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Sigma Demo

What I wanted to do is segment actually offered me to kind of talk about whatever I wanted to talk about because although signal sponsors me, this is the year that I actually use, and they invited me to talk about the blends is that I've been using more often or what becomes most important in my work flow, so I actually want to start off by talking about gear in general, but I am going to jump into two lenses in particular that I found myself reaching into my bag over and over again recently, and I've actually changed I don't know if you guys have the same thing, but what happens to me is I kind of get obsessed with the lens for a little while and I shoot it non stop and then I find a new lens and I switch and so there's actually two lenses right now that I've been shooting non stop, which is the signal twenty four one o five, four o and the seventy, two hundred to eight so jumping ahead just a little bit so let's just take a look inside my bag, all right? So what's in my bag this is w...

hat my bag looks like, I was going to go through a little bit of everything and then of course, jump into those lenses, so to take a look here I use kelly moore it's her thirst release bag and that's my laptop bag and also a lot of times I carried gear in it as a fashion photographer it's also good to be stylish when possible and I just I love the look of that bag and the textures in it what's really nice is I can carry a camera body and then two lenses and I can carry a hard drive as well as my fifteen inch mac look, so a lot of times that bags all I need because I usually just one camera and two lenses can often get me everything I need for a shoot when I have more gear like I'm traveling, I'm taking a flight somewhere I need to carry more than I have this case logic backpack that I take over there I used to have a really big backpack and then I realize they felt like a pack mule and most of the time when I travel extensively, the big things I rent a lot of time, so I'm talking about like lightning and modifiers and a lot of that stuff, so I often try to keep it a little bit later and so honestly, this is most of the time, everything that I carry in my bag all right, so let's, break it down so you can take a little bit of a peek here, so I usually try from taking my backpack over here I tried to take two cannon five d mark three's and that's the camera that I use almost all the time honestly for editorials and for portrait's and for ad campaigns the only time that's a little different is if I may be shooting a huge campaign a big billboard maybe I go ahead and I rent ah phase one the two fifty have been shooting a little bit recently and I rent that from digital transition so I also try to keep my bag light and get specialty things rented when necessary so it's two cannon five five d mark three's that's the camera that I used and let's take a look at the lens is that you'll see in my bag most commonly right now most of the time you're going to see ah fifty one four and in eighty five one four and those are my fast primes because when I go out on location I love shooting narrowed up the field especially since I live in new york city often backgrounds are a little more than distracting like taxicab garbage can like people everywhere so when I have that fifty in the eighty five I can just completely melt the background away like just I just make it disappear by shooting at one point four or two point oh in fact I actually found this magic aperture for those lenses it's my made up thing, but I just shoot at around two point two that tends to be where I shoot my fast glass not in here, but sometimes it also grab the thirty five one point four and these are all signal lenses, and the thirty five is so sharp it is so beautiful. So when I have those fast lenses, I take that on location when I know I want to really blur out the background or when I know I'm shooting and really low light. For example, I did a shoot recently, literally in a cave like almost no light, but I wanted to bring up some ambient light, so I was using that thirty five one point for the entire shoot. Okay, so the two lenses that we'll be talking about today and I'll show you why I've been using them so much are the sigma twenty four one o five, four point. Oh, and the seventy two, two hundred two point eight I have found recently that that has been my one two punch. Like I just take those two lenses and it covers almost everything I need. I really have been using those two lenses more than any of the rest in most of my shoots recently, unless it's specialty, right, like the cave example. Eso we'll drive back into that use a man photo amount because all of my tripods my video gear, my slider, all of that uses men frode amount. So I keep that with me. I thought this was very important. I've got my red lipstick, my red fingernail polish, my red chapstick because in new york, you never know when. Last minute, you know, something's going to call me up and wanna have a meeting to discuss an upcoming shoot or potential client. So I keep some accessories and as well as makeup in my bag so that if I've got to be somewhere and a half hour for a meeting, I can look a little more presentable. So that does actually exist in my bag. Keep a notebook business cards without a doubt I always have in there. How about this funny stuff for here? I use these things that I affectionately call lens flare tools really theirs. They're junk that you put in front of your lens to make blur and lens flare. S oh, these are actually the ones that I keep in my bag. I've got tio there's, snowflake christmas ornaments that I got for, like, four, ninety nine at michael's, racy, more wherever that was, and then a crystal and so what I'll do is ah hold these in front of my lens and it gives me environmental hayes and lens flare and so keep them in there because maybe I'll come across an environment where that fits perfectly so that's always in the side of my bag always carry extra batteries this whole thing is it's filled with a bunch of cf cards I tend to shoot like thirty two gigabytes because I do I shoot a lot like I should a lot so I'm taking a lot of pictures I don't have to be changing my card all the time and eight gigabytes for me I find I'm changing nonstop I go three gigabytes without even thinking about it but when I start getting towards sixty four gigabytes or one hundred twenty eight I'm starting to put my whole shoot on one card all my eggs in one basket so it's why I find myself shooting somewhere around thirty two gigabyte cards most commonly for when I need to augment light I take my photo flash and my odin trigger I've got a passport color checkers so I can make sure that I have the color right in my shots I have my g tech hard drives I've got a tether cord I've got a light meter I've got my spider holster but what you'll see that in a minute and that's what my bag look like like those air my essentials but the things that I want a demo for you and I want you to take a look at I'm actually gonna have a live demo I have a