson
*Sci-fi Queens: Portrait of Babylon 5 stars Claudia Christian and Patricia Tallman
*High profile subjects: Interview and photo shoot with photographer Deborah Wald
*Hollywood legend: Interview and portrait shoot with actor Bill Mumy
*Cook it, shoot it, eat it: Cooking and photographing a gourmet lunch
*The cat's out of the bag: Kitty portrait
*Smart & quick: Smart car portrait
*Going ape: Portrait shoot with the Planet of the Apes
*Exotica: Location portrait shoot of a belly dancer/ Kazakhstan
*Gear talk with David Honl