A quick glance at a photo shoot with a model like no other; a bike.
Take a camera and a bike to make a “portrait”. Soon you will find that the bike is not very photogenic. Only lines: tubes, cables, wheels, etc … Nothing very graceful to bring out the aesthetics. To remedy this, nothing like a little complementary light to emphasize the different elements. This is where flash techniques come, inspired by strobist.
If you want to know more about Strobist, download the excellent Strobist 101.
Gear
Before seeing the shot in itself, let’s quickly talk about material. It’s quite simple: a camera, flashes and what to trigger them.
For me :
- Canon 1DX-MkII
- Canon 70-200 f/2.8 IS USM
- Canon speedlite 580EX II
- Nissin Di866 Mark II
- Pocketwizard Plus II
In this particular case, the use of a device like the Canon 1DX-MkII is not necessary. For the purpose, the use of a telephoto lens allows to obtain a beautiful depth of field easily.
Setup
To highlight the bike lines, without any particular effect, the setup is simple:
- Make the frame
- Underexpose of about -1.7 EV and making sure to shoot below 1/200 (maximum sync speed)
- Add 45 ° light to the right and 45 ° to the left
Which gives the setup below:
Three-quarter view this gives:
The setting up only takes a few minutes, but for what result will you tell me!
Results
An image is better than a long speech, so here are 4 images:
no flash Under-exposed With flash #01 With both flash #01 and #02
