Nikon 24 PC lens « Jurgen Doom

Architectural photography, the strobist way.

18 November 2010 om 11:34 door Jürgen geplaatst in de categorie advertising,Architecture,Flashlight,Gear,Photography

As a photographer, you want to explore every possible solution to a problem. While I was doing architectural photography – photographing the interior of a dormitory – I was confronted with rather drab lighting inside. Also, the sun was shining outside (it was a hot summer day) but was at the “wrong” side of the building, so it didn’t shine into the room that I had to photograph.

A room with a view - using the strobist technique of off-camera flashes to light the inside of a room.

The solution that came to my mind was to light the room with small strobes (Nikon SB900 flash light) in order to create a type of lighting that was more appealing than the available light (or the light that comes from the artificial light in the room, eg light bulbs, fluorescent light, etc ….).

Firstly, I used pocket wizards to trigger my flashes, as the Nikon Creative Lightings System (CLS) wouldn’t have worked well in this particular case. You need a direct line of sight in order the flashes to trigger.

Secondly, I had my camera set at an exposure whereby I had a rather dark image (ISO 200, F/9 at 1/250 gives a grossly underexposed image) at the inside of the building, but it did match the ambiant light outside pretty well.

Thirdly, I positioned a flash (Nikon SB900) outside with a full cut CTO gell over it, in order to simulate the warm rays of a rising sun. You can still see a bit of the flash at the far corner of the window, which adds to the feeling of a rising sun. That flash casts the long shadow of the chair and table and is the key light to the image.

Lastly, I had to bring in extra light in order to lift the general feel to the image. So I positioned an extra flash to get some light in the ceiling and some general fill to the entire frame.

The result is a double spread in the Sporta magazine , showing the viewers a room the invites to be staying over at their accomodation.

A room with a view - using the strobist technique of off-camera flashes to light the inside of a room.

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Using Nikon SB900 speedlights for creative photographic lighting

12 November 2010 om 13:16 door Jürgen geplaatst in de categorie advertising,Camera,Commercial,Flashlight,Gear,Photography,Sports,Uncategorized,workshop fotografie

As an advertising photographer, creating images for clients that will make their products look good, I try to be creative with my photography and my gear. Let’s look at an example.

Image of a gymnast.

Imagine a huge indoor sports hall. Imagine the yellow/green illumination these sports halls typically have and that cast an “ugly” type of light on the subjects (which you don’t want, you want your subject to look good). Imagine the cluttered background one usually gets in such sport halls, which will destroy the impact of the image ……

Situation - available light.

As a photographer I try to overcome problems – let’ call them challenges – instead of creating them.

When I had to photograph a young sportster, doing all sorts of neck-braking, leg-twisting, arm-bending exercices on a gym device, I had to be creative to get a shot of it that could be used as a double spread in the brochure.

Firstly, I figured I wanted to eliminate the natural lighting of the sports hall. Using a shutter speed of 1/250th at ISO 100 on a Nikon D3x (24Mpix) was good enough at f 4 to eliminate the ambiant light. That means, if you would not use flash, you would end up with a dark (black) image at these settings.

Next step was to bring in the Nikon SB900 speedlights. I used 3 of them. The main flash comes from directly above me (on-axis with the lens) but shot through a softbox in order to soften the light. It provides the main light for the subject, but because we are working very close to the subject and far away from the background, that light doesn’t reach the background, so it remains black (or under exposed).

The last step was to position two SB900 speedlights behind the subject, at either side of the girl, and aimed towards her. Those light provide the rim lighting, which make her stand out from the background even more.

The image was ultimately used as a double spread in the SPORTA brochure as shown above.

All shots were taken on the Nikon D3x, using a 85mm f1.4 lens and using the Nikon CLS lighting system.

Alternative image of the gymnast.

Nikon CLS system is a fantastic system to work on-location. It’s versatile, works well, easy to handle and learn and enables a photographer to be very flexible in his work and quickly adapt to different situations and lighting conditions. I use it all the time in my photography.

If you want to learn it as well, I run workshops on photography and flash photograph (also for users of other brands).

More to come,

Jürgen

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Architectural photography – assignment for CES

29 October 2010 om 14:01 door Jürgen geplaatst in de categorie Architecture,Camera,Commercial,Photography

One of my passions in photography is architectural photography. This shouldn’t come as a big surprise with my background in engineering yet it is not an easy discipline in photography. Architectural photography is a part of photography that is often looked upon as an easy thing to do. There is just the building and the photographer, so take the image and you’re done.

Architectural photography

Not so.

When you want to photograph building, you encounter difficult kind of problems.

The first problem is, or can be, the weather. It is a fact of life that images often just sparkle so much more when you photograph in excellent weather. A sun-lit building is always much more interesting than that same building lit by an overcast sky.

However, the best time to photograph a building – generally spoken – is at dusk or dawn. Just after or before sunrise, a skilled photographer is able to blend artificial light (in and/or outside the building) in such a way that those two light sources match each other well.

architectural photography - matching ambiant light with artificial light

The second problem one can encounter is the problem of having to photograph from a point of view that is too close to the building. That results in a camera that will be tilted in an angle towards the building, but with a detrimental effect to the verticals of the building. By tilting a camera, the verticals of a building will not remain parallell, which results into an image that doesn’t hold.

To remedy this problem, an architectural photographer will always use a perspective control lens (PC lens), enabling the photographer to “tilt-shift” the lens in such a way that the verticals of a building remain vertical.

I haven’t spoken yet about obstacles, such as trees, other buildings, roadworks, even blocked access (fences, guards at gates, etc …..), which are all possible problems an architectural photographer must take into account when preparing for a shoot.

For CES, an engineering firm, I had to photograph a series of buildings of which they had redone most of the HVAC and engineering works. CES wanted images of the building, preferably during daylight. Nonetheless, as a photographer you try to give your client more than they expect, which is what I always try to do.

Herewith two screen shots of their brand new website (created by Jolux Webdesign). All images are shot on a Nikon D3x (24.5Mpix) with a Nikon 24 PC lens or a Nikon 14-24mm wide angle lens.

Architectural photography - website of CES

I would also like to salute CES, who entrusted me with this project. Meanwhile we have established a lasting relationship, which is much more rewarding than any kind of financial reward.

Looking forward to producing more images ….

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Nikon 24 PC lens « Jurgen Doom

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Architectural photography, the strobist way.

Using Nikon SB900 speedlights for creative photographic lighting

Architectural photography – assignment for CES