And I need to add that I´m in no way a experienced photographer and what I describe may not be entirely the correct way but it´s the way I shoot my models.Well I guess you want to see pictures now eh? and lots of them?
I´ll be getting to that in a moment.... first I thought I´d show my photo set up and explain a bit about how I take the pics
You with me on this?OKi, here we go!
My little improvised studio consists of a big A2 paper sheet, I use a black background for light objects, a grey or blue for dark objects... I avoid white since I think it´s to much
contrast with my shutter times (I´ll be getting back to that)
Anyways, for lighing I use a few ordinary desk lamps and I´ve covered lamp cones with paper tissue. It´s to difuse the light, spread it and avoid sharp reflexes from the light bulbs.
I cover the windows and the rest of the room is dark.. this makes the studio a bit mirky but that suits me fine because of the shutter times I´m using (again gonna explain that later).
I use 3 main light sources and have additional light from a desk lamp out of frame and a lilttle halogen lamp, these are to give ambient light.
Oki, that´s the lil´ studio...
Here´s my lil´SLR, a I am a spammer, please report this post. D3100 with a 18-55 glass, standing on it´s tripod.
Time to look at my camera set up...
First of all I put the camera in M, manual mode...and that of course means I have to set all the parameters myself.
And here are the camera settings, I´ll explain the most importan settings
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The "M" in the upper left corner means I´m in manual mode.
I´m using a 2 second timed trigger, that is the exposure starts 2 seconds after I´ve pressed the trigger, that is so the camera is as vibration free as possible.
The bar on the right side shows:
I´m taking picture in RAW format, simplified it means each picture contains more information than a JPEG or GIF, and can be manipulated with greater range without loss of quality...you can change all the settings in a photo programe like Photoshop.
WB= white balance, is set in a manual mode where I´ve taken a picture of something white and the camera has adjusted to recognize it as white in that particular light. (there are modes for say using a flash, shadow, dayligth and so on.
ISO= the sensitivity of the image sensor, the higher value the more light sensitivity and the grainier the photo. I use ISO 100 for best quality pictures,and that means I have to have good lighting for my exposures.
AF-s= Auto focus
below that the symbo shows my auto focus mode, I use "one point" modethat is my aouto focus has 14 points it can focus on and I´ve manually chosen the pooint I want to focus on, it can be seen in the lower left corner of the display... it shows I´ve chosen the center point.
the rest of the symbols are not important.
in the center of the display is my shutter time 4", wich means I have a 4 second exposure. The reason I have such a long shutter time is because I want a deep field of depth. Field of depth is how much of and object is in focus in the Z-axis near and far of the focus point.
Since I want as much as possible of my model to be in focus I have to have a long exposure time to let enough light in. the shorter the exposure the shorter the field of depth you get.
The next and final important variable is Aperture, it´s shownb as the value F29 in the display and there´s a graphic representation of the aperture to the left of the shutter time. I´m using the smallest aperture (the smaller the aperture the higher the F-value) since I`m using such a long
shutter time I can´t let too much light in at a time since it would result in an over exposured picture and be totally white.
After laborating with shutter time and aperture in my lignting I found the combination of 4" and F29 to give me the best pictures and biggest field of depth.
Had I had brighter light sources I could have shorter shutter time.
Hope ya enjoyed a short intro to model photography
