You saw in yesterday’s post that I was having some fun with the camera. Well, yes, and that continued. Here’s the last picture I took. Someone challenged me to take one with two of me.

I call this one “HE did it!!”….:

This was in response to a forum challenge. Now, you need to know I do not have Photoshop. So I had to do this ion camera – and fortunately the 1Dx has this functionality, to make one RAW image in camera out of two pictures.

So what do I need to do this? In camera or in Photoshop?

In Photoshop I can use masks, layers, you name it. But in Lightroom I need to do the following:

1. Tell the camera I am about to make such a double exposure.
2. Take a self portrait as per yesterday’s instructions. Keep me on the left, but make sure the right is entirely dar (100 ISO, 1/125th sec, f/8). To make sure no light spills over, feather the softbox (point it away from the wall).
3. Do the same on the other side (move the light, of course).
4. Wait a few seconds
5. Done.

If I overlap, or I get light on the wrong side, bad things happen:

Each half needs the other half to be dark, like so:

…because when you do it that way, it’s easy, and you can do it in camera.

So to do that, to get those dark backgrounds, you do the following:

1. Make sure the settings are right for a dark ambient exposure (as above);
2. Make sure the background is in fact dark and non reflective;
3. Ensure that you are as far away from it if possible;
4. Feather the flash away from said wall.
5. Have the flash close to the subject (inverse square law applies!)

And then, it’s simple. The entire thing took but a minute or two. OK, five.