lovely model in a a little bit of a crazy outfit over there, we're going to shoot and talk about two lenses, so again, it's these two lenses right here that I've been shooting non stop so let's, take a look at what those are and why I have been shooting them so much and it's actually been a change in about the last year I used to shot shoot a lot more fast crimes, and now I've been finding myself visiting these lenses over and over again because there are really powerful combo I can get almost everything that I want, because if you think about it here's the lens, kabul, right, I have my twenty four one o five for oh, and my seventy two, two hundred two eight both of these signal lenses, what it allows me to dio is no matter where I am, like at twenty four, I can capture a wide scene, for example, a group shot I can involve the environment, and then a lot of times I don't need to change out of that lens at all, because I can punch all the way up to one o five for a nice mid mid close shot but then if I need a really tight shot or really close up head shot or I need to compress my subject with the background that aiken switch over to the seven to two hundred so a lot of times especially in this studio I don't think I've shot any other lenses in the studio in six or eight months these have been the two lenses that are my go to what it also like about these lenses and is that they are os which is cygnus term for vibration reduction image stabilization we are is an icon isis is cannon os is sigma so what's nice is that if I'm shooting event or in lower light well in lower light there these air to waiting for oh, I don't have like the one four that I was shooting with with the eighty five and fifty but I do have optical stabilization to make sure that those shots are crisp even if I'm shooting slightly longer shutter speeds so let's let's kind of jump into this let's start off with the statement twenty four one o five for a long time sigma didn't actually have this lens and I had never shot it primarily because I saw four o and I was like, well, I like fast lenses, fast lenses or better, which I mean I do love shooting fast lenses, but most of the time when I'm in the studio I'm not shooting at one point four two point eight in fact most of time in the studio I'm shooting an f eleven or faa anyway so the africa doesn't make a difference in what's great is now with twenty four to one o five most of time I don't need to switch and grab another lens aiken to pretty much everything with that vocal range all right, so this is what it's good for fundamentally it's that versatility and so if you're an at an event and you can only take one lens with you this would probably be the lens that I would recommend unless it's super super low light but the reason I'd recommend this lenses I can get my group shots taken get my tight shots I don't have to carry multiple cameras and be switching between different lenses so it gives you a lot of flexibility and it's just really convenient it saves me time too because if you are photographing let's say you're photographing a wedding and you have one camera right and you wanted to get the big shot of the church and then you want to punch in for a close up of somebody you don't have that time to change the lens which is why when I shoot weddings or when I used to shoot weddings I always had two cameras so these are the things that I have found it most useful for weddings, events fashion editorials and times when you just have to have one lands like you need something to be quick to be fast and so I'm going to show you some examples of why this was so important in some recent editorials that I shot and I wanted to give you an idea as well this's the lead image and I'm this is a little bit gere nerdy and then a little bit show and tell I wanted to show some images that I haven't had an opportunity to show here on creative live so this picture for example I am shooting with the twenty four to one o five at four o all the way at twenty four millimeters I don't think that this would have benefited from shooting at one point four or a wider aperture so sometimes I guess what happened is my brain was trained the faster the lens the better but that's not always the case this is just a sharp and it gives me a lot of flexibility this shot if you go into my blood you can actually see a retouch of it yes this is what the dress actually looked like but there's no way that I was going to get those loose of the dress perfect in every shot so I shot a tripod shooting at twenty four and I had my assistants run around and flew for the dresses so that I could capture each piece of fabric perfect and then since I was on a tripod all they did is they let him up in photo shop master race whatever you're more comfortable with and was able to get this shot which I'm very happy with by the way this dress is a dream shoot rentals dress which is a company I started to rent dresses to photographers all right so let's take a look though at one of those things that I was talking about shooting weddings with this particular lens so sigma asked me give this a try give us some feedback try to shoot like a wedding portrait session and let us know what you think so I wanted to share some of the images that resulted from that session so the very first thing that I was a little skeptical about is I'm really used to shooting you know my seventy two two hundred for portrait it's so if I were doing really tight shots how far could that one o five get me and then also what about that four o right I'd like to shoot one four to eight so for oh how what does that really look like in a portrait shot so this when I shoot weddings this is a go to shot that I get I have the bride put her hand on the groom's shoulder and then I focus on the lens on the diamond and then I have them out of focus in the background maybe they're kissing maybe they're looking at each other maybe they're laughing and typically I shoot this with my eighty five one point four and so I wanted to give it a try and I I think that that worked pretty perfectly shooting with the twenty four twenty four to one o five and so I was testing likely let's test these close up shots so here's another shot and if I shot this same thing at, say one point for you wouldn't see the detail of her rings and her fingers it would be even more out of focus, so it actually worked pretty fantastically so here's some other shots I wanted to see how this lens did in a backlit situation because that's something I'm always testing when I want to see if I like a lens if I see a lot of chromatic aberrations meaning those colored lines around edges that's something that I watch out for for lead and then if I see a lot of heavy vignette ing like darkness around the edges that something else that I watch out for. So I was testing this in a backlit situation and it looked great so in this photo it wasn't actually any light on their face there were any reflectors it was there's kind of like off to the side here there was a window and this is actually an amazing location in new york city it's called the