Spartan_X Posted June 26, 2005 Share Posted June 26, 2005 For those of you who have taken their camera or video gear into the bedroom you?ll appreciate how difficult it can be at first to get good results. Glamour photography is harder than it seems and there are many traps to be had for the unwary. For those just starting out, its important that your partner?s first impressions of the whole adventure are good so its critical to get it right. Here, based on experience, are a few tips to help you upgrade your game or get you off on a good footing. I also provide at the end some links to other people?s articles that go into a lot more of the technical stuSetting the Stagege Before you pop your lens cap, spend a little time making sure the area you?re going to shoot in is reasonably tidy. If you look at commercial stuff you?ll see that much effort goes into removing potential distractions, like beer glasses, magazines and socks. Pick out your best sheets and try draping these across the bed or chairs for a more luxury feel. If you really want that down-to-earth ?trashy-trailer-park look? EquipmentEquipment You?ll find that even the most basic digital camera or video recorder is up to the job. I even use my digital still camera in movie mode for some videos, though if you do this you?ll want a camera with a least 640 x 480 video resolution and 30 fps. For stills, unless you?re a pro, try to avoid the use of a flash as it tends to white people out. Most cameras give you the option to turn it off. A remote control is a great thing to have ? either a wireless as used by Olympus or the more common wired ones offered by Sony and others. For video, if you have one of the newer DV video cams, you'll appreciate the quality, and being digital, they make editing easy. To load these safely into CB just save as an AVI (hShootingile. Shooting For still shots the best single piece of advice is to take lots and lots of photos and then a bunch more. Just keep clicking. It?s amazing how out of thirty shots of the same scene, one will just leap out as being ?the one?. The pros always do this, so click away and play the numbers game. Then there are some basics. Like how do you actually take the shots of both of you? There are three options. Handheld, tripod (for the camera that is) or ask a friend. Not having gone down the friend path, we?ll cover the first two. Handheld is great if you want that ?low budget? shakey look. Problem is with the camera waving all over the place, you wont be able to watching the resulting video for more than about 30 seconds before getting motion sickness. The tripod is the way to go. So, don?t be cheap and try propping the camera on the bedside table. You?ll end up with one-third of the picture being a sideways shot of the table top you haven?t cleaned for a month. No, buy a basic tripod. One last thing, make sure you shoot from level, or better yet? slightly from above. Nostrils not attractive so forget aLights! the bed? camera angle. Lights! OK, there?s no need to turn your bedroom into Universal Studios set but a small investment (we?ll give you a cheap fix) in achieving good lighting conditions makes a huge improvement in image quality and attractiveness. When light levels are low cameras suffer from more picture noise, image shake and poor contrast. Unless you?re Paris Hilton nobody is going to be interested in watching your video shot in ?night vision? mode. So. Good bright lighting is critical. The expensive way to do it is to pour a bunch of dough into high-end studio lighting. The route we took was to head to our local hardware store, (like a Sears), and buy some halogen work lights. These things set us back only $25 dollars and for that we got two 250-watt halogen lights set on an adjustable tripod. Each light is independently adjustable so you can point one up on the ceiling for diffused lightening (to reduce shadows) and point the other one more directly. A nice side effect of halogen is that it puts out a light that makes skin tones look redder and healthier (i.e. less like lard). Oh, and if friends come round and spot them, you can handily claim there were there to assist with that Digital Editing were about to start work on. Digital Editing Yes! Forget authenticity. I advocate deploying the full arsenal of digital slight of hand. Pros use airbrushing so to stay in the game its worth at least doing the basics. For the stuff you select to keep (remember the plan should be to throw 80% away), use image editing software to boost the red and blue colors a little. I do this for both videos and stills. It will add a healthy tan to skin that tends otherwise comes out too white and pale. Be sure to go heavy on the crop. No I?m not talking BDSM, just a pointer to crop your photos carefully. Cutting your old alarm clock out of the shot along with your old boxers from the week before will magically improve things. In glam photography less photo is nine times out of ten a lot more. Cropping removes any distractions and can puts the focus in the right place. Try tight cropping for specific attention on say your partners legs, torso, butt or neck. The effect can be very sexy. While cropping stills you can also use the editor to remove small blemishes. Why not? Your partner will love you for it. Editing a long section of video will take a long time to do properly. It is best to take cut out shorter segments and then use cross fades to make the action more interesting. Of course, once you?re done editing, get your handiwork loaded safely into CoupleBox. There is nothing so not-sexy as viewing yourThe Hair Phenomenonhat looks like a spreadsheet. The Hair Phenomenon And finally there is a strange, unspoken phenomena around boudy photography. It?s the experience that when a guy first sees himself on screen he wonders ?where did all that body hair suddenly sprout from?? Even if you don?t go as far as a full ?back, crack and sack job?, there is a lot to be said for a quick razor trim. You might as well look the part! On the weblinks page you will find references to more technical articles on techniques and shooting ideas. Please send us your ideas, tips and experiences so we can share them with others. Go play! Jace jace@couplebox.com ------------------------------- Source: Couplebox :blush:fty.gif' clas:ninja:em:laugh: a:huh:'bb:oemoticon' alt=':rofl:' />hifty:' />=';)histle:' /> :blush: :huh: :o :ninja: :laugh: :rofl: :shifty: ;) :whistle: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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