–Anatomy of the Flight series.
A breakdown on how to do high speed motion capture, the Marc Benjamin way.
Hey Gang,
I’m totally thankful for the interest and the awesome reception for my advanced dance and frozen motion photography work I call “Flight“.
A little background. When first got into photography, I was around a lot of dancers and I myself was in a (I was much much thinner then, shut up!) local ballroom dance showcase team. Naturally, the first customers I had were from local dance studios. My first studio (not the one pictured below) was in a basement of a dance school/complex and my early influences were images from dance magazine and various costume catalogs that I would steal err borrow from upstairs.
The studio: Here’s a view from the outside hall looking in
a. Is generally where the camera is. The height starts at about knee level (creates the illusion of height) and varies on how tall your subject is. Distance from camera to subject is about 12 feet while the distance from subject to background is 7-8ft.
b. There’s stuff in the camera room space. So when shooting dance and movement, we need a little more space so all that stuff goes out on the hallway.
Inside the camera room:
The room is about 12.5×32x12 . It’s a little tight but we make it work.
This is AC. She’s not really a traditional dancer per se but she’s into Chinese weapon dance.
LIGHTING:
1. The main light (photogenic PL1500). It’s a Parabolic that I set up to highest that stand will go. I try to pre visualize how the light will fall on the jumpers face once in the air. Generally, we always go for short light (nose turned towards the main) which we do get abot 80% of the time.
2. Body fill (photogenic PL1500). Early on, I was only using the main but I’ve started noticing that the lower part of the body was kinda in shadow and looked muddy. I’m a little anti big softbox (I’ve got this weird fixation on eye lash shadows and a defined loop under the nose) so I really tried to avoid making the main bigger. This is how I just decided to give the bottom part of the body their own light. Besides, I wouldn’t even know where to stick my 4×6 chimera in this space.
This light is set to 1 stop under the main. Meter the main for where the face will be at (generally be at) while in the air. Meter the body fill for where the knees will generally be at while in the air.
3 and 4 (white lighting Ultra 600). My trusty kicker lights. Very important component in order to get separation from the black background. Egg crates are a must for avoiding spill and flare. I normally set it at 1/2 stop or the same stop (depends on clothing and hair color) from the main.
5 and 6 (white lighting UltraZAP 1600) . Bottom kickers. I started feeling that I needed more separation (especially if your working with black leg warmers) and my kickers were just not long enough. So I added left and right bottom kickers to complete the outlining or even just a hint more light to get some highlights on the legs and toes. One of the things that I wanna avoid is for people to start thinking that these images were cut out. I think having a subtle light come from below helps.
7 (Nikon SB800) . This is a unique addition just for this session. I didn’t even realize that we needed a light specifically for the dart till I started noticing that when she was swinging the rope all over the place, the steel tip was crossing way beyond the lighting zone. Adding this light, solved the dart underexposure and spill was not enough to screw up the exposure from the main. I did have to flag (something to block the light from hitting the lens) for the camera though.
Here’s a couple of images from the session.
Note: The skin on the left is almost from the straight jpeg, while the one on the right got some smoothing already.
EXPOSURES & FLASH DURATION
1. I typically expose to f8 at 200. I’ve done these at 100 f4 but it was so hard to get consistent sharpness with the shallow DOF. I recommend f8 at minimum using a mid focal lens. I use a Nikkor 17-55 at around 45 on a 1.5 crop factor.
2. I’m actually surprised myself that were able to make most of these work with the lights I have. None of those lights are younger than 8 years old. The white lighting ultra 600’s I know are at least 15. As it is, the age of the lights are showing due to misfires and power fluxes.
The Photogenics are set to the lowest power settings while the White Lightnings are at half. I know that mono’s flash durations* are actually shorter on high power to max power. I don’t go full power since were hitting the majority anyways (plus, the breakers (very old building) can’t seem to handle all of those on full) though I would recommend (if your using mono’s) to start at full power first and see how your lights do.
3. All of the modeling lights are on while the room lights are off. The room lights being off is really more for ambiance (feel like they’re on stage with all those lights on them) than practicality. The ambient light is no longer a factor. The shutter speed is not really an issue (your flash duration is effectively the shutter speed) as long as it’s not below 30/sec.
*Flash Duration - The length of time the light/flash is on/in the air. The shorter the better and the more expensive your lights are (ex. broncolor, profoto 7and8 series) the shorter (1/2000) they should last.
CREATION AND CAPTURE TECHNIQUES
1. Mark the capture point. I have a specific spot where my subjects know is the capture point. It’s important for the subjects to get used to where that point is. Mines is marked with a white piece of tape and I refer to it as “home”. Some of my subjects (depending on how crazy the move is) take a run and launch themselves over the spot but most just start there.
2. Going back to short lighting, I generally have my subject face their body away from the light while making sure they turn their noses into the light at the peak of the jump. This ensures short lighting with the added bonus of awesome hair flow.
3. Sometimes, it’s easier for the subjects to work themselves into the leap. Instead of repeated jumps, I have them dance around and then go into a jump when they feel like it. I just watch for it and time the click at or close to the peak of the jump. Timing is critical. There is a great deal of repetition involved however the sessions rarely exceed 1 hour total on-camera time.
4. NO TRAMPOLINES - It’s tempting but it would take a real big one for it to be safe. Anything smaller than a 10′ is kinda dangerous..
POST TIPS
1. Although that velveteen background is likely one of the blackest light sucking backgrounds available, its still not 0,0,0 black due to the size of my camera room. There is still a small (f1.3 something) amount of light that’s hitting it so it needs a little contrast help to make it go completely dark. Adding contrast in camera solves it but the skin tones looked bad. Also, I just erase the external stuff.
2. There will always be (at least with my lighting situation) some kind of blurring with the feet and fabrics so selective sharpening is called for.
That’s it! I hope you I’ve been able to share something interesting and relevant that you would take and use back at your studio. I’m taking this program on tour during the 09/10 seasons, if you would like to bring this program (many many more samples and possible live demo) to your association, give me a call. I’m easy and if your group’s meeting is not a weekend, I often come and share for a good time and for nice people.