Re: [CR]Ken Toda's photo's

(Example: Events:Eroica)

In-Reply-To: <B8A6FFC0-9FCB-4DDC-8EB5-3CA2DC578AF0@tiscali.co.uk>
References: <BF1E467B.6F40%greg@nofatcomm.com>
Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2005 14:41:18 -0400
To: Bob Reid <robertrreid@tiscali.co.uk>, Classic Cycling List <classicrendezvous@bikelist.org>
From: "Sheldon Brown" <CaptBike@sheldonbrown.com>
Subject: Re: [CR]Ken Toda's photo's


Bob Reid wrote:
>>
>>http://www.classicrendezvous.com/Events/Cirque/Cirque_05/huemax-studio.htm
>
>Fantastic photographs worthy of any of the magazines seen in
>hairdresser or dentists waiting areas... Mine (yes I still have
>hair) supplies the BMW Owners in-house magazine and Golf World, to
>reflect his prices of course.. I digress. Anyway. I have to say,
>the one let down in the portraits are those very functional but very
>ugly bike stands that kind of detract from the beautiful machinery
>they're holding up. Has anyone any better, less visible
>(preferably invisible) suggestions ?
>
>Perhaps Ken could give us all (especially me)! some tips as to how
>he lights those shot's ?. Being marginally camera inept, I never
>seem to be able to produce a similar view shadow-less !

I was very impressed by his setup, and by his excellent results, but I agree about the stand.

My own studio setup uses nylon fishline to hang the bike from above. This, however wouldn't work for Ken's setup, 'cause he uses tungsten light (light bulbs) not studio flash. It would take too long to get the bike set up and to get it to stop swinging back and forth...the tungsten light requires fairly long exposures if you want the lens stopped down far enough to give good depth of field.

The "ugly bike stand" allows him to do much quicker setup going from bike to bike, that's how he keeps the cost so low.

His setup was in a room with a quite high ceiling. There were two umbrellas quite high up, maybe 12 feet. These shine down on the bike from an angle of maybe 50-60 degrees.

The main lights were a pair of floods aimed through home-made diffusers. The diffusers were wooden frameworks, perhaps 2 feet wide, 5 feet tall, with diffusion material. I seem to recall that he had two layers of diffusion material toward the middle of each screen to reduce hot spots.

He uses a Nikon D70 digital SLR, and a Gitzo tripod.

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