metropolitan building it's in long island city and it's crazy because it's a set built for photographers thie out science or all these sets you can shoot and the inside are dozens if not actually hundreds of props and you can pick them and place them on so it's really awesome but along this side there's a window and that's why there's a little bit of light on them but primarily it's a heavily backlit image and I checked and I was very happy with they're not being any dramatic aberrations and I actually had to add lens flare see right here we see the haze is around their faces I liked that like I wanted it to be hazy but because it's a good lens, there wasn't a lot of lens slur so actually added that in post and so I went through and from when I shot a lot of weddings and I still shoot some fashion engagement sessions I went down the line of what I normally shoot and tested out this lens, so I always have her and focus in the foreground him out of focus in the background and that works great and then of course getting wider shot right? We rented this amazing location so you want to include whether it's a church or the venue so I'm shooting everything from, you know, one o five to twenty four and I didn't really see a need to go tighter because it the whole time it's either going to be a decent head shot of her or a shot of the two of them together so going to two hundred seventy two hundred wasn't really necessary so I was really impressed with this lens and that's this was actually the first time I shot it and I then stuck with it that's why I've been shooting it most of the time for all of my studio shoots in fact so you're getting an idea of the type of things that I shot ok? So let's talk about a situation when you cannot change your lens like you seriously cannot so there's there's a couple instances where this might be true maybe you're just trying to carry really light like one lens a camera maybe grill the shooting and you don't want to have a lot of gear have tow haul around but what about an inclement weather situations or in this example I was shooting out in dubai every year the last couple years I have been teaching golf photo plus in dubai and have a conference out there and this year I decided I'm going to shoot in the desert and I shot actually three different shoots out in the desert and the first night I get there I brought the whole camera bag right and I get out and it is so insanely windy that I think pretty much all of you would be horrified to take your gear out there because I've got my cannon five d mark three I've got my twenty more for one o five had a filter on the front of it and I'm just getting blasted with sand, so we'll tell you a couple of tricks that I did to try to protect my gear, but I just want to give you an example so you can tell looking at this video how windy it is on her hair. This is just rob video that one of my assistants got behind the scene I've got the twenty five c that sand rolling over the desert and this is all coming straight at me and my camera, so probably the last thing that I would want to do at this point would be to take my lens off my camera like that's probably going to be a terrible idea the next time out this was I didn't know what to expect. I didn't even think about that the next time out, I did a few things to help me out, but this entire editorial I'm going to show you was shot with the twenty four one o five for oh signal lens because there was no way I was taken that lands off my camera all right? So let's, take a look at what I was able to get so that exact scene that you saw here here is one of the shots that I got, and this just appeared in zinc magazine, and I actually think magazine is in a lot of barnes and nobles across the united states it's really popular, right? So if you look at this kind of shooting a mid length, I wanted to get some environment in the background shooting at four o it doesn't obliterate the background because I didn't travel all the way to dubai to shoot at one point four and have the background here. So I've got my mid shot like we have here, and then I can push it a little bit more eighty seven or twenty five millimeters, so you can kind of compress her with the background because I want to bring this sand dune, make it look closer if I shot it twenty four, it would put some distance between them, and I wanted to actually have that leading line in the background lead, right up to her feet, and by the way, we had to carry aboard with us that we would put so she could be in heels in the sand, so they had to, like, try to cover it up and make it work, but I don't, I don't, I don't think you think about it too much. But of course what I'm shooting an editorial I want close up shots like I you know we have a beautiful model we have nice styling accessories and so you don't want the whole thing to be distant but as I said I wasn't going to change my lens so what could I do? And so both of these are shot at one of five and I'm able to get a pretty nice tight beauty shot without switching over to ah longer lens or switching to and other lands so is happy with that and then of course zooming out even more I can get more dramatic shot because the whole idea is to capture this amazing environment that I'm in so you can see this whole editorial that I shot could all be done with one land so I was very pleased with that also it works well in the studio and so you'll see this as we continue let's take a look these are all images that I haven't shown on creative live yet some kind of excited to share some new things. So for example, in the studio if you look I'm shooting at f nine in both of these so I don't need to shoot at one point for I don't even do that in the studio anyway, but I can shoot in the first to say you know, for the rest of presentation the first set of numbers uh corresponds the left dimension in the bottom to the right, but if you're looking, I mean aiken, go ahead and get full length and a decent close up shot and most the time when I'm doing a fashion editorial, I'm not shooting here like I'm not shooting mid face to below the chin, so I don't I don't need to switch beyond one o five, so I've done a lot of differ and just like that, ok, but that being said, well, the twenty four to one o five has been my go to aa lot recently. There are times when I certainly want to go closer, tighter, more compression and so that's why I keep my seventy two hundred with me as well, I'm going to show you some images, but this would be my go to beauty lens. As a fashion photographer, I'm probably not going to shoot a beauty editorial at one o five it doesn't quite give me the compression that I like in the face it's not doesn't get me tight enough to the face, so at that point I usually shoot with my seventy two hundred, which most portion wedding photographers consider that often ago too. So what I would say in the lineup of why you would want this lens it's great for compression let's say that you have a subject in the foreground and for some reason let's say there's a pond or there's a ditch and there's something in the background