4 November 2010

London Strobist Photoshoot

Last weekend I was fortunate enough to get myself a place on the monthly London Strobist Meetup Group's photoshoot.  Due to overwhelming demand the shoot filled up within 2 hours of it being announced and I was originally number five on the reserves list.  I gradually worked my way up the list as people dropped out and eventually I was in!

The organisers had hired a nightclub under the arches in Vauxhall for the day for us to use.  The ambient lighting was going to be very dark to say the least so photographers were even advised to bring small torches to aid focussing in the challenging conditions.

Upon arrival the photographers started sussing out potential areas to shoot in and teamed up into pairs to begin setting up.  I teamed up with fellow group newbie Jon White and we discussed lighting setups before we started shooting a couple of the models who were free.

As the day progressed, our confidence grew and we tried different lighting ideas and techniques and got to shoot a selection of models.  I was keen to try out my Orbis Ringflash adaptor which I've had for a while now but not got round to properly using.  I ended up getting some great results from it and am sure that it will now get the use that it deserves!

I'm definitely going to make it to some more of the groups shoots as it is a great way to share ideas and learn from other photographers.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

What tips would you give for shooting in low light?

John Wood said...

The biggest challenge we found on the day was getting a focus lock as the ambinet light in the venue was really, really low.

A small torch really did help with things as we were able to shine that onto the model to allow the camera to gain a focus lock before taking the shot. The torch light didn't affect the light given out by the flash so that was OK.

There wasn't really any need for a tripod as we were using flash and the shutter duration was really brief - 1/200th second or so.

Hope that helps!
John