It’s always nice for a commercial photographer to have a return customer. In this case it was Patrick Morewood from Pyga Mountain Bikes. The first photos that I took on the previous shoot; I used a black background to give the photos a moody atmosphere. The photography was done at Camera Studio in Pietermaritzburg.
This time around we used a white background because the photos are to be used mainly for their new website. Photography on a white background can be pretty challenging for a photographer especially when the subjects of the photos have a glossy finish and thin elements. Another issue to look out for is chromatic aberration that you can encounter due to the bright background contrasting with the darker edges. Initially there was a little aberration which I adjusted for.
Commercial Photography Work
Lighting
For this shoot I used a 5 light setup. Three lights were used on the subject directly and two were used to brighten the background.
The Setup
The trick is to get the lights to do exactly as you want so you need to set them up one at a time. I ended up using two lights at 45 degrees to the subject on the left and right and one from above. To try and get the perspective of the bicycles correct the camera was set up 5 meters away from them and then I used 70 to 200 mm lens and zoomed in a bit.
Getting Creative
The client was fully involved with a shoot to make sure that he got exactly what he was looking for. However, I was given a little time over night with the bikes to take a few creative close-ups. I used my new Sigma 50mm F/1.4 for most the close ups. I also tried a macro lens but couldn’t really use it because of the very thin DOF.
Conclusion
All of the photos are pretty much straight out of camera with a little cropping and touching up here and there.
What really counts is that I have another happy customer and that is very important to a commercial photographer in a small town.
For more information on my Commercial Photography click here.