Scene lighting technique.

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Nikon D800 f7.1 1/8th ISO100

Good morning, 

Id like to share with you a lighting technique that you can use to light a scene, even when working on your own. 

The above image consists of 21 images, all shot and lit by myself, and i am even in the image, to add some interest. 

I will show you, how i take multiple images, all lit with off camera flash, and then the process i take in photoshop.

Here you can see me using an off camera flash head on a pole, with the trigger in my right hand firing off the flash and camera shutter remotely. 

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The final image is composed of 21 frames. 

The camera was mounted on a tripod. White balance taken off auto, manual settings, and with me using back button focusing on the camera, i know when i press the remote, the camera will not try and focus, making all the images consistent. 

Quick tip, 

Like when making panos, my first image is a large image of me, so i can find the set easily in bridge. 

Also this is a great way to make sure that the flash and camera shutter both fire correctly. 

As when using pocket wizards as the remote, the flash PW has to be set to a channel higher and some times i forget this, and so it is always a good idea to test everything before getting started and walking far into the scene. 

Using bridge i select all the images that i want to use, and from here you can easily load them into photoshop as a single document with 21 layers. 

Now turn off all layers, and starting from the bottom layer i work my way up through the stack, turning on, one layer at a time, changing the blend mode to Lighten. 

With the blend mode on lighten, the flash light will show. 

Also you will see indicated in this image the hot spot of the flash is in the image. This is easy to mask out. Also i remain in the image by some strange artefacts, just simply mask these out. 

After some cleaning and tweaking here is the before and after image.

The before being unlit. 

It is a subtle difference, but one i find takes your images to that next level. 

If you have any questions, feel free to comment and i hope to help. 

Thanks

Lee

Canary Wharf on the river Thames, London

Nikon D800 F14 30seconds 24-70mm@24mm ISO100

Image taken of Canary Wharf, London's financial district at 05:00hrs to catch the sunrise. 

Like with all landscape photographs it is a gamble with the weather. 10 minutes after setting up the fog came in and nothing was to be seen. This was the best frame of the shoot and you can see the clouds coming in. 

Feel free to share this post on your social media, with credit given to www.leeramsden.com

Thanks 

Composite with a snow machine in the garden.

   Nikon D800 f10 1/125th ISO 100

Good morning, hope that you had a good weekend.

This was the set up, pretty straight forward really. Two light sources, both camera left. The elinchrom ranger in a large octa positioned in front of myself, so the light was feathered and soft.

with a bare elinchrom quadra behind back lighting the snow.

With a snow machine you can see on the left of the image.

The image was shot with grey paper background intentionally to aid in the photoshop work afterwards.

Image set up and execution around 45 mins, and all photoshop work an hour and half.

Some times these images can take a lot more, but having the final goal in your mind and through experience you can achieve that goal much quicker and have a nicer final product.

  Nikon D800 f10 1/125th ISO 100

Volvo V50 - play with a car rig.

Nikon D800 f10 1/30th ISO800 (multiple flash exposure)

I know that we are all guilty of this, i purchased some camera kit, and it has just sat there for months unused... (this is just me? - yeah right)

And so it was time to have a play. I purchased some car rig - mounting equipment. For making the movement shots you see in magazines.

Nikon D800 f5 1/13th ISO 800

Here is a final shot, with using a slower shutter speed to give the sense of movement, i would of been blurred in the shot, and so inside the car is a strobe light, set to rear curtain sync to give a pop of light to freeze me, and make me sharper. 

I triggered the camera and flash using pocket wizard 3's. I find these work a treat. I have one in my hand, and when i press the button the camera fires, and the flash. 

Nikon D800 f3.2 1/15th ISO 400

A Shot of the mounting system attached to the bonnet. 

Nikon D800 f5 1/13th ISO800

Added another pole to extend the reach of the camera. I felt the camera was too heavy for this though, as the poles were worryingly bending, and so only a very slow speed was used when driving.

Here is a short Video of the top image, being taken and processed. 

Thanks

Lee

Blackpool on a Shitty Afternoon.

Nikon D800 61sec F14 ISO 100

Hi all and Happy New year.

Apologise for the tittle to this post, but i am climbing the walls to do a shoot and so headed out this afternoon. Not much going on but thought that was kind cool.

Sorry I'm no good at making flamboyant arty titles up like most, there seems to be more thought gone into the title then the image in a lot of cases.

I aim to head up to the lakes at the end of the week if i have not returned to Scotland for my day job.

Hope you are well.

Lee