Chiseled Light - Fitness Photoshoot

The new year started off busy for my photography. I had 3 photoshoots within 3 weeks, two were pretty run of the mill portrait shoots. The last was a fitness photoshoot and this was the one I was really looking forward to, it would give me a chance to get more creative with my lighting. Sure you might argue that spending a few hours shooting a beautiful lady doesn't hurt either and you'd be right :)

Initially the woman contacted me through my website inquiring about how much I would charge. After thinking about it for awhile I decided to call her and tell her I would shoot it for free with the caveat that I have creative control and use of the images after (ie "time for cd" essentially). She told me she had started training really hard and even though she was a shy person she wanted to get some photos for herself while she was in peak shape. There is also a magazine called Oxygen in which people can submit photos along with a story of their journey which she was thinking of submitting some photos to. I knew right away that if I was going to do this shoot to the level I wanted to then it would be way above most sane people's budgets. My city isn't exactly flooded with jobs that interest me, a few years ago I decided that if it means shooting for free every once in a while so I can work on shoots I actually like doing then so be it.

Enough about the background, let's talk about the shoot. I had the option to shoot either at her gym or my friend's mixed martial arts gym "Way of the Dragon". Since I'd already shot there before and I knew the owner David Mah would be pretty flexible when it came to shooting times I opted to go there.

The gym is quite large with a lot of open space to work with so I decided I'd setup a roll of white seamless along one wall and then setup later in the middle so the light would fall off and give me a black background. The fitness model had also explained to me that for people who compete there are multiple classes (bodybuilding, figure, fitness, and bikini) and that she would fall into the fitness and bikini classes. In light of this we opted for two wardrobes, one being simple "Under Armour" style workout clothes and the other being a bikini. She had shown me reader submitted images in Oxygen magazine as an example of what she was after, these shots while OK were very even lighting and I didn't feel they were highlighting the toned muscles. I told her we'd start with those and make sure we got some she liked and then venture into more dramatic lighting.

Simple even lighting, two softbox umbrellas at 45° with 1:1 ratio

 We were quickly able to get a variety of shots that looked like they'd be quite at home with the photos she showed me from the magazine. She was quite photogenic so this was easy.

As I eased into more dramatic lighting I simply moved both softbox umbrellas so that each one was on either side of her and shooting directly at her. This starts to highlight the muscles much more clearly, having her turn her head to face one of the softboxes kept the nice soft light on her face.

 Side lighting starts to reveal definition, still at a 1:1 ratio

Next I opted to remove one of the softboxes (camera left) and replace it with a gridded snoot. This yields much more contrast, harsh light coming in from the left and soft light from the right. I cannot remember exact power levels but due to the modifiers it's apples and oranges anyway, since I already had the one softbox dialed in I simply had to tweak the gridded snoot to achieve the light I wanted.

 Gridded snoot on camera left, softbox camera right

As we shot I'd show her a few of the shots and explain what I was trying to accomplish with each lighting change. She was quite amazed at just how drastically a few minor changes could shape and change the resulting image.

Before switching backgrounds I wanted to try out some LED "orbs" I'd ordered from China last year. Initially I'd picked them up for a nude bodyscape shoot I'd had planned but ultimately did not happen due to a family crisis that came up a week before the shoot was scheduled. I had no idea how much light these would provide in front of the camera but I knew I'd be pushing the ISO pretty high. The resulting light was incredibly dim and horribly blue :) Cranking the ISO took care of the first issue, white-balance in Lightroom easily handled the second. Canon is known for poor low light focusing and this was no exception but we managed alright.

No flash, just cheap Chinese LED "orbs" from ebay and ISO 1600

 Before switching wardrobes we made use of some of the gym elements that we had at our disposal. When your subject is in a painful position you have to dial in your light quickly, luckily I only had to get her to do a few takes on the pull up bars :)

 Gridded snoot on camera left, softbox camera right

Next we switched to the middle of the gym and the wardrobe changed to the bikini. My softbox umbrellas were yielding too much spill so I setup my 28" Westcott Apollo which is recessed a bit. There was still a little spill that was lighting up support pillars just faintly but that was easily removed in post.

 No backdrop at all yields a nice deep black. Gridded snoot camera left, Westcott Softbox camera right.

We switched back to the white backdrop and she used some oil to really help add to the muscle definition. In hindsight we should have been using the oil from the start because it really helped. As I was editing I started to tire of the plain white background so I started to include variations with a bit of texture as well.

 Keeping with the harsh light of the gridded snoot on the left and the softbox on the right

One of the magazines she had brought along had an image of a girl posting against a brick wall that she quite liked. I laughed because I had shot a virtually identical shot last year during my downtown "guerrilla style" photoshoot. The gym had a cinderblock wall though with an interesting texture so for fun we recreated the shot from the magazine.

 Textured walls are great when side lit. Solo softbox umbrella camera right.

