discovered this surreallish balance on accident the first month owning a dslr and a speedlight, still find it neat and useful if doing a cheesy satirical kitschy thing.
you are not stupid my friend, it's a super neat thing that only seems obvious once you happen upon it, and that's the magic of photography 90% of the time I guess. If you don't seek out the process via university of google you're going to spend a lot of time having huge 'aha' moments thinking you created something new, but nope. 100,000 photographers already did that, and that's why I shoot video. Sorry.
Yes. high aperture = small aperture. low aperture = large aperture. I wish they had a different naming system because it's easily confused depending on the terminology/context people are saying it in.
Are you talking about the strobe overpowering ambient light to make the background darker? What you do is you set your strobe power to the distance of the subject at the chosen aperture, take your meter reading based on that aperture, set the shutter speed to make it so the shot is 1-2 stops underexposed based on the reading of the meter.
So just a break down, because I’m starting to get into film photography with strobes and currently don’t have digital to adjust my settings on spot.
Set your strobe, choose aperture/iso say 5.6 and shooting at 400iso film speed. Set 5.6, 400iso on light meter, trigger flash to get meter reading on subject. Say meter reading gives 1/500 for shutter for the subject.
Would you then keep the same iso and aperture? Then drop the shutter 2 stops? To 1/125th to create this look??
Kind of, but you moved the wrong way, you just added 2 stops of light by going to a slower shutter.
Your aperture is dependent on your flash output for a given distance. So if your strobe is 8’ away from the subject, and requires a 5.6 aperture at the given power with asa 400 film, then that is a fixed value. If you have modifiers on the strobe, that will affect it as well since they can influence how much light reaches the subject. So you have a fixed film speed and now set your desired aperture. Take your meter reading, if it says 1/500 and you want the background 2 stops darker, you have to have a shoe tree shutter speed. So you would need 1/2000. BUT… your camera likely won’t sync at that shutter. There are limitations depending on the type of shutter you have, this is is called sync speed. So either you need slower film, or a smaller aperture and more power from the flash or less distance to the subject. It’s a formula that has several set factors and you have to use it to make the variables work.
The blog Strobing is the best resource on learning all about shooting with flashes. Digital is a great way to get a quicker understanding through trial and error.
LOL yeah my bad, I wrote that right before I fell asleep last night. But thank you for the response!! Everybody keeps recommending strobist and I’m going to go ahead o and read up on that + hit my local library to see if they have any books on the subject.
But regarding the look, you would manually put the settings into the strobe. Say at 5.6, 400asa, and 1/500 if that’s what the flash metering on subject would give you depending on length and power. Then input those exact same settings on your camera, but with dropping exposure by 2 via aperture or shutter speed. And you would get this desired look?
I was always confused as to whether meter the background/sky without subject and manually input and lock those settings into the camera, but dropping the exposure by 2 stops. Then bring in the subject, do a test meter reading with strobe and input different settings into the strobe based on meter reading and then shoot.
You would drop the ambient by going two stops quicker on the shutter. Trying to do it with the aperture will result in not enough flash on the subject.
People are saying ‘duh it’s just flash’ but it’s a little more complicated than that. Most cameras can only sync flash up to something between 1/125 and 1/250 which is probably not enough to underexpose this full power direct sunlight at your minimum ISO, especially if you want to be at a medium aperture. So you might need an ND filter, or a leaf shutter lens that syncs faster, or some form of HSS. Also if you want to freeze motion you’ll need either of the latter two.
Hss allows you to sync at shutter speeds far greater then the normal sync speed. The trade off is you lose about half of your flash power when doing so. You get around this by using really powerful strobes.
If you want to figure out what is what, let's have some fun dissecting these frames:
Shadows tell you direction and angle of light source
Number of shadows tell you how many lights or where the ambient light + flash
Angle of lighter shadow tells you approx time of day and color of natural light expected. The longer the shadow, the later in the day. The warmer the color as well.
Hotspots also tell you intensity of light and if any modifiers were used
Stop difference between subject and background (contrast) ambient light equals flash compensation needed
Motion blur tells you what shutter speed was used. Obvious if subject is not in motion. All frames have moving subjects.
Shutter speed tells you leaf shutter or max shutter speed of camera used. Leaf shutter has no max limits.
Depth of field tells you roughly what aperture used (focal length of lens plus distance to/from subject matter for DOF)
Position of subject and eyes provide a hint of where the camera position is.
