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- Hi, I'm Brian Smith, Sony Artisan of Imagery.
Today, we're talking about shooting
Location Portrait Photography.
So, we're gonna talk about working with studio strobe
on location so you can control the light.
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We're here at Freestyle Fighting Academy.
I'm photographing mixed martial artist Edgar Plazola,
and for the first thing that I look
for as I walk into a shot
is just really an interesting backdrop.
First thing that caught my eyes was this whole line up
of bags here, but what I really liked is they had a,
what's essentially back here like a bunch of tires.
(smacking) (groaning)
So for our first shot I got him pounding away on the tires.
I thought that'd be a great way to start.
(smacking)
(heavy breathing)
That's great.
I've got my Sony a7R II,
and I'm lighting using pro photo strobes.
So, I've got couple of cute strobes,
and trying to give it in this case kind of an edgy look.
For ISO, I always with go the native ISO of the camera.
With the Sony a7 series cameras, it's ISO 100.
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I go with 100 because it's the best quality,
and I can control my light output.
So I know 100's gonna be enough.
The first thing I always do is lockdown the aperture
with the output of the strobe.
Typically, if I'm doing a portrait,
I'm gonna look for like the middle of the range
from 5/6 to maybe f11.
So, if I'm getting f11 from the strobe,
it doesn't matter if I'm shooting at a 30th
of a second or 1/125, the F-stop is still gonna be f11.
That allows me to use the shutter speed to control
the brightness of the background.
So, if I'm shooting at a 60th of a second,
and the background is too bright I can go up to 1/125
of a second, and basically darken the background by a stop.
Every shutter speed that you go slower will double
the amount of light and you can control it in 3rd stops
all the way down, so you can get the background
to look just the way that you want.
If I've got an active subject I'm usually shooting
at the max sync speed of the camera.
1/125, 1/160, somewhere in that range,
and then that gives them ability to move some.
They're still gonna be frozen by the flash,
'cause the flash goes off it's very bright,
so even if there's slight movement,
they're gonna be frozen by the flash exposure.
But if somebody is seated in a chair,
and we're doing a portrait shoot,
I can be shooting as slow as a second
or two to burn in a background.
I'll just warn the subject just to stay put,
and wait for the end of the exposure.
One setting that I think is really important
if you're new to mirrorless cameras.
One of the really cool things with Sony's EVF
is with the live view setting effect on,
you can see what the camera sees.
So, if you're, have the camera set for 1/125 at f11
at ISO 100, the EVF will show you exactly
what that scene looks like.
Lot of people if they're used to an optical view finder
are kind of freaked out with a what you see is what you get
exposure, but once you start shooting with it,
it's really difficult to ever go back
to not having that input as you shoot.
So, with live view setting effect on,
I see in real time what the camera's capturing
which is really great when you're shooting outdoors,
wanna see the exposure in real time,
but not so great if you're shooting in a dark
studio or night club or something
that's really dark and you have a lot of artificial light
coming in from, from the sides.
So, if I got strobes kicking out f11 in a dark club,
I change live view setting effect to off,
and then your LCD and EVF will act
just like an optical view finder,
which allows you to see not in real time
what the exposure is, but just an average view of the scene.
(smacking)
As a portrait photographer, my favorite focus method
is the set the focus area to flexible spot,
and put that flexible spot right over the face,
or right over the eye.
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There's actually a really easy way to do this.
Go into your custom menu settings
under Custom Key Settings.
Select Center Button and change that to Standard.
Once you do this, by pressing the Center Button,
it activates the center wheel to adjust your focus point,
so you can press right or left, up or down,
put that focus area right over the subject's eye
or the subject's face.
One of the things that I'm looking for is that the lighting
gives the feel that you might have in an arena.
So, I'm using hard lights,
which is the great thing with studio strobes,
I'm using those with a 12 inch reflector.
Very similar to what you'd see at the top of the arena.
Just gives it a little bit more of an edge,
as opposed to coming in with a big Octabank
from the side that's gonna seem
more like diffused window light.
(smacking)
Working with artificial light allows me to really set
the light that I want and have it constant.
Were these on the cars of one of the guys you beat?
(laughing)
Studio strobes can be 600 watt second, 1200 watt second,
or 2400 watt second.
Typically I'm always locked down at ISO 100.
I can vary the output, but I have those set for manual
just because I want the output to be constant.
I'm not, I don't need TTL, I set it up
and as long as it stays, the light stays the same distance
from the subject, I'm gonna continue to get f11.
I trigger them off with like real old school pocket wizards.
A lot of times I'm also trying to maybe enhance
the look that's already there, so if we have a big open sky
in one direction, I'm just bringing in a big bank
of light from that same direction just really to make
the subject pop a little bit.
It's not necessarily to change the look of the light,
but I'm kinda burning and dodging in camera.
I wanna put, make the subject just a little bit
brighter than the background and working with studio strobe
allows me to do that on location.
The other great thing about working with artificial light
is you're exposure is set.
I wanna be able to choose the depth of field
that looks right to me.
So I use studio strobe that if I want f11,
I've got f11 all the way through.
I usually kind of go for those middle F-stops,
not too wide open like at 1.4,
where if the subject moves slightly,
the focus is off, but I also don't wanna have the lens
stopped all the way down to 16 or 22
because I don't need the background to be tight.
I just need enough room that the subject stays in focus
whether they're moving forward or back.
It really simplifies things.
I'm not constantly changing apertures
or shutter speeds in the middle of the shoot.
There's a cohesive look throughout,
I can still keep shooting.
Usually when I'm shooting at location I'm probably
at 300 watt seconds to 600 watt seconds to be able
to get an output of 11, 11 and a half
which is just about right for me.
That tends to work perfectly when I'm syncing somewhere
around 1/160 of a second at ISO 100.
So, totally old school, it just works.
So, thanks for joining me on this location portrait shoot.
Hopefully, everything we went over today now makes sense.
So find a subject, pick a great background and get out there
and take some great location portraits.
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Nice.
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