Shot this FF material at a location with a few creative camera / flash & creative lighting tricks.
Al Cielo Hotel from matt adcock on Vimeo.
I wanted to show a few more frames that I really loved.... maybe coming soon. We are headed South on 12/17 to Chiapas Mexico and Palenque for our anniversary trip.
This is an update to give a little more depth to the last completely underground Cenote TTD session.
Technically, this kind of session really can push the equipment to the total risk. We ended up tossing a Pocket Wizard Multi Max in the drink on this session. I never really liked that Max, too many buttons to push on the front. I'd find myself shooting and having brushed against it. Just a few clicks can get you back to real life, but sometimes those clicks on the Max aren't too fun when time is flying by.
Here is my strobe underwater, shot with an overexposure of 2 stops. The flash was set to 1/4 power in this frame. Housing max depth 12-15 inches. Magenta Gel on flash.
*wanna learn how to light like this? Read www.strobist.com
Gracias to Rodrigo for his sacrifices here.
Some of my favorites:
I took the flash out of the water. Rodrigo aimed the flash at the ceiling. From this perspective, the reflection of the blue is WICKED.
Sol Tamargo had mixed in another strobe in the background, gelled RED. This room was so big that we actually had the flash set up around 30 feet away, in another open area in a back room.
With our hot lights on her and the humidity underground, Standing in this location elevates the core temperature, big time.
This one really lets you understand hot "steamy" the groom was for the bride... they went to 65 degree water. Look at this steam coming off him as they were waist deep in water.
Lastly, Sol finishes this off with more red / blue sexy mix.... I love the reflections.
THANKS for stopping by. Inspired by this, please tell us your comments.
Cheers,
matt
Recently, i've been exploring lots of photography in / around the water. This last weekend, we were neck deep in water shooting a client in a dark dark place. I wanted to add lots of color to the water but didnt want much of that color to jump out and light my subject.
I wanted to post this photo for my readers who stop by from time to time and see if you can figure out what I did here. I have a very clever idea for executing this technique and want to see if anybody can come up with something similar.
Anyway, here is a subject lit with a few hot light sources. The water is lit with strobe. Any ideas as to how I got these results? I was shooting a TTD in a dark dark cave with lots of water :)
Recently, I was assembling a few galleries and found a few shots that Sol shot and wanted to share with you. Let this be a little motion motivation for you :) Here are 3 frames where a flash helped act as the shutter and freeze the action involved, just enough so the ambient and movement patterns would leave a ghosting look. This technique is easy to follow, drag shutter, add flash :) low power flash preferably.
She has done very well capturing motion or the sense of motion which directly puts the viewer in the seat of the action. How much motion have you been shooting lately? I found myself getting a little crazy with motion and using flash so I wanted to add a little shot to my motion post as well.
ISO 1000 1/50th at 2.8
Sol shot this one with a little lens barrel effect.
ISO 100 1/40th 2.8
I shot this one on Saturday, 11/8/08. I liked SO many from this wedding that I decided to send them to the hotel yesterday... Besides the hotel manager, you will be the first to see this photo. We will finish the editing on this wedding over the next 3-4 weeks... more to come!
ISO 500 2.2 at 1/25th. The flash and subtle camera movement combine together well. They look like they are floating almost.
Hope these inspire you to move your camera, zoom your lens, run around, do something fun with the camera and flash when shooting to emphasize movement!
cheers,
matt
Holy MO FO, great work...I love it!
HOLA Ulises,
Thanks for offering your assistance on this shoot and for stopping by this blog to say HOLA! Saludos to you amigo and best luck for your future! Keep working at your passion and you will have your dreams!
Cheers!
matt
Hola matt, how are u. i-m ulises remember the guy he was walking that day at the beach and i stop and i was talking whit u. i-m frome manzanillo so i just want tell u the video is espectacular and the pics are so nice pictures u are a great photographer. congratulations and take care.