you want them to look closer? Well twenty four one o five at one o five a can't quite squish them together close enough with my compression with seventy two, two hundred however at two hundred I can make that background look like it was right beside my subject, so compression is definitely a great reason also to get nice tight beauty shots of a lot of times like that one o five I don't feel comfortable getting any tighter than maybe men body or chest without seventeen, two hundred I can get a nice tight head shot and then again it is flexible cause I've got that seventy two hundred range so it's not that that same thing I have with a fixed linds look with an eighty five for example I have to compose and recompose with my feet, right? I got to move closer or further because it's fixed but because I have a zoom lens, it just gives me a lot more flexibility for working and tighter spaces for getting just the right amount of compression because I can actually zoom with it all right? So needed some of the things that I talked about it's also good for event when your subject is in the distance because obviously you can punch in for, say, in concert or some kind of event like that where you want to get closer to your subject so let's, take a look at some images that I have shot with the seventy, two hundred to eat both of these images are the same girl and I was shooting one day in my studio in the picture on the left is window light and the picture on the right is in the studio and in the last class that I taught here in creative live a total location lighting class and one of the things that I was talking about is three different ways to use window light, and this is actually one of the set ups. If you guys watch that class, you might be familiar with she's sitting in the window is they're going to be the photographer, right? The windows right behind me and I've got the flat on either side of her so it's black foam core with the black foam core does when I surround her with it is that's what carves out her cheekbone and her jaw line, and it kind of shapes her faith, so I knew that in the shot I wantedto have a little bit more compression to her face. I wanted to have a nice, tight shot and actually shot this as a spec ad, which means I shot it, hoping to get an advertiser's attention I thought this is a speck ad shooting this ring in these pieces of jewelry. So anyway, if you look, this is a one hundred twenty eight millimeters and this is at one twelve I just needed to get a little bit closer a little bit more compression that I could get out of that one o five so that's why I switched over to the seventy two hundred here, by the way, for those of you wondering yes, the picture on the right is heavily photo shopped without going into too much. You can actually take strands of hair like extensions and if you hold them under the same light and you photograph them, you can't just cut and paste them and give you that full hair she did actually have extensions in her hair, but that's how it looks so lush like that so cereal and then taking a look here what's nice is that with a seventy, two hundred if I don't want just a super close shot seventy especially if I back up, I can still get mid length the backfire on us I could, you know, even get full length I wanted to so it's not that it has to be just a tight head shot, so when I'm doing a beauty shoot, say like the picture on the left, it usually gives me enough versatility to shoot mid length to really tight head shot and the picture on the right I can pump in even more if I want. And then, you know, here is just another example. Like I love the shot got down really low zoomed into one sixty it's just really nice compression on her face. And if I wanted to know, it means that one sixty eight could actually have cropped in a little bit more. But I chose not to because of those ofsome clavicles like I love the shape on her, her clavicles there. So all of these pictures our images taken with the seventy two, two hundred two eight and so I just kind of did a mash up of different things. But is you can see me, khun, be nice and tight, narrow depth of field. I can kind of zoom back a little bit more to include environment like it is definitely versatile, but I think seventy two hundred I think beauty close up or as I was saying before compression, we'll take a look at that in a second. So here's an editorial that I did that just came out in a magazine called beautiful savage and I just posted this yesterday s o if you look at this, you're looking both of these air shot at the lower end of the compression right seventy eighty millimeters and if you look that's going to allow me to get mid length or even you know three quarter length shots so don't misunderstand it's not like I only shoot it at two hundred four close up shots you know, for a beauty shot I can definitely back up a little bit if you look here I'm shooting both of these air shot this one at two point eight so I can have the background kind of melt away and this is one of those rare instances where I did actually shoot wider open in the studio most of time in the f a f eleven but here I didn't want the background to distract too much, so I turned down the power of my strobe and I shot at two point eight and four point oh all right so here's the example of what I was talking about with compression no, obviously if you're a wedding photographer you can think of an instance where maybe it's the couple and you compress them against the background you make that background look closer because you use a longer lens alright well for me I had a very specific situation where this became super useful so this guy was photographing him and we found this amazing location was really cool but it happened to be a state office building that we didn't have a permit to shoot at, so what we did is we stood him just that sign of where the technical state office building area was, and then I went and I put backed up really, really far, and I kind of hid behind the garbage can then I shot at one hundred forty seven millimeters because what it did is it compressed into the background, so he looked closer, so then there was no hassle we weren't bothering anybody weren't going to get in trouble and were able to get the images that we wanted. So that's, why, yeah, beauty shots, but also compression for something like this, it's definitely a versus allen's gives me a lot of control, so as you can see, like the twenty four one o five super versatile I can shoot events, I can shoot wide shots. I can zoom in close, but if it's not quite enough, I can pop over to that seventy or two hundred, they can compress the subject to the background more I can pop in for a nice, tight beauty shot, so I've got all of that, and so I want to show you some of my most recent work, like I said, a little bit of show and tell, and if anybody has questions at the end, I'm happy to answer whatever they may be, they don't just have to be about these lenses, but maybe there's a particular shot you want to know the lighting or thie concept behind it? I'd be happy to share that