Ice Cream and Bread Pudding. Sony and LED lights.

I'm so happy I took a refresher course in food photography by buying Nicole S. Young's book on food photography. It was easily my most effective purchase of continuing education in all of 2013. The underlying principles of the craft are pretty much the same as they've been for quite a while but Nicole did a nice job explaining them and reminded me to use certain techniques that just make food look better. The printed book is a whopping $14 on Amazon. And it's useful even for people who don't necessarily shoot food. Just buy it and put it in your library. Pull it out next time you plan on cooking something great and you just want to show off your culinary chops to your friends.

So, why was I re-reading Nicole's book? Because I'm working with a gifted marketing guy on a restaurant project. My part of the project (as I'm sure you've guessed by now) is to make heroic and tasty shots of the food. The image above is one of many we shot last week. Right before my immersion into boots.

This image was lit by two big 1000 LEDs above and behind the food. The two LED panels are scrimmed or modified by a white diffusion panel on a 24 inch by 36 inch frame. They are color corrected with 1/4 minus green gel filters. While they are called minus green filters they are actually magenta. The magenta cancels out the green, hence minus green in the name. I get them at a movie supply house here in Austin called, GEAR.

The backlight is reflected back into the front of the food by two big, white reflectors. The reflectors are used as close to the food as I can get them and still keep them out of the shot.  I love the way the back lighting makes the green mint leaf translucent.

I shot this wonderful combination of ice cream, drizzled caramel and bread pudding in a hurry to I could catch it before it all melted into itself. But at least the melting process was slower than it would have been with tungsten lights. Even the tungsten lights in electronic flash modeling lights.

Before the dish arrived on the table I did a careful custom white balance using a small, collapsible Lastolite gray/white balance target. Getting the color balance nailed down in the shooting process means more consistent files in post production and, by extension, more consistent exposures. Get one of the targets and stick it in your bag. It will improve the technical quality of your work. Really.

I used my Sony a99 camera with the 70-200mm f2.8 G lens to make this image. I used the lens near 180mm and as close as it would focus, cropping a little bit to get the exact composition I wanted.

We wrapped our Austin food shoot around 6pm and I was in San Antonio by 8pm to get ready for the next day's shoot. The economy seems like it's really thawing out. I'm busy and loving it.

Doing my craft with real craft as my subject. Giving it the boot.

Welcome back to the VSL blog. I've been running around Texas for the last three days photographing food and cowboy boots and now I'm back home in the land of perfect swimming pools and heady post production. I thought I'd jump right in and talk about the job photographing cowboy boots, today. You probably know that there are cowboy boots and then there are COWBOY BOOTS. And the difference is pretty wild. 

Most boots are mass produced and aren't really made for the long haul. The advantage the mass produced boots enjoy is that they are cheap to buy. If you have the time, the money and the inclination nothing really compares to a pair of boots that have been created specifically for your feet. You'll want each foot to be exactly measured (most people have one foot that's bigger than the other...or differently shaped) and you'll want your boots hand crafted out of the very best materials. The icing on the cowboy boot cake, at least for Texans of means, is the ability to specify custom designs, colors and materials that make a pair of boots a one of a kind art piece the inspiration for which springs from you.

I spent the last two days at Little's Boots in San Antonio. My mission was to photograph all the different kinds of boots the company makes and has made over the course of the last 100 years. I photographed current designs and historic boots and everything in between. From boots made of cow leather to Nile crocodile to ostrich. Each pair was unique with different hand tooling, designs and intricately cut patterns. 

(note: The boot images I'm sharing here have not been retouched or post processed to completion. You'll see small specular reflections on the boots and tiny flaws on my background that will be excised in the find images....).

Over the course of two days, working with the owner of a very successful San Antonio advertising agency, we photographed nearly eighty pairs of boots, handmade wallets, belts and some boot accessories. We also photographed the craftsmen who make the boots. Most of the men have been with the company for decades. Little's Boots is a family business with three generations  working in the shop and in the showroom. People come from all over the world to buy boots from Little's but they have to be patient...from the time you are measured until the time you get your boots you might have to wait up to six months!

