Canon 7D: Informal ISO Test (Part 1)

Having shots extensively with the Canon 5Dmk2 and Nikon D700 where I work, I have to say that the 7D does NOT measure up to its full-frame counterparts. I've concluded that the 7D is little bit better than the consumer-level Rebel XSi (an excellent performer) but is a couple of notches down from the almost noise-free images of the 5D and the D700. Well, it does cost $1000US less...

That being said and as a point of reference, I WOULD shoot an outdoor beauty portrait at ISO 800 (1600 if I really have to) with the Canon 7D and not feel bad about it. I am no expert pixel-peeper nor do I want to be but I think the 7D still manages to retain quite a bit of details (notice the veins on the leafs) up to ISO 3200.

But all this is relative and very much subjective. This hardly a scientific test but for my defense, I did shoot all cameras on assignments.

You do have to click on the images below to really see the differences.

Canon 7D, 17-40mm f4L at 40mm, f5.6, shots in RAW, converted to JPEG with Lightroom on the default setting.

ISO 100




ISO 200




ISO 400




ISO 800




ISO 1600




ISO 3200




ISO 6400

One Picture a Day Maybe?

Nikon FM2, NIkkor 28mm f2.8 at f2.8, Fuji Superia 400 Colour Negative film, scanned from a print made on Fuji Crystal paper.

In an effort to make myself shoot more often, I decided to force myself to shoot/upload at least one picture per day and put it on my blog. I won't be rambling much about it. It's going to be just a simple picture with a few words maybe. It doesn't have to be mindblowingly creative, it'll just have to be something. Anything. Now I've tried doing this before but never found enough discipline to see it through. Hopefully this time...

The picture above was taken for a class assignment on depth-of-field.



And this one was a test for the Canon 7D taken in my backyard with a Lensbaby.

Quick Peek at The Canon 7D

Testing the new Canon 7D while eating. Mom is annoyed. ISO 2000, processed for tones and colours. not bad!



















Is that a 70-200mm zoom lens in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?

Well could it be? Why yes it could. The Canon 7D arrived at my door a day late (raining hard in Los Angeles) but here it is and looking very stupid with my very unsexy and leaky Lensbaby.

I bought it mainly for its video capability. For those out there who can't understandably why anyone would want to put video into a dSLR, I have one thing to say: think bigger. Just because YOU won't be using its video capability doesn't mean others won't either!















The fact is, the 7D (along with the 5DMk2) is a relatively inexpensive way for normal people to make film-quality (shallow depth of field, 24p frame rate) videos without breaking the bank (relatively speaking).

Beside, commercial photographers need to know about videos and stay competitive because clients will demand it. It's nice to have a tool that can do both.

And here showing some backside and what a nice backside too!














Stay tuned for more.

Outdoor Portraits: Summer Is Ending Soon

Updated: The Canon 7D will arrive at my door tomorrow! more about it soon

Every year when Fall arrives, I step outside the studio and shoot outdoor. I just love the colours, the mood and the melancholy of the season. I find it so very soothing.

The light is also perfect when rain clouds roll through the sky and it is on such a day that I grabbed the Canon Rebel XSi, my 70-200mm f4L IS (my favorite portrait lens) and asked my friend Mari to help me create some nice pictures. I've always thought that the 70-200mm f4L would be suited for such occasions but by the end of the day, I changed my mind.

One thing about a long telephoto is that you can shoot through objects like leafs and branches and they will fall out of focus without blocking the subject. In this picture, Mari seems like she's inside a dense forest.

(click on the pictures for a bigger version)



This one is a misframed shot that I didn't plan for but rather like. The point of view seems to be from some predator stalking our model in the forest.



And lastly, a regular "show the clothes" shot that you would expect from a magazine spread



All in all, it was a great day. The only downside was throughout the shoot, the 70-200mm f4L struggled big time. All of the shots were taken at ISO 400 at the maximum f4 aperture and my shutter speed hovered between 1/60 - 1/125 in wooded areas. Ok, that's not too bad, the 70-200mm has image stabilization and at 70mm, it should be able to resolve images sharply, right?

Wrong. To get the blurred background at f4, the lens must be racked out around the 150mm range or preferably more. It's also a very long and heavy lens and even with IS on, most of my shots were slightly out of focus due to camera shakes. As a compromise, I shot most of my pictures at slightly less than 100m and blurred the background in Photoshop.

So next time, I think I'll bring my 50mm 1.4 instead and on a cropped-sensor like on the 7D, it should prove to be a good portrait lens. And if I win the lottery, I can buy the 70-200mm f2.8L IS. For now, the 70-200m f4 remains my favorite lens for studio sessions where most the shots are taken at f5.6-f8.0.

Starving Artist's Guide to Studio Portraitures: Double Side Light

The American

There are two things in commercial photography that I consider to be of primal importance: Coolness and Sexyness (C&S).

What you see above is actually yours truly and thus we face our first problem. I ain't cool nor sexy. So how do to make me C&S? put a gun in my hand, slick back the hair, wear some cowboy's shirt, put some sunglasses and voila (ok that did sound terribly cliché but whatever). Actually the most important part of C&S is lighting and nothing scream sexy-killer-badassness as some hot (bright) side lights.

Here's the setup.















Light A and B: in this setup, I consider these our main lights as they are used to define and shape the picture. They are small Sunpak 383 shots against two small reflective white umbrellas that gives us a wide but focused beam of light. They are placed high enough to light the sides of the face but also the hair. Below you can see how they look while the model (Me!) is looking straight at the camera. I also have to mention that I was in a white room with a lot of the spills bouncing around. Were I in a black room, the front of my face would have been much darker.



















