jon phillips » Lighting

Sunny & Walt: A Halloween Wedding

Jon Phillips — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 21:04:43 +0000

I had the pleasure of shooting Sunny and Walt’s wedding on Halloween this year. You can view more images from the set here. I wanted to share this photo and the setup information behind it. I was shooting the formals on the back deck of their pastor’s house and trying to come up with something a little different. They already had the masks, so I can’t take credit for that. It had been raining and we were kind of limited to that little area which was somewhat dry at the moment. So we did a string of shots with the exposure closed down to f/11 to darken the sky and my flash was at full power to get a more dramatic effect. It just made sense considering it was Halloween, rainy, and they had those cool masks.

Setup info: F/11 at ISO 100. Nikon SB-25 at full power with 43″ shoot thru umbrella camera right. I was literally laying on the ground to get the sky as much as I could in the background.

Hunter

Jon Phillips — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 03:14:44 +0000

This is my nephew Hunter at the K & A Productions: Fall Fantasy of Fashion Show. This was a very basic head shot. I couldn’t do much about the crappy gray fabric panels in the background. I was limited in how far I could get away from it. I was trying to blur it as much as possible. Anyway, on the the lighting info: 60 inch shoot-thru umbrella camera left. Nikon SB-25 at 1/4 power. Shooting at f4 and 1/250th of a second.

To see more with a similar setup, check out this flickr set http://www.flickr.com/photos/jonphillipsphoto/sets/72157622633565652/

Anntoinette On The Dance Floor

Jon Phillips — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 17:51:42 +0000

The reception has always been my favorite part of the wedding day to shoot because everybody has had a chance to relax, get some food, and start having fun. They’ve made it through the most stressful time of the day and its good times for everyone. I typically will try to set up at least one strobe on a light stand somewhere outside the perimeter of the dance floor and I will move around trying to get different angles and because people are moving so much on the dance floor, you will get different looks. I will go out and take a couple of test exposures and adjust accordingly and then start shooting. Work the angle of the lighting; that means, you need to move around so that you’re shooting with the light to the right, to the left, or sometimes back into the light.

In this shot, the light was behind the girls in the corner, producing a rim light. It was pretty dark so I was shooting at ISO 1600. You also have to watch your recycle times so you don’t miss a shot. This was my favorite from the night.

The Lawnmower

Jon Phillips — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 18:42:58 +0000

This is what you get when you want to play around with a new snoot you made out of an old cereal box. You can build a decent snoot out of a lucky charms box and some duct tape. I’ll be posting soon about making snoots out of that foam paper from the craft store.

Strobist info: Vivitar 285 with homemade snoot camera left at 1/2 power. I had the lightstand as high as it would go, probably 7 feet high pointed almost straight down.

Strobist Cupcake

Jon Phillips — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 13:03:37 +0000

I decided to make some red velvet cupcakes for a small July 4th family cookout. This is the third time I’ve made these things and I must say, they are delicious. I wanted to take a picture of one in my homemade macro box before we left but I just didn’t have time. I was a little concerned about bringing all of them because I was afraid there would be none left to bring home. Fast forward a few hours and we arrived back home safe and sound with 5 leftover cupcakes. Time to make pictures. Here’s the recipe:

1 homemade macro box
1 camera
1 off camera flash

I’m a rank amateur when it comes to food photography but if it can fit into my homemade diy cardboard macro box, its so easy, you can’t mess it up. I positioned the cupcake to get the best looking side towards the camera. My 580exII flash was setup on a lightstand pointing almost straight down on top of the box, shooting through a sheet of white tissue paper. Here’s what the overview of the shot looks like:

Camera setup: I had my “nifty fifty” 50mm 1.8 lens set at f10, ISO 100, firing at 1/200th of a second shutter speed. The flash was at 1/16th power and I used Pocket Wizards to trigger the flash.

I played around with the aperture a little bit and even placed a sheet of paper in front of the cupcake at one point as a reflector but there’s just nowhere inside that box that light can’t get to so it didn’t really improve the shot that much. It was a little too easy.

Strobist Tomato

Jon Phillips — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 19:31:10 +0000

Here’s my take on the Strobist blog post Food Photography Made Easy: The Lunch Box. I was trying to imitate the shot as much as possible, but my attempt just seemed to fall short. Possibly because I didn’t make the Lunch Box, I just used a Stofen on my flash. I have an Apollo softbox I could have used but I was being lazy.

Here’s the setup. I put the tomatoes down on a white poster board and set my light stand up so it was almost directly on top. I had my 580EX II dialed down to 1/128th power with a Stofen omnibounce attached. Here’s a shot of the setup:

I ended up turning off the houselights because so I wouldn’t have to worry about any ambient light contamination. I used a flashlight to focus and took the shot. I liked this angle a little better. At least its different than Hobby’s. I started playing around a bit with the location of the flash and came up with this angle. I call it Tomato Noir:

Anyway, here’s a bit more strobist info: The camera was a Digital Rebel XT. Canon 24-70mm f2.8 L series lens at f2.8. ISO 200. 1/250th second shutter speed. Pure flash. Canon 580EX II flash at 1/128th power with a Stofen Omnibounce on a Bogen lightstand.

Ben

Jon Phillips — Tue, 12 May 2009 16:47:48 +0000

This was taken at a park in Carrollton at the intersection of Hwy 27 and South St. We road around trying to find some good locations and Ben was kind enough to do some stand-ins for me.

Lighting Info: Westcott 43″ collapsible umbrella camera right. Canon 580 ex II at 1/4 power shooting through the umbrella.