Fstop Studios News

Flower Pot Family Composite

Bret Lucas — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 05:15:52 +0000

As I move more into composite images, it’s now very clear that a thorough understanding of light is essential not only behind the camera, but in front of the monitor. Without a good grounding of how light works in a composite image, you are left with the option of creating grungy dark messy composites to hide your mistakes and to make the image look semi believable. The most difficult part is getting the shadows to behave. Once that’s mastered, the rest tends to fall into place.

Shooting Video on the Nikon D3s

Bret Lucas — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 05:37:31 +0000

Critical focus on any DSLR when shooting video is problematic. I’v come up with a fix to make the system work better and be able to lock focus in a system that doesn’t think video at its core.

By attaching a handle out from the focus ring gives better control over focus control as the further you move from the centre of the focus system the larger the movements required to move through the focus range. I’ll be testing out the system tonight at the Lantern Festival. The system looks promising.

Shooting a German Shepherd

Bret Lucas — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 02:53:46 +0000

Kaly - click to enlargeA while back I was asked to shoot a German Shepherd. Kaly was a dream to work with. Obedience in the highest order. I haven’t come across such a well behaved dog. Almost like working with a human. Dark fur requires specularity to light the detail of the dog properly. And as such I used large specular sources. Job Done.

2011 Winner of Canon online

Bret Lucas — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 19:22:33 +0000

Human Garden - click to enlargeReally stoked to win the Canon Online competition for 2011, thats 2 under my belt! Was a close call this time with a joint first place requiring redjuging of the winning images.

Shooting the Jucy Hotel

Bret Lucas — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 21:05:35 +0000

Jucy Lounge - click to enlarge

We were recently commissioned by the Jucy Group to do more of a run and gun style shoot at the Jucy Hotel. Instead of taking the big lights into the hotel we used a number of speedlights to get the job done quickly. It meant using the high ISO capability of the Nikon D3s and my assistant behind a small softbox as we moved from scene to scene. Most of the time we used two or three speedlights mixed with ambient light to get what we needed.

Jucy Champ USA Animation

Bret Lucas — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 22:07:18 +0000

These days animated gifs are few and far between. They’ve been around for a while and generally bug me, but in this case since Jucy vehicles have so many moving parts, thought it appropriate to animate the vehicle.

The Jucy Champ USA

Bret Lucas — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 19:22:16 +0000

Jucy Champ USA - click to enlargeJucy Rentals has us working on images for the new Jucy Champ USA. The initial design of the vehicle has been tweeked a little and this job involved shooting exterior and interior images. To allow maximum flexibility for print and the web, we’ve included images with and without ground shadows. AND during postprocessing we used the real shadows on the ground, not the photoshopped almost real but not quite appearance. The shadow immediately below the wheels is darker and photoshopping the gradual change to a lighter shadow away from the wheels is very tough to accomplish convincingly. So why not take the real shadow from the shoot and use that in post?

Shelley on New Years Day

Bret Lucas — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 21:25:27 +0000

Shelley - One Tree Hill - click to enlargeShelley and I headed to One Tree Hill yesterday to push the medium format camera on a number of levels. I wanted to see how far I could take it with ISO and also hand holding it at low shutter speeds with the 210mm lens. The ceiling works out to be ISO 800 and at a push I can get away with 1/100sec but only if I’m having a very steady day :-) ,for a commissioned job I wouldn’t shoot anything under 1/200sec with a tripod and then only if I had the keepers in the bag.

I used a Nikon SB-800 for fill on this shot, it helped to freeze Shelley in the low light conditions. The studio camera stuggles to keep up with the Nikon D3s in the field in low light conditions but now I know the limits.

Shooting at f4 with the 210 limited the depth of field to 1.45m at 15m from the subject.

Shooting Food

Bret Lucas — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 00:29:02 +0000

Bowmans - click to enlargeWe recently had a second session shooting Bowmans Restaurant dishes.

Bowmans used a selection or our images in New Zealand Best Dining Guide Magazine.

The food at Bowmans is second to none and they’re known for being one of the best Restaurants in Auckland.

The Lighting of Tin Tin

Bret Lucas — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 01:22:39 +0000

Tin Tin - click to enlargeWe went to see Tin Tin 3D last night and as usual I paid particular attention to lighting detail. The light source / shadow relationship was incredible. A number of scenes dealt with different light sources, from small lights creating hard shadow edge transfers to large sources creating soft shadow edge transfers. Every detail was picked up. Kicker lights on the ship were bang on. Shadows created under hats of subjects in a bald sun environment were perfect. Even scatter light bouncing through the computer generated lens was excellent. The example image here shows light coming from the wall light behind. It creates a kicker light on Tin Tin’s left forhead, and beautiful fill light on his right cheek created mainly by the light to camera left bouncing off the pages of the book . I have never seen such realistic lighting in an animation. A must see with perfect lighting.