 The gym we were shooting in also had a boxing ring which I initially planned on making more use of. We'd already been shooting for 2 hours though and we were both getting tired so instead we decided to shoot a few jump rope shots with the ring as the backdrop. We managed to get the timing perfect for a few shots with her up in the air as the rope passed beneath her feet.

 Gridded snoot camera left, softbox camera right

All told I wound up with about 400 images which I then pared down to ~100 for editing. In hindsight doing two backdrops and two wardrobes resulted in just too many images I liked and wanted to see how they'd look finished. Normally I try to limit myself to 30 for editing. In total I spent about 40-50 hours editing and retouching the photos, perhaps in a future post I'll walk through my process and explain that a bit more. 

The model was quite happy with the resulting images and so was I. If she winds up sending some photos into Oxygen and she gets published I'll update this post!

Gear:

Canon 5DMKII

Yong Nuo 460 MKII (x2)

Cactus V5 wireless triggers

Steve Kaiser Softbox Umbrella (x2)

28" Westcott Apollo Softbox

Gridded snoot (homemade)

Updated guide to off-camera flash gear

A few years back I made up a bit of a guide for what you need if you're wanting to start shooting with off-camera flash. Since then new products have came out and prices have changed etc. Recently I was writing up an email to a friend who was facing the same situation, getting started with off-camera flash, and as the email started reaching into novella territory I decided I'd also share the info via a blog post.

I'm not going to go into the specifics of what all of the products do, refer back to my older article here if you want that info.

The main things you'll need are Speedlights (aka the external flashes that mount on your camera), a method of triggering them, stands to hold them, umbrellas or some other light modifier to make the light softer, an umbrella swivel to attach the light modifier to a light stand.

All of this can be purchased for under $250

A quick note about where most of these links go to, a site called DX.com formerly dealextreme.com
I'm in no way affiliated with this company and don't receive any kickbacks or anything for promoting them. Though in hindsight I damn well should lol, I buy way too much from them and have turned dozens of people on to their site :) A quick note about ordering from them, they offer free shipping but it takes awhile. In Canada I'd say bank on 1 month between ordering and receiving your package give or take a week, sometimes items are back-ordered and can take longer.

Flash/Speedlights
The first flash I bought was the Canon 580EXII and paid around $600 for it, in hindsight this was one of the biggest wastes of money I've ever made in my photography career. All of the automated ETTL bells and whistles that adjust the flash power automatically are only needed if you're shooting on the fly like a journalist or paparazzi. For posed photography all you need is manual control, which can be had for much much less.

Yong Nuo 460 Mark II $45each (I recommend buying 2)
Best bang for your buck EVER! Decent amount of flash power, built in optical slave, manual control. I have 6 of these :) Also they have plenty of room inside if you want to mod it and add a 1/8th jack.

Yong Nuo 565EX 2.0 $150
If you think you'll really need the automated stuff (ie Canon's ETTL) check out the YN565 (note this is a Canon only model) as a budget alternative to the real Canon 580EXII. I haven't used this myself but the reviews are favourable. I'm pretty sure they make versions for each of the major camera manufacturers like Canon/Nikon/Sony.

Wireless Triggers:
There are now a wide range of budget triggers on the market, I'll recommend 3 different ones and for different reasons. Pocket Wizards are still the "gold standard" in the industry but I simply could never justify the purchase when I could buy multiple sets of budget triggers for the price of 1 PW transceiver and have never had any reliability issues with the budget ones.

PT-04 (~$20 for 1tx 1rx)
These were the first triggers I bought, at ~$20 for a transmitter/receiver pair I wound up buying 4 sets eventually just for redundancy. I also modded them to accept a 1/8th stereo jack to go along with my modded Yong Nuo 460 flashes above. These are sold under a whole host of different names like Jiansi, Fotga, and recently Blazzeo. The only con is that the transmitter takes a more obscure CR2 battery, but these can be found on the dealextreme website for ~$5 for a 5 pack. Here is a link to the triggers on DX but check ebay too, the ones I got were from ebay and had a PC sync socket on the side which is a nice addition. Another con with these triggers is that the receiver is situated vertically so if installed in a hotshoe and a flash is placed on top it is very unbalanced (which is why I modded mine to accept 1/8 jacks).

Yong Nuo RF-602 triggers
I have not used these but have heard about them on various forums etc, I think they could possibly be the same circuit or design at least as the PT-04's but with the advantage of fitting horizontally when installed on a light stand. For these I recommend checking ebay for a set that has 1 transmitter and at least 2 receivers (at time of writing a bundle like this is ~$42). DX does sell them but only in pairs with 1 transmitter and 1 receiver. Like the PT-04's you'll need these CR2 batteries for the transmitter.