as well. So all the images or mostly images I'm going to show you here are pretty new shot within the last few months using this powerful combo so let's talk about the queen of the desert. So this was another shot that I did in dubai, and after that first day when I was getting whipped like absolutely abs abused by that sand, I think actually sand burn. At the end of the first shoot, I decided to be a little bit more prepared this time around, so what I did as I shot with this one two punch combo that twenty four one o five in the seven, two hundred but I kept each one on their own camera body and I would just take one out at a time and it protected my lens a little bit better. So what? I ended up using my legs, my camera a little bit better. I use this thing called the delk in snug it and what it is it's like a I mean it's like a robbery casing for my camera and put it around the outside, if not weatherproof like it's not going to protect it if I drop it in the ocean, for example, but it was at least putting a casing around my camera to try to protect it from a little bit of that sand and the other thing that I had as I had my spider holster, so that what ends up happening a lot of times is if I'm if I don't have a holster, if I don't have something on my side, I take my camera and then like, oh, I need my hands to fix the models dress and I set it down, which certainly is not going to work in the middle of the desert, so I wanted to keep it close by my side, but still be able to use my hands and not have to worry about dropping it in the sand, so I ended up using these things to help me out a little bit. I'm sure you know, people that shoot in inclement situations all the time have a lot of other tricks, but this wasn't what I was able to get out of my bag quickly. All right, so this is just a little video I want to show you to see when you see these shots, every shot was done with all natural light, just the sun I didn't use reflectors, I didn't use diffusers I just pose the model towards the sun, and so as you can see, I'm not afraid of the sand, even though I should be, but I have to get the shot, and I think that's something I've learned is that met my gear are there tools? You know? They're they're helping me captured the image, and if I'm afraid that I might miss that perfect shot, so as you see, unlike was late and sand, I was getting up and down and that's why I did not want to change my lenses too much, and I had one of those little air gun rocket things to try to get the standoff between shots. So here are some of the images that we capture for this editorial, and this will be in the next issue of noise magazine, and if you've got a specialty fashion magazine shop near you, I'm almost guaranteed noise will be there. It's very popular, really beautiful publication eso here's some images, you know, shooting kind of a wider scene so I can have her tower when I get down low this this sander in behind her, and if you could tell this in the video that sandy is huge, it is massive, but I wanted her to command the scene in this particular shot I didn't want her to look overshadowed by the sand dunes so what I ended up doing is getting at this low angle and so of course getting low is going to make her look taller because she's closer to the camera and so I'm able to get these really dramatic scenes and all the poses that I did for these shots I tried to have them somewhat inspired by the sand dunes having curved having her hands mimic the background something to that effect so this is shooting at thirty eight millimeters shouldn't really low and wide just the sun but like I said sometimes that isn't quite enough if you're looking over here this shot I shot with the seventy two hundred which I had on the other camera I had the two cameras one with each land so I didn't have to take them off shooting at two hundred millimeters because she's in roughly the same place she's a little bit closer to that standard in the background but look at the drastic difference here she towers above it and that's just an element in the background whereas here using that long lens the sand dune it looks like it's right behind her it's a nice compressed leading line just kind of knowing more what your focal lengths do and how you can utilize them also knowing here I wanted something a little bit closer but I just shot at seventy millimeters I wasn't going for a head shot so at seventy I still could get a closer shot I'm using the lens that use use for beauty so here's another example of the dramatic dramatic scene this was a lot of fun by the way case anyone's wondering so these are some of the images and then switching over the twenty four one o five at one o five that's the type of compression aiken get which is still pretty good again no reflectors, no diffusers all just the natural light. Okay, so here's another instance of what's more common because I'm not generally shooting in the middle of sand dunes in the middle east that's the left common to my daily routine so this is actually more of what I shoot. I will shoot in the studio I shoot portrait pse and I shoot fashion and do editorials and a lot of times what you need to do is you need to get both wide shots and close up shots because a lot of times maybe it's the wide shot that's going to be the leading shot on the page where they have all of the credits in the title to the story and then let's say this is a portrait they introduced that and then once you come into the story it's going to be a close up shot where you get to see the individual's personality so this shape that I did hear this girl was in america's next top model I don't remember the season maybe season eleven and she became really famous because one of the one of the episodes the episode that she actually lost on was because she was asked to where like but enhancements and a shoot and she said she wouldn't do it because she thought that that wasn't a good was really good message for young women it's not something that she wanted to do she didn't want all to her body in that way and so she actually got kicked out that episode but she gained a lot of following because a lot of people had respect for how she wanted to portray herself so fast forward I was adds a runway show I was shooting a look book for a designer and see what would happen is the models would come off the runway they'd walk over to my set and that I would shoot them and then they'd be done and those images were used for promotional campaigns and just a side note so it's the designer of work with her a lot her name's laurel lux and if anyone saw the nicki minaj's anaconda video which I'm sure most of you did the gold outfit that she's wearing that's that designer and I worked with her all the time she's awesome um anyway so this girl comes off the runway and she stands in front of me and I'm looking at her and she's got like this awesome look and she looks really familiar and I realized it was this girl as marie livingston so let's take a look at this this is how I'm often shooting I'm shooting with this combo twenty four to one o five to get the