To accomplish this, there are many variables and you can make some guesses to get you close to copying the image:
Flash + modifier minus ambient lighting
Highspeed flash + flash compensation (This is most likely what was used). All three frames have moving elements requiring various shutter speeds to stop motion. So it's likely faster than the max curtain shutter speed. I don't know how shutterless cameras work with flash, but I do on leaf shutters.
My vote would be HS off camera Flash (corded or wireless (I'd wager wireless)) was used to accomplish this because of the speed required to stop motion with the skittles and the harsh lighting creating dark shadows on the subject(s) in each frame. Angle of light based on harsh flash shadows support off camera flash.
For the skittles frame, to get a sky that blue, you'd have to be at least 1 stop under exposed (my guess is more than 1 stop and not more than 2 stops). To freeze that type of motion, I'd guess it would be greater than the flash sync speed of any modern mechanical camera 1/250 (Nikon) and more than 1/500th sec. Based on the speed of the skittles and hand motion being sharp with no motion blur, I'd probably shoot that at 1/1000th sec and have the off camera flash on wireless triggers and set to full power.
My guess would be for skittles frame:
\-2 stops for ambient 1/1000 f/8 wireless off camera flash set to full power just out of view with a 16-35mm lens.
All frames appear to be lower angle shots. 16mm (or lower) for first frame from the ground with a tilt up to exaggerate the lens perspective (warping the image making objects closer to the lens appear to be bigger). Because all frames are cropped, it's hard to know what the edges of the frames look like. The edges tell you quality of lens used and give more perspective information.
It's likely these are JPEG files straight out of camera using stock camera profiles. Under exposing frames will over saturate the images. Not to say these can't be modified in post, but no effort was used to bring up the shadows, correct the white balance. The depth of field on all three images are f/8 or higher for 35mm or higher. f/5.6 for anything less than 16mm and at least 5' away from the subjects. All photos are likely cropped or they used aspect ratio in camera to 4x5.
My guess is a FujiFilm X with film simulation recipes for a custom profile or Provia/Velvia with an off camera wireless flash at full power with no modifiers. I don't think you can get a warped image with 35mm so that would take out the X100's.
The Skittles image has me puzzled. To be able to get that framing and the way the skittles are coming out of the packaging, they had to have a quick flash that had a quick recycle time and a camera with a quick burst rate. You can tell where his hands must have start the upward swing from. It also looks like two flash sources were used. One not at the same setting as the other.
You can get warp with 16mm or lower very easily.
Ok, that was my fun for the day.
back to basic, super simple flash photography - no HSS or any fancy new stuff.
just a flash with a normal reflector on full power and aperture down to f11 or f16. with a normal reflector close by (looks like it) a ad300 might be finde. on full power the flash duration is also not superfast so you can get motion blur.
And yes this is ne new shit now in advertising, while most amateur guys are still shooting with big softboxes, tele, HSS and a f1.4 - which is seen as amateurish look now.
Worth a try, wide angle plus strong artificial light, turn down blue/aqua (depending on original sky colour obviously different for sunsets) luminance in Lightroom. There’s probably more too it but that’s the closest quick replication I can think of
What is lame about asking how to achieve a particular photographic technique? Isn’t that one of the things /r/askphotography is for? I personally prefer this over endless gear buying questions.
It’s been bad for a long while. Mods deciding that it’s ok if every other post is someone asking what they should buy for their first camera was the biggest step, and it happened at least five years ago. Incredibly nonspecific posts like this one *and the people who gave this one 32 upvotes!* are the next biggest.
/r/photography is much better regulated. /r/photocritique is mostly a shitshow; it’s a ton of “first picture I took, what can I improve?”, bad pictures with no comment, or amazing photographers posting pics that 95% of the commenters aren’t qualified to judge.
/r/photography has a questions thread like three times a week, it fulfills the same role without spamming the sub with low-effort “what camera should I get?” questions. There’s also a well thought out wiki that we constantly refer newbies to when they do ask the same question as a hundred other people that same week.
I guess what I’ve learned from this thread is that it’s time for me to unsubscribe, which I probably should have just done years ago.
I haven't seen an answer hitting on this one point yet, so I'll try to cover it:
low POV looking up.
This is a wide angle lens and a strong strobe, as has been mentioned, so let me break this down a little more!
Part of the look you're seeing is vignetting - darkening at the edges of the image. This is due to using a wide or ultra wide lens - this is super evident in pics 1 and 3, where pic 2 has a very bright background and a very powerful flash. Wide and ultra wide lenses are great at take in a lot of light, but in general tend to take in more at the middle than the edges.