Cactus V5's
For a little more money you can get a bit of a more reputable name with the Cactus V5 triggers sold at gadget infinity. Each of these have the ability to function as a transmitter or receiver, extra cables can be purchased to fit a whole host of cameras (Canon/Nikon/Sony/Olympus/Panasonic) so that they can be used as remote shutter releases. Note that these cables are not required if simply using them as flash triggers.

Light Stands ~$75 for 2
Again its ebay to the rescue, because of this I don't really want to link to a listing that will be outdated right away. These range in price and quality, on average though I found sets of 2 on ebay that were listed for a total of $75 with shipping included (often the item was less than the shipping price but that's a common ebay trick anyway). Check your local camera shop just to be safe anyway, here however you're looking at $75 each and up so its better to shop online. You may also find bundled kits which include the stands, umbrellas or softboxes, and umbrella swivels.

Light Modifiers
Shoot-thru umbrellas $6.62
Hands down the cheapest I've seen are these on DX.com, I'm pretty sure they are the same ones I bought way back when and mine are still holding up. All umbrellas are somewhat fragile even the pro ones so as long as you take care of them they'll last. Shoot-thru umbrellas are often preferred to reflective umbrellas because you can get them much closer to the subject (without jabbing them in the eye with the umbrella shaft of a reflective umbrella). As strobist.com has taught us the closer you get the light source to the subject the larger that apparent light source becomes and the softer the light will be.

Umbrella Softboxes ~$35 with shipping
I wrote a post about the ones I bought from Steve Kaeser's store a few years back, I still use these often and they're great. The have more spill than a softbox with a recessed light panel but less than a shoot-thru umbrella would. I looked at the Steve Kaeser store and could no longer find them, I did however find ebay listings and that's where I got the price from.

Westcott Apollo 28" Softbox $129.99
This doesn't really fall into the budget category but I'd recommend using some of your early photography profits to buy one. I've used mine on countless shoots and its basically my go-to modifier. Zach Arias showcases it a little in his Onelight DVD seminar which I highly recommend checking out as well.

Umbrella Swivels
Once you have umbrellas, lightstands, and flashes, you'll need some way of attaching them all together. There are tons of different swivels but here are some from Dealextreme that I either own or are similar enough to ones I own. 

Cheap yet sturdy umbrella swivel $8.07
This will do the trick provided you have actual light stands and are not using tripods.

Slightly less cheap but more versatile swivel $11.40
This swivel includes a 1/4" insert allowing you to use it both with a standard light stand post or with a tripod.

Assuming you buy the following items, it comes to ~$242.18 CDN

YongNuo Flash x2 ($90)

Wireless Triggers - RF602 ($~42)

Spare Batteries for above triggers ($5.80)

Light Stands x2 ($75)

Shoot-Thru Umbrella x2 ($13.24)

Umbrella Swivel x2 (the cheaper ones $16.14) 

Optional extras you might find useful

Studio Grey Card/Focusing Screen $9.93

These are used to give your editing software a reference for white balance, shoot one photo with the subject holding it and then when editing say in Adobe Lightroom you can just click on it with the dropper tool and it'll adjust the white balance automatically. You need to use it every time you change lighting conditions (moving from open sunlit area to say shaded tree etc).

Bounce Reflector $13.97
Great for outdoor available light work but also handy when using lighting.

AA Battery holders $2.36

Once you start using flashes you'll need to have batteries on hand for them, I found these cases are great for carrying them.

Lenspen $2.89

If you don't already have one of these you absolutely need one, the name brand ones run about $12.

Quickstrap $16.60

Its basically a Black Rapid clone, but a clone that is about 20% the price! Once you use this style of strap you won't ever use a standard strap again. At first glance the way that the camera mounts to the strap doesn't appear as elegant as the Black Rapid method, however in real-world use I find its better because the camera can be mounted to a tripod still without having to remove the strap. It also comes in a double version if you have two cameras.

Recommended tutorials/DVD workshops:

Onelight by Zach Arias
Great on location shoots with walkthroughs. The strobist dvds below are amazing as well but I found Zach's style of shooting and the location type work that he did resonated with me more than David Hobby's stuff. If you can afford only one I'd recommend this one, especially if you're just starting out and only have "one" light :)

Strobist - The Blog

This is basically the main resource I used to teach myself off-camera lighting, all the info is free you just have to do a lot of reading :) Go through the Lighting 101 series first.

Strobist DVD

All of the info the blog's "Lighting 101" series has to offer but presented visually. Some of the concepts are much easier to see than to read so this might be a good option.

Strobist - Lighting in Layers DVD

The follow up to the first DVD listed

Hope this helps some of you and ideally saves you from wasting money on stuff you don't really need so you can put it to better use like buying Prime Lenses.

Surreal Infrared

Near Petrofka bridge on the way to Blaine Lake Saskatchewan

A little while back I snuck away for the day, grabbed my newly IR converted 10D, and hit the road with a friend to shoot some of cool views my Saskatchewan backyard has to offer. In my last post I talked mainly about the neat little pinhole camera I also took along but since I hadn't finished editing my IR shots I split it up into two posts. This is the second one.

