hi everybody hello we're here today in a beautiful Yorkshire and we're shooting
today a puppy and a few other dogs and we're gonna make them look like this
technically the location for shooting today is inside this shed it is a
working stable so there are horses present with us we're going to set up
two sets a yellow one and a grey one and we're gonna video the
behind-the-scenes of photographing these dogs and then we'll show you how
it went!
I just want to take a really quick second to thank Jess Clarehugh
so much for allowing us the use of her dogs if you recognize the Malinois which
was in the preview pictures and also towards the end of this video that is
because that is Dora and she has just competed at Crufts this last week so if
you've watched Crufts you may have seen her she was amazing - Jess was amazing
yeah thanks so much for allowing us to use your dogs Jess massively appreciate
it! so the equipment that we've got for today is two Colorama paper backdrops
two heavy-duty light stands to hold my strobe lights two octaboxes for said
strobe lights and two background supports and then in the camera bag
we've got a Nikon d800 camera which has currently got a 50mm lens on because
my usual studio lens the 24-70 has been a bit iffy with its focus so we'll see
how it goes and if not that needs to go in for service/repair so yeah let's
get set up
*singing* going to un-tape our roll
we're going to clamp through with a massive clamp so it goes through the seamless
roll over the back support and then clamps down on top of the roll at the
top so just covering this clamping situation these are much smaller clamps
but they're still going through the backdrop paper roll itself and then over
the paper roll and over the crossbar of the backdrop and then what
that does is that gives you a completely solid roll and it won't move anywhere
and the same on the other side. the downside of shooting with a narrower backdrop is
basically that you need to have a lot more control over your subject because
it's much easier for them to move off the side of it - with a human it's not
that much of a big deal because you'd be using a longer lens and you can just
tell them to move sideways if they need to but with a dog is a lot harder
yeah you've got to have a lot more control over your subject the
chances are we're going to have to do quite a bit of Photoshop work to extend
the background wider which isn't a problem - putting our octaboxes up these are
pop-up ones which is fab - just like that
grab your light and line up the little holes - sorted - set these on there it's
looking good are these light stands are incredible
there is a link to these light stands in the description below - look solid - the
exact location we're not gonna know until we've got a subject in there but
well I would imagine be about there... so just a quick one about these lights
they are iLux Summit 600III's
which means that they are
completely wireless the batteries last for ages they shoot a high speed sync
and they also have a short enough flash duration for you to be able to shoot
at your normal 1/150s - 1/200s and freeze action in the
picture so I much prefer them - I've had Elinchrom's I've had Bowens and they're
better and they're a lot cheaper so why not
They're here!
You need to set your shutter speed for the maximum sync speed for the lights which
in this case is about 1/160s - 1/200s and
then you want to take a test shot with no lights on at all and you want to be
able to completely eliminate any of the natural light so what you want to
achieve is a completely black image like so where there's no detail in the
picture and then if you were to turn your lights on then you know that
anything that is lit with artificial light is something that you have lit
yourself so I'll just get my lights a level where I'm happy with the power
that is being pushed out - pretty much there - so we're shooting at f8
1/160s at ISO 100 - I've got spot focus on so single shot - for puppy
I'll use continuous focus (AI Servo) because puppy will move more than a reliable model
like Cara - so can you put Cara please in the middle of this yellow
area here like there just in a sit and wait facing this way - has Cara ever
been in a studio before? "no" okay so first of all what we're gonna do
Jess if you stay there yeah with that and I want you to reward her with the
ball whenever the lights flash okay so we're gonna flash now "good girl" so she
can move off and just sort of chill out - if we just repeat that a
few times until we're sure that she was completely happy with the lights
flashing yeah and at the same time I will test just to see that we've got
good light which we do if she's absolutely fine and the owner is fine
with her being fine [I think she's fine] can you put her in
and sit in a wait and just ask her to stay on that background and I'm on the
floor right behind you Jess so just watch out - have the ball quite low down
and we want to keep it quite short and quite a fun experience for the dog so
that they don't think that it's something that they should not enjoy
so with the pictures that we've just got
so what we want to do is just do a quick check of the focus
make sure that the dog is in focus and everything's fine - as we said
we'll clean up the background after - on on this one
we're angling the lights more towards the front so that there's less spill
over onto the backdrop so the backdrop will be slightly darker - once we've
done a few like that we'll turn the lights still on the subject but they'll
also fill in the background so the background will be lighter - you know she
looks really good on this grey
we'll now angle the lights more towards the background on
this occasion so we're still lighting her from the front but we're also going to
light the background a bit more so it'll be slightly lighter
that's perfect
perfect she's done!
so we've got Ryoka
currently exploring the background with some food she's only 8 weeks old
so she's quite happy now her tails up she's quite happy to be on the
backdrop so I'm just gonna start to pop the lights while she's eating food and as
long as she's showing absolutely no signs of being concerned...
so I think she doesn't care! she probably would've done had we just
chucked her on and flashed a light
I'm gonna shoot on this one on continuous
focus (AI Servo) instead of single shot...
so the other option that we've got if we've got a dog that doesn't stay still
is to lift them up off the floor but we're gonna try using a hand barrier
first - just because of this yellow background - so what we've got is we've
got Hazel available who's gonna use her hand or fingers to just put a little
bit of backwards pressure on puppy and then Jess is gonna move to just
one side... so
we've got hands on - where's bear - hands off
hands on - have her off, that'll do.
yes that's all wrapped up we've done five dogs today on the two
different background sets so we're gonna pack up I'll show you some of the
pictures now... if you like what you've seen please
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