On this particular project I really wanted to work with continuous light. It was be so much easier to see exactly what we got as we shot. My recent experiences with my oldest LED panels led me to know that I'd finally zero'd in both the filtration for the lights, and the best way to do a custom white balance with my Sony a99 camera, in order to get rich, accurate colors every step of the way. I packed two of my 1,000 bulb panels, three of my 500 bulb panels, four of the Fotodiox 312AS panels and a new addition to the studio cool light arsenal, a Fiilex high output par light that's fan cooled and comes with barn doors. It runs off A/C power and uses very large diameter LEDs in a tight pattern to give me the kind of beam spread we used to get out of focusable tungsten fixtures like the Lowell DP lights or the Lowell Pro-Lights. 

I packed ten light stands, a full set of Westcott Fast Flags and frames, three Chimera panels with a selection of diffusers and nets, background stands, my hand painted (and coffee encrusted) background and a hand steamer.

The Think Tank Airport Security rolling case contained the cameras, batteries, lenses and other necessary tools. I took just two cameras, the Sony a99 and the Sony a57. Lenses included the 70-200mm f2.8 G, the Sigma 70mm f2.8 macro, the Sony 24-105mm f3.5 to 4.5, a 35mm, 50mm and 85mm. The two zooms saw all of the action.  And I have to tell you that at f4 to f13 on the big lens everything is Nirvana. Sharp, contrasty and detailed. The shorter zoom has a bit of veiling flare wide open but it clears up one stop down and by the time you get to f8 it's just as good a lens as the big guy.  The Sigma 70 is very, very sharp but I didn't need the close up capability and the flexibility of focal lengths on the big zoom made it my all the time lens for this job.

We arrived at the boot company's spare building at 8:30am on Thurs. and I began hauling all the gear into a temporary studio space. I could have used an assistant but I also have fallen behind on my weight training program so I practiced doing curls with bags full of light stands as I brought them into the space. I did overhead lifts with the sandbags. Everything else I just muscled in as well as I could. You should see me now. Totally ripped. (kidding).

First thing we did was block as much of the windows as we could with two enormous and crazy heavy solid core doors that were hanging around. Then we set up a shooting table and draped the background that I had painted, specifically for this project, over the table, hanging from background stands. Our key light source was a 1K (LED)  and a 500 (LED) aimed down through a silk diffuser stretched onto a Westcott Fast Flags Frame. We used a frame with a black fabric to scrim light off the top part of the background so we'd get a gradation from dark at the top to light at the bottom.

I added a front light as partial fill. It was a 1k (LED) with a layer of ToughSpun diffusion clothes-pinned to the front of the unit. I use the new Fiilex light as a back light or skimming side light in situations where we needed to add a little more detail to dark boots without sacrificing the continuity of our background look. All the lights except the Fiilex were filtered with a 1/4 minus green (magenta) gel. We buy it by the yard now and it's a great correction tool. The Fiilex was tested two days before we packed, has a CRI of 90 and is very close in overall color to the filtered resident panels without needing any filtration whatsoever. 

Since we didn't need to match any existing light sources we didn't need to worry about mismatches and could just go with a good custom white balance. I used a Lastolite Gray Target to white balance with and then modified the WB setting by adding one step of cyan in the WB menu on the Sony. Their cameras are very, very easy to custom white balance and the custom setting can be further tweaked in the menu. All of the product shots were done at my favorite high quality ISO setting: 100.  If you are using a fifteen pound Series 5 Gitzo Studex tripod do you really need anything higher on your ISO dial?  Our basic exposure was f8 at 1/13th of a second.

Sounds slow if you are used to using flash for everything but it seems just right for stationary boots.

In the interest of practicing best technique I used an electronic cable release and I insisted that no one walk on the bouncy pier and beam floor during exposures. You can have the best tripod in the universe but if the floor it's sitting on is bouncy you lose. I shot two frames of every set up as a superstitious ritual. I wanted to ward off the spirits of file corruption... I also lit candles and burned a little sage just for good luck.