wider full length shot and then punching tighter with the seventy, two hundred to wait so I could combine it that way. And so this is how an editorial will appear in a magazine this was the cover shoot I did for alchemist magazine recently full length shot with the twenty word of twenty four to one o five punching for the beauty shot with the seventy two, two hundred over and over again so that's why I found these two so powerful is because in the studio I'm not usually shooting wide open and then even when I'm on location I don't especially I want to include the environment I don't want to shoot at one point four so I've been using these over and over again. Another example is I started a personal project recently and I find that what happens is when I'm shooting for clients over and over again I stand to do the same thing like it's not that I get stuck in a rut but I find what's comfortable and I do it over and over and over again but when I'm experimenting and doing something for myself that's what I discover something about my creativity that I never knew before and it's not just about being creative, I can actually turn that into success for my business because I might find new lighting that perfectly applies to a client that I'm trying to reach, or it might be some other cool, creative concept. So by doing things for free for myself, I can definitely turn around and use it for marketing and using and to grow my business. So the personal project I just started, I call it seeing red for right now, I'm hoping to use it for marketing campaigns, and maybe in the end, I'll make a book out of it. But basically the on ly boundaries I gave myself are read lots of red in every way, shape and form, so I shot the other day, I shot some fine art nudes with this theme I did not include those that don't worry, everybody who's there, I got some beauty shots, shots and fashion. And so actually this afternoon, as soon as I'm done here, I'm headed over to this amazing location where all the walls with krilic red everywhere, it's amazing, so it's making we look for location and be inspired to hear some of those images that I've been shooting for this project. And the entire project the only lenses I've used are the twenty four to one or five and seventy two hundred this whole project to just give you an idea this is a shoot that we did last week seventy two hundred for the close up shot twenty four to one o five for the mid length to full length shot and the model that I have here I decided since I'm going to end with this example what kind of smoothly transition and continue this red same so you'll like it lots of red everywhere so here's another example? You know we have our full length shots or we can come into three quarters with that twenty four to one o five it's just so versatile I'm shooting in the studio f eleven here's another shot at seventy four millimeters and this's this designer in germany she was by I think her business names posh fairy tale and chances amazing headpieces so because I was doing this red shoes I reached out to her I reached its designers with red dresses so it kind of forces me teo start making networks and connections with people I had had before so been really great so what we're going to do is we're going to just take a quick look how it would use these lenses like if I was doing a shoot for myself in the studio and I'll talk about the lighting real basically and you're welcome to come out here my lovely model on dh then again, if you have questions, feel free to save them up to the end I'll take whatever you have if you have any but let's take a look at these two lenses okay? So the lens that I have on here right now is the sigma twenty four to one o five if you notice on the side here has the image stabilization on or off in this particular case I don't need it because I'm going to be shooting with studio lighting and my studio light is going to freeze the subject and it's how I have it says that there's not going to be any ambient light so I don't need it to compensate for camera shake like I might in other situations if our shooting slow shutter speed maurine low light so I don't need that in this particular case. Andi what I've got for gear is right now I'm going to be shooting with a pro photo d ones I believe these are the five hundred watts that's what I requested that's what I use in my studio and this is going to be a very like typical setup there have I think now you can see her lovely model with her crazy had season grazie dress I like it um so what I would start off with is my main line is a twenty inch white beauty dish this is the modifier that I use most often I definitely recommend everyone tomorrow afternoon to check into my class it's the last two segments of the day and it's high impact low fuss lighting so what I'll talk about is how use basic modifiers like we have here we have the silver dishes in the back a beauty dish and then we'll also talk about a soft box so you can use three essential modifiers and three lights to do almost like everything you want like there are end with possibilities even if you don't have a lot of gear if you know how to use it so that's what we're talking about tomorrow and you'll hear tomorrow that this is one of the light modifiers I use most often so I'm going to get that said ideally without breaking anything help like for you this okay, I wouldn't turn on the modeling light in the back here and see perfect okay, great and so this is what I'm going to be using to shape her face and this is what I'm going to be doing using to kind of set the drama in the scene but since she's on a black background maybe I want her to pop out a little bit said but I have this to backlight so gonna pop over there and turn those on I mean that cold get good turn my modeling lights on and it sure my modeling lights on so I can see what the light is doing because I don't want those sidelights to kick over and like hit her nose or put a distracting highlight on her face so I'm looking at this one so far and I can see what it does is it separates her out from the background that looks good don't worry this way is not placed yet we're getting there okay and then I know I want to have her separated out on that side as well so when a pop over and turn this light on it's moved up a little okay and dream of modeling that on again all right and what I usually do is I don't turn on my main light until I know if that back lights looking good for me kind of take a half step closer great there and look straight at me good and there's like a little highlight on her nose I don't like so I might just back this up and feather it out just a tiny bit all right cool great all right so that looks good now I need to go ahead and set my main light and what I often will do is we'll take a quick test shot just to see I'm not paying attention this man light to see if those back lights are doing ok continue had just a tiny bit this my good okay so the room light looks ok so let's get this main light all set and I am going to pop over to light room so you can see the tether of exactly what we