For those who live elsewhere and aren't familiar with Saskatchewan, it's in a word ... huge. You could fit the entire UK within the province of Saskatchewan... twice over... and then some. Needless to say I've lived here all of my 30+ years and still have lots of different places I want to check out. One of those places I was able to check off my list during this trip, that was Saskatchewan's biggest tree (allegedly) but we'll get to that in a bit.

First and primary stop was the crooked trees, a very popular off-the-beaten-path attraction.

The Crooked Trees aka The Crooked Bush aka The Crooked Trees of Alticane

I encourage everyone that lives in or is travelling through Saskatchewan to try and visit these at some point. With how surreal they look under normal conditions I knew that as soon as I had a chance I was going to get some infrared photos of them. The results look like a fairytale.

If you stare long enough the tree on the right looks like a person

 

My good friend and flip-flop destroyer (thanks for driving Jackie!)

Just before we got to the crooked trees we had to stop in Hafford SK which is on the way. My friend's flipflop had broken so we were hoping to find a suitable replacement for her at the general store. The store had a "back in 10 minutes" sign up so we stopped by The Sword And Chalice restaurant next door, a very unique little restaurant with a reputation for good food of epic proportions. I suggest making a day trip of it and stopping by for lunch. Unfortunately while Hafford may have aweome Ukrainian street signs and a restaurant that serves a 16lb burger they do not sell flipflops. The search continued.

Crooked Trees directions (from Saskatoon): Head out highway 16, go past Langham and Borden, at Radisson turn north onto highway 340. Follow 340 until you reach Hafford, you'll know it by the street signs that are in both English and Ukrainian. Exit Hafford westbound on highway 40, at "Flint Road" turn right, there should also be a sign saying "Crooked Bush". Drive 16.5km north (seriously make note of your odometer) then turn right and go 2.5km east (there is a very tiny white sign at this turn). 

Initially our trip was only supposed to be the crooked trees but my friend hadn't seen the half buried trucks or Saskatchewan's biggest tree so we decided to keep exploring. Heading back on highway 40 we drove through Hafford and kept going to Blaine Lake, a town which I might add sells some very sturdy and reasonably priced flip-flops. With the footware situation fixed we exited Blaine Lake heading south on highway 12. Look for a sign on your left that says "Doukhobor Caves" and turn there onto Tree Road. You still have to drive for a bit but there are signs that will guide you, eventually you'll come upon this:

Saskatchewan's Biggest Tree Near Blaine Lake SK

I really kicked myself after for not getting one shot with someone or something in the frame to give a sense of scale. The circumference of the tree is ~5m (just over 16ft for you Americans) and it is apparently a cottonwood/balsam poplar hybrid. Earlier I referred to it as Saskatchewan's biggest tree with allegedly in brackets, that's because we have a boatload of trees and some pretty remote areas. Until someone contests the title though this is Saskatchewan's largest tree. 

In all honesty we actually drove right past Tree Road and wound up stopping at the Petrofka Bridge Orchard to ask directions. We came out with directions, picked carrots, jams etc. I highly recommend stopping in, whether its for directions or not. We also ran into some people that we'd ran into earlier at the crooked trees, for such a huge province its amazing how small it can get some days.

Back on highway 12 heading south, just after you cross the North Saskatchewan River you'll find the Blacktop Diner/Olive Tree Restaurant which is home to the half buried trucks. There should be a more grandiose name for them but there isn't. 

 Blacktop Diner by day, authentic Greek restaurant Olive Tree by night

I'd shot these trucks in the past but thought they might look pretty cool in infrared.

They also had a cool non-buried truck on their property. 

This trip proved to be one of my only summer getaways this vacation but it was definitely one of the highlights of my summer. If you're in the area be sure to check some of them out.

If you'd like to see all the shots from this trip and more of my Saskatchewan Scenes you can view them here.

Old school pinhole fun

My customized Dippold pinhole camera

Earlier this year I promised myself I would not let yet another worldwide pinhole day (Apr 29 2012) pass me by. I was on track and managed to get two Dippold pinhole cameras made, however life managed to get in the way yet again and it wasn't until my summer holidays that I was able to take them out for some homemade fun.

Lets back up a little, years ago I had made the Dirkon which is another paper camera and it was really fun to put together. I can't remember why but I didn't have the best luck with it image wise, if I remember correctly the photos came out really blurry. I'm sure that was my fault in either user error or a construction error so don't write off the Dirkon prematurely. My Dirkon still resides in my display case because I did put a lot of time into building it. Given my prior issues and the desire to try something new I thought I'd try the Dippold version instead, it was quite easy to make and I even took it one step further by designing my own "skin" which will hopefully soon be available here or here (its the Pinstamatic skin).
Update: For the time being I'm hosting the skin on my dropbox account, grab yours here. Note: It was hard to fit it all on one sheet so some of the tabs to wrap around and glue are a bit small, the extra "leather" is provided so you can extend the tabs if needed.

