Shooting it: Drinking in the Night

Intro

Doing strobist things in the night can be really interesting, but what if you don’t have a model to shoot? Well, it’s easy, why don’t you just go out and shoot yourself!  Sometimes I really love playing around and shooting one of the most difficult to please models in the world, but in many cases it’s the only one I have – Myself! 😉 I’ve been quite busy recently and didn’t have time to take a lot of photos, but now since I finished my studies I’m gonna have time and do some more self portraits, so this will be the first from the series I’m thinking about!

最近よく聞かれる質問、撮影できるモデルがいないけど、どうやって見つけたらいいですか？モデルがいないときはどうしますか？答えはめっちゃ簡単です！モデルがいなかったら、自分を撮ったらどうですか？どんなときでも、必ずいるのは自分だから、モデルがいないから撮影できないのがうそですよね！(笑) 実は、私もよく練習したいときはまず自分の体にその照明を試します！そして、自分のかっこいいプロフィール写真にもなるので、一石二鳥です！カメラマンこそのプロフィール写真がかっこよくないとだめだと思います！

Gear

Camera is Canon 5D Mark II nothing much to say about it! The lens is Canon 135mm F/2 USM 

Strobes – for this shot I have 4 strobes one Canon 580EXII and three Nikon SB-26s, in Japan you can find them for less than 50 bucks, so I could afford to risk them at anytime! Also they have optical slave mode, which comes very handy if you don’t have enough triggers! 

Modifiers – I am using a 80×60 Gridded softbox as a main light, a Shoot-though Umbrella, as some fill from the right side, and a DIY snoot! Also one of the strobes is without any modifier!

Color filters – for this shoot I’m suing LEE Filters to color some of the strobes blue, recently I’m using the ROGUE Color Collection to do this!  

Triggers – at that time I was using Pocket Wizard II Plus trigger for the main flash, and all other strobes are triggered by Optical slave! 

機材

カメラは Canon 5D Mark II です！レンズはCanon 135mm F/2 USM です! 

当時使ってたストロボはメインライトで、キャノン580EXII、あと Nikon SB-26も3灯です、そのときは5000円以内で購入できてたし、めちゃくちゃなロケで壊れてもぜんぜんかまわないと思ってました！そして、ラジオスレーブ十分持ってないときに、スレーブ機能がついてるためとても便利です！

アクセサリーは80×60センチのソフトボックス、アンブレラー、手作りのスヌートです！ロケのときはほとんど持ってる道具です！

カラーフィルター － この撮影ではLEEフィルター使っています。最近はROGUE (ローグ) のカラーフィルターを使ってます！

ラジオスレーブは Pocket Wizard II Plus です、そして、オプティカル・スレーブです！

Strobist info:

Canon 580EXII in a 80×60 Gridded Softbox – Camera Left
Nikon SB-26 with a shoot-through umbrella – Camera Right with a Blue Filter
Nude Nikon SB-26 behind me for the blue glow, with a Blue Filter
Nikon SB-26 with a DIY Grid Spot camera left
580EXII Triggered by Pocket Wizard II Plus, and Phottix Atlas trigger on the camera body
All three Nikon SB-26s are triggered by Optical Slave

Lighting

That was a damn cold night in Kobe, don’t ask me how I motivated myself to go out in the middle of the night and do this! So, about the setup I’m using, my main light is coming from a gridded 80x60cm softbox on the left of the camera, I wanted to have some cool light on myself here! And for some fill on the right I’m having a shoot through umbrella with a Nikon SB-26 and a blue gel. I’m using some blue gels on this shot to make up a little the atmosphere the way I wanted it to be, a little colder. Also behind me you can see one more blue gelled Nikon SB-26, and there is also a gridded flash on the left side. That one I use to put some more detail on the objects in front of me, and I gridded it to restrict the light that I didn’t want to hit me.

I’m triggering the main flash here, Canon 580EXII with a Pocket Wizard, and all the others are triggered by optical slave, that’s why I love the old SB-26s, they have built-in optical slave unit, and they are cheap. I have the PW attached to the 580EXII and actually on the camera body I have a Phottix Atlas Trigger. This is a new tranciever I purchased recently as I managed to break both of my PWs hot shoes, so now I can use them only as receivers and I can’t attach them on the camera anymore! Here the Phottix trigger comes really handy, it’s much cheaper than the wizards, and is doing basically the same job! And the most important thing… has a metal hot shoe! lol Also I’m using the LEE Filters, to gel my flashes, I usually got them for free from the company that is a representative in Japan, and they are very handy.

Final Results

I really enjoy shooting self portraits when I have nothing to do, or if I want to try some new type of lighting! Soon I’m going to be uploading some new photos. By the way you can check my Self Gallery in my flicker account here: CLICK! How about you, do you enjoy shooting selfies?

In the end

Now, I am preparing a series of new articles on some general topics, let me know which one of them you want to see first, so I get it ready earlier! Also other ideas are welcome too! Here are some of them: Portraits at night / Lens article (I guess 135/2) / Portraits in the rain / Use of gels / Using backlight / One light setups / Shoots with just one umbrella / General shooting portraits / Can cheap lenses make good photos / Swing the camera shots / Using snoots / Shaped bokeh / … or any other idea welcome, post it in the comments, and I will see if I am able to write about it! Also stay tuned for my new blog section starting soon called “Strobist Diary” There I will talk about many of my off-camera flash techniques from basic things to some advanced stuff! 

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