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Just a couple of shots of some friends recording some songs for an album they are releasing soon.

Free plug for them, I really like their music:
http://www.myspace.com/bayonetsmusic





Comments and crits please

Wow, very nice!
i like both of them!

nice photos DCD!

i like the first one a lot. Maybe a bit of flash (just a little bit, probably minimum power!) bounce from the wall behind you to reveal a bit more background details and make the photo more interesting.

the 2nd photo is very cool too. the guitar seems out of focus and i would like to see it sharp as well. And maybe can add a flash from behind your friend as rim light to create an "outline" of your friend .. but still, very nice photo

Ah thanks for the comments!

Yeah I was trying to use the flash in there for a few shots to pick up people when they were in front of that light curtain, but the colours of the light just clashed and didn't work at all, even on very low power.

Yeah I noticed the guitar was out of focus, I was shooting wide open to try and get the most bokeh off the fairy lights and stuffed it up!

Ah I had never thought of putting the flash behind him. I've read about the technique, but have never used it. So I guess you would just put a flash on the ground behind him pointing up towards him at a very low power since it's so dark?
I think I first recall reading about this technique being used to light up bugs a guy was taking macro shots of?

Never thought of bouncing the flash off the wall behind me either..... So much to learn about flashes....

The lighting there are very yellowish so you will probably have to use some CTO colour gel on your flash to blend in the light from your flash

For the guitar shot, yeah i can understand you were trying to shoot wide open to get the maximum bokeh hehe.. so what you can do is either ask him to move the guitar front/back a bit.. or you just move yourself so the guitar and the guy's face was on the same perpendicular plane from you. in other words, equal distance from your camera. then you can get them both sharp even at wide open.

re placing a flash behind the guy, yeah what you said might work.. but to be honest I'm not that good with flash myself as well so i probably need a few test shots to find out what's the best way to place the flash..etc You can put a CTO gel on the flash to match the background lights, or you can try a different colour like blue/green gel to spice it up a bit and make the picture more interesting.. but honestly i'm not sure it'll look good or not.. just something you can try play with next time when shooting similar scenes.

Ah yeah I've also read about colour gels on flashes I've been interested in looking at some before, do you have any? I'm guessing you can get them from places like Progear, Auckland Camera etc? I'm not sure how they come, but I was thinking if you could get a little set of several colours that would be great!

Hahah yeah wide open was best there as you can see it was also very low light. That shot was completely candid though as well. He was just doing his thing and I was moving around taking pics. I think I might get another chance in the future to shoot those guys in a similar setting again, so I will need to take more time posing them.

Hahah yeah flashes are a whole different ball game again. All good thanks for the suggestions I'm going to have to have a play around with my flashes some more. I have just thought of a couple of ideas for backlighting a subject, might have to try them and see how they work. When I actually execute the idea if it works out I'll post the results on here of course

i use the Nikon colour gels that comes with my SB900..
(SB900 has it's own special computer coded colour gel that when you put it on the flash , the flash detects which colour gel you are using and adjust the white balance for you automatically ..... )

but anyway, i suppose you can get the colour gels from most camera shops, if not, they should be able to tell you where you can get them from.

very cool studio shots!