One of the most crucial aspects to any pinhole camera is the pinhole itself. I made my own from brass shim stock and a pin. You'll need a very sharp pin and some fine grit sandpaper, 400 or higher should do. For my pin I used a long and narrow bulletin board pushpin (not the short fat style). There are various techniques online but here is what I found worked best for creating very tiny pinholes (I managed to get as small as a 0.14mm pinhole). The trick is you don't actually push all the way through, you press gently and essentially only form a tiny sharp little dent. Then you flip it over and sand the little bump away, flip it over and repeat until you finally break through.This method may be a bit tedious but its the only way I've found to get a very small hole that is very round and free of burrs.

Another solution for those less inclined to DIY is to purchase electron microscope aperture grids which are extremely precise and come in a variety of sizes (listed in microns). Here's a site that stocks them (you'll want the single hole version) but they come in a pack of 100 for ~$26. The Dippold design needs 200 micron apertures and the Dirkon needs 300 micron. Get a few friends and split an order and have enough to last you a lifetime :) I've yet to try these so if anyone does let me know in the comments section and post a link to your pics!

Measuring pinholes that are down to 0.2mm is a bit tricky. Luckily you can get a decent enough measurement by photographing your pinhole beside a ruler using any decent point & shoot camera in macro mode. Once you have the image, crop from the center of each of the mm markings on either side of your pinhole. Next use the measurement tool in either Photoshop or GIMP to determine how many pixels between mm markings and how many pixels across your pinhole is, divide the pinhole width in pixels by the overall width and there is your size in mm.

 

This pinhole worked out to about 0.32mm

As I wrote the above I realized that I had made a mistake with my pinhole size, initially I planned on making the Dirkon which required a 0.3mm pinhole so that's the size I made them. Later, due to time constraints, I opted to make the Dippold instead which is a lot simpler in its construction but needed 0.2mm pinholes. I'm not sure how much of a difference this made in the final image quality but I might have been able to get a bit sharper images had I used 0.2mm pinholes.

A pinhole image of the crooked trees near Hafford Saskatchewan (~3-4 second exposure, ISO400).

Enough about construction, more about the actual shoot...

With the last weekend of my holidays approaching I realized if I didn't squeeze a photoshoot in soon I wasn't going to get a chance. My last post was about newly IR converted Canon 10D from lifepixel.com,  aside from a quick "does this really work" shoot I hadn't had time to play with it. I texted a friend quickly to see if she was down for a road trip later in the week and the plans were laid. Initially when I'd made the two pinhole cameras for world pinhole day the second one was intended for her but both of our lives quickly became insanely busy so the sat unused.

My SK roadtrip buddy :)

One addition I'd made to the Dippold was to glue a 1/4 nut onto the bottom for attaching a tripod. My fellow pinholer however decided she wanted to use trees or the ground to brace her shots so we removed her mount. Without the tripod her results were a little more abstract but that's what pinhole is all about. For most people pinhole is about having fun and being artistic, not tack-sharp images and precision (unless by chance you have one of these).

A shot of me setting up for the first image in this post. Photo by Jackie Kripki

The trip was really fun, met some cool people and saw some interesting stuff along the way. My next post will have more pics from these sweet surreal locations and in infrared!

Canon 10D Infrared Conversion

Saskatoon Skyline, though it looks frigid this was shot in 20°C weather :)

Earlier this year I'd seen a body only Canon 10D posted on Kijiji (similar to Craigslist) for $160 CDN, in its day the 10D was a great camera and marketed at pros. I didn't really have a need for the camera but at that price I was thinking I'd pick it up and leave it in my car so I always had a DSLR with me, at that price point if it got damaged or stolen I'd be disappointed but not distraught. I wound up buying it and was pleased to find it was in near mint shape. Despite being older and only 6.3MP it took very nice photos and I was surprised at the lower than expected ISO noise. My first DSLR was the first Canon Digital Rebel (300D) and since it was also 6.3MP I expected it to be the same but was delighted to find it was better.

At this point I started to think more about what I should do with this camera, I did after all already have a Fuji X100 which I'd picked up primarily as my "take anywhere" camera. Maybe my initial plan for this camera wasn't really a good one. Then I stumbled across an IR photo online somewhere and I remembered about the conversion services offered by a few companies and figured I'd look into it again. Previously it seemed way to pricey, first you had to provide a DSLR which weren't cheap and then pay for the conversion which makes it a dedicated IR camera so its not something you'd do to your main body. The more I read up online the more good things I was hearing about Lifepixel.com, in fact I don't think I read anything negative about them at all. The internet is full of horror stories about people sending their cameras into cheaper "fly by night" operations where some guy was doing these conversions in his basement or garage and was simply substituting the IR blocking filter (aka hotmirror) with Rosco or Lee filters. Since I work in electronics manufacturing and am familiar with some of the various standards I was impressed to learn that they use a Class 5 clean room to ensure they do not introduce any dust into your camera when performing the conversion.