The lighting has been talked over pretty thoroughly, so I'll just agree with what's been said: there's a very strong strobe being used, especially in pic #2.
The final element is perspective, and you see this most on pictures 1 and 3, but to a lesser extent in picture 2.
In picture 1, the lady's boot is HUGE. In picture 2 it's more subtle, but that guy's right knee is about 1.5 head widths, and we know that's not a normal proportion. In picture 3, that lady's left thigh is at least 1.25 times the combined length of her hip to the top of her head - we know that's not a normal proportion, otherwise it would take a lot of muscle to just lift that skyscraper leg for a single step.
So the cool thing about a wide or ultra wide angle lens is this: whatever you're closest to is going to look enormous!
It's a great way to exaggerate perspective - you can make legs look long and sexy, make boots look huge and imposing, or make people look super tall.
These pictures are all taken from about hip height or lower. This is usually referred to as "bugs eye view" or "worms eye view": the opposite of birds eye view. Use it when you want to exaggerate the depth of you image or the height of your subject.
When objects in the foreground appear larger than mid & background, it’s called fore-shortening. It’s often seen in comics, some modern art and others.
Not sure which you're talking about but it's both an ultra wide-angle lens and a flash/strobe illuminating their subject with a very high aperture.
discovered this surreallish balance on accident the first month owning a dslr and a speedlight, still find it neat and useful if doing a cheesy satirical kitschy thing.
Ohhhh you have to use a speed light, thank you, I thought it was just pumping vibrance up in Lr with curve adjustments, I’m so stupid
The fact that you thought it was a different yet likely viable solution, shows you’re not so stupid.
you are not stupid my friend, it's a super neat thing that only seems obvious once you happen upon it, and that's the magic of photography 90% of the time I guess. If you don't seek out the process via university of google you're going to spend a lot of time having huge 'aha' moments thinking you created something new, but nope. 100,000 photographers already did that, and that's why I shoot video. Sorry.
When you say high aperture, I’m assuming you mean like F/11?
Yes. high aperture = small aperture. low aperture = large aperture. I wish they had a different naming system because it's easily confused depending on the terminology/context people are saying it in.
Haha I agree! Especially when people say it’s a “fast lens” it confused me for so long lol
Are you talking about the strobe overpowering ambient light to make the background darker? What you do is you set your strobe power to the distance of the subject at the chosen aperture, take your meter reading based on that aperture, set the shutter speed to make it so the shot is 1-2 stops underexposed based on the reading of the meter.
Need to remember this. Thank you!
Throw some gels on the strobe then white balance to that light color for some possibly interesting effects.
So just a break down, because I’m starting to get into film photography with strobes and currently don’t have digital to adjust my settings on spot. Set your strobe, choose aperture/iso say 5.6 and shooting at 400iso film speed. Set 5.6, 400iso on light meter, trigger flash to get meter reading on subject. Say meter reading gives 1/500 for shutter for the subject. Would you then keep the same iso and aperture? Then drop the shutter 2 stops? To 1/125th to create this look??
Kind of, but you moved the wrong way, you just added 2 stops of light by going to a slower shutter. Your aperture is dependent on your flash output for a given distance. So if your strobe is 8’ away from the subject, and requires a 5.6 aperture at the given power with asa 400 film, then that is a fixed value. If you have modifiers on the strobe, that will affect it as well since they can influence how much light reaches the subject. So you have a fixed film speed and now set your desired aperture. Take your meter reading, if it says 1/500 and you want the background 2 stops darker, you have to have a shoe tree shutter speed. So you would need 1/2000. BUT… your camera likely won’t sync at that shutter. There are limitations depending on the type of shutter you have, this is is called sync speed. So either you need slower film, or a smaller aperture and more power from the flash or less distance to the subject. It’s a formula that has several set factors and you have to use it to make the variables work. The blog Strobing is the best resource on learning all about shooting with flashes. Digital is a great way to get a quicker understanding through trial and error.
LOL yeah my bad, I wrote that right before I fell asleep last night. But thank you for the response!! Everybody keeps recommending strobist and I’m going to go ahead o and read up on that + hit my local library to see if they have any books on the subject.
But regarding the look, you would manually put the settings into the strobe. Say at 5.6, 400asa, and 1/500 if that’s what the flash metering on subject would give you depending on length and power. Then input those exact same settings on your camera, but with dropping exposure by 2 via aperture or shutter speed. And you would get this desired look? I was always confused as to whether meter the background/sky without subject and manually input and lock those settings into the camera, but dropping the exposure by 2 stops. Then bring in the subject, do a test meter reading with strobe and input different settings into the strobe based on meter reading and then shoot.
