p.64 #1 · Portrait and People Image Thread using Sony
^^ The optical snoot looks like a nice idea. I had a bowen fresnel projector but broke the lens before I get to use it. I recently bought one from Aamzon but this one doesn't have a lens. I didn't know there were these snoots where one could add canon lens at the end. Saw some youtube videos and these make nice effects
p.64 #3 · Portrait and People Image Thread using Sony
bobby350z wrote:
^^ The optical snoot looks like a nice idea. I had a bowen fresnel projector but broke the lens before I get to use it. I recently bought one from Aamzon but this one doesn't have a lens. I didn't know there were these snoots where one could add canon lens at the end. Saw some youtube videos and these make nice effects
Yeah they are pretty darn cool. I made a DIY out of a regular snoot and a Canon AV-1 (only has auto and bulb mode so useless as a camera anyway) for about $40 (already had a few FD mount lenses) to see if it would be something I would use a lot. It worked really well but it was a royal pain to actually use as I had the analog camera on a separate stand from the strobe + snoot. Optical snoots definitely open up some interesting creative possibilities, but you do need to deal with the fact that you are introducing an extremely hard light source as your key light. Using it on axis with the lens works well and if you want to emulate window lighting with a shadow cast by the window frame, your best bet would probably be to put it directly on top of a softbox. Obviously, you are throwing away a lot of light with gobos so I think it would be tough to use outside unless you were shooting at night.
p.64 #6 · Portrait and People Image Thread using Sony
This one of my first attempts at a black background portrait.
This was shot with a Yongnuo YN560 in a silver reflective umbrella to camera left about 7 feet high. The background is a small Muslin collapsible black/grey background and an old black Ikea coffee table was used as the bench. The biggest challenge I had was trying to fit the composition around the limited size of the background. My post processing skills are limited so I wanted to try and get it as close in camera as I could. I ended leaning the background against a wall with a few boxes underneath it so the background was about 1 foot off the floor so I could keep the subjects heads on the background so I only had to extend the black into the top upper corners.
The entire setup was quite comical! In the end I am happy with the results that I was able to achieve.
p.64 #8 · Portrait and People Image Thread using Sony
A couple of days ago I posted an image of my young niece not smiling. These are couple from when she was. Six years old and losing her teeth. FE 85/1.8
p.64 #9 · Portrait and People Image Thread using Sony
fuzzykeys wrote:
I got a bunch of super cheap gel sheets on ebay, a few miscellaneous colors and some utility Lee CTO, CTB, etc. gels. I can stick a whole sheet in front of the inner diffuser on my 25” and 16x48” Glow boxes but can’t quite get full coverage on the 48” octa. Meanwhile, I have seen some folks that are straight up attaching gels to their Xplor/Godox flash tubes and Flashgels makes custom cut gels for those lights that appear to have holes cut out to match the vents on the tubes. Those “proprietary” gels do not look all that difficult to reverse engineer. The conventional wisdom seems to be to NOT do this, though seemingly largely due to the amount of heat that traditional non-LED modeling lights emit. I’m thinking about trying it...How hot do the SL LED lights get?
Also, tonight I finally got a chance to head-to-head test two optical snoots with third party gobos! I tried the Godox SA-P with SA-17 adapter vs the Fotoconic optical snoot from Amazon. Long story short, I am keeping the Fotoconic despite the $300 price tag. The Godox is great with the stock gobos but the gobo holder leaks a ton of light around the edges with all Rosco gobos while the Fotoconic is pristine. The Godox also has an amazingly close minimum focus distance with its 85mm projector lens, while the Fotoconic uses a regular EF mount lens (comes with a 50mm f1.7), so the projection is wider and it doesn’t focus as close. The lenses could not be more different. The Godox lens focuses by adjusting the magnification of the projection. The Fotoconic focuses like a prime camera lens in that you adjust the size of the projection with the distance to the target and then focus using the focus ring. There are pros and cons to each method. The Godox is “zoomable” in a sense if you want to eg throw up a window shadow pattern and the sharpness of the shadows is not critically relevant. It’s a chunk of change to upgrade from my DIY analog SLR optical snoot but I 100% think it’s worth it. FYI neither of them are large enough to accommodate an AD600 Pro but they will both fit an AD400 Pro or smaller flash tube. I’m going to shoot some stuff with the Fotoconic soon and will share it here!
Would like to see some shots. I tried my cheaper one which doesn't take a lens but controlling size and focussing was harder. I am thinking of return it and get the Fotoconic one if you recommend.
p.64 #12 · Portrait and People Image Thread using Sony
bobby350z wrote:
Would like to see some shots. I tried my cheaper one which doesn't take a lens but controlling size and focussing was harder. I am thinking of return it and get the Fotoconic one if you recommend.
I will try to share some soon. It's not perfect and it's a bit pricy, but it's the best I've found for my needs. The framing shutters are very useful but flimsy. That's probably my biggest knock against it. After verifying that it works with third party gobos, I ordered a whole bunch from a stage lighting store. I picked up some abstract patterns, foliage, light streaks, windows, blinds...all kinds of stuff!
p.64 #13 · Portrait and People Image Thread using Sony
fuzzykeys wrote:
I will try to share some soon. It's not perfect and it's a bit pricy, but it's the best I've found for my needs. The framing shutters are very useful but flimsy. That's probably my biggest knock against it. After verifying that it works with third party gobos, I ordered a whole bunch from a stage lighting store. I picked up some abstract patterns, foliage, light streaks, windows, blinds...all kinds of stuff!
p.64 #16 · Portrait and People Image Thread using Sony
Hodie wrote:
A little session with my newest son. He's going to be one in just a few days. He's best known for his voracious appetite, dimples, and crazy hair.
I used luminosity masks for dodging and burning for the first time and I'm liking the results and the process (super fast).
In order for him to get to smile/laugh for me, I launched a crayon out of my mouth for each shot.
p.64 #20 · Portrait and People Image Thread using Sony
I need to buy a mola but the wife won't be happy and since wfh, I can't hide at the studio at my work place. I finally put bowen adapter on my Kacey's beauty dish and plan to use it next time.
FE 85/1.8
