Yet another beautiful model called Elise I’ve shoot during the past weeks. This is more the private types of portraits I do. Using only existing lighting and only Elise’s apartment as a location I found the series turning out quite good. The model was relaxed and we had an informal atmosphere during the shoot that gave the natural feel of these portraits.
Using three types of lenses, the 35mm f/1.4G, 50mm f/1.4D and 70-200mm f/2.8 gave the shallow depth of field shooting at a wide aperture, but I think I need to change out the 50mm f/1.4D anytime soon. It tends to back focus a few millimeters and the sweet spot is way of. I don’t really know if it is because of my D800, the lens it self or if it has been dropped to many times during the five years I’ve owned it.
This is the second and last part from my the series I shot with Rebecca Løckra earlier this year. Rebecca got represented as a model for Trend Models last year and has done some covers for Norwegian fashion magazines after winning a competition by Define Hair.
After working the whole weekend with event and portrait photography I am packing my camera equipment, setting my nose towards Copenhagen, Denmark to cover Copenhagen Fashion Week with the designer Lina-Therese Schiager Brækkan for Runway Passport, and to do some model tests of a few Danish models. Since I am traveling light I am still wondering what equipment I should bring and what to leave at home. Here is my temporary packing list, any feedback on what I should and should not bring?
Nikon D800
Nikon D700
Battery grips for both cameras
Universal Charger and batteries
24mm f/2.8
35mm f/1.4
50mm f/1.4
70-200mm f/2.8
SB-900, bracket and cord
Monopod
Zacuto View Finder 3,2″
GoPro Hero3 Silver Edition
Cleaning kit for lenses
32Gb CF-cards x4
Laptop
Memory card reader
500Gb external harddrives
Wacom Intuos4, drawing board
Mice
Business cards
At CFW I will mainly do shows (catwalk / runway) and backstage documentary, that is why I am bringing my prime lenses. The D800 has a slow FPS so this will remain the backup camera on when I shoot the shows, and be the main camera doing the documentary part. I really don’t need 36,6mpx on catwalk shots. The D700 has the advantage of having 11fps when boosting the camera with a BL4 battery and 12,1mpx photos is easing the computing power when going through a huge quantum of shots. I was thinking about bringing my followfocus kit (baseplate, 15mm rods, handle grip and follow focus) and Glidecam HD4000, but since I am just doing stills I can manage with just the Zacuto View Finder if I was to shoot a little video during the model testings. I’m a little bit of a fry head, I have managed to misplace my Eye-Fi card, but I will try to keep you posted on Instagram (bj0rn_net) with some cellphone shots.
Photographing moving objects can be a bit of a challenge. If you don’t trust your auto focus you’re in for a real treat. This photo was shot back in the autumn of 2009. I had recently started school when I planned this little photo shoot with my friend Rune Johansen and his bike, a Suzuki R600 (not that I really know what the difference between a R600 and an ie R1200 is), as an assignment. Having photographed people and portraits for a great deal of time I was happy to finally try something else. The task was simple, have a couple of different shots, one freezing time, one showing movement in the photo. It was really just a basic exercise practicing shutter speed control and panning. First we shot some photos with just the bike, as a commercial styled photo, then some with him and his bike riding into the sun down and finally I asked him to do some speed runs so I could have my shots for the assignment. Starting of at 60km/h I had problem finding focus both manually and automatically because of the sun hitting the lens. But on the third try with a machine-gun-high-speed-shutter-mode of 11 frames pr second I managed to get something decent for the freezing the frame-shot. Trying the blurry background we also had quite a few tries, but finally understood that he didn’t need to go that fast. He slowed down to around 20km/h crawling down the dock. Helping me out in this shot was the sun flares that in the beginning ruined my auto focus, strafing across from left to right making out the Suzuki logo. Bit of pure luck really. Being a bit aware if the police came visiting our shoot at the harbor, we packed up and went home.
Getting a blurry background with some hints of motions you need to use a normal or telephoto lens. You might achieve this effect with a wide angle, Some of the reasons is when you shoot with a telephoto lens the background gets truncated. Everything that moves in the same direction as your pan of the lens gets stuck in the frame. Lowering the shutter speed smudges what is not following your motion and blurs it out. This is shot on an aperture of f/22, ISO200 and a shutter speed of 1/50th of a second. The reason for such a small aperture is to get what I focus at in focus and sharp.
