Lessons

Lesson Info

Group Shots

Like to collect props, those I've had a lot of friends there in theatre and I get things from them. I get things from thrift stores, garage sales and the like, and they're just stuff around to make people feel comfortable, you know, I have they can pick up props and play with them, I don't always use them in the shots as I was saying, you know, you don't want to have the same props in every shot and rather someone brought some props with them if they wanted to do a shot that involves props, but anyway, we just have lots of fun things around here. We're talking about saving money, we can stretch money here uh, so mannequins for lighting test in the middle of the night you get let me try something so we can come pull them out some old cameras might none of them work, but, you know, it's just things that I've had around here. Um, see, we talked about having these cubbyholes to to store props in gear so that's, this is basically my world when I'm not at work, I do most of you are some of y...

ou know, I do a full time job, too, so this is more of a hobby for me and now and teaching and working with creative live on different things, so for the rest of the afternoon we're going to start setting up white seamless a full white seamless shot we're going to try to get five or six people and maybe even myself into it so I think there folks ray and kenny are going to ask me some questions while I'm setting up here and I probably asked him to come help with this a little bit we're going to change out quite a bit here and you'll be able to see everything we're doing I hope so come on in all right here's a good spot for us yeah I'm gonna slide this role of seamless out that way so I could get the pole pole into it so all right, well, people are really digging your house john so thank you. Thank him too a big part of this so let's see if you kill someone can lift that role wait here we go. Okay, now I'm gonna try to come in here without killing me just that up into that one that part's up we're going to pull that out in a few minutes I'm going to change some lights around here uh we're gonna go to the bigger soft later we talked about the forty six inch before now I'm going to get the sixty inch one out that's down here the diffuser for it so this is going to take a few minutes to to set up so you go ahead and ask me some questions when we're doing this. All right? Obviously, uh, talk us through what you're doing. Yeah, well, here I'm setting up the sixty inch soft lighter like the forty six inch it has this diffuser that goes over the front of it. John fabio zin hot ate greg uh, mac from austin, texas wants to know if you ever shoot portrait's with the tilt shift. Linds I've only done it once. I refused the ninety millimeter till shift, but going like two to the soft, the soft focus thing we talked about before I haven't done a lot of it, I think it's something interesting and worth worth pursuing, but it's not something I've done a lot. What with cool. We'll keep going. Keep going here. It seems like it takes a few minutes to set up it's not much different than setting up a soft box and fighting with the arms in there too. So when you are going, when you're going elsewhere the home studio this was a question from earlier have time do you allow for set up? So you're going teo somebody's office to go do cem, I could be shot, yeah, I could be set up in twenty minutes to get to a half hour this is basically it does this put this on put this on the stand put a you know phil card on the other side possibly a second light like this and you know there's ten ten, fifteen minutes to a test shot five minutes there and then we're ready to bring the person and so it could be done pretty quickly practice practice practice so I'm gonna move this camera into the other room so I don't know get down is um kathy reyes wondering what is your other career uh I work for a software company uh some of you may have heard of it uh called adobe systems they have an office here in fremont about six blocks from my house so I've got this really tough commute there and there I work on community forums and community helping learning been doing that seventeen years as of yesterday what do they give you an adobe when you worked there for seventeen years what do they give me? Yeah, I don't know. They keep paying me no but that's that's great. And so just a reminder for people uh that we create live now as a forum and since john is a very active form guy uh he is going to be continuing on the conversation has been for a while uh in that form chat room uh for his court so after today feel free to continue to ask john questions please this is a dangerous part of setting up trying not to break things around the house with a big umbrella hey john randy oh is wondering if that is a silver or white umbrella it's white white interior er the big soft lighter only comes in white the smaller ones do come with interchangeable panels that you can put in I think gold and silver but I've never used him so I can't answer most questions about them so what we're doing here isn't getting set up we're going to set up the white seamless going this way and shoot from inside the other room so we're not going over all the glasses so john just it'sa reminder people for people uh we are you are setting up for a group shot, right? This is gonna be a cz many of us here that we can fit into this today I think that's about probably six or seven, six or seven uh but what's the most people you shot in here and here five I think five so we're going to go for the record