The Big Announcement: Shutter Bug Corner U.S. Tour 2014

Yep, that's right... we are taking Shutter Bug Corner on the road. We will be traveling and shooting all across our great country, and you can follow along with us right here on The Shutter Bug Corner. Make sure to check back often to see if we will be coming to your area. We will have tour T-shirts for sale soon, and more to come, maybe even some giveaways... you just never know.

Model Posing

I wanted to give some advice to both photographers and models on posing. So to best do this I brought in Daniel Le Hoty (photographer/posing instructor), out of the Cleveland, OH area. I also brought in a brand new model, Amy Marie. Amy has only shot a couple of times and both with my wife and I. Fare warning, this video is a long one, and since it was my first time filming with the camera (GoPro Hero), I was a little off on distance. I can only hope that this video helps some of you out there.
I would be more than happy to hear from you all about a subject that you would like to see covered. After all this blog is about helping you be a better photographer and model in some cases. So please do not be shy.
For this session we used a four light set up. The main light is provided by two custom built 2' x 4' light boxes with grids, a 1 1/2' soft box, and a 2' soft box. The main lights were placed nearly side by side, with only a foot between them, at about a 45 degree angle to the subject. The only constant on camera settings was a 400 ISO, with shutter speeds ranging from 1/100 - 1/60, and f/s from 2.8 up to 7.5 if I remember right.
I hope you enjoy this video, and remember... Keep shooting!

What's next?

Be sure to click on the follow button, because you are not going to want to miss some of the upcoming posts. Like the next one with special guest Daniel Le Hoty, working with a new model. Daniel is a posing instructor as well as a photographer, so this will be something for both photographers and models to see... I am also working on doing a full on, from start to finish post. What does that mean? Well it means you will see everything... from the shoot to photo editing.
Here is a sneak peek...

 

So until next time.... Keep shooting!

Child portrait 1

A big portion of photography is family portraits, and the majority of that is children. Doing children portraits is not always an easy task. Kids can be unruly and their attention can drift quickly. So,  the best thing to do is have everything pretty much set up before they arrive, props, lighting, ect... Have some idea of what you are going to be shooting, so when they arrive, all you have to do is put them into position. Shoot as quick as possible, and change things up after a few minutes. Keep talking to them, don't let them get bored.
In the video you will see two of my grandchildren. We only shot for maybe 20 minutes total, and that is really fast for me; my normal shoot time with a model is 1-3 hours. My granddaughters are not your typical child subjects of course, they have been in front of a camera for years. That is obvious at one point in the video where they are jabbering away, but when I brought the camera up to start shooting, they fell right into place.
As you will see I used a four light set up, 2 four foot boxes (custom built), and 2 softboxes made from coolers and a white frosted shower curtain. For props I had a heart shaped pillow, a giant teddy-bear, and a free standing full length mirror, with a faux fur rug. I started out shooting at 1/100, f/s 5.6, at 400 ISO... But soon switched to 1/80, f/s 5.6 at 400 ISO, and that was were I stayed for the rest of the shoot.

I hope you enjoy this episode, please feel free to comment, or ask any questions you may have.
Until next time... Keep shooting!

Video Tutorial of Christmas Light Bursts

So here you go, my first ever video tutorial... Capturing the light burst of Christmas lights...

How Would You Feel?

I have just one question for you...

How would you feel about having these tutorials on video? I want to hear from you on this, so lets fill up those comments.

Christmas Lighting, Capturing the Holiday Feeling.

Image 1

Okay so it is that time of year again. Everyone is shopping, trees going up in the living room, and lights of all colors are everywhere. I have always wanted to capture the way I feel about Christmas, the joy of the lights, But every time I took a picture of a Christmas tree, or lights, they just looked dull and plain, if you could see them at all. Does this sound familiar? Well then you are in luck, because I am going to give you a couple of ideas to capture those beautiful lights and colors.
First thing you need to do is get rid of the flash. Not this is not a good formula for portraits of people or pets, unless than can hold perfectly still for 10 seconds of more. I know that doesn't seem that long, but it really is. Second thing you are going to need is a tripod. The third is one light. For this example I am using a lightbox that I built out of a light stand, and foam cooler, and two photo bulbs rated at 200w each.


Image 2

First I am going to show you what happens if you use no outside light at all, just the light from the tree... I had my camera set at a 3 seconds shutter speed, with my f/stop at 16.

Now I didn't like the color very well. The lights looked pretty cool and was close to what I wanted, but it was way too warm and unnatural (image 1). So I grabbed my lightbox. I knew that direct light would be way too much, and to keep from overexposing I would have to turn up my shutter speed, which would kill the effect I was looking for with the Christmas lights on the tree. So I turned the light away from the tree, pointed directly at the wall to the right of the tree (maybe 6 feet away). The lightbox was about 3 inches from the wall. I then set my shutter speed to 10 seconds, and my aperture to 30. Yep that's right 30... And bam! there it was; the image I had been looking for (image 2).

Image 4

Image 3

 I went on to shoot some of the ornaments on the tree as well, but this was a bit different. to get the proper coloring and keep the effect I tried something a little different, but along the same line.

This time I wanted the ornament to show very clearly, and keep the star burst effect on the lights. So to do this I kept the light where it was. Moved in closer to the ornament and set my focus on it. The camera settings stayed the same. a 10 second shutter speed, with a f/stop of 30. Now here is where things change up. After I released the shutter, I counted off 3 seconds and then flipped the lightbox off (image 4). I loved the results so I pulled the camera back to where I started and shot the tree one more time using the same method, and I loved it even more (image 3).

So there you go, give it a try, and see what you can come up with...