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Motion freezzzzzze



Comments made by the photographer

Submitter's name: Olaf Greve
Title: Motion freezzzzzze
Gear used: OM-4Ti + Zuiko 100/2 + 2 Botex BT-106 strobes + Video tripod
Aperture: Unrecorded, but somewhere between f2 and f4
Shutter speed: Single(!) bulb exposure, several seconds
Film used: Kodak Ektachrome E100VS
Technical information: Another TOPE, another chance for a technically challenging shot. :) The main challenge of getting these pictures right, was having to guesstimate the exposure, as I do not have a flash meter.

I set the strobes roughly at 45 degree angles from the subject and then played around with various gear, exposure and flash frequency combinations. I did not keep good notes, so I do not remember anymore what the exact exposure was I used for this shot, but I do remember that the DOF was very shallow, so I was probably shooting around f2.8 in this picture.

The strobes can be set to have a frequency between 0 - 10 Hz, and I played a bit with setting them at various frequencies. The frequency for this picture was, I believe, around 5 Hz, and in this shot I set the frequency of the strobe that was on the right slightly higher than the one on the left (as can be seen by the difference in the light levels on both arms). This was done intentionally to get slightly different light levels in the shot (in some other pictures I played around with bigger differences between the frequencies, but I think the balance in this shot works pretty well).

I wanted to use Provia F for this shot, because of its very good reciprocity characteristics (up to 128 seconds, vs. the 10 seconds of E100VS), but I was out of it, so I made sure the exposures did not last longer than 10 seconds.

Digital techniques: The slide was scanned on a Umax Powerlook III scanner.
The only edit that was made, was to crop the picture to a square format so it would look a bit more interesting.
Subject information: In the summer I had already bought the two strobes, and ever since, I wanted to play with them for doing "multiple-motion-freeze-shots". I decided to wait until TOPE 8 came round. As always, Karol was excited to have her picture taken, so (after taking some test shots on my hands) I used her as subject material for these technical experiments. Later, she was joined by Gioconda, as can be seen on the page with other candidate shots.

Regarding the shots:
I wanted to try various motion effects, with this very picture being a "partial-motion-shot". I asked Karol to only move her head slowly from the right shoulder to the left shoulder, while sitting as motionless as possible otherwise. Sounds easy, but the flash-overdose one receives is rather dizzying (yes, I tried this myself too). :)

Other candidates: Several shots worked out well (IMO), but there were also several ones that were (completely/partially) underexposed or overexposed. I have put some of the shots I thought were most interesting on the other candidates page. As always, feedback is appreciated.
 

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Comments made by others

Comment left by: hnz (no e-mail specified) Maybe an interesting variation of this nice shot is when you let her wear a black sweater (also covering her arms), and let her turn around in 180 degrees (yes, I just bought the enhanced version of The Exorcist on DVD ;)

Comment left by: Mickey Trageser (no e-mail specified) Nice effect! I like how the eye highlights stream across the image. I like the shot of both ladies in your addendum page. It does have a strong disco look about it... so 80's. I get the sense of motion and fun. How did you control the background?

Comment left by: Steve Goss (no e-mail specified) Neat effect. One thing you might try. Do this one again, but switch models half way through. You'd have your own in-camera morph.

Comment left by: The Photographer (no e-mail specified) Mickey: background control was pretty straightforward: the backdrop is a big piece of black cloth, and the shots were taken in a darkened room, in which I had only turned on the light during focusing. Once the focus was set, off went the lights, and then I turned on the strobes, also, because I used a big aperture, the cloth was not even in focus (eliminating any wrinkles that otherwise might have shown up on the cloth).

Steve: I like your idea (though Hnz's one sounds rather bizarre ;) ), it should be fun trying to create the shot you mention.

Comment left by: Wiliam Wagenaar (wiliam@zeelandnet.nl) A technical challenge indeed, and well performed too!

Comment left by: bbbean (bbbean@beancotton.com) Very cool, Olaf! I like the trailing eyes!



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This page was made by Olaf Greve