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I needed very shallow depth-of-field to blur out the busy bookshelf and keep focus on the subjects. I used a 50mm lens at f/1.6 and 1/6400 (at 1/8000 a vignette is more apparent), ISO100. I think it worked great - just can't wait to use it outdoors to kill the ambient or do some motion freeze with the power of Dynalite strobes.

The first step is having a background that reflects a similar light to the background you're planning to project. For me, I'll be rendering a room similar to an anechoic chamber. Since it'll be white, I'll just roll a white seamless under the model and create a path around him.

Then I fire up my favorite 3D program, and create a room large enough for the light to bounce around in a realistic manner (the other half of rendering I used environment HDRI). I made some boxes as reference to the model and object to cast the proper shadows.

After matching the camera location relative to the subject(s), I fire up the render. I also create a second render for the ambient occlusion (in other words, shadows).

I layer the images together, and add some blur to the AO render to give a little depth-of-field to match the camera's f/8 at a close distance.

It may not seem much for all this work, but my photojournalism professor always emphasized for us to be aware of the background.

Scouting day: office.

I scouted the shop the day before, and while it was a cool little shop full of texture and props, it was a tiny space and I was beginning to worry where I'd place my lights.

But in the back-backroom, where Danny does the soldering and other fun stuff with electronics, is where I decided to do shoot. The little hallway I was standing had little over two feet wide of space for me to walk. Flat screens hugged the walls so I had to be careful.

Even with a point-and-shoot on wide, it was hard to get a shot of the room.

That night I found a picture of the color bars online to project on the main tv screen, and took a picture with my backup camera. The next day I asked him to move the projector from the table on the left, and cleaned up the space a bit. To keep Danny in focus instead of the wire jungle in the background, I spot lit his face with a 30 degree grid on a boom, and a brolly behind me for fill. Ideally, I would've setup a medium box with grid, but it's impossible to put a medium stand, much less a c-stand in that hallway.

I also wanted a wide aperture, and at the same time avoid tv-screen flicker. So I was locked in at 1/25 of a second, and wanted a wide-ish aperture at ISO 100. I had to compromise for ISO 160 and f/6.3.

You can see on the camera settings on the screen because I'm outputting the color bars straight from my backup camera. I increased the fill and lowered the key; the back light is just a small reflector. The magnifying headset looked interesting on him and thankfully the tv in the back wasn't showing any celebrity.

Thankfully the maintenance crew were more than happy to put the airplane back together as much as they could, and even managed to give it a quick spit shine for effect.

But, to make the image look more "prepared" for the airshow by the time the article is published, I had to crop in tight unfortunately. I would've loved to use the entire hanger and setup more lights. Then again, I only had a few minutes to photograph Mr. Epps.

Readjusted a couple of lights, tried to grid the smaller key light so it wouldn't blow out the white off the airplane, and I had to do without a hair light. Again, no landing gear!

So I went outside to get a few more shots, and I saw this interesting statue. The problem was that it was strongly backlit so I needed to do some HDR, and I didn't have a tripod that would go this low on the ground. So I layed on the grass and held stead as much as I could and changed shutter speed.

But even "simple" projects can take a lot of work to produce. More details after the jump.

The client was providing the unfinished basement and we estimated a full-day of shooting on paper, and we learned what they really meant by a "little" and "messy."  Most of the shoot consisted of cleaning and moving things around.  Maybe it was the fashion photographer Richard Avedon who said, "90% of photography is moving furniture," or something to that effect.

Camera-right view of the cleaned area.

Dozen of boxes lined up against the walls and bare studs, covered with dust and bug carcasses who didn't quite make it past the windows. Even with a broom, it took three or four passes to reach the raw concrete but a leaf blower came in handy. Despite the art direction to "leave some dust" on the floor, it was still too dusty and the random twigs and pieces of grass seemingly floating on the corners (thanks to the spiderwebs) didn't quite help with the stylized realism. A while later, the "set" was just about ready. The composition called for the right side to be dark and neutral in order to place a semi-transparent bar holding the copy.

The sample bag we received was larger than expected and full of wrinkles that would not flatten. As for the props, we picked easily recognizable objects to give a sense of scale in relation to the bag.  A luggage and a lamp can be narrowed down but they still come in all sorts of sizes, so a bicycle was added because it tends to be more constant in size.

Now we pick a spot and add recognizable "junk" in the bag so the viewer can get a sense of scale.

Shooting with natural light coming from the windows and the tungstens from the ceiling created an unpleasant mix of colors. The window light is casting a bluish color and the tungsten is giving off an orange glow. They could balance each other off in theory, but that's a whole different game. In practice, if I calibrated the camera's white balance for the tungsten lights, I'd add orange gels to the window to match; and if balanced for the outside, I'd blue-gel every tungsten bulb. Typically it's the latter, but whatever is not visible to the camera gets the gel treatment. Also, the light intensity varied too much with the objects being underexposed and the highlights being completely blown out.

