CJ’s Studio
Photos August 14th, 2009
CJ Studio
So I got my Ultra White Lightning 600 back after sending it in for bulbs and upgrade. I have to say that Paul C Buff has great service and prices. The service was fast and I was expecting a much bigger bill, but for $70.00 I got it upgraded and 2 new bulbs and that comes with a 6 month warranty. Friendly people to work with, I highly recommend them along with all the other satisfied customers.
I wanted to test it out right away and decided I would take a snapshot for the behind the scene look. I wasn’t going to bother moving all the stuff out of the building just for a practice shot. I got the floor done (8×8) and back wall (7×8) all painted and dubbed it CJ’s Studio since all this work was for her. We are scheduled to do some indoor senior pictures tonight.
I’m still working on getting a hair light setup. With my current system, I seem to loose the hair light with the flash of the strobe. Everything looks greats before the strobe goes off, so I have to research that some more. It’s not a show stopper. I’ve discovered I am gonna need a fan, unbelievable at how warm in gets quickly in the building with a few lights going.
I also started to work with composites like above. It’s a pretty simple technique and it can give a photo an extra boost. I hear these can really be big sellers, so definitely worth looking into it. It’s going to make it interesting with cropping tho. A 4×6 and a 8×10 are two different crops. I myself prefer 8×12 with landscapings, so this is also new for me. I always work with a 4×6 in a 300 Resolution which is like a 1800×1600 pic. I find 8×12 prints from the lab are really nice at that size. I have also done 11×14 and the results are good, but never had a reason to go bigger. Now if I could just find a reasonable framing solution. Building frames myself is just to time consuming and I’m too self critical about them. It’s amazing at how much stuff has to be done from the CF card to the final pic hanging on the wall.
August 17th, 2009 at 7:10 pm
shit i feel like an idiot now…. back in the day i couldnt afford that kinda of lighting equipment. I still will make a suggestion about the hair light. One light and use a 250 bulb. its a warmer light and it will dance on her hair and bring out a warm tone….. you could test it out on a regular 250 house bulb to see if you get the effect you want.
later
August 19th, 2009 at 7:20 am
well these are old lights and I got em at an auction for dirt cheap otherwise I could never afford it either. I got 3 of em in the set but two need bulbs. I can only afford to send one in at a time to get bulbs and upgraded. The 580 EX flashes that people rave about for off camera flash are like 350.00 alone. I don’t even dare price the newer style lights of mine, but here they’re nice. I am more than happy with what I got tho. I just got really lucky to have these lights come along when they did.
August 20th, 2009 at 11:51 am
yea they are really nice lights tho…… the point i was trying to get at tho is to take one light that is tungston (warm light bulb for photograhy) that is about a 250 watt. and place it right above her head (i mean about 3 feet above) and shine it on her hair. no other lights. take a couple shots wiff a digital camera and see what you get. no flash, no other light just to get a feel for the effect. would be even nicer if you used a black backdrop. then move the light around to try different angles. old photographer taught me this. i seems to like it. later
January 13th, 2010 at 5:29 pm
I was searching for photography when I found your site. Good post. Thank You.