Lets Talk About; Fill-Flash, Digital Cameras and a Teen Model
at your favourite Location or a 'Bikini Beach'
Fill-Flash outdoor photography: If your photo shoot is outside at your favourite location, or on a 'Bikini Beach', besides working at the correct time of day, 2 to 3 hours before sunset or 2 to 3 hours after sunrise, you must use Fill-Flash at a ratio of 1 to 2 with your Digital Camera.
Let me explain what this means: I use a separate hammer head flash gun with my digital SLR camera, the Metz 45 CL-4, (there are newer versions buy the way, it's just that this unit in one of the best and never lets me down). Setting a flash ration of 1 to 2 simply means that if your digital camera meter is telling you that the exposure is 125/ second at f.8, with your flash on the "Auto" setting, adjust the flash output to f.5.6, this will tell the flash unit to reduce the power output, and prevent the flash from burning out the foreground.
If you set the flash "Auto" setting to the same camera aperture of f.8, this will burn out the foreground and will make the background look darker. If your shooting with a digital camera the image will look washed out and over exposed.
However if you invest in one of the dedicated 'Speed Light' flash units that are compatible to the digital SLR camera your using, for example like the Canon or Nikon speedlights, the camera and flash on-board computers combine and give you many more possibilities, including high speed photography at a higher flash sync speed. The 'Speedlight' is pricey, but a worthwhile investment for the serious minded and professional photographer. Most 'paparazzi' and press photographers work with them.
You could also use a reflector as well, as top pro fashion photographers do, but you will need an assistant to hold the reflector and secondly, unless your shooting from one camera position most of the time, it becomes impractical to do this working on a beach for example and you may have to rely on fill-flash with your digital camera equipment.
The reason many pro photographers use a reflector as well, is simply they are shooting mostly from one chosen camera position and perhaps shooting only one garment for a magazine cover or an advertising shoot for example, where they are trying to get just one great shots only.
So if your new to this sort of photography, it would be wise to use your first location "bikini beach" shoot as a test run, using you separate fill-flash and also test with a reflector as well.
Which Camera is best for a Teen Model Location Shoot: Without a doubt the preferred camera choice of the Professional Photographer when shooting for magazine and advertising, is the Medium Format Camera, image size 6x6cm. Today you can also use digital backs that will attach to a variety of specially adapted cameras such as Hasselblad, Rollei, Mamiya or large studio view cameras.
However, this is a very expensive piece of hardware and if your just starting out, it would be best to avoid this kind of expense.
So where does this leave you, well the good news is that the digital SLR camera or film SLR camera is the smart choice to make, simply on economics as a starter and also you are more portable and therefore able work easier and faster on a bikini beach location shoot, for example.
My personal choice is the Canon EOS digital slr cameras, but equally as popular is the Nikon digital range of cameras as well. You will also find that these two great cameras are the preferred choice of the majority of today's press and paparazzi photographers.
There are of course other great digital cameras out there and at the top end you will find exceptional quality also, with very little difference in optics. If however, you are thinking of going digital choose the same manufacturer as you film camera as your camera lenses might well be compatible with the new digital camera. This is going to save you a packet on new lenses.
How about my good old film camera: I've said it before and I'll say it again, if you still use a film camera and you have your one hour digital lab transfer your negs to CD, in most cases you will obtain an equivalent image quality, which is more than adequate for a 'Teen Bikini Model location beach shoot', especially if you use 100ASA color neg film stock, such as "Fujicolour Proplus 2". This film stock has in my opinion and from my own personal tests, the finest grain of all the 100ASA color neg films still available today.
Models and young Teen models: This is one of the first hurdles to get over, simply finding the right model. If of course you are more advanced up the pro photographer ladder and have clients asking for your services, you will most properly book a full time professional model and possibly one of the more popular ones at that.
But what if your just starting out, or on a low budget and the high model fees paid to some of the full time top models is out of reach of your budget! Where do you start.
From my experience, the opportunity appeared from a different direction than I had been expecting. This young girl, was in fact the daughter of friends of mine that I had known 19 years. As good friends I was often in their home so this little girl and her two younger brothers grew up with me and they were quite use to me being present at family get together's and seeing me with a digital camera. On the occasion of her twelfth birthday I noticed something that I hadn't seen before, that she was in fact posing in front of my camera as I was shooting the party pictures for her. Then the penny finally drooped and the rest is history. That was some years ago and now she is a well paid part time model.
You may however find that you have been asked by the parents of a young "wannabe" Model, to shoot a set of pictures of her. This is where we hope our website might be especially helpful to you.
If you have had some experience in photographing people, weddings, children and you think you are good or at least comfortable in doing so, there should be no problems. Just be aware of the legal side of things. You need permission from a parent or guardian to take photos of a minor and a minor model release form has to be signed after the photo shoot by a parent or guardian . The parent or guardian should also be present at the photo shoot. The Minor Model Release is a standard form in the model industry and simply gives permission for the photographer to use the photos for what ever purpose he or his client requires.
What should you be looking for in a young model and I have to be honest, usually the slimmer the model the better the images will look.
It helps if your young teen bikini model is athletic and likes sports, this helps to keep her body in shape. You will notice in many of my images that Model Maayan likes to jump, do sumersaults, handstands and get into the ocean and swim. This is usually spontaneous on her part and I have to sometimes have to 'pull rank' and get her back to striking up simpler pretty poses on the beach, for our website photo shoot.
It's important to keep in mind one thing, if your shooting a young teen model, she will not be so experienced as an older full time professional model and therefore you've got some hard work ahead of you to coax her into a pleasing pose. For some guidance on this problem I suggest that you read up on a previous page "Lets Talk About: Posing your model".
Always try to have some fun with your photo shoot, but you would be advised it's best to get some basic poses out of the way first. If your working on a 'Bikini Beach', a dip in the ocean is good for moral and sometimes the wet hair can look really great especially if it's long. Also a change of hair style, tied back or on a different side of the face for each time there is a change of costume.
And above all, try to keep the Bikini Model and all who are present in a happy frame of mind, in this way you are able to get the images you want, also keep everyone involved to that end.
On The Next Page:Lets Talk About - Models Models Models Do you have enough experience as a photographer for a Beach Model Photo Shoot
Roger Lewis © 2003 - 2010'
www.PhotoRog.com
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