we are book of world records carnage ella records and clock isn't real here, so I'm going to move it out of the way sandra from kansas are sorry from kentucky would like to know could that umbrella that you're working now b a d I y with a golf umbrella I imagine so if you could make if it was a clean white uh you wouldn't have this diffusion screen though that goes over it. Uh so I mean it's always worth trying something, do you d I y do it yourself, but anyway, uh, that's gonna be this light in here? Hey, john, this is wondering how you got into this in the first place into what is this photography thing with me high school taking pictures from newspapers and things like that? Um and then I it took a couple of classes in photography and that's part of a liberal lords, uh, college and then I would have got a job in a photo studio in new york in a catalogue studio and then went out on my own for a while and then quit, discovered computers and desktop publishing and type setting for a while and then got hired by adobe and then digital came out and get back into photography again. So right on a story. Yeah. Uh I'm gonna need another late stand out here. Hello kind of heavy duty stand. We're gonna use the big umbrella again. So set it up here. I've already got a lamp head you're going to have to get a power pack for this and an umbrella and try not to break anything in this room and we're going to sort of an extreme here uh is not gonna be a typical everyday living room photo shoot but that's because we're going for the girls for the part of a cello record here, huh? Okay, you'll raise octa banks, john I don't own one, but they're very similar to these uh, sort of call the soft lighter um how did I put it in the budget conscious octa bank? I mean, it it has it actually has ten sides too. So it's even a little more round then and up to bank and this size sixty inch soft lighter is probably about a hundred bucks for five foot for a five foot dr banks probably about four hundred. So this is this does almost everything the octo bank does except work as a background you don't want to shoot it into the after bankers your background because you have the head on the outside here, but otherwise it does most of those things pretty well. So jon, do you spend very much time retouching afterwards? I try not to tryto be as clean as possible. Um, so just give me a second here to see how any help you know, so we've got a silver parabolic this one's interesting if you could pick up this difference in the sound of my voice now that I'm standing in this kind of focus is it catch it in there on tighten this up okay what my gut it around the computer so far so good well uh I didn't break anything yet so this is gonna be our fill light that's quite a fella let's get another power pack for that a sea power you can keep asking questions okay san antonio heights is wondering what have you bought that you were all excited about and now you never use oh I don't know it's probably a big list nothing's popping to the top of my mind I tryto think purchases through and use them a lot I've bought a lot of tripe I'd heads over the years that's probably where right I don't like tripods will never like the heads I kind of grew up with the the ones with the levers tilt tilt pan tilt but they tend to be heavy there now we have carbon fibre tripods they had head is heavier than tripod so I don't want to carry it around with me but I'm enjoying this a new one here so this had only had a couple of weeks we'll see how that works out for you so far so good good do you use photo shop for light room light room are you gonna did you download the light room for beta yet I downloaded it last night but I haven't had a chance to really look at it yet why what we've been doing I don't know there was some something going on here today what's how many power packs do you have to uh see where I can get power here what was that one of yours I was just getting some stuff out from the kitchen oh, sorry that's where I keep my gaffer tape is it yeah no well so why do you keep it sure way back around doing all sorts of things and now it's coming back I'm coming back ok no I'm used to having out what's available with all the equipment in here for the broadcast all of a sudden I'm running short on outlets mh picks is wondering how many feet you are working in here from your subject um it looks small I don't know we'll pull out the tape measure you're going to be about where everyone's gonna be here. So let's uh here's the tape measure if you hold onto that what about fifteen feet here so the light is about seventeen feet away you know what? Go a couple people have been asking this uh sofia barrett studios on some people asked when we talked about it a little bit in the beginning but she's from atlanta, georgia do you think that you lose out on business because you're stupid you're studios in your home versus leasing a studio and then maybe even if not for you yeah in the industry I don't know as I said, I know a lot of photographers in seattle area that are moving toward home studios and I haven't heard any complaints about it I'm not really pushing myself as a commercial business some here more having fun working with my friends, teaching people and things like that would've workshops in the late so uh don't african really answer that one? What are you doing? Uh plugging in this way j liar is wondering do you ever use cable released to maintain eye contact with your subjects remote release somewhat, but I want that subject making contact with the lens so you know, on the video I'm often