…in spite of conventional wisdom. Conventional wisdom has it that the Canon 7D is not the best for high ISO shots. And that you need twice the lens length, so 50mm on a crop camera needs 1/160th second..
So you could not possibly do a shot like this at
Cat, 3200 ISO, f/2, 1/40th sec, Canon 7D, 50mm
Yes you can. Hand held, slight noise reduction applied in Lightroom.
Here’s a picture I just took of my favourite patient model. I used some technique to get that dramatic “Wired” effect:
The way I made this picture:
Camera:
Flash:
Post:
Try it yourself, or come to our two-day Light workshop 10+11 April to learn exactly how to do this.
… so I need to snap a shot:
Canon 7D, Manual, 1/125th sec at f/5.6. Popup flash fires the two speedlites. Main flash is a 430EXon the left fitted with a Honl Gold/Silver (1/2 CTO) reflector; accent/hair light is a Honl flash with a 1/4″ grid. A;B in an 8:1 ratio.
Here’s the workshop I taught last week in Phoenix, AZ, with David Honl, at Studio Moirae in Phoenix, AZ:
I like teaching small, intimate workshops like that, and Studio Moirae was a great environment for this.
So is my country home in 15 acres of Niagara Escarpment land in Mono, Ontario, an hour north of Toronto, where in a week’s time, Joseph Marranca and I are teaching a two-day all-in Weekend Workshop on Advanced Lighting: information here.
Good news: this too will be a small workshop, and there are still several spots available. This will be a very intense two-day workshop where participants will learn about lighting, including:
The emphasis is on doing, not just sitting and learning. A model will be provided to shoot.
The great benefit of these workshops is that they are two days of living, talking, breathing and doing photography. If you are interested and have an SLR and know how to use it, but want to learn contemporary pro lighting, this is your chance. Go to the web page and sign up.
A few months ago, NPAC (the News Photographers Association of Canada) featured me, here. An interview with some front pages like this:
Special to the Oakville Beaver/Michael Willems
But one question I was asked stuck with me. They asked for advice about being a photographer.
To me that is a metaphor for “doing with your life what you want to do with it”. So when I addressed a University of Toronto ball last night as keynote speaker, this is one of the things that came to my mind. Do what you want: try to find a way even when it is difficult.
This is the answer I gave NPAC:
I could sound cliché and say; “Don’t”, or “keep your day job”. But in fact it is the opposite: “go for it” was much better advice. When I went full time into photography I went down in income by, oh, 85%. But I went up in life enjoyment by about 500%. And although I now work 7 days a week (I shoot, and then evenings and weekends I teach, both at Henry’s and at my own outfit, www.cameratraining.ca, where I train pros), at least I can sleep in every day – I get up at 8-8:30 am. When we say things like “don’t”, we need to keep all aspects of the decision in mind. Not just money.
As we approached Phoenix last week, where I was teaching workshops (one with David Honl), I took this:
To do this:
Do all that and you’ll get some cool pictures.
Look at this, from yesterday’s pic:
The Canon 7D can direct other flashes with its popup – unique for Canon, and that is what I was doing in this portrait (the main flash is a 430EX with a Honl reflector).
But when you do this, even when you turn the popup flash off (it only commands the other flashes), there’s a tiny residual glow! Every time. That is the little white dot.
Tip: cover it with your hand when shooting (or use Photoshop).
Here’s an impromptu portrait I took on Tuesday, of a lovely student who kindly volunteered to be the subject, in the Flash for Pros course:
And here’s how I did this:
And how I used those flashes:
Another student that night wrote a blog post, here, where you can see a few pics with some of the modifiers I used.
So it’s actually quite simple: now you go try. It is amazing what you can do in just a few seconds with just a couple of flashes (speedlites) and some small, light, convenient modifiers.
You all know you can sign up to the RSS feed, here?
http://blog.michaelwillems.ca/feed/
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Here’s a quick start tip for using flash indoors.
First, set your camera to:
Now check the light meter in your viewfinder. You want it to read about minus two if you point at a representative part of the room.If it reads higher or lower, adjust aperture and shutter speed until it reads -2. If possible, try to keep the shutter between 1/30th and 1/200th second.
By using this method, your ambient lights shows (avoiding black backgrounds), and it becomes your “fill light”, two stops below the key light. And of course while your ambient is set manually, the flash is still automatic.
And finally: bounce that flash off a wall or ceiling behind you!