Karl Blessing
Posts: 30,771
Grand Rapids, Michigan, US
If you did so from a balcony or parking garage or etc from above I could see something like a tilt and/or shift lens being very handy with that (depending on the angle of which you do it and how high).
Karl Johnston wrote: _______________________
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Karl Johnston
Posts: 7,239
Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada
A trampoline may also be fun, you could get the above and below shots ..so in 20 years they'll look over their pictures and be like "oh remember this, here's us in the air, honey, and look..here's us laying on the street"
Get a shot of them jumping on one or two of those mini trampolines, holding hands. Bring along some big ass strobes and overpower the sun. Maybe a star filter too to make the sun look more dramatic, sparkly.
Or you could just shoot from the trampoline, while in the air!
I would recommend using a lens with image stabilization if that were the case.
Or
Helicopter with one of these lenses positioned out of it, but you'd need a better back than I have..maybe a wimberly mounted tripod could help as well. Get the pilot to blow the doors. Half the fun of shooting from a chopper is because you can really slow down and get that clear view of the ground
Michelle Bo wrote: My clients want me to create an image like this:
How would I go about this? Maybe shoot from a balcony above?
Thank you!
The minimum distance to achieve the example you have shown would be about 30 to 40 feet and using a 70-200mm zoom on a full frame camera. So the recommended height would be about 3 to 4 floors above the pavement.
Any smaller distance would exhibit a pyramid distortion of converging perspectives.
Like this: / \
You will need assistants and walkie-talkies to be more efficient otherwise you will wake up the building occupants with your constant shouting and instructions.
Michelle Bo wrote: My clients want me to create an image like this:
How would I go about this? Maybe shoot from a balcony above?
Thank you!
Find a not busy overpass.. I use the second story balcony of my studio some times.. But then I have 14 ft high ceiling.. So inside studio shots work very well. Many times I have to shoot carped designs totally square and the rafters and or a ladder work there..
It strikes me that finding a suitable location for shooting from a building or bridge is going to take some doing. Hiring something like a cherrypicker or other specialist equipment is going to cost, too, and you can bet the weather won't co-operate.
Add in the buggeration factor, because you're doing something you haven't done before, and the fee starts to look a bit scary.
My earlier reply was a bit flippant, but are your clients prepared to pay a lot of money for their pics?
If I was doing it for myself then I'd probably give it a go, though.
Kevin Connery
Posts: 15,386
Fullerton, California, US
Select Models wrote: Shot from above with Nikon D600 at 3200 ISO... lens was 24-120 F4 Nanocoat... makes boobs bigger... buns and legs smaller...
Which is the opposite of the sample image, other than being shot from above the subject.
Full length of multiple people and a lot of surrounding area vs head-and-shoulder+ shot.
No obvious perspective distortion vs a fair amount of perspective distortion.
OP, I'd use a cherrypicker or a 4-5 story building with outside access; much less height than that is going to make it very difficult to get the feeling of 'straight down'.
Not a critique; merely pointing out how it doesn't relate to the image shown/question asked.
Karl Blessing wrote: If you did so from a balcony or parking garage or etc from above I could see something like a tilt and/or shift lens being very handy with that (depending on the angle of which you do it and how high).
... or this.
True..balcony or parking lot. You need open soft light.. if you want a similar light. clean concrete is nice and saves on retouching. You'll likely need permission if shooting on private property. As for shift/tilt, you can probably get that done in PS BUT consider shooting this from a very high angle with a longer lens. That will help in any sort of distortion.
There are a lot of bridges downtown that might work. Burnside, Hawthorn, Broadway might work and you can vary your height/perspective somewhat by moving up and down the staircase.
Karl Blessing
Posts: 30,771
Grand Rapids, Michigan, US
KevinMcGowanPhotography wrote: True..balcony or parking lot. You need open soft light.. if you want a similar light. clean concrete is nice and saves on retouching. You'll likely need permission if shooting on private property. As for shift/tilt, you can probably get that done in PS BUT consider shooting this from a very high angle with a longer lens. That will help in any sort of distortion.
You can't really do the actual "useful" stuff in photoshop. Shifting in order to shift the lens's composure as if you're sticking out further from the balcony, and tilt to cover more of an angle in focus (which is pointless in photoshop if you were unable to get the acceptable DoF), since it really helps if you wana open up to 2.8 but keep a specific plane in focus if you're not perfectly parrallel with the ground.
So yes *some* things can be corrected in photoshop such as perspective (ie: keystoning etc), and maybe even fake diorama effect if you were going for that, but in terms of being used as intented photoshop can't replace most of the situations where it saves you from having to be physically over the edge so to speak.
A ladder and relatively wide lens seems the easiest and most cost effective route.
If you need more height, climbing up on a roof and shooting over the edge of the peak could work, too (although, there may be considerably more risk involved.) In fact, that's kinda what this shot looks like to me.
I call this balloon girl. I shot the balloon model on a ladder with a helper holding her hand, then shot the set without the models. layer and mask out ladder in photoshop and there ya go.
I can tell you from experience - one of the things you really have to look out for with these types of shots is that they need to be shot with the camera lens pointing STRAIGHT down (ie: perpendicular to the ground, or absolutely as close to being perpendicular as possible).
If shot at almost any kind of an angle at all, the angle will be pretty apparent...and the shot just won't look right!
(depending on the angle of which you do it and how high).
probably not the easiest to compose, focus etc.
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