looking off here that's pretty common in video but it still is I usually want to make contact with the audience so through the lens is probably better than being just on the sidelines because you can always tell when the eyes are just slightly off from the camera here I'm looking at his shoulder instead of the camera you can you can see that in my eyes there when I when I do that so I really want them into the lines but I still want to keep a conversation going with him way haven't done that much today because I'm trying to not talk when I don't have to be oh uh so let's see about rolling out some seamless here get up there under the table question while you're doing that is do you ensure your equipment specifically separate from yes, it is separate because I do have a business license and and the like so it has to be through with a separate rider or what they call an inland marine policy but check with your insurance yeah that's I need the legal in business stuff we really can't answer that is going to change dependent on your circumstances and somebody from bristol, tennessee without the diffuser on that umbrella is there another way to soft light? I mean it's it's probably pretty soft as it is come coming out because it's such a big I mean it's a sixty inch umbrella if you're here for the zacarias workshops I mean that's one of his big favorites has been this the sixty inch umbrella we see the scene was used a bit so let it roll up at the bottom. Yeah, just kind of rolled it up as I rolled down. Come come into the middle here, booth it's probably pretty good from today. Clamp that there to keep the role from rolling out. I'm gonna get security here and here is the new peace haven't tried this before to the home improvement store and got this piece of laminated plastic so we're gonna try to put uses of floor so um let's see, we're gonna roll the paper out and you want the shiny side of the top yeah I'm gonna kick my shoes off okay almost made it so stand on here like the rest of us are you know I was just on the people right now so uh I say this is something new I haven't tried before in a number of shots we've done in the studio we've had plexiglass floors or wooden floor let's just pull those wires out of it there were ways we can sew I don't know how it's gonna work out but we're gonna give it a shot I'm gonna actually turn off one of these so we can sort of see what we got going here uh get different lands well maybe this twenty seventy two two hundred might work john how wide is this seamless hundreds of seven inches so eight point nine feet eight point yourself you need to get another john I think we talked on this little while ago as well but just a refresher star picks is wondering is seamless paper better than clock for backdrops just they're different I don't no one's better than the other the seamless paper you know if you're going to use it up we have to keep replacing it more than the cloth uh but but it's a cleaner background usually then cloth doesn't wrinkle nowhere wrinkles you rode away yeah it's just it's just different when we're closer into the seamless without picking up a pattern where cloth you're usually gonna get a pattern but I do have large pieces of muslim to uh the muslims often look like a standard old time portrait studio so sometimes I want to get away from that look so wait camera out right so I get a couple of people onto the set ready and canada start with all the whites go off looks like only this one I need to turn on that power pack out here set in a park eliza to the same channel is the other one so everything fires can you see into their unjust from here a little better uh we could actually sly I'm gonna slide this back towards you a little bit jacob step up for a second yeah you can actually stand on that so get the two of you in there we'll start from there question from focus that close yeah question from carolina is with the two different rooms do you get ever get a shadow from this doorway no she's kind of used that doorway has a gobo to block some lights um ray look up let's see big smiles I'm just guessing at f thirteen there that's not too bad I'm gonna put this tower up a little bit celeste would you like to join in there to try and come on out if you can make it over this stuff I think you and I wanted one more piece of equipment here ravine says uh he or she didn't know it was this much work to set out the good shot well again it's something I'd usually have set up before people came over mama's saying that manual son just joined us and is intrigued by your studio and he's curious what your newest lightest newest light was the um forty six inch soft later as my newest modifier uh newest light ivan strobe lights in awhile so I kind of overlap a little bit with each other come come on behind him and come in there and let's just see if we get four people in there see what happens here I think I've got a train get in a little closer there on seeing the same thing um so let's turn your body so your elbows pointing toward me more there you go into that that's great. So here's one two and three on. So this time I am getting a little shadow from something um maybe move this late oh, this like moved it's not pointing at them down I mean it's a large enough like that I can stand in front of it here on not really get into the shot so jacob was back up a second let's get everyone had eyes at me we were looking looking at maybe one two and three on something didn't fire that time did so remote trigger here I'm gonna plug that into something before about a cable releasing elektronik release