Joe,
we shot on full auto (Program mode) for the walk down sequence. I don’t think the exposure is totally perfect, but it will do :) Also, we had a polarizer on, hence the darkening / vignette on the edge of the frame.
we use QTP, yes. I set different frame rates for multiple sequences… the walk down was 24 fps, i think. The moon rise was 30 frames… but, we had 700+ images for that sequence… not sure if frames were skipped, probably so.
for the beginning sequence, I used 20 or so images at 5 fps, and repeated the sequence 3 times to give the effect of multiple waves :)
Cheers & thanks for the anniv wishes :)
Hey Matt,
Congrats on the anniversary.
Got some tech question for you:
1) For the still motion shot with the 5D images, did you make it into video with QuickTime? and if so, what’s the frame rate that you set for them? because it seems like when I try to put them together in Quicktime, if they are faster than camera’s fps ( 3fps on 5D, and I tried 6 fps with QuickTime) then there seems to be dropped frame (or skipped frames? since they don’t show up on the screen, so my question is how did you go about setting the fps for the still motion part of the movie?
2) How did you determine the exposure for the walk down to beach, because it looks like the sky are not blown out, and the dark corner or the images were somewhat well exposed as well (going downstair turning area), so how did you determine exposure for that? Do you measure the proper exposure for highlight (sky) and shadow (dark area) and take the average between the 2 extremes for the proper shutter speed?
Keep on inspiring us ;P
Surfed in randomly. Love this. It’s a great use of stills and videos together
OH, I did notice the frame with Victor was shot without a tripod.... Honestly, is a Steadicam necessary for any moving shot. I don’t think so. I’ve watched hundreds of documentaries and enjoy the style of free shooting, i guess its all a style thing.
I use IMOVIE… i’m by no means pro… I’m learning Final Cut Express. Video shot with a Sony HDR-SR11 Handycam. Used sony’s wide angle lens converter for the VID. No filters. thanks for taking a peak!
Cheers!
matt
Matt,
Congrats for your anniversary!
Great shots!
I’ve got few questions for you…
- What video editing tool are you using for HD? Premiere?
- Did you switch lenses on these recordings? If yes. What is your kit?
- And last, what filters did you use if any?
Thanks
THANKS everybody for stopping by to wish us a happy anniv :) WE are loving life and enjoying our time in this crazy career where people actually pay us $$ to take photos.
For the one negative comment about “sticking to what I’m good at” and “use a steady cam” etc…
FYI, all video in this project was shot on a tripod. We used still motion with our 5d’s (old school version) and shot nearly 350 frames for the walk down to the beach....
I think a steadycam is a nice tool for those who need it, however, we are not needing one. We do plan on continuing to shoot video with our new 5d II’s, once we get them. And, I do imagine that we will continue to mix media and keep pleasing our clients. BUT, we appreciate your concern.
OH, the final 25 seconds with the moon rise was shot over 750 frames for about 45 minutes on Tripod. We combined them for a movie sequence to get the rising of the brightest moon we had seen in a while.
Our bud Mark Adams recently turned us on to the still motion technique…
Cheers!
matt
happy anniversary sol and matt! beautiful video. al cielo was a great place to remember your wedding weekend. and sol, you even had the same flower. happy holidays.
Better to stay away from video… You need a Steadicam or shoulder mount for your 5D mk2. Taking video needs a lot of official training and knowledge. If you just mount 5D mk2 still for video without moving… it’s the same as photos. My advice is doing what you are good at and get a Canon XH-A1S and Steadicam setup.
Super awesome! Well done, keep up the good work.
Crash
One year already. man. You guys are insanely awesome. Love coming here for inspiration.
Great video, I loved the stop motion part, it was awesome, the pictures were great, and I loved the finale ! Did you used a SLR for the final video ?
Thanks for sharing, it’s amazing :)
Hey Guys, I’m reading and watching ur blog since a long time now. I really like ur pictures and especially how u present ur stuff here on the page. This time i feel like commenting bc i can not only compliment u for great pictures but for great pictures, a fantastic video and a good choice :) Nice Place. Nice Work! Congratulations from germany!
I LOVE the video… wish I had more time to do something like that. HAPPY ANNIVERSARY!!!
I can’t believe it has been a year already! Dang time flies.
I loved the time laps shots at the end :)
Congratulations to your first year! Beautiful place.
Happy Anniversary to 2 of the sweetest people. ;) You video is amazing!
Happy Anniversary!