Hi, so I was commissioned to shoot a model portfolio for my first paying client, I got him to bring a female along to act as my assistant, I also took a few shots of her when my client was getting changed etc
I was shooting with a Pentax ist DL with a 50mm 1.7 and 28mm f2.8, and a Nikon d300 with a 35-70 f3.5-5.6
lighting setup was a 5 in 1 reflector to diffuse the sun/add in fill light and a tripod mounted sunpak flash unit with wireless trigger
The shoot was done inside and out, the outside shots were shot just before sunset.
the models I was working with were both brand new, and as i'm a brand new photographer I knew it would be hard work, so here's what I learned from the day's shoot.
the results of the shoot can be seen in this thread: https://www.pentaxforums.com/forums/photo-critique/111457-people-first-fashion-shoot.html
i'd appreciate some comments and critique on my work
about 600 photos were taken, of that I think i'll supply 6 to the client, and 9 of them will end up in my portfolio
so
1. I can see why they say 'Cold' models are a waste of film, don't expect to get anything decent out of the first 10 minutes, although it took me that long to get myself started too!
2. You'll have to direct more than you'd think you'd have to, getting the models to do what you want is 3/4 the challenge of fashion photography, especially when you don't know what you want them to do, having a collection of images you want to emulate in terms of lighting and poses really helps, plan out what shoots you are going to do and where- scout locations, the background is part of the photo too
3. Lighting really is key, photoshop can only do so much, and even then it can't correct a flatly lit image, getting exposure right is essential too, pulling up the exposure in RAW pulls the noise up so much
4. Get the lights up high, bounce flash off the ceiling and high mounted flash units are the key to good light, light at head height coming from the side will give an unsightly 'across the face' nose shadow- so get those lights 10ft in the air!
5. A reflector to soften the sun is 100% essential. A reflector to add fill in is also handy, but getting your assistant to hold the thing where you want it is tricky, using a reflector without an assistant is nigh on impossible unless you're doing staged shots
6. Have everything to hand, it looks unprofessional to have to disappear every 5 minutes to fetch something. Have spares of everything as well, I had a flash trigger die on me, luckily I had a spare (although it turns out the trigger was fine, the flash had just slipped a little and was loose on the mount, which brings me to my next point)
7. Know your equipment inside out, be able to fix problems in a second- if you have to stop the model will lose momentum. You need to know exactly when to use each setting in any given situation, you don't have time to keep checking histograms and the LCD
8. A 24-70 f2.8 is probably the perfect lens on APS-C, the 50-135mm would be perfect on full frame. Wide enough to cover the model and the surroundings, and long enough to get face shots. Fast lenses are essential for throwing the background OOF, if you're shooting slow lenses or at a small aperture position your subject against a wall
9. Get some tight face shots, fill some of the frames with your subjects face- you'll crop a lot of your photos down later in photoshop and you'll wish you'd done it in camera
10. The 50mm 1.7 is too sharp, even wide open- using a softer lens will save you hours of retouching. A 2.8 zoom is probably soft enough to be good for portrait, and fast enough for low light/bokeh, the kit lens works well for portraits when you're using fill in flash. I can see that softer f1.4 lenses would be perfect for portrait
11. Slow flash is an absolute pain, my flash unit on full power takes 16 seconds to recharge even with new batteries, by the end of the day I wanted to throw it off a bridge- get a flash with a decent recycle time. On 1/16 the recharge is near enough instant, but the flash only has full or 1/16 so I was kinda limited in what I could do, physically moving the flash was my only option to adjust power
12. Direct flash is too harsh, you 100% need an umbrella
13. Manual focus doesn't work for portraits, I got some great infocus shots, but 70% were off, a split focus screen doesn't help either, you have to use AF especially if you're shooting at large apertures
14. Selectable AF points, I don't know how it works on pentax, but on the d300 having the ability to select visible focus points was so helpful, i've heard that on canon rotating the camera to portrait will automatically change the focus point to the top centre, this sounds interesting. On another note having to manually rotate the PEF's was a pain too, the nikon puts the orientation into the exif, I guess the newer pentax bodies do too.
15. Having rule of thirds gridlines in the viewfinder was a massive plus for the nikon, I think any focussing screen I ever buy in the future will have grid lines unless the viewfinder has it as an overlay (like the d300/7d)
16. You can never have too many mega pixels, when you have MP to spare you can pull a portrait out of a full body shot- all of a sudden the 21mp 5d mk2 is looking tempting
17. Having an assistant is great when you know what you're doing, but it's actually a ball ache when you don't, you're constantly worrying about appeasing your assistant who's clearly so bored she can't even hold the reflector still, and not concentrating on the shoot
18. Multiple bodies is very very useful, you don't have time to change lenses- so 2 bodies allows you to use 2 lenses, I was shooting the 1.7 on the pentax for shallow depth of field stuff, and then shooting flash simultaneously with the nikon at f9
19. When you're exposure is correct there is no difference in high ISO noise between the 5 year old pentax ist DL and the brand new d300, to get any perceivable amount of benefit at high iso (with properly exposed shots) you have to go full frame
20. You can get great shots out of both systems, after looking at all the photos you couldn't tell which were which. In fact the pentax images had better noise control, and were sharper (but that's due to the lens). The Nikon does feel nicer in the hand though, although when shooing landscapes out in the field the pentax feels better, so horses for corses.
All in all I learn that having a good AF system you can trust is the most important thing in fashion photography, manual focus was way too difficult to be useful. I tended to favour the nikon for most of the shoot, using the pentax for f1.7 shooting and just to compare against the nikon, I got great images out of both cameras and i'd really like to try my next shoot with a top spec pentax camera with the 50-135, and maybe a canon 7d for comparison- because the nikon was definitely a top grade camera with great ergonomics and a great viewfinder- the k7 can't compare to the d300's finder, and the 7d is even better- bigger/brighter than the 5d mk2!!
i'd like to hear from other people who use pentax for fashion photography and what they think about the pentax AF system, and what tips they've learnt along the way
just for fun I also did a full lens sharpness test with the 18-55, 50mm 1.7, 28mm 2.8, 28mm 1.8, 28-200mm and the 50mm with a 2x tc, so I will compile the results and post them up here.
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