There's a quite a bit of smoke in the air as I was burning a cigar to get some smoke for later uses.

Light C: this is an Alienbee 800 with a 20 degree gridspot. Now don't get too excited if you don't have a gridspot. This light is only there as a fill and powered very low. In a pinch you could substitute it with a white bounce card or a DIY light panel.

This is the final picture pre-photoshop.



















Incidentally, C&S is enhanced by adding some political or social messages. Actually it's not but as this was for a class and teachers don't usually appreciate C&S for C&S' sake.

Starving Artist's Guide To Studio Portraiture: Red Hot With Hairlight

Update: I finally got my computer screen properly calibrated and saw how badly over-processed the pictures are. Sorry. I'll update them when someone buys me a Flickr Pro account ;)

Check this out, it's a tiny Olympus FL-36R (R for Radio) flash with built-in optical slave sitting on a cheap Canon monopod which is then attached to a stand with a boom clamp.
















Lately, I've been experimenting with hairlights and putting them up high above the model with the use of the improvised boom arm. The FL-36R was the perfect flash for such purposes as it is lightweight (using only 2 AA batteries) and most importantly, it's able to be wirelessly triggered by its built-in optical slave.

I've also been reading and looking at George Hurrel's body of work. He's quite famous for using very bright, very harsh and very directed hairlight with little regards to spillages or blown highlights. Niiice.



















Photo By George Hurrell, Copyrighted

Ok so here's the setup diagram.














Light A (key): AlienBee AB800 with Photoflex medium softbox (both of which I will review soon). You could, in a pinch, substitute the softbox for a small white DIY panel. This is my main light, the first light to be put down. It's placed high enough to throw a downward nose shadow, this is also known as a loop-light pattern.

Light B (fill): Sunpak 383 shooting against a small white reflective umbrella. This is my fill light, I wanted to brighten up the shadow side just a tad.

Light C (hairlight): Olympus FL-36R on a makeshift boom. It was placed high enough so it would throw a highlight on the model's hair and spill over to shape the model's right shoulder and upper chest.

Light D (background light): Another Sunpak with a red gel to light the black background.

Schweeet!



Here we have the same lighting setup but with a bit less clothing (and it started so innocently).

If you have any questions, please fill free to ask them on the comment session below.

Assignment: Girl Reading Book

(Nikon D700, 35mm 2.0, 1/2000 at f2.0)

I am currently working on an tutorial (maybe video) on outdoor portraiture. In the meantime, I will put this one up and try to analyze what went through my thought process when I shot it. It may be of interest to people who for some strange reasons, are reading this blog and are interested in outdoor portraiture (although, this is not a typical portrait).

This shot was for California State University of Northridge and for a time, it was on their homepage. You can find the article with the picture here.

The assignment was as follow: Take a picture of a student reading the book and the book must be the main focus.

Our location: Starfleet Academy (I'm not kidding)






















More specifically here on top of the stairs (click of the image below for a bigger version)...













It was under broad daylight so a likely location to shoot such assignment was under a shade somewhere and that's where we started to shoot (marked first location above).

1st Attempt













Not a bad . It's a good starting point. I like the warm colour from the book and the cool colour on the girl. Blue and orange are complimentary colours and together they create a very nice contrast. Compositionally, the image is slightly off. There's too much empty space on the right and even more on the left. I also wanted the book to stand out by blurring out the girl.

2nd Attempt













Much better, we eliminated the dead space on the right by moving in and filling the frame with the subject. You can either zoom in or physically move in. Either way will reduce the depth-of-field resulting in the background falling out of focus. Also, the book is positioned on one of the 4 points that make up the Rule of Third. The image was exposed for the background. Were we to expose the image for the girl, the background would have been blown out. And because it was exposed for the background, the subject is too dark.

3rd Attempt













I could have solved the exposure problem by bouncing light onto the model's face. Instead, I decided to move the model to a more suitable location. That is, one where the background was darker both in tone(colour) and in luminance (brightness). The second location proved to be more suitable due to the vegetation in the back versus the white, bright concrete and sky. The exposure was made for the model and everything turned out to be well-balanced except the composition.

4th Attempt



The camera was tilted further creating more dynamic lines, a slight vignette was added during post-processing, the cleavages were burned in to make them less conspicuous (blasphemy!) and that's it.

I hope you guys enjoyed it.

French Bananas

Tech Info: Nikon FM2 with 28mm f2.8 lens at 4.0 or 5.6 (can't remember), Kodak Ektar 100 colour negative film

Shorter after arriving to Paris, I was booked into a small room at a 3-star hotel. It was a nice enough room (no-AC). That is, it's got a bed, it was clean and has a view (a wall) and that's all it's got. This is the "view" from the window. It's not a bad view at all. That is, if your eyes saw things in 28mm. So to "document" my stay, I went and took a few pictures. This is one of them.

I rather like this picture though. As one of my friends put it: "it's busy but balanced" and I totally agree. It's very busy, both in colours and shapes.

The photograph has a strong main point of focus though: the bananas. They are positioned in the foreground at the one of the four points that make the "rule of thirds".

Then we have the background, slightly out of focus but still very distinct. It's got rectangles, triangle, circles but what keeps your eyes from losing themselves in the chaos are the strong lines. They serve to draw the eyes upward into the sky.

Lastly, we have the two main colours in the picture; blue and orange and if you look at them in the colour wheel, you'll find that they are complimentary colours. (they are on opposite sides of the wheel). They also serve to cut the frame almost in half.

Did I think about that when I took the picture? Not at all. But I can pretend that I did.