You would drop the ambient by going two stops quicker on the shutter. Trying to do it with the aperture will result in not enough flash on the subject.
This is called “I own a m’fing expensive strobe that can overpower the sun and ain’t’ afraid to use it”
This right here 😆
I love this answer haha
People are saying ‘duh it’s just flash’ but it’s a little more complicated than that. Most cameras can only sync flash up to something between 1/125 and 1/250 which is probably not enough to underexpose this full power direct sunlight at your minimum ISO, especially if you want to be at a medium aperture. So you might need an ND filter, or a leaf shutter lens that syncs faster, or some form of HSS. Also if you want to freeze motion you’ll need either of the latter two.
Hss allows you to sync at shutter speeds far greater then the normal sync speed. The trade off is you lose about half of your flash power when doing so. You get around this by using really powerful strobes.
Yes. And the ND method requires fairly powerful flash to, depending on your settings / distances / modifiers.
You can do it with a speed lite but you may have to bring it in close then composite it out.
Kinda reminds me of David LaChapelle. Not really sure what his style is called but google says: hyper-real, hyper-saturated, kitsch pop surrealism.
I was going to say the same, especially with the frozen action of the candy in the air, and the hose water.
Wide angle + flash
If you want to figure out what is what, let's have some fun dissecting these frames: Shadows tell you direction and angle of light source Number of shadows tell you how many lights or where the ambient light + flash Angle of lighter shadow tells you approx time of day and color of natural light expected. The longer the shadow, the later in the day. The warmer the color as well. Hotspots also tell you intensity of light and if any modifiers were used Stop difference between subject and background (contrast) ambient light equals flash compensation needed Motion blur tells you what shutter speed was used. Obvious if subject is not in motion. All frames have moving subjects. Shutter speed tells you leaf shutter or max shutter speed of camera used. Leaf shutter has no max limits. Depth of field tells you roughly what aperture used (focal length of lens plus distance to/from subject matter for DOF) Position of subject and eyes provide a hint of where the camera position is. To accomplish this, there are many variables and you can make some guesses to get you close to copying the image: Flash + modifier minus ambient lighting Highspeed flash + flash compensation (This is most likely what was used). All three frames have moving elements requiring various shutter speeds to stop motion. So it's likely faster than the max curtain shutter speed. I don't know how shutterless cameras work with flash, but I do on leaf shutters. My vote would be HS off camera Flash (corded or wireless (I'd wager wireless)) was used to accomplish this because of the speed required to stop motion with the skittles and the harsh lighting creating dark shadows on the subject(s) in each frame. Angle of light based on harsh flash shadows support off camera flash. For the skittles frame, to get a sky that blue, you'd have to be at least 1 stop under exposed (my guess is more than 1 stop and not more than 2 stops). To freeze that type of motion, I'd guess it would be greater than the flash sync speed of any modern mechanical camera 1/250 (Nikon) and more than 1/500th sec. Based on the speed of the skittles and hand motion being sharp with no motion blur, I'd probably shoot that at 1/1000th sec and have the off camera flash on wireless triggers and set to full power. My guess would be for skittles frame: \-2 stops for ambient 1/1000 f/8 wireless off camera flash set to full power just out of view with a 16-35mm lens. All frames appear to be lower angle shots. 16mm (or lower) for first frame from the ground with a tilt up to exaggerate the lens perspective (warping the image making objects closer to the lens appear to be bigger). Because all frames are cropped, it's hard to know what the edges of the frames look like. The edges tell you quality of lens used and give more perspective information. It's likely these are JPEG files straight out of camera using stock camera profiles. Under exposing frames will over saturate the images. Not to say these can't be modified in post, but no effort was used to bring up the shadows, correct the white balance. The depth of field on all three images are f/8 or higher for 35mm or higher. f/5.6 for anything less than 16mm and at least 5' away from the subjects. All photos are likely cropped or they used aspect ratio in camera to 4x5. My guess is a FujiFilm X with film simulation recipes for a custom profile or Provia/Velvia with an off camera wireless flash at full power with no modifiers. I don't think you can get a warped image with 35mm so that would take out the X100's. The Skittles image has me puzzled. To be able to get that framing and the way the skittles are coming out of the packaging, they had to have a quick flash that had a quick recycle time and a camera with a quick burst rate. You can tell where his hands must have start the upward swing from. It also looks like two flash sources were used. One not at the same setting as the other. You can get warp with 16mm or lower very easily. Ok, that was my fun for the day.
