Comments on: Speedlight Mastery Video production by Damien Lovegrove ~ info & comments

By: damien

damien — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 19:21:38 +0000

Oh Chris, I’m sorry that I can’t remember. I usually start with 105mm then widen out if necessary. I expect they are on 105mm

Cheers, Damien.

By: Chris Costello

Chris Costello — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 10:52:56 +0000

Just been giving the DVD a 2nd and 3rd watch.. picking up new techniques and ideas each time!

But I have another question, on the graffiti shots, you don’t mention what sort of zoom you have the flashes set too?

Thanks,

Chris.

By: damien

damien — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 00:11:54 +0000

Hi Gwyn, I use 3 Speedlights when I can find 3 that work Now that I’ve ‘done’ single and twin light sources I will be moving on to more complex set ups. It’s just very few of my delegates have 3 or 4 Speedlights. Cheers, Damien.

By: damien

damien — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 00:09:35 +0000

Thanks John, A great endorsement indeed. Get shooting! Damien

By: Gwyn Cole

Gwyn Cole — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 13:15:00 +0000

Hello Damien, on this DVD you have one setup that uses 3 speedlights. In your general work published on this blog, it appears that most of the lighting is done with up to 2 speedlights. Do you often use more than 2 speedlights?

By: John Humphries

John Humphries — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 11:33:31 +0000

This is an absolute cracking DVD.
I have learnt so much from all the techniques used and I am really looking forward to trying some out.
Especially liked the use of the new Pocket Wizards.
Thanks
John

By: damien

damien — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 21:59:24 +0000

Hi Mark,

I recommend a Think Tank bag that is hand luggage size. I don’t have one yet but I will get one at Focus after seeing Chris Hanley’s in Tuscany. When I travel I only take 3 lenses, one small camera body, a couple of Speedlights, flash triggers and an iPhone in my hand luggage. I have a monopod, battery chargers, a couple of lighting stands and flash brackets in my hold baggage and that’s it. Cheers, Damien.

By: Gwyn Cole

Gwyn Cole — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 14:10:14 +0000

Hello Mark,

I also wanted to look at the production stills and found a link to them on the Speedlight Mastery DVD product page:

http://www.lovegroveconsulting.com/speedlight_mastery_blu-ray_production_stills.aspx

Gwyn

By: Mark

Mark — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 11:48:37 +0000

Damien,
I spoke to you earlier to confirm that a lot of the speedlight photography is done inb manual above (43). I’m due to go to Venice for the carnival in February and hope to use some of the techniques you showed on you blu ray.
A couple of things to ask.
Firstly if your photgraphing abroad do you take all your photography equipment as hand luggage? or do you trust some of it to go into the baggage hold.
Secondly on thinking about the blu ray “speedlight mastery” it would be nice as a extra if you displayed all the stills that you took at each session with the details of aperture speed etc with a basic outline of the speedlights used and their positioning, so perhaps this could be considered at a future date?
mark

By: damien

damien — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 15:10:41 +0000

Hi Richard, I will start shooting in July and edit in September for a November release. Well this is the plan as it seems at the moment. I have a tour of South East Asia to get in this year too. Regards, Damien.

By: damien

damien — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 15:08:17 +0000

You are a star Mark. Thank you Damien

By: Richard

Richard — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 15:03:58 +0000

Can’t wait to see it! You’re not going to make me wait until Christmas are you? Can I pre-order mine now!

By: damien

damien — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 14:59:58 +0000

Hi Chris,

Thanks for your kind words. Yes I’m shooting in Manual mode using TTL for the flash unless otherwise stated in the item.

Regards, Damien.

By: damien

damien — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 14:58:25 +0000

Hi Richard,

When I shot this DVD I wanted the content to be king and as you say it is my best DVD to date. My next production will be studio lighting and will use a TV demo type set up with real HD video cameras and no cameras in shot. You’ll never know how big my studio is but that shouldn’t matter. With this production I was really restricted to 2.5 hours of content because that was all I could fit on a DVD and that gave me no room for post production as in my first DVDs. My next production will be on 1 Blu-Ray or 2 DVDs with the DVD option being the more expensive as I can fit 5 hours of full HD on a single Blu-Ray. Post processing studio pictures is a completely different process to PP on location shots so I’ll be doing a 16bit post production section on that disk. The PP on Speedlight Mastery pictures uses no new techniques that weren’t shown in my previous discs.

Regards, Damien.

By: damien

damien — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 14:46:46 +0000

Hi Denz,

1, I use grids on Speedlights to create circular spot effects on backgrounds or to help avoid spill and flare. I’ll be using them in my next DVD on studio lighting when I’ll use Speedlights with grids to create a spotlight look on the background.
2. I’ve covered Speedlights at night on my previous DVDs. As mentioned in another reply. Also the sequence in the bar with Stina is as good as at night. On three of the frames I created no daylight or ambient light was used at all. My direction to the film crew was for the close up camera and the dialogue camera to be in close so the viewer can see what’s on my camera screen and the wide shot to show all the lighting stands and the scene in general because it is important for the content. The content came first and I deemed it necessary to shoot that way. Having said that I was shocked at how difficult it is to track close focus when using a live view screen.

Damien.