Let me backtrack a little, for those who don't know what this conversion entails I'll explain it here, if you know what this is then feel free to skip ahead. In the old days of film all you needed to do to shoot IR was buy a roll of IR film and away you go. Nowadays all digital cameras have a glass filter installed over top of the sensor that is meant to block out infrared light while allowing visible light to pass through. Without this filter your everyday images would have a pinkish cast to them and generally not look right. The places that offer conversion will take apart your camera, remove the IR filter, also known as a "hot mirror" and replace it with a filter that only lets infrared light through. The thickness of the replacement filter must be the same as the filter they removed, even still the cameras focusing system must be re-calibrated because IR does not focus at the same distance as visible light. The fact that the insides of these modern cameras are crammed with enough electronics and mechanical parts to make Swiss watchmakers wince along with the need for an absolute dust-free environment means you should be wary of who does the conversion. There are DIY instructions available on the web but even if you get the filter installed and you manage to get very little dust in your camera your autofocus still won't work properly. If you want to see just what all is involved (minus the recalibration) Lifepixel has DIY guides though they expressly state they should not be attempted and are purely for educational purposes, here's the step-by-step for my Canon 10D.

What to expect when ordering the service:
Right now the price for converting most DSLR's at Lifepixel with a "standard" IR filter with "standard" re-calibration is $250 +$55 for return shipping and handling (keep in mind I'm in Canada) . I considered paying the extra $50 for the Deep IR filter but after talking to others who had the conversion done I stuck with the standard IR filter. Their standard lens calibration calibrates the camera for the "nifty fifty" 50mm 1.8 EF lens, since I had one kicking around after upgrading to the 50mm 1.4 last summer I stuck with this too. The shipping seems steep but this is because they insure the package decently, if I remember correctly their cost for the shipping was around $40 so they aren't skimming too much. You do have to pay to ship the camera to them as well so I think that cost me under $20 and it was insured for the conversion price and camera replacement. When you order the conversion they send you detailed shipping instructions too. When they receive the camera they notify you, the conversion is supposed to take 5-10 business days from the date they receive the camera. I mailed mine out Apr 27th and they received it May 3rd. They shipped it back May 21st and I received it May 25th, all total about 1 month.

What to expect when you get your camera back:
I did have one small gripe and that was concerning their return packaging. It was well protected and padded but all of the materials were types that generate huge static charges. Maybe its just because I work in electronics and jump through all sorts of hoops to avoid static electricity which can cause serious damage to sensitive electronics, the damage may not be immediate either. When I shipped my camera to them I put it in an antistatic bag that I had leftover from some prior electronics purchase. Anyway I don't know if Canon's packaging is entirely ESD safe either. Ok so when you get the camera back before you can start shooting you should set the custom white balance by shooting some green foilage. After that you're good to go!

A quick note about using other lenses, not all of them will work. Some lenses have special coatings inside to reduce reflections but they are made for visible light, sometimes these coatings in IR appear white and can cause blooming. Blooming is a white haze in the center of the image and is most unwanted. Since my 50mm on the cropped sensor of the 10D behaves more like 79mm I thought I'd try my 35mm 1.4 lens, unfortunately this lens suffers from this bloom effect so I'm going to have to trial and error and figure out which lenses will work. All of the images in this post were shot with the 50mm 1.8 type II lens and turned out great. The pano was shot with this lens too and multiple images digitally stitched together.

Considerations for post production:
Straight out of the camera the shot is going to look like the one below, colourwise at least.

 Colour untouched, other processing like levels and sharpening/clarity added.

In your favourite photo editing program you can swap the red and blue channels to yield a shot like the one below:

Red and blue channels swapped. 

I'm looking forward to heading out and shooting some interesting landscapes this summer with this camera. In the fall hopefully I'll get to go to Scotland where the lush greens will be perfect for IR photography. One added benefit to IR is that there aren't many people shooting it and it can give you an edge especially if you're looking at selling your artwork. The Delta Bessborough Hotel is one of the most photographed landmarks in my city, since everyone and their dog has a photo of it the chances of getting a truly unique shot of it that stands out against the rest is hard, thanks to IR I'm probably one of only a few people in my province that can get this shot digitally.

Urban Guerrilla Shooting Take 3

 A dilapidated cage elevator proved an amazing backdrop during my latest shoot

Who needs a studio anyway?
Eventually my basement renos will be done and I will have a proper studio to work in but chances are I'll try to avoid using it in favour of location shoots as much as I can anyway. For my latest shoot I once again set out on an urban exploring mission, shooting wherever the backdrop looked interesting, ducking into cool old buildings and busting off shots until asked to leave. Despite leaving my innocuous X100 in my camera bag this time and touting my 5DMKII in its stead I wasn't hassled once about shooting anywhere. In fact people were apologizing for getting in my way. 