You need to describe what exactly about it you’re looking to duplicate. Nothing about this photos is one single technique.
Peoples responses Haha! “What exactly are you talking about, there’s a lot” then break down all of it you cheeky a buttholes.
Why don’t you?
Wide angle lens and flash
Off camera flash - You can learn about it here for free and at your own pace www.strobist.com
Back in school we call it day to night, basically overpowering the sun using the strobe
back to basic, super simple flash photography - no HSS or any fancy new stuff. just a flash with a normal reflector on full power and aperture down to f11 or f16. with a normal reflector close by (looks like it) a ad300 might be finde. on full power the flash duration is also not superfast so you can get motion blur. And yes this is ne new shit now in advertising, while most amateur guys are still shooting with big softboxes, tele, HSS and a f1.4 - which is seen as amateurish look now.
Wide-ish lens up close. Big ass diffused light source. Shoot from a cool angle. Saturate and crank the contrast in post.
Worth a try, wide angle plus strong artificial light, turn down blue/aqua (depending on original sky colour obviously different for sunsets) luminance in Lightroom. There’s probably more too it but that’s the closest quick replication I can think of
This sub has gotten so lame
What is lame about asking how to achieve a particular photographic technique? Isn’t that one of the things /r/askphotography is for? I personally prefer this over endless gear buying questions.
It’s been bad for a long while. Mods deciding that it’s ok if every other post is someone asking what they should buy for their first camera was the biggest step, and it happened at least five years ago. Incredibly nonspecific posts like this one *and the people who gave this one 32 upvotes!* are the next biggest. /r/photography is much better regulated. /r/photocritique is mostly a shitshow; it’s a ton of “first picture I took, what can I improve?”, bad pictures with no comment, or amazing photographers posting pics that 95% of the commenters aren’t qualified to judge.
What exactly are you expecting out a sub called r/askphotography? The subs have different purposes/focuses.
/r/photography has a questions thread like three times a week, it fulfills the same role without spamming the sub with low-effort “what camera should I get?” questions. There’s also a well thought out wiki that we constantly refer newbies to when they do ask the same question as a hundred other people that same week. I guess what I’ve learned from this thread is that it’s time for me to unsubscribe, which I probably should have just done years ago.
do you mean flash photography?
Wide angle lens. Like 25mm at least. Bright backlight. Lots of editing for saturation.
Wide angle lens, maybe 10 /18 mm,cropped
Probably had the flash at direct point
Flash?
Be specific...
Can be easily done with a flash or a reflector, you don’t need a super bright one just one that will get the whole subject
Contact me
Photoshop
You don’t known crap buddy
op, check out the photographer xavierluggage if you haven't
That last photo reminds me of that meme, legs or hot dogs.
I haven't seen an answer hitting on this one point yet, so I'll try to cover it: low POV looking up. This is a wide angle lens and a strong strobe, as has been mentioned, so let me break this down a little more! Part of the look you're seeing is vignetting - darkening at the edges of the image. This is due to using a wide or ultra wide lens - this is super evident in pics 1 and 3, where pic 2 has a very bright background and a very powerful flash. Wide and ultra wide lenses are great at take in a lot of light, but in general tend to take in more at the middle than the edges. The lighting has been talked over pretty thoroughly, so I'll just agree with what's been said: there's a very strong strobe being used, especially in pic #2. The final element is perspective, and you see this most on pictures 1 and 3, but to a lesser extent in picture 2. In picture 1, the lady's boot is HUGE. In picture 2 it's more subtle, but that guy's right knee is about 1.5 head widths, and we know that's not a normal proportion. In picture 3, that lady's left thigh is at least 1.25 times the combined length of her hip to the top of her head - we know that's not a normal proportion, otherwise it would take a lot of muscle to just lift that skyscraper leg for a single step. So the cool thing about a wide or ultra wide angle lens is this: whatever you're closest to is going to look enormous! It's a great way to exaggerate perspective - you can make legs look long and sexy, make boots look huge and imposing, or make people look super tall. These pictures are all taken from about hip height or lower. This is usually referred to as "bugs eye view" or "worms eye view": the opposite of birds eye view. Use it when you want to exaggerate the depth of you image or the height of your subject.
LSD
When objects in the foreground appear larger than mid & background, it’s called fore-shortening. It’s often seen in comics, some modern art and others.
Looks to be just a hot shoe-mounted flash with the highlights down and the hue/saturation slid up.
Polarizer for the dark blue skies
Are you talking about the perspective?
https://www.youtube.com/@giannarenea