Sam. ©2024 Kirk Tuck
I straightened up the studio this morning and started playing around with lights. I recently bought another seven foot diameter umbrella to replace one that got damaged. It was important to replace it since I really like the look of big, big modifiers. Especially when I put a one stop diffusion silk over the front to soften the light even more. When my portrait person, Sam, showed up we spent ten or fifteen minutes just chatting. We seem to know a lot of people in common and that's always a nice way to get started. She's a new hire for the company started by my former next door neighbor. The portrait is for his company and we did a bunch of variations that will match up well with our previous photos for them.
The "work" portraits were composed to include from Sam's knees to the top of her head (with some extra room around the edges). One of those poses will eventually be dropped into an urban background and finished as a black and white image. I used the Fuji GFX 50Sii along with the 35-70mm lens for those shots. Then, when we knew we had the required images in the "can", I asked if she had time to do some "just for fun" portraits. I pulled out that 90mm TT Artisan lens I've written about before and put it on the camera in order to both comp a little tighter but also to play a bit more with shallow depth of field.
In all we spent about 50 minutes photographing, chatting, laughing and then photographing some more. It was a very relaxed set. I'm happy with the early images; the ones we'll use for the website and other corporate collateral, but I'm especially happy with the closer photos. The 90mm lens has its shortcomings but if you take your time with it and nail the focus it can deliver very beautiful images.
The camera was set for ISO 640, the shutter speed was 1/640 and the aperture was f2.5. Dicey to shoot that wide open when you are operating close in because the depth of field is so shallow that slight movements of the subject can put the eyes out of focus. You have to be prepared to shoot a lot in order to throw away the misses and still have something fun to show.
I used three Nanlite FS-300 LED lights. Two on the white background and one in the aforementioned, giant umbrella. The umbrella main light was about four feet from Sam's face. I also used a white reflector panel to the opposite side to put some needed fill into the shadow side of her face.
The studio door was wide open to let in warm air. The weather here is pretty much perfect. Sunny and warm with a soft breeze. Everything was so laid back today. A nice way to work. Just thought I'd share a contemporaneous photo. I don't always have the chance.
variation:
Sam. ©2024 Kirk Tuck
3 comments:
um. amazing! Thanks for sharing.
R.A.
I was pondering an umbrella to go with my ridiculously powerful new LED, well it's 200w which is maybe in the middle for smaller budget lights, still very bright, makes a burning smell after it's been on a few minutes, I've been wondering if I can achieve a 90 degree bounce for lighting products from overhead without putting the LED overhead on a boom, I think the stand I have would take the LED on it's own but not the boom and counterweight as well
Did you use the same lens for both images? I'm noticing a color difference between them. Both beautiful, of course.
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