For a bit of Christmas fun I did a quick photo shoot with the kids and their Christmas Santa hats.
I’d already decided to shoot against a black background to set off the red of the hats. Time was tight but to make it look a bit more festive I decided to hang some fairy lights in the background and shoot wide open to throw them out of focus and make things look a bit more festive.
The setup was as follows:
Nikon D7000 with Nikon 70-200mm (@190mm and f2.8)
Lighting was a single Lencarta Smartflash 200 with 85cm octo soft box. I removed the outer diffusion panel to give it a bit more punch. The room was in total darkness (except the glow from the firy lights) and the Smartflash set on 1/16 power.
The exposure was ¼ sec to pick up enough light from the fairy lights with the smartflash firing to freeze the subject.
Focusing was impossible in the dark so had to be done manually prior to the rooms light being switched out (which would have effected the exposure too much with ISO100 / f2.8 / ¼ sec). This relied on the kids not moving between me focusing, switching the room light out, then taking the shot – virtually impossible but they are just about sharp enough.
Feel free to let me now your thoughts.
2013_12_23KidsFairyLights034 by Tunbridge Wells, on Flickr
2013_12_23KidsFairyLights013 by Tunbridge Wells, on Flickr
I’d already decided to shoot against a black background to set off the red of the hats. Time was tight but to make it look a bit more festive I decided to hang some fairy lights in the background and shoot wide open to throw them out of focus and make things look a bit more festive.
The setup was as follows:
Nikon D7000 with Nikon 70-200mm (@190mm and f2.8)
Lighting was a single Lencarta Smartflash 200 with 85cm octo soft box. I removed the outer diffusion panel to give it a bit more punch. The room was in total darkness (except the glow from the firy lights) and the Smartflash set on 1/16 power.
The exposure was ¼ sec to pick up enough light from the fairy lights with the smartflash firing to freeze the subject.
Focusing was impossible in the dark so had to be done manually prior to the rooms light being switched out (which would have effected the exposure too much with ISO100 / f2.8 / ¼ sec). This relied on the kids not moving between me focusing, switching the room light out, then taking the shot – virtually impossible but they are just about sharp enough.
Feel free to let me now your thoughts.
2013_12_23KidsFairyLights034 by Tunbridge Wells, on Flickr
2013_12_23KidsFairyLights013 by Tunbridge Wells, on Flickr