Set the props and clean up the area.

The fun part of setting up lights.

Exposing the photo for the outdoor ambient. The windows couldn't get much cleaner and there were screens in between.

A behind-the-scenes look, shooting tethered to the laptop (not pictured).

At this point I roughly know how I want to light the scene with the main face of the bag receiving the key light, side-face is one stop under, and the right side of the frame is flagged. Ideally, I would put a small gridded softbox on the objects, but because of space, I'll have to use a pair of Canon 580s flash on the left wall, hidden behind the studs.

Foreground is nicely lit but the background is now super-dark

...then I added a Canon 580 flash in the back at 50mm zoom to feather the light. Now it looks like the light is coming through the window. The bag loops are propped open with sticks which will be removed in post.

Here's the final result as delivered. The bag was still super wrinkled, despite efforts of steaming and ironing. Because of the size and plastic material, there was not much we could do to flatten the surface. With the client approval on set, I shot as-is and tried to fix it in post as much as possible. Their graphic designer would later add the company's logo on the bag.

After: stylized, composed, lit, and post-processed in nice wide-screen.

In the end, I used a large softbox on the right, medium box on the left, a pair of 580s against the wall (and behind the studs) to the left, a small box to the right (outside frame) to light the bag, and a 580 in the back to simulate window light. So 6 lights total. Given a full-day to work  and some surprises, this is pretty good. I took a few different angles and closeups just in case.

I thought I was going to break down this post in two parts more evenly, but that's it. In the next post, I'll upload a video of all the outtakes stringed together so you can see the process.

Here's my solution: Gorilla Glue ($8) and sand ($3) at Home Depot.

I bought a set of 5lbs Matthews sandbags a while back and they've been sitting around in my closet waiting to be filled and sewn. The beauty of these empty bags is that they left little opening to fill it with sand yourself, so 80% of the bag is sealed.

The little opening on the left, next to the flap.

After filling the bag, get your Gorilla Glue, moisten the area with water and apply the glue.

Moisten with water

Spread the glue around until it forms a thin layer. Remember, GG will foam  so don't go too crazy.

Spread the glue until into a thin layer.

I prefer to wear gloves so I won't have to battle with the glue on my fingertips, but tuck the fabric underneath the flap and pinch. If the image is hard to understand, you can easily "deconstruct" how they folded on the sewn side.

Fold and pinch.

I sawed off an old clipboard back to serve as a base, but you can use any two pieces of hard surface to help hold the glue. The problem with GG is that it foams as it sets, and will naturally push the materials apart. It's very important to have something pinching and applying equal pressure. Let it set for 2 hours.

Extra pinching using two halves of a clipboard and A-clamps.

The bag is done and it passed my tossing-across-the-room test and dropped at various height with no bursting problem. The glue is tough but flexible enough so it doesn't just shatter and lose its integrity. The bits and pieces of glue that breaks internally will still hold onto the flaps.

5lbs of weight on a C-stand.

The truth is, I would've bough sandbags filled with sand if it wasn't constantly backordered, and I was lucky just to get the empty 5lb ones. The price difference for 5lb sandbags was small enough to just buy the filled ones, even if you consider shipping costs. But I have enough sand and glue leftover now to build a few more sandbags. I'm just hoping to get the 15lb bags next.

As usual, I make no warranty and I'm not responsible for personal injury or destruction to property.

055XB tripod sans head

The first step is to get the materials. Below I have appropriated the strap from a LowePro bag (which now just holds my flashes and other accessories in storage), but I'm sure a laptop or messenger bag's strap also works. The key is to get a strap with a locking hook, and make sure it's not something thin like a toothpick, or that you would easily bend with pliers.

Materials: 1) Spare camera bag strap, and 2) a medium dog collar.

I got my dog collar at WalMart for $3.00. The size is medium but I still had to shorten the collar to its minimum setting.

Some shoulder straps are curved to give maximum comfort if you prefer the right or left shoulder. So pick a side and hook it to the tripod's eyelet at the top end of the tripod.

Clip the strap into the tripod's built-in eyelet/ hook.

At the tripod's leg, I wrapper the dog collar around the legs between the levers so the strap doesn't slide up and down during transit.

Medium dog collar at minimum setting between the locking levers of the tripod.

Now just hook the other end of the shoulder strap to the eyelet of the dog collar.

The end result:

Granted, you could buy the "real" Manfrotto straps for $16-40, but I think the shoulder straps I have is pretty heavy-duty. Although I wish I had a Carbon fiber tripod, this heavy aluminum can get hauled around with this simple DIY strap.