Generally the lights stayed in the same spots and we modified our set by changing angles on our diffusion scrims or blocking errant light with our black flags (see behind the scenes images below). The only light that moved around during the times we were shooting all the pairs of boots and single boots was the Fiilex spot light that I just added, with the barn doors pulled in to form a very surgical slice of light. I could position this light to add just enough light to the back boot, in most cases, to give me adequate separation.

One thing I will mention (and I learned this the hard way in the days of film and polaroid) is that the LCD screen on most (all) cameras is not calibrated in any meaningful way. It is contrastier than you think and tends to oversaturated colors due to its more limited (compared to a good monitor) gamut. With this in mind I decided I could save us all a lot of time in post if I brought along a MacBook Pro 15 inch laptop, recently calibrated with a Pantone Spyder, equipped with a matte screen and set up to emulate what we normally see on the screen of our monitors back in the studio. Then, instead of wasting time trying to make the images look good on the camera's LCD (and screwing up the real color, which would add so much wasted time in post....) we did some tests on the first few files and iteratively adjusted color and tone based on seeing the images on the known screen. 

You can shoot tethered with the Sony a99, it comes with the requisite software, but I find tethering a camera, once you have a test and you aren't changing lights, to be a process slowing encumbrance. We tested, nailed our color and then went commando with the camera.

A master craftsman fine tuning a heel.

We started our product photography in the morning on Thurs. and finished shooting products, including belts, wallets and accessories on Friday around noon. Our only break on Thurs. was to go to an amazing BBQ restaurant and meat market in the neighborhood called, Bolner's. I had the best beef rib I have ever eaten in all of my 57 years. Amazing texture and flavor. I will make a pilgrimage back to Bolner's in the very near future. You should go there too. Amazing.

On friday, after shooting the last of the product images we had lunch at a local restaurant called, Nicha's. The enchiladas verdes were really good and the refried beans were so much better than what we get in Austin....

So, after finishing with products and lunch we came back to take available light images in the workshop and the show room. My favorite part, from a photographer's point of view was a room filled with shelves filled with lasts. Every custom boot starts with a custom last. The older ones were carved from wood while the newer ones are done in resin. I could spend a day making art of the old wooden lasts. The hand making of a good wooden last is also one of those vanishing skills.

The "Last" Museum.

On many shoots I don't have the leisure to step back and make a few behind the scenes documentary photos of how we set the lights up. This time I decided to do so to show the many people who e-mail me asking how we actually use the LED lights for product and still life shoots. It's more like lighting for movies than the traditional (short cut) still photography method of blasting everything with one big softbox and then adding some fill cards to the dark areas....

This is my general set up. The two top lights blast through the 24 by 36 inch white scrim over the top of the boots. Just behind the white diffuser is a black blocker that gives a gradient to the background: dark at the top to light at the bottom. It's a way of building contrast between the background and the product.

To the far left you see another 1000 bulb LED light aimed in at the front of the set. It is flagged off so that it doesn't add light into the darker part of the background gradient but it does add shadowless fill light to the front of the boots, helping to even out the top light. Note the orange sandbag that anchors the light stand holding the heavy, top main light. Safety is good.

On the surface of the table are three white cards (one is gray on the side facing the camera....) which also adds light to the dark leather and other materials without adding appreciable light to the background.

This is a closer view taken slightly over to the right of the set compared to the view above. You can see the Fiilex light just to the bottom left of the main top light. It's adding a bit of separation  lighting to the rear boot.  It is also scrimmed with a black blocker to keep light on the boots but off the background. I think the scrims and modifiers are vital to good photographic work. So many people miss the boat by concentrating on the light fixtures (which can, for the most part, be considered interchangeable) and not even considering the critical tools to control and shape the light. Silly economies, I think.

Here's the back of the little Fiilex LED "spot light" that the company sent  me to test. I'll have a more in depth review of it in the next week or so.  It's one of the first LED lights I've used that throws a tight enough spot to be used as a hard light or a controlled beam light. It was incredibly useful.