hopefully it works ok, I'm at seventy millimeters here the widest this line's goes I'm gonna come in here to just squeeze in between here and sideways and we're all gonna kind of look in there and I see that the umbrella is not quite pointing at me nico can you swing that umbrella a little more yeah there it is you know we could see the light coming right in at us and one two and three and you go what is it on the back of the camera they're popped up on on the screen there so I'm gonna go in and try a couple of adjustments and then I'm gonna bring the camera down a little bit earlier asked about the blinkers I think I'm a blinker so again the material on the floor that you're using in here yeah, well look we'll talk about that in a second look at me normally we wouldn't have all those cables and all in the way on it if you could just remind us in a second what remind us of the different lights that u s o on this one we're using just two lights um in here we have the sixty inch soft lighter too as I'm considering this my main light um we could actually probably bring in a phil card here but I'm using this silver parabolic here to really kick in a lot of phil and sparkle so I'm doing that without the phil right now to try that s so it's just the two lights let's see this one's set at about eight hundred watt seconds with dial down three quarters of a stops so it's almost half power on that and that one is set too aboutthe same so they're about about equal light but this one's got this bright silver reflector on it. So see, if I come in here again between all my pals here kind of lean into each other here that a one, two and three and must have knocked out the remote lowered the camera. Yeah, here it's over here so you could take the nikko is gonna play photographer for us here instead of using the remote so we can all kind of wave in the remote is not working. Just use the shutter on the camera. Great. Thank you. So let's see what comes up here so there's five people in there, um I could go to a slightly wider angle lens and get a little more, but I think this shows you what we can do here. Um, this flooring it's called not sure it's used for beth tub tub surrounds and if you see it's it's flexible so it can be rolled up I had it rolled up for about a week before opening it today, so it did flatten back out, gives a little sheen, and I think you take a little more abuse of walking on then the white paper and, uh, you know, I just gives a little kick back, and I think it worked out pretty well for this and extend. This was a total experiment. I have not tried it before today, so we all got to try it together. So we have some questions about what we've got going here. We certainly dio some water, please dio question from no book is why aren't you meeting? We talked about this earlier, but why are you meeting the background? I noticed that during the matthew jordan smith class, you were doing it all the time on the bathroom. Jordan smith close. We had lights on the background. We don't have any rights on the background here that that lights lighting everything. It is what it is. I mean it or not, it's going to be the same thing where might use the meter here if I wanted to measure like celeste on this and trained on that end, make sure that the light's pretty even there, but in this situation here there are no separate lights on the background we're really working with just used to light so metering wouldn't really do much there. George from clearwater, florida, is wondering what exactly is the purpose of parabolic phil? And aren't you concerned about blocking too much of the light from it? What is it? So break it down into the those two or three ports to what exactly is the purpose of parabolic? Parabolic is sort of off make a more focus, a ble light? Um, parable is this the shape of it? He's here called parabolic? Is that the poor buffs and west cuts? But I don't have really total parabolic shape if you look at something like the wrong color. Para reflector it's, it's, it's, more of a cone shape and it's also six thousand dollars a year less than a hundred dollars each, so, you know, I don't go with the calling a parable because they do, but it does tend to focus the light. You see that one silver? If you turn the cameras on the way, you can't even see that an idea of how it fills with silver there. So it's it's, almost like a ring flash it's, large and soft at the same time, is having a mace edge to it, so yeah, bring some some stuff out here if you want to get a couple of people in here, um, and I think a part of this question was, are and aren't you concerned about blocking too much light from no when I'm standing in front of it? It's, it's, it's so big that it really doesn't. I've never had an issue with that. Some people even do beauty shots that way with the big parabolic behind them when I when I've done that, though, I haven't liked the look in the eye. The pupil instead of being black tends to go white because it gets a full reflection of the light, but sometimes she would see the shadow the photographer in it, which could be interesting or could be negro thing, I don't know. Can you, uh, remind us? Or if you remember how much this twenty twenty two dollars? Uh, yeah, um, I don't remember what she was. One of the home improvement stores chains throughout the country has it? It was just against the back wall where all their other laminates are trying to find the name in the model number on it and posted in the forum. It's flexible and no idea how long it'll last, but you know, it looks like it's working for us today.