Playing around with fashion photography is definitely fun
and as I was on my way from Italy to Iceland with a two day lay-over in
Copenhagen I decided to take out the Broncolor Ring Flash C for a test shoot in
the city.
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| Instagram - Behind the Scenes by Anna Neretto. |
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Going out in Copenhagen is something I vividly remember from
my 14 years of living in the city. I really love Copenhagen and no city is
really comparable when it comes to the style of the bars and restaurants. So my
idea was to capture the style of the Danish nightlife and using the Ringflash
as a powerful light source to give a kind of raw and semi trashy look to the shoot.
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In the Metro getting into town.
The Ringflash really dispersed the light well and gave good detail in both skintone, hair and makeup. |
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Now the Broncolor Ringflash C is amazing in many ways. It
has a good number of accessories that you can combine with its powerful light
but I wanted to use it in the simplest way possible. I wanted to use the
powerful output to give some edge to the scene and simply mounted the flash
around the lens on the camera body without any kind of soft reflector or
honeycomb. It had to be a simple setup as we were moving trough the city on
foot and had to carry all the gear along. This is very different from shooting
in the studio and we had a long shoot, but actually everything went smooth. I
was truly amazed about the girls that were walking for miles around the city in
high heels and all the time being ready for being photographed.
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City ZOO
Here I dialled down the power of the flash to give me the ability to capture the ligth of the ZOO sign above, but still the girls are evenly lit. |
One of the new features of the Ringflash is that it is
equipped with powerful modeling lights. 10 small halogen lamps of 20 watts
apiece are really helpful when you are shooting in the dark light and it made
focusing so much easier. The modeling light also served well to make the pupils
small and thus we were able to shoot without getting red eyes.
The powerful output made me able to dim the light from the
surroundings and create a powerful focus on the girls and when needed I could
easily turn the power down and use the surrounding light to make a mix of
colors.
It was fantastically easy to work with and performed well in
synchronization with the Phase One camera. The Verso proved to be a huge
advantage and gave a fast reload of the flash and we shot the whole evening
with only a single battery change.
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| Calling a cab. |
I have always loved the light of the Ringflash and the
special kind of shadows that they give. The Broncolor Ringflash C certainly
lights all areas of its range quite evenly and I got a good skin tone from
using the flashlight white balance on the camera.
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Last shot
Model Natasja on the pavement of Versterbro. |
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Although the Ringflash is a system that jumps in and out of
fashion I surely wish to make it a permanent piece of my gear. I can see many
uses for it in both fashion and nature and I really look forward to check out
the many new accessories as well.
