Hey guys, this is Daniel Norton.
I'm here in my studio in New York City, with Erica,
and we're gonna do, what I'm gonna call a
catalog white.
So this is a question I get a lot actually..
this is one of the things clients asked
for all the time. They want that clean
crisp white, they use it on the web, they
use it for whatever you know...Catalogs!
So I'm just gonna kind of run through how
to do it. A really simple way to get it
done out, down, and there we go.
So of course we want the wall be white,
you could use a white roll of paper or a
cyclorama if you're doing like a big
catalog or something. I'm just gonna use
the wall in my studio, hopefully the
building won't fall down. You guys can
probably hear the construction.
It's happening.. let's say! So we've got the the
wall back here, I have two Profoto B1X's
pointed at the wall, and what I want to
do, I know I want to shoot at about f/8
right? So I'm gonna look at, look at my...
I'm gonna set my lights so that I'm
reading f/8 now why f/8... on the wall?
You might ask 'cause you've probably heard...
you know, that you should make it brighter.
Well the wall is white, so if I, if I
exposed to f/8. St should be white, I'm
probably gonna give it a little bit
extra to give that like... bursts of clean.
But I'm gonna start with the wall at f/8...
so I'm gonna come back here, and I was
gonna put them da... I usually go down like
this. I'm not blocking it, and I'm just
gonna to meter the wall.
Oh I metered f/8...look at that.
Actually that's pretty good...
first try...
Alright so now, as a fail-safe...
and I stole this from Gavin Hoey, what you
do is, you take your meter, and you gonna
put it on the back, at the back of her
head, and you're gonna face it towards
the wall. You don't want to block it
obviously, and we're gonna bounce it back,
remember the wall is basically a light
source. Now what we don't want is a light
source coming from the back, that's
brighter than our camera's exposure...
otherwise we'll get flare. So I'm reading
5/6 and a third, that should be good
if this was more than f/8. I need to
adjust the background even though it
seems right, right now.
The other letter I have the one on here
is this biiiig umbella... is this is the
biggest umbrella you have ever seen.
It's gigantic, right this is a Westcott,
7ft umbrella.
Now you might want, if you're doing much
of stuff, to get different types.
This one's silver, the reason why I'm using
silver is because she's in black, and I want
to have some specular highlights, so
hopefully where the fabric kind of gets
that little specularity, we will see the detail.
right? So we want to show that detail, we
want our light to be a little specular, we
don't want to use a hard light which
would also do that, because a hard light
is just not gonna be that attractive, so
we want an attractive light, but that's
gonna pull out detail, that's why we're
using this 7ft Westcott umbrella.
this has a Profoto B2 head in it and
this should also read right around f/8,
and it reads 569... that's f/8 basically,
so now I'm gonna do a test shot, and
we'll see where we are at. So I'm just using my
85mm. Whenever you're shooting
kind of full-length stuff, you want to
place the cameras height somewhere like
in the center of their body. You know, you
don't want to be shooting up at them, or
down, you want to keep it basically
neutral. So this is not a full-length, but
it's basically a full length.
So I'm focusing, and we take a shot,
I'm tethered in the Capture One, which I didn't move
closer to me for some reason.
So I'll get up, walk over, yeah.
So we can see a couple of things.
Good exposure on her face ...right?
We've got detail, we've detail in
the shadow because the light source is
huge and soft... it's just wrapping around
her. You could put a fill over there if
you really want, and then if you look at
the black, remember the black should be
black, but there is in fact a detail here.
If I punch right in you can see detail
in the black, and that's what we want.
Obviously, you're going to see more
detail in the highlighting areas, and
less in the shadow. So this is what you
want, you want your exposure so that your
black is black, and that you're seeing
detail right? You don't want to under
expose, you want to over expose.
You want to expose exactly right, which is
pretty much where we're at, just to kind of show
you, and by the way the way this is the way histograms
come in ..alright?
People talk about histograms a lot...
look at this histogram... it
looks nuts, but the reality is is that...
that's our black, and then that's our
white, yeah right... so we want...
I'm just gonna go like this for you guys,
just to show you if I bring my exposure
up a little bit, you see how the black
starts to get gray.. you might look at
that and be like that's how I should
shoot it... because obviously your face is
too bright... because there's detail, but
that's not a detailed black, that is
grey, this is a black, alright cool.
So let's shoot a few, simple as that,
right? Basically even light on the
background, big soft light backed up to
give me wrap, and we want to keep
everything nice and even.
The worst thing in the world you can do ...
well not the worst things...
here's terrible things you can do in the world...
when you're doing this kind
of stuff is.... to have your white uneven...
we want to borrow it to be as even as
possible, you can play around with it right?
And remember she's got this black
outfit on, so we want to make sure that
we don't... she's doing great with the
arms and stuff. To make sure that we
don't... just just show him one Erica, can
you just drop your arms down.
So if she just drop her arms down, she's
... she's likely just gonna look like a blob right?
Because it's just so much black going on.
So that's good, good, good, nice, nice and
simple, just move around, we get all the
shots we want. We're showcasing the dress,
do a quick look at it.
Normally I'd have a digital tech here
looking if it was actually for a catalog to make sure
everything's good, and staying consistent,
it is, everything looks good.
Can rock through them... boom, boom,
boom, boom. Nice and simple,
I did mention about even, this is
actually the corner of my studio. So if
the wall was actually bigger, we would
have it, would be evenly white. So yeah
these are cute right? They're nice for
the fall, let's keep that, that's your
that's your signature look, that's the
Erica signature look. Slightly chin down
yeah perfect.
We'll do like two more... just cuz I feel
like it they look good...
you know?
you're gonna want to shoot a bunch...
get some different you know, when,
showcase the different aspects of the
outfit. Good, good, good there you go...
nice and simple right?
So again we've got large Westcott
umbrella pushing light in...
lighting her up, if you really wanted to
you could draw a reflector over here.
Just to fill in, some people will do that,
it depends on the outfit, and this outfit.
I'd probably use a silver reflector
rather than do that, because again we
want specularity. Then we've just got a
wash of light from the back coming
forward. Not too much... we want a white
background. We don't want a blown-out
background so that we get flare. Flare is
gonna soften the image, and lose detail
right? So it's all about balancing it out,
and this is why in these cases, I would
use a light meter, as you saw me
do at the beginning.
So be sure to subscribe guys to
AdoramaTV.
I'll make sure I put Erica's info in the
description so you guys can follow her
on social media.
Follow me @DanielNortonPhotographer
and I'll see you next time OnSet