Colour Theme Beauty Shoot with Tatiana and Jenyia

I have been a little quiet recently in my blog but still actively shooting.  The shoot with Tatiana and Jenyia happened a little while ago but only got round to writing about it in my blog.  The idea was to use colour gels and make use of a couple of Christmas lights.  Lighting was kept straight forward in a studio but made use of gels extensively.  Hair and makeup were by Jane Crowhurst who I have worked with many times before.  She did a great job with both models.

During the shoot, I played with using different colour gels for the background and rim lights to create different looks.  I learned a lot from this shoot and want to shoot more photos with different colour gels.

There is a behind the scene video on vimeo that shows how the photos were shot.  

Beauty Shoot Colours - BTS from Yat Tang on Vimeo.

Godox DE300 Monolight Review

I’ve been using my Strobeam DL4 for the last 3 years on location now.  Recently I needed a small portable studio lights with modelling lamp when I have access to power.  Step forward the Godox DE300 which I bought from an eBay seller from Hong Kong.  It was delivered within a week.  Interestingly, the brand name in Chinese means “Magic Ox” or “God Ox”, hence the name Godox.

First impression when I received it was good.  Quality is decent and felt reasonably put together.  It comes with one modelling lamp, power lead, sync cable, reflector, spare fuses and cover to protect the flash tube when not being used.  The version I got is for Bowens S Mount which is the mount for all my light modifiers.  The optical trigger has two modes, one will first with the first flash and the second mode will ignore the first flash and trigger on the second flash.  This may be handy if you use it in conjunction with speedlite.

The modelling lamp intensity is adjustable.  The instruction manual recommends the lamp should not be used continuously for too long.  I had it on at about half power for almost a whole day during a shoot without any problem.  In future I may turn it off when it is not essential.  The moonlight is not fan cooled so it is silent when in use.  Again the instruction recommends a cooling down period of 30s after 10 full power flash.  Again it is hard to think of this during a shoot and I am sure I exceeded this during its first shoot.

Recharge time at full power was about 1.5s which is OK for studio use and I had no problem.  I used it as a multi light setup and it performed well without any problem at all.  It is a 300Ws moonlight, so it is not going light a large room by itself or overpower the sun on a bright day.  It is a low cost unit and does not auto self discharge when reducing power setting.  Not a problem, just remember to press the test button after each power adjustment.

The first use of this moonlight was an all day shoot in the studio.  It was one of four lights in the shoot and it performed very well during the whole day  I did not find any problem at all.  In summary, the Godox DE300 is a low cost 300Ws moonlight of decent quality and good performance.  What I can not comment on is the long term durability.  For photographers who are after a low cost monolight it may be a worthwhile purchase.  Below is a photo of the light on a boom arm during a studio shoot.

Follow this link to see more photo taken from this shoot.

Update:  I also used this light as the main light for the Jessica Xavier collection shoot.  Click on the link to see the results.  It was the main light and I did not encounter a problem for the whole day.

Update 23 April 2015: I was shooting beauty London this weekend and I was surprised to see four Godox DE300 in the studio we were using.  When I spoke to the studio owner he told me he is very happy with them and did not encounter any problem.  I shot with them all day and did not have any problem.

Update 6th August 2015: I had a message from a reader of this page asking me if I experienced static shock from this unit.  I've to say yes after using it for the whole day.  I happened when I tried to disconnect the sync cable.  At that time I thought nothing of it.  I would like to hear from anyone that had this experience.  That was the only time it happened to be though.

Update 17th November 2015: I was shooting in the studio using the DE300 with a beauty dish with modeling lamp.  After shooting for 4 hours, an error message kept comping up which stops the flash firing.  I thought it was a heat issue and swapped to another unit but the same thing happened again after 5 minutes!  I can not understand how the second unit can develop the same fault in such a short time.  I was using not shooting at an excessive rate but I was using near full power.  Switching off the unit and wait 10s did fix the problem for a short time.  Maybe it is not a good idea to shoot at near full power all day?  I do not know what the problem was and I finished my shoot and got what I needed.

Update 24th November 2018: The light became unreliable after shooting for 2 hours today.  I was not shooting too fast and power setting was low.  The light did not fire intermittently and I had to switching to using my speedlite to complete the shoot.  Quite disappointed since I was only using the flash only a few times a year.  I can not use this for shoot any more as it can not be trusted.