When the boots switch direction the accent light switches sides. It's there to light up the space between the two boots. 

The a99 is hands down the best production still life digital camera I've ever used. Live view coupled with focus peaking coupled with no vibration means accurately focused images with no camera movement or vibration at all. What that translates into is amazingly detailed images. I'd bet, with the exception of shooting with fast flash to freeze motion, that the actual resolution of this camera rivals the D800 for this kind of work. The flexible rear screen is wonderful for high tripod, high angle work and for sharing real time images with clients.

The exposure tracking between the rear screen and the exposure parameters I see in Lightroom is the best I've seen. I anticipate ordering a second body in the next few weeks as a peer backup. My clients deserve it and as I work more and more with the camera I want to make sure I have no downtime and no down market time (lesser back up) for high dollar assignments.

I don't have cost figures yet from Fiilex on their LEDs but if they are at all reasonable I'm pretty certain, based on their functionality and great color, that I'll want to end up with four of them to use both in still productions and even more so in video production. Used straight (no modifiers) they are hard and bright; used through a one stop silk they are creamy and still have some kick. Add in a fan to cool the semi-conductors for long life and you have one heck of a professional tool set.

If you are serious about good still life then bring your "A" game tripod. It's the foundation for everything else...

The project was a lot of fun and a pretty intensive two days of work. I feel like I've gotten back into photographic shape and I'm ready for more. Hope everyone enjoys the Super Bowl....I'll be out shooting.

Please consider using the Amazon links below and help support the Visual Science Lab. The kid (always) needs new running shoes....

Business Portrait from December.

I had a photographic assignment late last year to make images of a spa out near Lake Travis. We spent a day photographing different services, with models,  as well as interiors and exteriors. It was fun and crazy and I got to work with a bright, young art director named Mary Beth Taylor from one of my favorite insanely creative ad agencies, Clutch Creative. When we wrapped up the main day of shooting we still had one image that we needed to do; the owner, Melissa.

She runs a very high energy business and I wanted to remove her from the day-to-day interruptions and make her portrait here at the studio. We scheduled her portrait for a different day. I set up my usual lighting design for portraits with a large, softlight on the left and a fill diffuser on the right. I used a light gray background. When we finished shooting my regularly planned shots I noticed that the exterior light, coming from my wall of northwest facing windows and gliding through the white diffuser I had been using for fill, was nicer and softer than the lights I'd been using. 

I turned off the big flash but I left on the modeling light for fill. I tried some poses that were out of my normal routine and, when she turned around in the shot above, I loved the feeling of motion and connection. I had Melissa do variations of this pose for a few more shots and then we moved on a tried a few more poses and experimented with looser crops. But this was the image I really wanted that I didn't know I wanted until I saw it. I have yet another resolution for this year: Be open to the available light instead of always lighting everything to death.

I shot this image on my Sony a99 camera attached to the 70-200mm 2.8 G lens. The camera was anchored on my wooden tripod. I shot in raw and processed the image in Lightroom 4.3. The image required me to color correct the side of her face away from the light. The tungsten modeling light made that side too warm. I used an adjustment brush to make my corrections.

I often pine for the 85mm 1.4 Zeiss/Sony lens but images like this serve to remind me that I'll need to end up shooting at more reasonable f-stops like f4 and f5.6 if I want to keep both of my subject's eyes in focus. I really like using the 70-200 on a tripod because it has a mount that takes the weight off the camera and balances out the system. Which the twist of a lock button I can go from horizontal to vertical very easily. The 70-200mm is good at f2.8, better at f4 and wildly excellent at 5.6. It's the right tool for the job, if your job is making portraits in the studio.

Nice to start the year with a portrait I really love. Kind of sets the bar for the year.

blog note: Thanks to all the people who signed up for Wyatt's workshop/road trip/BBQ fest. I predict you will have much fun. I further predict that I'll sneak up and meet everyone for lunch. I'm a sucker for great BBQ and anything photographic...

Also, keep the comments coming. The feedback loop is priceless.