Let me backtrack a little. May 1st my gallbladder decided it was going to throw a temper tantrum, it started becoming unruly about a week after my Cuba trip and landed me in the ER a few times. This time however it really outdid itself and a simple trip to the ER turned into a 3 night stay and date with a scalpel. I then had an unexpected two week holiday to recover. After going stir crazy for a week and a half I was feeling pretty good and since my camera was under my 10lb weight lifting limit I figured I'd set out on a shoot. The very pretty and incredibly photogenic model, Deanna Alyse, had just contacted me through model mayhem wanting to work with me sometime. The timing was perfect so I contacted her and made plans to shoot that upcoming weekend.

I had just had lunch that week with a photographer buddy of mine, Krystian Olszanski, and since our last co-shoot was such a blast I invited him along as well. Shooting with another photographer is great for two reasons: one you have a knowledgeable lighting assistant two: while you're lighting and they're shooting you get to see how another photographer approaches the same subject.

We all met up at a mall downtown and set off without really having a set destination in mind. We happened along a small patio beside a coffeeshop/bistro so I snapped a few quick portraits there just using available light.

 

Shooting as we go

At this point Krystian mentions that a pub on the next corner actually has a seldom-used (or known about) patio out back and that it might be an interesting location.

As we turn into the back alley  we both notice a nicely painted brick wall with some pallets stacked up which are screaming to be used as a backdrop.

 

Cutest hobo ever

Lucky for us our model was willing to get a little dirty in order for us to get our shots. Even before we busted out the flash and umbrella the subdued light of the alley was great to shoot under. It was also quite windy that day but it worked and gave some of the shots a nice dynamic.

Below is one of my favourite shots from the whole shoot, something about it just has that vintage pinup vibe to it and her innocent yet coquettish smile just completes the pose. This one was lit with off camera flash, a 580EXII triggered with Cactus V5's shooting through a 48" white umbrella. Krystian acted as my voice activated lightstand.

  A definite fave from the shoot.

We probably shot at this location for a good hour, exploring every idea we could think of. While one of us was shooting the other was lighting and constantly coming up with new ideas for when it was their turn again. Often one of us would pose the model in a certain way or shoot from the a unique angle and the other would groan and say "ahhh I was going to do that on my turn". Ultimately though we both have our own style, especially once the images have been processed, so I don't think we overlapped too much.

As I stated this alley was a goldmine, turning 180 degrees the opposing wall was interesting too as you can see below.

 

 Every part of this alley was dripping with character.

Having tapped this alley for every angle we did eventually make our way to the back patio we'd initially set out for only to find it quite lame photowise.  Just across the street was a building I'd shot in during my last outing, since we had off-camera lighting with us this time I figured we should check it out.

Right off the bat I wanted to try a shot I'd done last time but felt I could improve upon with some added backlighting.

 

 Krystian lit this from behind while thinking thin thoughts.

I always love shooting in stairwells when I have the chance, there's just something about them that always yields a good shot. In the photo below we had to resort to some rather crazy lighting since we only had the one flash. Krystian stood behind the model at the top of the landing on the camera right, I held a reflector below and left out of frame which he then aimed at. The result actually looks naturally lit as if window light is providing the rimlight with ambient fill. 

Strobist Trick Shot. 

While shooting on the main floor I had lamented that it would have been awesome if the elevators were the old-school style ones with the cage and attendant. At one point between poses Krystian disappeared down the stairwell and when he finally resurfaced he had a big grin.  

This is what he'd found:

Looks like a scene straight out of Silent Hill

What a cool find! Not only was it a cage style elevator but it had the most amazing grunge texture on the walls from the stripped paint. Shooting with ambient left a little to be desired though, two CFL bulbs lit the elevator, one regular and one daylight balanced. For the above shot I only had to push the ISO to 400 since I was shooting my 50mm at f1.4 but for other shots I pushed the ISO to 1600. Its for this reason that I love the full frame goodness of the 5DMKII though I have to give props to my X100 that handles high ISO nicely too. Its amazing how far cameras have come with respect to ISO noise and in 10 years I'll probably look back and wonder how I ever managed with only being able to push it to 1600 :)

Love cage elevators

The last photo I'm including proved very tricky, I knew I wanted to light through the cage but it was extremely difficult to light the whole face. Initially we were shooting bare flash from a distance to get those nice crisp shadows but eventually wound up using and umbrella quite close to the cage.