Yesterday I had a test shoot with Maren Elise Aasen (Trend Models / Team Models). Despite working with a minimum amount of equipment and doing the shoot rather impulsively it turned out quite okay. Helping me out with make-up was Ann Karin Williams Aastø from OurStyle.
The setup consisted of a Nikon D800, Nikon MB-D12, Nikon Nikkor 70-200 f/2.8G vrII and a Nikon SB-900 mounted on a bracket and with attached to a i-TTL flash cord. The lens in the picture is a 35mm f/1.4G which were to wide. I had set the SB-900 to fire of with a power output of 1/8th-1/16th and zoom at around 90-120mm. Since I have mounted the flash so close to the lens it gives you a smaller shadow behind the subject. I have been looking to buy a flash bracket from Custom Brackets which does exactly this without having the standard bracket twisting.
This shot is filmed at Trondheim Kickboxing Klubb’s (TKBK) gym and the two fighters are Rune Johansen and Andreas G. Johansen. It was a bit unfair to have them fight after four rounds of sparring before this footage.
Since I bought my D800 I’ve been testing more the abilities of filming with this camera. I am at the moment not a professional videographer and find the results quite satisfying to my simple use. Here is a quick DSLR-video test with a glidecam and the D800. I found the rig to be quite heavy using my 35mm f/1.4 lens, but with a smaller prime, such as the 24mm f/2.8 or 35mm f/2.0, took off quite some weight. This shot my configuration was a bit too bottom heavy as you can see the drag in the camera movement. I have to practice more flying a camera.
I am trying out the Nikon D800 + 35mm f/1.4G and an Eye-Fi Pro X2 on my road trip in Norway. This is the second part in my testing series.
Why haven`t I thought of that? I got a tip from an Eye-Fi user asking me why I didn`t set my Android phone up as a HotSpot instead of having to disconnect the Direct Mode everytime I was to upload the photos I shot to Instagram. Well, I had some time off this afternoon setting up the card to access my Android HotSpot and testing it. Worked like a charm!
Experiencing disconnections, no network available and resetting the password on my Direct Mode was giving me a headache and I was almost about to giving up the project on the second day.
After reading a new update from Eye-Fi as well I found out that I was not the only one with issues concerning the Direct Mode.
Known Issues
The Nikon D800 / D800E is not compatible with Eye-Fi X2 Cards.
Eye-Fi engineering has found and confirmed a compatibility issue with the Eye-Fi card that impacts the use of Direct Mode in the Nikon D800. We are currently investigating an issue with the D800′s SD slot that appears to contribute to a lack of steady signal while the Eye-Fi card is in Direct Mode which makes the Direct Mode feature incompatible with the camera. The Nikon D800/D800e passes all other wireless network tests and is compatible with wireless transfers via a wireless router.
All this testing have drained the first of two EN-EL15 batteries that I brought with me, I hope that the new HotSpot method will streamline the process and save some batteries, three more days. It might be that not switching on and off the wireless unit will save some battery power on my phone as well.
I would also suggest that switching on the Upload to Eye-View through Wi-Fi only would reduce the cost on your cellphone bill.
The story behind the pictures today is quite simple, I woke up to rain and snoring from my next door neighbor around seven, packed my equipment and drove to Jaren. Crossing a “mountain” it suddenly started snowing, but luckily in Jaren it had stopped. On my way back to Raufoss I stopped for a lunch not far from Lynga Skisenter and enjoyed the view. Continuing towards Raufoss I drove past some potato fields and stopped for another shot. Passing the exit by an accident I ended up in Gjøvik. Wops!
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Two weeks ago I had a fashion shoot with Carina Velvet, Trend Models, in a small grove of Leangen in Trondheim, where I photographed and filmed a bit. Here is the result of the film I made and the last two pictures from the shoot. The soundtrack on the clip is composed by Akira Yamaoka and is from Silent Hill 2, the Playstation game. Make-up and hair was done by Annette Rian Skjølberg.
The pictures was shot with a Canon EOS 1D Mark III and the film clip was shot with a Canon EOS 5D MkII, 50mm f/1.8 and a 24-105mm f/4L. The zoom-lens in combination with the MkIII weren’t as sharp as I’d expected in these conditions. Quite soft all over. From the EXIF-data I read that I had a shutter around 1/125s, an aparture of f/5.6 and the ISO was 800. All frames are natural lit with only a reflector to light brighten up a bit.
