Chrysler Shoot Thank You

Just finished a shoot for Chrysler yesterday mainly focusing on the Chrysler 300c many thanks for letting spend time with your stunning cars. The shots where all taken with a Nikon D200 with a 17-55mm f/2.8 DX lense and lighting was provided by a single SB800 triggered using Nikon's CLS system additional lighting control was provided with a full size silver reflector.

Chroma Screen What ?

Chroma screen what is it you may ask this until recently has always belonged to big budget movies studios. Chroma screen is a process where a subject is filmed or photographed again either a blue or green screen this is done so the subject at a later stage of post production can then be removed from the blue or green screen then be composited on to another backdrop or image.

Think Star Wars all the action scenes where shot on giant green screens the actors when then put into another scene with armies behind them fighting. This technique is called Chroma screen shooting.

For example the shot below is a shot of a Creative Zen Micro MP3 player shot on a blue chroma screen.

The Creative Zen Micro Player was later removed from this blue chroma screen during post production. This was done with photoshop using colour selection layers to remove the Zen Micro MP3 player onto a separate layer with out the blue background. It was then later added to a water fall as part of a design brief the finished image is below to show you just how effective this technique can be and how you are only restricted by you own creativity.

This is what Chroma Screen work is all about.

Caplio R30 Strobist Shoot

This work was done to produce a very clean high key effect for the Caplio R30 shoot this was shot inside a white light cube lighting from a single Nikon SB600 flash gun set to +2 EV and triggered with Nikon's CLS system. The image was captured with a Nikon D200 with a 17-55mm f/2.8 DX lense.

The levels where bumped up during post production to give the high key effect wanted.

Smell's Like Hugo

The shots below where taken using a blue chroma screen inside a light cube lighting was from a single SB600 flash triggered with Nikon's CLS system the flash was moved around the subject and the background was added during post production.

Sony Get Strobist

Another shoot just finished around Sony's Ericsson W350i phone this was shot on a blue chroma screen with the background being added during post production.

Lighting was from a single SB600 setup just behind and to the left of the phone setup on a Nikon flash gun foot plate and triggered using Nikon's CLS system.

Getting Creative

Just finished off a shoot based around the Creative Zen Micro MP3 player the brief was to produce an image that was one with nature and also involved water. As we all know water does not mix too well with electronics but I had to come up with some thing a little different in order to complete the brief.

Lighting was provided by a single SB600 setup on a stand to the left this was setup high and downward towards the Zen player to create natural down light this was triggered using Nikons CLS system and taken with a D200 with Nikon 17-55mm f/2.8 DX lense.

The water splashes, water drops and condensation where all added during post production.

Champagne & Bubbles

Another shot in the bag this one was again shot on a blue chroma screen to speed up post production work. This one was shot with a Nikon D200 and a SB600 setup behind and to the left of the subject. The bottle and glass where also placed on a perspex sheet so I could pick up the reflections too. The flash was triggered using a SB800 as a master remote.

The other reason why these shots where shot on chroma screen was also to allow quick and easy post production work in this case I wanted two sets of images one on a natural wood table top and another to reflect if shot on black glass by shooting with chroma screen this allowed me to do one shoot and then replicate the shots wanted later in adobe photoshop all the images above have had there backgrounds added by being hand drawn to create the effect wanted.