Hi Ken,
Glad to see that the E-1 is still earning its keep. I was beginning to
think that I might be alone with the great old timer.
Jim Nichols
Tullahoma, TN USA
----- Original Message -----
From: "Ken Norton" <ken@xxxxxxxxxxx>
To: "Olympus Camera Discussion" <olympus@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Monday, October 31, 2011 1:41 PM
Subject: [OM] Adventures in portraiture
> Another Saturday afternoon, another portrait session. This time for
> senior
> portraits of this guy who probably never wore anything but t-shirts his
> entire life. Not exactly comfortable dressing up in any way, and even more
> uncomfortable being in front of a camera. It definitely turned out to be
> one of the more challenging shoots I've had. Knowing that studio shots
> were
> pretty much completely out of the picture, we did exclusively shoot
> outdoors.
>
> Camera of choice was my defacto-standard portrait camera, the E-1. I was
> going to shoot film at some point, but recognized a situation which would
> have not been film friendly at all. He went through a series of facial
> expressions which were driven by the number of flashes from the camera. It
> took a sequence of a half-dozen shots to get one that worked. Grand total
> of 292 pictures were taken. Not exactly my cup of tea, but you do what you
> must.
>
>>From a technology perspective, there were more challenges. We started out
> in midday sun. Not a cloud in the sky. After about an hour a high haze
> layer kicked in which lowered the ambient exposure about half a stop. Not
> much, but enough help. We utilized open shade whenever possible. Given
> other issues (wind, no assistant), I used only the T45 on-camera with the
> Rogue FlashBender. ALL flash exposures were manual at either full or half
> power. 292 shots and the battery wasn't slowing down at all.
>
> Lens choices? I used only the 100/2 and the 35-80/2.8 lenses. Oh, forgot.
> Did use the 300/4.5 for some shots at the airport. Unfortunately, those
> were definitely a rough slog as I had to try and balance ambient light
> (the
> runway stretched out behind him--in a compressed view, but the sun was
> shining almost directly behind him) and flash. Had I shot with a shorter
> lens I could have made it all work, but I didn't have a high-enough flash
> sync speed to keep the background from blowing out.
>
> The 100/2 is such an amazing portrait lens. The 35-80 smokes almost
> everything out there, but the 100/2 is brutal sharp. Even wide open, it's
> zit city. Serious photoshopping to follow. I had hoped to use film for
> some
> of this, but not to be. Tonight's portrait session (indoor, senior
> citizens) would be wonderful to take with the 100/2, but I'm kinda
> wondering if that's such a good idea. :)
>
> The old combination of equipment worked. It was wierd that I couldn't get
> the exposures dialed in at first. Too many variables fighting me all at
> once. It's not like this was my first dance, but it was one of those cases
> where I changed up ONE item and it just threw me for a loop. So, the first
> 15 shots were a situation of a "Blonde Monday". It was one of those days
> where I would have loved to have had either an assistant to hold a
> wirelessly triggered flash closer to the subject or have had unlimited
> flash-sync speeds.
>
> Results on the computer screen look pretty good. I'm pleased and I know
> his
> mom and dad will be too. (they know their son well enough that I was
> sufficiently warned that it would be a bit of a challenge). I've worked
> with OCD/ODD children enough (I'm an example of what happens when one goes
> undiagnosed/untreated), that I could work with him. Using longer
> focal-length lenses really helped matters a lot because I was able to get
> far enough outside of his space-bubble.
>
> AG
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>
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