In an hour I have my final shoot with Marion Dyrvik Homlong for her portfolio for Miss Earth, down town Trondheim. Looking forward to it. Have a nice weekend!
Liv-Miriam Nordtømme and Bjørn Christiansen, photo: Vegard T. Blakstad
After work today I drove with my boss to Kristiansten Festning and met Liv-Miriam Nordtømme, the author of fysionett.blogg.no. Here we did a photo shoot and a recording of some video clips Liv-Miriam is going to use on her blog demonstrating simple and easy home exercises. Vegard Blakstad, my boss, and the photographer behind this image served as assistant during the shot handing me the lenses and made sure that the light was perfectly reflected on the face of Liv-Miriam. Photos and film from the recording comes during the week.
As you can see in the image of Liv-Miriam and me, so I use my tripod shoulder rig in order to stabilize the images as much as possible. It’s better than to shoot only handheld. Canon 5D MkII, I borrowed from my tenant, Charlotte Støle, who is also a photographer.
Early May I was asked to make a promo-film for Charlotte Svee Hestnes who is competing to become Frøken Norge 2011. We had about two days to complete the project giving us little time for planning anything. Anyway, the film is shot with a Nikon D7000 that I got to borrow from Nikon Norge and my Nikon Nikkor 35mm f/2.0D. Hope you like this little piece. If you have a Norwegian cellphone number, please vote for Charlotte Svee Hestnes by sending an SMS with FN4 to 2105.
There is also a poll on facebook that you can vote for Charlotte or any other of the Frøken Norge-contestants: Poll on Facebook
Fingers crossed, and good luck Charlotte!
Here are some other photos I shot of Charlotte earlier this spring:
photo: Bjørn Christiansen, model: Charlotte Svee Hestnes
photo: Bjørn Christiansen, model: Charlotte Svee Hestnes
photo: Bjørn Christiansen, model: Charlotte Svee Hestnes
photo: Bjørn Christiansen, model: Charlotte Svee Hestnes
photo: Bjørn Christiansen, model: Charlotte Svee Hestnes
photo: Bjørn Christiansen, model: Charlotte Svee Hestnes
This past two and a half months I’ve been filming quite a few videos with a Nikon D7000 I got to borrow from Nikon Norge. This piece is one of the last films I shot before I returned it back to Camera & Videoteknikk AS and is a behind the scenes-thing for Ane Aspen’s last shoot at Norsk Fotofagskole. The photos she shot of Hedvig Kristine Sundland fromTrend Models are going on display at Fokus, our exhibition today.
Makeup artist is Anniken Tiset, designer of the jacket is Marianne Høst, second assistant is Leiv Aspén from Buranhus.
You can see the photos Ane shot of Hedvig at our exhibition Fokus at Fotofagskolen this weekend. Opening is at 20:00 tonight.
Fokus - Avgangsutstilling på Norsk Fotofagskole 2011
Last Monday in the lunch hour my model Maria Ishoel Frelsøy, assistant and make-up artist Line Sofie Steinfinsbø had a little video shoot at the rooftop of Trondheim Torg for my fashion project. The preview and the rest of the clip is filmed with Canon 5D Mark II and a 50mm f/1.4. Soundtrack is Soleplassland by Tre Små Kinesere.
Today I received a Nikon D7000 that I got to borrow from Camera & Videoteknikk AS for product testing, mainly the movie capabilities of this DSLR.
I just picked up my new camera. An old Minolta Hi-Matic AF that was my grandfathers before he died in 1987 or 86. My grandmother have been keeping it ever since and told me before Christmas last year that she still had it. The Hi-Matic AF has automatic focus, automatic shutterspeed and automatic aperture. A 38mm f/2.8 lens and a nice little ISO / ASA-dial on the lens. A built-in-pop-up-flash.
I just shot a roll of Ilford 400 b/w film of my room mate, Lisa Alden, that I will try to develop on Sunday. If the result is okay, I’ll maybe use it on regular basis.
A little movie clip I made for my assignment at school. All the photos in this movie is photographed in my apartment. Hope my roommate don’t mind. Music is from the soundtrack of Silent Hill, a rather bizarre game with a creepy mood.
Hi and welcome to my blog / portfolio. My name is Bjørn Christiansen I am a 29 year old and live in Trondheim where I currently I work as a freelance photographer shooting fashion, commercial, documentary and portraits. Enjoy my site!