I apologize for the extra long blog post (which I tend to do often) but I felt this shoot warranted a full walk through. This was my third "guerrilla shoot" this year and I'm finding them to be an excellent way to shoot. By wandering around and exploring you find new cool locations, push yourself creatively to adapt to each new location, and ultimately wind up with a diverse range of photos from a single shoot. You simply can't do the same thing in the studio.

X100 Urban Guerrilla Photography

 A run down back alley provided a great backdrop with nice soft overhead lighting

Yup that's Guerrilla, not G-oh-rilla, as in Che not Kong. If you remember back to my last outing with the X100 I had originally planned to do this sort of shoot then. Due to a sudden cold snap the last time though outdoor shooting was scrapped and we headed to the local university. Well spring seems to be here now and I'd been meaning to work with this cool little camera slinging hipster I'd met on the plane to Halifax a few years ago. Clare agreed to step in front of the lens for me as we set out downtown to scout around and just shoot at any and all interesting locations we found. I had done something similar to this once before but we stuck to outdoor locations, with the X100 being so inconspicuous I could also sneak into cool buildings without my big dSLR setting off alarms that there is a pro photographer in the building.

Nobody batted an eye while we hung out in front of these elevators shooting away

The X100 proved to be great for doing this, not only did we not get hassled even once about taking photos we were given cookies :) That's right, while shooting in a stairwell of one of the cities higher end hotels a staff member carrying a tray was approaching us, "that's it" I thought here's where we're going to get kicked out but no instead he lowers the tray which turned out to be covered in cookies and offered us one.

Taken just minutes before free cookies

I must admit I'm still getting used to the X100, I'm constantly second guessing my focus, especially when shooting at f2. Most times my paranoia proves to be unjustified I just miss that reassuring feeling of the lens shifting and locking into focus that a bigger lens on an SLR body gives you. The other thing is how the camera doesn't automatically cross over into macro when the subject gets closer than a certain distance. I don't even need auto, I'd settle for a button that I can press without having to move the camera from my eye. When doing portraits I seem to be riding this line between macro range and normal range and I missed a few poses as my model relaxed and shifted as I had to enable or disable macro mode, with the moment lost I couldn't re-pose her to get the same look. The next shoot I do I'm going to try to put it in manual focus mode and just do the AF lock trick that Zack Arias mentions in his initial review of the X100. A few other pet peeves I realized were these: Why is there no option to enable Auto ISO from within the ISO menu? I've set my custom function button to bring up ISO yet in order to enable/disable auto ISO I have to scroll through menus. The other isn't so much a peeve as perhaps a design flaw, apparently if you have your camera in macro mode with manual focus enabled then turn the camera off you should not turn the camera back on with the lens cap in place because during the initialization the lens extends, hits the cap, then your camera gives an error telling you to turn the camera off then back on. This had me depositing bricks in my joe-boxers the other night when it happened. Luckily a power cycle cleared this but still its not something I want to repeat. Fuji should do two things, a) forget macro setting when camera is powered off b) return the lens to a known starting point when powered down c) sense via incoming light if a lens cap is on before performing the lens initialization d) not design a lens that extends past the outside of the bezel in the first place. I can live with these issues however and am still stoked on my X100, in a few years maybe I'll upgrade to the X300 or 400 and by then fingers crossed maybe full frame sensors will be more affordable and will be popping up in these.

I broke a few of my own rules during this shoot too, since this shoot was about experimenting as much as it was about finding new locations. Normally I tell everyone that they're crazy to shoot using an in-camera black and white mode, my argument is that you're just limiting what you can do afterwards so you should shoot in colour and convert in post. Going into this shoot I knew I'd be converting to black and white after anyway so I thought I'd try the black and white mode. Since I was doing portraits I chose the bw+g which is black and white with a green filter, this is supposed to give pleasing skin tones for portrait work. One thing I noticed about shooting this way is that it changes the way you compose the images, since you're seeing real time what it looks like in black and white. You're not shifting your angle to block out that nasty yellow building in the background or that puke green car because now they're just pleasing shades of grey. Its the same argument I made about Lensbabies, sure the effect can be done in post but when you're seeing the effect in real time it impacts how you're taking the shots and that matters just as much if not more sometimes.

The other rule I broke was shooting in jpg instead of RAW. I've read lots of X100 reviews where people couldn't say enough good things about the in camera jpg processing and how when shooting RAW and processing in Lightroom they couldn't seem to get as good results as straight from the camera jpgs. On this front I'm not so sure, there were a few times during post where I wished I had the latitude afforded to me that a RAW file would have provided. I was shooting in some dim locations and did wind up underexposing a few times (gotta be checking that histogram!).So a tip for X100 users, if you're shooting jpg make sure you're nailing the exposure (or even just slightly over exposing).

All in all the shoot was really fun and I found a few new locations that I can draw on if needed. There is still many alleys and even more buildings left unexplored so I think there may be quite a few more urban guerrilla shoots in store for this summer, stay tuned!

You just can't beat window light