Stock Photo Shoot

Last week I set up my first stock shoot. My plan is to get some revenue going on some microstock sites and eventually build a nice enough portfolio to submit to higher priced agencies like Getty. The difficult part about shooting microstock is that what sells isn't necessarily the most exciting subject. In fact the more generic the better. For me it will be a balance of shooting what I want and what I know will sell.



Here's a shot for the sequence. I shot for about 1hour and 15 minues and probably have 4-5 shots that are worth uploading. As a rule of thumb anytime you have babies involved you get less just because it's really hard to make the little buggers do what you need them to. Overall I'm pretty happy with the shoot and feel that I achived that "stock" look.

This was shot with a 70-200 at f4ish. I had a speedlight with an shoot through umbrella off camera on right and another speedlight boucing off the ceiling on the left as fill.

What's in my bag right now.

This is my current lens kit. I just added the 50 1.2 and 70-200 2.8 which replaced my 50 1.4 and trusty old 80-200 2.8. I'm still getting used to the new lenses, the 50 1.2 is a bit finicky. It's a little more difficult to get the shot but when you do get it's magic. Not as sharp as the 85 1.2 but has similar look and for me 50mm is a very useful focal length.

Most people have the 16-35 2.8 but I'd rather have the 24 1.4 and 17-40 combo. The 24 is plenty of wide for weddings, i use the 17-40 for landscapes, architecture and outdoor lifestyle shots where I don't need fast glass.

Also, I don't feel like I need a "normal" zoom 24-70. If I want normal I use my 50. I feel like with a zoom I tend to crank it in and out to frame my shot, but when I do this I'm not being intentional about what focal length I'm using. With a prime I know the look of the lens which makes me very intentional about what type of shot i'm trying to get. Plus they just look sooooo good!

The 70-200 2.8 is an amazing lens. I've shot with the 80-200 2.8 for the past few years and this is quite an upgrade. You can hand hold 1/60th zoomed to 200mm with the IS system. This thing save my bacon last weekend where I had to shoot a very poorly lit ceremony. I cranked my 50d mkii to 3200, set the shutter to 1/80th and held my breath for each shot. I was nervous about shooting this slow but most of the shots are pretty darn sharp, my non IS would have been a blurry mess.

Anyway this is my kit for now and probably will stay this way for at least this year. Although I've heard the new 24 1.4 is just amazing. I'll post any changes to my bag as they happen.

5d mkii Test

I'm setting up some model shoots for stock photo in the next few months. I had Sam come in to do some quick tests and it was really the first real shoot with the 5d mkii. Needless to say I was blown away by how far you can zoom into the photo. Crazy!

Here's a 100% shot with 70-200 2.8IS at f13.