are shooting all right so great I'm going to get this light set next I'm gonna take this towards you perfect is that yes cold in here but it's cold makes me like energy warming like a sleepy and cuddly yeah no okay perfect eso let me take a quick test and see how this is all going and I'll walk you through all right looks good and let me change my white balance so this is one of those reasons that in my bag something that I always have is that color checker the reason I keep the color checker and the bag is I love you guys can tell this but the picture is a little bit cold it's a little bit blue because what it's reading in this scene is it's reading all that red massive amounts of red and it says ok, well this picture is really warm so what we're going to do is we're going to cool it down so that's why the background is going to look very, very blue in this instance so I'm going to make sure that I either take a picture of my color checker or at least I'll switch over to my flash weight balance okay and eyes about this woman okay it's all good it's perfect okay so yeah you know it's cool all right, so here's what I would do here and be the rundown of what I'm shooting an editorial I get the light all set and then I say ok so if she has a baby she has makeup that's like like glittery or drippy I shoot that first with the seventy two hundred get a tight shot because if it's makeup is bound to get messed up then I'll do that really fast in this situation that's not the case I don't need to do that so what I do is grab my twenty forty one o five and I do a full length shot okay so I'm gonna have to do is I'm gonna have you I have a favorite pose up perfect segway on friday morning I'm teaching ten essential poses real oppose anyone that some kind of name like that watch that friday morning and this is one of my favorite ones ok so we have to do is I'm gonna have you cross your right leg over good and up on your toe with it and arch your back a little bit and lean forward ok, so what it did is I'm going to show you a quick before and after already and keep your hands soft on your hip good I sometimes do this years after okay and I'll go back to what you were good all right, so taking a look at these two? Okay? All right, see how in this one this first post there's there's no curve there's no shape it's just flat up and down whereas in this shot now we've got a lot more shape because I brought this leg over and it gives me a curve here on her lower back and so it gives me a lot more shape so I might start with something like that. So can you go back to that post and I'm going to fix the dress dress flu thing and fixing is super important and you lift up I don't know what hell that is left one. Yeah, thank you. All right, get it nice and fluffy. Perfect getting better. This dress flew fitness ok did so twenty four to one o five I'm gonna actually back up so does the cameras will be able to get me but I'm going to back up and instead of shooting close at twenty four what you could get away with this but what it tends to do is it exaggerates something if you're shooting at twenty four like don't shoot full length here if you don't have to because it's going to just store it will stretch her out at the top and at the bottom and it's going to also make her midsection look larger from shooting here so what's better with the twenty four to one o five if you can back up a little bit and try to zoom in and not really shoot at twenty four so let's susan like good so not sure what? See millimeters is shooting in about sixty thick look ok something like that it's going to be a little more shape can you put both? I know the head we can get and then can you put your shoulders back towards me just a little bit toward towards me good and a pop that he'll like way, way way up perfect and I mean your chest a little bit this way all right so well this something approximately like this this would be my fooling shot with my twenty four one o five pop that back oh bow out the left one right there good and look up to the light good all right so we're full bank shot cool lots of red off guard very fun then I would come in and say ok I got my full length shot let's do something that's like mid length or three quarters this is how tight I can get with the one o five let's see how close I can get I get pretty close I get to hear ok but here's the downside I can get punched in that close but that's not the ideal compression so what I mean by that is even though I'm shooting at one o five I had to get really really close and what it starts to do is it starts to make her face look wider now she has a lovely face so I'm not like super worried about it but with the average portrait subject or when you're trying to get really flattering beauty if I shoot at one o five and just get his closest possible it usually distorts the face a little bit so what I prefer to do is they prefer to switch over to the seventy, two hundred another really important element of that is working space subject to camera working because if I'm right here for my close up sis soup it's like it's really awkward for somebody it feels like you're invading their private space so with the seventy two hundred I can also back off a little bit toe work with my subjects that something I prefer let me get my three quarter length before I move on good looks nice great do well more okay so that shooting at about seventy to get my three quarter length and then I switch over to get my beauty shot with my seventy two hundred again I don't in this instance need toe have my optical stabilization on ok and let's dio I'm gonna shoot the hood off for a second let's tio head straight on to camera get and so from right here I can get that tight headshot except for the blanks I get so like right here I can still get that tight head shot next yeah it's cool it's all good now all right so I'm gonna have you have returned that way a little bit good and can you drop your exactly perfect and I would have you look your eyes up that way great it was a test good head back towards me a tiny bit right there good clothes and I'm going to turn off that back way and I think that should be good one of this thing that I wanted to mention before I wrap this up was that most of the time when I'm shooting I find it really like it's really difficult to have to manage the lenses and not in order put them so almost every shoot that ideo I wear this this is called a spider holster and I really like it because it gives me freedom to move instead of having to have like a strap around my neck which is uncomfortable and burnham's burdensome or what you'll see me do a lot of myself if I don't have it is I'll pick up my camera when I'm done shooting I put it on the floor and then I proceed to step on until my sister told me not to like you'll definitely see me do that a lot so how it works is it just kind of fits on the side and you can lock your camera and like that. So anyway, when we get a couple more clean shots just like this and the reason I turned off the backlight so I didn't quite like the highlight was giving me a look right