Continuous Focus with Olympus E-PM2 at Rally Cross Race

I was recently at the first round of the 2014 British a Rally Cross race at Lydden Hill.  I was lucky to have the Panasonice 100-300mm f4-5.6 lens on loan with me.  Using my Olympus E-PM2 with C-AF + TR (continuous focus with tracking) I was able to get photos in focus around 80% of the photos.  The camera can only focus continuously at the lower frame rate of 3.6FPS.  The technique I used was to focus on the car and let the camera track and then start shooting.  Even if the car move off the focus area, the tracking follows most of the time.  Of course, the lens is not fast so the larger depth of field does help.

Here is a sequence of two cars the camera managed to track.  The focal length was 100mm at f4.  The camera was focused on the car on the right and tracked it well.  Note you can see the background is not blurred out, so focusing does not need to be spot on to achieve sharp images.

Here is another sequence of the same car when I zoomed in to 300mm at f5.6 as the car came towards me.  This is a much tougher test for the focus system of the camera.  The car was in focus throughout.

Overall, I am very happy with the continuous focus performance of the E-PM2 with the Panasonic 100-300mm lens.  A very usable combination for motor sport.  I just wish there were less depth of field with the 100-300mm lens.

Shooting Fashion with Youngnuo YN-622C

Model: Elle Beth

I recently got a very compact lighting setup using Youngnuo YN-622C transceivers, YN-565EX and YN568EX flash guns.  I shot a model using a single YN-565EX in a softbox in London and was very please with the portability.

Model: Crissy Giachetti

Model: Crissy Giachetti

When a fashion shoot came up in a church, it was the ideal place to fully test this setup.  Traveling light was the main priority, hence my choice of lighting equipment.

Model: Elle Beth

This is what I took to this shoot:

4 x Youngnuo YN-622C
2 x Youngnuo YN-565EX & 1 x Youngnuo YN-568EX flashguns
1 x boom arm light stand & 2 x light stands with appropriate umbrella brackets
1 x 43" umbrella reflective softbox
1 x 43" silver reflective umbrella
1 x 43" shoot through umbrella

Model: Nadya Nedyalkova

Model: Nadya Nedyalkova

The choice of umbrellas as my light modifier was due to weight, compact dimension and ease of setup.  I did not want a traditional softbox which takes time to erect.

Model: Kara Cass

Model: Kara Cass

In the dim light of the church, speedlites have adequate power for my need.  Outdoor in bright sun, speedlites will always struggle with power.  The quality of light was good and I really like the results I got with this very portable setup.  However, I did encountered one problem when shooting with one model.  The back ground light did not fire consistently and I had to use an alternative light.  After that, the problem went away and I was unable to replicate it again.  I need to use the light more often and keep my an eye on it.

Model: Noemi Guneo

Model: Noemi Guneo

Would I recommend the Youngnuo YN622C?  Yes if you have a recent Canon camera with external flash control on the camera.  Also my camera had touch screen which makes it very easy to change settings.  I do know on cameras without this feature, there will be a lot of button pressing to do.  It may be a good ideas to try it first.

Models: Crissy Giachetti, Luke Smith

Model: Luke Smith

All photos:
Photographer: Yat Tang
Designer: Claire Garvey
Makeup/Styling: Jean Fernand
Hair: Doubravka Marcinkova
Assistant: Andy Owen

Fashion and Accessries Shoot

This is by far the most stressful photo shoot I've organised so far.  It was shot at the end of last year, but I just got round to write about it.  I wanted to collaborate with more people and produce a more unique look.  I assembled a team together with two designers, models, MUA and hair stylist.

Everything just came together without any problem until one week before the shoot.  Then one of the models had to cancel because she has to go to hospital for an operation.  Not a problem I thought and a casting was sent out and very quickly a great model came on board had to drop out, all within a couple of days!

In the end I had two models coming to this shoot, which was lucky as one of them could not make it on the day!  It just shows how reliant the photographers are on models.  No model, no shoot.  Even though it is stressful, I am enjoying it and appreciate the finished photos even more.

We had very little time to shoot the images I wanted by the time I started shooting, but I got the shots I wanted in the end.  Very happy with the work everyone put in.

Here are a few behind the scene photos from the shoot. 

Photographer: Yat Tang
Model: Mel GdeLanglade
Makeup Jane Crowhurst
Hair Stylist: Xenia Hair
Clothing: Sarmite Ostanevica
Accessories: Timea Talian Designs
Assistant: Marta Deutsch