Standard Look

[pcunite]

Hello to all... I am new here and wish to move into MFD at some point. The images shown are my standard look I go for with my environmental and on-location portraits.

I will be adding another type of contrived work that I want to use MFD exclusively. Thus 35mm for my wedding work maybe some portrait and MFD for important portrait and my new contrived work.

My biggest concern is getting enough DOF and not having to use AC powered strobes. Currently I have five Canon 580EX II battery powered strobes that are very light weight for travel and setup.

 

[Guy Mancuso]

MF with these shots about F8 or F11 would work fine. Count on using ISO 400 for the interiors for your strobes. Make sure you get a back that can do that very well. Flash outdoors look at it as 125 f16 for bright sun, than about F11 for flash fill with a Focal Plane shutter. With Leaf shutter you can go 500 at F8 with flash fill at 5.6 . Depends on what system you decide to go for. Hassy is Leaf shutters, Mamiya is focal plane shutters but a new 80mm leaf shutter lens will be out this year for the Mamiya so would would have both options. Sinar is also leaf shutters and Leaf AFI is also.

 

[LJL]

Pcunite,
Welcome aboard.

You are asking a question that is probably on the minds of many folks considering the same move. For the most part, MF is going to require a fair bit of light to shoot at the smaller apertures you are asking about. One way around that is to use wider angle lenses for more DOF, and then deal with any distortion issues you may face. This may be fine for the environmental settings, but may not look as good for more formal portraits, unless you can get the lights closed enough and softened enough for use with a longer lens.

The Canon 580EX II flashes put out a fair amount of light. I have them and use them myself. My issue with them is that it really hard to get a softened light that is able to wrap around the subject a bit more. You may not need or want that effect. (Your shoreline portraits are an example.....good overall lighting that is nicely balanced, but still some harsher shadows from the point sources of the 580s, versus shooting with a larger umbrella or softbox. Just my observation and not a criticism. You have a great light balance in these shots. The smaller flash are just a bit less forgiving in harshness.)

Your interior shots look nicely balanced, and moving the smaller flash units around will be easier for sure. Personally, I have not been able to get the same sort of lighting success with mine as I do with flash heads, packs, softboxes and other modifiers, so I haul more of the stuff around. This is a constant source of some frustration, since I would rather use less and smaller lighting, but have not found it as easy to adjust and control. Your are getting some nice results, so using the smaller units with your 35mm set-up may be all you need. That will give you more DOF options also.

Not sure what you mean by "contrived", but am assuming it to be more studio related for things, such as dramatic angles, background, hairlights, spots, etc. Much of that is a lot harder to achieve with the smaller flash units simply because there are fewer modifiers made to fit them, compare to studio flash equipment.

Not sure that is of much help. I refuse to part with the variety of kits that I have assembled, such as multiple small units, heads and packs, cool fluorescents, etc., simply because there are situations where only one just cannot do the job.

LJ

 

[pcunite]

...harsher shadows from the point sources of the 580s, versus shooting with a larger umbrella or softbox. Just my observation and not a criticism.

... skip ...

Not sure what you mean by "contrived", but am assuming it to be more studio related for things, such as dramatic angles, background, hairlights, spots, etc.

LJL,
You are very correct sir
Outside I do use the 580EX without modifers for the power and that is the look you have noticed very intelligently. I do use them with modifiers for some things if I have the time and if the wind is not against me with a 60" umbrella and I think you would like the softness.

The contrived work I am referring to is elaborately staged scenes involving people.

I loathe to carry heavy lights with me for my current work. The contrived work (first one coming up this month) I spend weeks preparing so I could live with a lot of equipment for just one shoot I suppose.

 

[LJL]

LJL,
You are very correct sir
Outside I do use the 580EX without modifers for the power and that is the look you have noticed very intelligently. I do use them with modifiers for some things if I have the time and if the wind is not against me with a 60" umbrella and I think you would like the softness.

The contrived work I am referring to is elaborately staged scenes involving people.

I loathe to carry heavy lights with me for my current work. The contrived work (first one coming up this month) I spend weeks preparing so I could live with a lot of equipment for just one shoot I suppose.

I have used larger umbrellas with the 580s, and it does provide a nice, softer light. I found that mounting two units into the umbrella was needed for some things, but it does work. The bigger the spread of light, the softer it will be, but that also requires a lot more output power, and most smaller portable units are not as up to the task.

There are some other postings in this forum about various more portable lighting things, such as the Hensel Porty, the new Bron A2R, the Elinchrom Ranger, and the Profoto ProB2 and Acute 600B units, etc. None of these are inexpensive for sure, nor all that light, but they do put out a fair amount of light, and offer a lot of control. I still use the smaller heads of my DynaLites, powering them from the 1100XP battery unit, and they work quite well. Guy was (is) using small DynaLite "Twinkles" (small monolights) and he has had some very nice results.

Will be interesting if you can share you results from the contrived shooting gig that you are planning.

LJ

P.S. Marc (fotografz) is traveling and may not be seeing as much of these threads right now, but he is a true master of lighting, and shoots MF plus 35mm. His comments and suggestions will also be valuable, but warning.....as you may have seen in another thread, he is a serious gear person....but it delivers excellent results in his hands ;-)

 

[fotografz]

This type of work would be perfect for a Hasselblad 503CW and CFV digital back. Not terribly expensive relatively speaking, and better image quality than a top of the line DSLR. It provides sync flash at all shutter speeds up to 1/500th, so true balanced fill-flash outdoors can be achieved.

The CFV has a crop factor of 1.5X ... so, for example, you get the greater Depth-of-Field of a Zeiss 100mm and the field-of-view of a 150mm which is a nice portrait focal length on MF. Since you do not use super wide angle lenses, the crop factor is less of an issue. The widest lens for this camera and digital back is a 40mm which equals a 60 mm Medium Format field-of-view.

I would also suggest looking to a bare bulb type flash system ... still smaller, but more powerful and much better light quality ... there are a host of light modifiers available for bare bulb units. Quantum makes just about anything you can think of which fit almosr any bare bulb flash made.

If selecting a Hasselblad 500CW, the D40 flash can be used which is TTL and can be powered by AA bateries in the flash or by a separate power pack like a Quantum ... Also, if I recall correctly, there are connecting cords to use multiple D40 flashes.