here again he had street on one more time good, good and we d'oh well more and at seventy I can still get and just loose on that thing that seventy I can still get a three quarter shot so it's like between the two of them wide close beauty I can get everything I need that's why these have been the two lenses that I've used pretty much exclusively for the last like six to eight months so I would definitely take a look at them if you've never tried either one. So I am happy to take any questions that there are if there are any and thank you for being awesome so I know that headpiece is less than comfortable at the moment, okay, cool and also to anybody out there. If you had questions about any images in my presentation, I'm also happy to bring them up. We only have a couple of minutes anyway so it's fine and if anybody wants to keep in contact with me, definitely check out my web site my block in particular throughout a blogged that lindsay out there photography dot com hey, send it from my news list you confined workshops like next year I'm going to go abroad for a long time all these awesome places I've got like singapore and japan and italy in france in london all on my list so if you go to my block you can keep up with that all right? So I'm ready hello? Hi. Come back here with me. Absolutely okay. Questions for lindsay s o money where should I start? Let's see here this is from john cho. This is from d mag. I will be shooting mostly low light dance performances and need the ability to capture sharp, sharp images of fast movements. Do you think the twenty four one five four point would work or do you feel I would need to go with a different lens? Okay, so that gives me a couple questions to ask you for your camera depending what camera you have it's pending how comfortable you are with high I esos because if you want versatility, having a zoom lenses is really important. But how closer people getting to you? Do you actually need to shoot at twenty four millimeters? Are they are they going to come that close? And so that would be great to be able to shoot the twenty four one off one of five but since it that for oh can you bump up your eyes so or are most of these dance performances a little bit further away which is in that case I would say the seventy two, two hundred and then you know you can shoot at two point eight you get that extra stop of light in there and they don't have to quite bump up your eyes so I probably say for you as long as they're not super close, I go for the faster lens and a better camera with higher eso capabilities awesome answer okay, thank you you're welcome all right so this is from a flir city who said those signal lenses are equally sharp whether there made for cannon or nikon cameras or the sharpness varies depending on what which manufacturer the actual body is made it's the same level of sharpness what I would recommend people do as well is if you really want sharpe lenses sigma came out with a new line he was like a year and a half ago and they call it their art siri's and what the whole point of that is they're not making lenses for the amateur. The whole point is it's meant to be super sharp and stand up against any of the competition so that's like their thirty five are there fifty art they had an eighteen to thirty five one eight but that was crop sensor and so I would look more those if you want like insanely sharp lenses but yeah, it doesn't make a difference candor and icon ok, very cool someone had asked this is from murali I have a dx model camera do you still suggest to use either of these lenses? Yeah absolutely okay, sweetie let's see way have so many here dave birch had asked you ever use senna foiled a flag your separation light I dio tomorrow we will have a massive amount of sent a foil uh because that is a nice way to save yourself money and make your lights into its new or barn doors so if you don't know what that is, make sure you watch my class tomorrow afternoon, okay? And then a couple people in including bozeman wanted to know if you could people were confused about the terms compression ok, cool. So they wanted you to go into more depth about that totally can I can I bring you back out here for a second? Okay. And then can I have I need someone to stand behind her? Is there someone here that consent could do you mind? Okay, awesome. All right, so real quick what I'm talking about compression is right now if I shoot at I'm gonna make her head the same size within the frame let me public my life from here as you can see I want to make her head roughly the same size in the frame. It's going great there. Okay, so how they would have you pop behind her for a second? Heather, our producer, we'll get to the set. Awesome. Okay, so you look nice and creepy in the background, okay? You're gonna love this, okay? You're gonna look super duper creepy. I feel like the friend of a creeper in the background. Okay, um actually, we go to the other side, so have a little bit of light on you. Okay? Right there. Great. Okay, so if I right now, I'm shooting at seventy and, well, there's a pop up in a second, but I'm shooting like three quarter length if I know back way up and I filled the frame with her again, it should actually look like and this is like my limited studio space example. So see how heather looked like she moved closer tonight faith there. So watch between these two I filled the frame roughly, but heather moves just a bit closer. What it means is when you're shooting with a longer focal length, it makes it appear as though the subject and close and subject on background or closer together when I get closer here and if I grabbed my twenty four one o five, for example and I shot really wide and you're going to see the background. But if I shot really wide keeping her roughly the same size in the us same amount of her in the frame. Okay, now heather is going to look like she's much further behind and that's me shooting at twenty four. So if you look, neither of them moved with the distance in the relative size of them changes because of compression. So when it matters is when you're on location, if you want the background look closer, you go ahead and use a longer land, so I would use a seventy, two hundred more towards the two hundred end and the other place that it matters if someone's face, because if I photographed her up, really closed with a twenty seven like us twenty four millimeter lens already. I mean the issue let's, try thirty five. Ok, and then I shoot the save up frame at one o five. This is at a case of this was that twenty four and everything kind of stretches out the the headpiece looks closer to the camera. Her face looks a little bit whiter. Where is that? One of five? I just moved a little bit and it compresses everything and it's going to be better, more flattering compression I would probably shoot that, though with seven, two hundred, like even more compression. So it just has to do with how the focal length you use affects the face and the subject. Background. Distance. There's. More technical ways to say than that. But that's the practical way.