I am wondering if I am being watched.

No Fair...

I use White Bed Sheet's also...
Setting up a "Sheet frame" is rather easy, just takes a little PVC over at Home Depot elbowed together.

They are good to stop piercing or hard light even infront of harsh windows.

People admire good photographs, they pay to jerk off to good porn.

You do both well, I do one well.

Many do neither, which makes our lives easier. :1orglaugh

Thanks Dean. :thumbsup

Dean,

I have always admired your work. I have some questions.

What would you say is your favorite lens to shoot models with?
Do you use a flash on top of your lights?
What do you shoot for fun when you are not on the clock? Any samples?

Ok, so tell me this, what is it that you change in pp that you could NOT have changed on the camera befor taking the shot. (while working with the raw image)




so post the raw and then the final product.
The only reason I say that is I think you rely on PP to make the shot look right. and I only think that because you pretty much said that.

I can take a shot with random camera settings in RAW (NEF, I have a nikon), load it up into Lightroom and make it perfect as long as its not so over exposed or under exposed that parts of the image has no detail at all.



The comment about what lens, I know that would depend what the purpose of the shot was for, A head shot would be best done with say an 85mm 1.8, but shooting site content would probably be best with some zoom, 35-80 range.
If you have a full frame sensor or croped would change this aswell.

Good photos.

Hi Alien, a sheet frame is a great idea - using the PVC :thumbsup

hahahaha - thanks Paul!!!

Truthfully......... if I'm not shooting gorgeous naked models for Twistys, I don't shoot. I shoot twice a week (every week) and sometimes we'll do 3 days a week. That's about as much shooting as I care to do in a weeks time :winkwink:

Hmmmm, not sure if I understand this question. Most of the lighting that I use is flash. Does that answer your question?

My favorite lens right now is the Canon 70-200mm F2.8 IS. I use it for the bulk of my work. My other favorite lens is the Canon 24-70 F2.8.

Jeffrey, your very entertaining - have a great day :thumbsup

What an eyes

Not sure why I'm even posting this, but shooting in RAW is the smart thing to do.

You see, shooting "JPGs-only" is like using a film camera that only spits out printed proofs (polaroids?).

Ages ago, film cameras gave you negatives... from which you could make a bad print or a gorgeous print.

That's what a RAW image is -- a digital negative.

Frankly, I'm glad that most people don't shoot RAW, thinking it's too hard to learn how to process them. It shows in the blown out highlights of many an image.

Decent cameras these days do both at the same time. The Nikon D200 and the Canon D20 do.

I agree - I love shooting in RAW. It was a bitch at first...trying to understand the workflow. But after much practice, it starts to come together. People who have a passion for doing better then average work will find that learning the RAW digital workflow will take their pictures to a higher level of quality. For everyone else, Jpegs are just fine.

look sunshine, no one here could see the raw image from canon, or NEF, or kodak.dcr for that matter.

the browsers won't convert it.

pros shoot in raw for a variety of reasons, not just to facilitate more efficient post processing.

the cameras buffer will hold more big raw files than same file size jpgs so it achieves a higher fps, and shooting in raw allows recovery of data that would be lost if exposure is off.

a common problem is if you are shooting on manual with strobes and moving the camera position around and working fast (gonzo style shooting) you will have exposure variability---raw allows you to save the various under or over-exposed frames in post processing.

and using photoshop CS there are some tweaks that are occasionally needed that work best when shooting in raw (correcting lens chromatic aberration, fix vignetting, etc.)

put my name down for your workshop dean

:)

Makeup artist in Las Vegas
 

Venus, check out http://www.fotolook.com/ my favorite makeup artist in Las Vegas. If you are in need of a rental studio take a look at http://studio3775.com/.

Done :thumbsup

http://www.sueupton.net/photos/sue_et_al.jpg

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it would be nice to see the photo before & after photoshop... ;-) Anyway its a great shoot. I am not big fan of "doll" skin effect but its VERY nice glamour shoot.

Yea, it would be nice to see the raw footage that comes out of Steven Spielberg's movie camera but is he going to show that to you? Of course not!

You only get to see the finished product, after the footage has been color corrected and "enhanced". If I wanted everyone to see my raw images - that's what I would show. I want people to see the finished product and that's what they are going to see. "After" the images are color corrected and "enhanced". The only people who ever get to see my raw files are the people that come to my Glamour Workshop :winkwink:

Sure it will be very interesting workshop, you are really skilled. I will have to wait until january 2007 after vegas, or maybe you come russia or spain to do a special workshop ;-) take care.

:thumbsup

Insertion ?

hey dean

ill throw one at ya actually a couple

how far were you from the model?

how far was the bedsheet from the model? (that sounds funny)

was it indoor or out?

im guessin he shot this indoors

at around 28


nice shot by the way

Hi Dean

I have a question or too for you as well.

was the above picture ran thru any noise reduction software??

If you were starting today and shooting primarily for porn what lighting setup would you go for right now and why?

Jonesy, I was about 12 to 15 feet back from the model and the bedsheet was 8 to 10 feet from the model. I didn't meaure anything out just adjusted the lighting until it looked good on my girl. If you get the lighting too close, you'll constantly be adjusting it as she moves around. By keeping it back a bit...you give her a little more room to move without having to stop and tweak the lighting every few shots!

Hey Dean,
I just had a class today on lighting and centerfold shooting, very interesting, remember when you said earlier in this thread that playboy can use up to 30 lights for a shoot, well, thats what we did today.
The photographer I was working with went over "building lights", basically, start with the main light, then you start adding light, I think we got up to 10 lights on a couple of the shots. All the shots were taken on a tripod and keeping the model inside the lighted you had just built up.

here is a pic I took today, keep in mind there was no photoshopping at all, this was a indoor set with only lights and wardrobe was not a priority, this was just a lighting class.. so all you haters who want to pick the model apart..dont worry about it... this was not for content... just a class on lighting.

http://wwww.landofvenus.com/dance/steph.jpg

Hey ps, no...that image was not run thru any noise reduction software. I do have some noise reduction software but have only used it maybe twice since I installed it a year ago.

In regards to a lighting setup for porn....I would go with a simple 2 light setup that's lightweight yet fast and reliable (try Dynalite). The more lights you add to your kit, the more you'll be able to do with it but it's also going to take more time to set it all up and move it around during your shoots. So, there are a lot of things to consider when picking out a kit....such as, how much money do you have to spend for a kit? Are you doing amateur type stuff or high-quality professional style pictures? Are you setting up this kit yourself or do you have assistants to help? Are you experienced with shooting with multiple lights (main, accents, background lights etc..etc)?

Venus my dear....I don't mean any disrespect but the lighting on that model is not good. I would be embarrassed to have you as a student at one of my workshops and have you leave with an image that looks like that. The lighting is bad, the cropping is bad and the models expression is bad. Who did you take this workshop from? Do you have a link to some of his work?

You should entertain the idea of attending my workshop when I get all the details setup. I guarantee you it will be an eye opening experience that'll change the way you shoot forever. If you want more info, shoot me an email at: GlamourWorkshop -at- yahoo.com and I'll put you on the list to receive additional info as it becomes available!

Thanks! :thumbsup

Have you thought about maybe putting your class on DVD or online versus on location in Cali. I would be more then willing to signup if you were able to set up somne sort of distance learning maybe with a cam??

and oh one last question if you dont mind

When I started out I found the easiest way for me to go at the time was difused hot lights the lamps

I was running 2 600 Watt daylight bulbs on the models

I have noticed that the flash lighting setups have a significant lower watt rating for instance this dynalite says 400 ws http://www.dynalite.com/info/?p=15


my question is this are total watts on the hot light and the ws rating on the flash light pretty much the same thing??

in other words would 500watts hot be the same as 500 ws flash as far as brightness is concerned

Hey ps, yes...as a matter of fact I have. I've been tossing around ideas for a Glamour/Nude/Erotic "Online Workshop" for quite sometime now. I've been picking up domain names over the past year or so in anticipation of putting something together. So far I have: TheGlamourWorkshop.com, LearnGlamour.com, GlamourSchool.com and ProGlamour.com. I have a lot of great ideas on how the site should be setup and what kind of material I would include just haven't yet gotten around to putting those ideas into action!

Hmmmm, I'm not sure about that one. Maybe someone else will be able to answer that. I much prefer shooting with flash (strobe) then I do hot lights. For one thing....hot lights are "hot"! It's hot enough here in LA without adding more hot lights to my kit. Secondly, it's much easier to freeze the action with a strobe then it is with a hot light. The only advantages to using hot lights for stills is that because they are so bright, you see exactly where your light is going (which is much more difficult with flash) and hot lights are usually much less expensive then flash.

ok thanks:) I will be watching to see what direction you take with the classes

I actually meant an on-camera flash ;)

looks like photoshopography

For those that wish to work with something simple here is a cheap and fast lighting setup. This picture was taken in the living room of an apartment. The lighting source was two $ 29.95 shop lights from home depot. One was placed behind a light panel ( a bed sheet will work too ) and to the model's right. This was my main light. Another was placed to the model's left and positioned to soften the shadows.

The lights are on and get real hot so it's VERY important to make sure nothing will come in contact with them that might catch fire.

Because the light was constant and not a flash I didn't need a flash meter and could use the camera for the exposure. I don't like to use a tripod and prefer to move around changing the angle so all the pictures won't look the same. I used a Canon 20D and did some tweaking in PP. So for those that want a cheap, portable and easy to use lighting setup that will get you ok results this is a great place to start. Of course there is lots of room for improvement but it is what it is and a successful photographer is one that can achieve the results he intended.

http://www.julie-clarke.com/public_h...rke_bamboo.jpg

his site is
http://www.cavecreek-photo.com/welcome.htm

the model was new, and cheap, she just started, her expressions and such was not an issue to me, as I said, allot of things were wrong if this was an image that was going to be used for anything except learning, the lighting was exactly what the light meter said, then you add light, take light away, object is just to see what happens by moving a light here, adding a hot light there, using a flash here. It was more on understanding on what you can do and how to do things. I actually learned allot on understanding lights and how to change things, using snoots, honey combs, softboxes. The light actually landed on her where it was intended, now that I know what lights to use and how to use them and attachments and what different attachments so, all I have to do is put it into practice to how I want my images to look.

Yes there is allot wrong, but I got out of it what I needed to learn. I will never shoot like him, nor like you, or other people, but I have a better understanding.. does that make sense?

Since the majority of my work is for web application .. And needs to be done quickly I shoot in JPG .. I shoot in Raw when ever I'm on a set specifically for Print .. Like DVD cover of Magazine work


Great thread once more .. Thanks Dean