Dan Winters’ lighting for Schwarzenegger portrait

September 7, 2010 — 10 Comments

dan winters' photo lighting of schwarzenegger on guess the lighting blog

ted sabarese photo lighting diagram of scharzenegger on guess the lighting blog

copyright, Dan Winters

This personality-filled, personality portrait of the Governator from Dan’s book Periodical Photographs was created with 2 light sources.

Camera: Sinar F1 4×5 camera with Schneider 210mm lens and Kodak Portra 160 NC negative film, set on a tripod 8 feet back. Shot at 1/60, f22, ISO 80 (pulled 1 stop).

Lighting: The beauty of all Dan’s images lies in his signature, simple lighting. The key light here is a large octabank at f22 six feet to camera right. An on-camera ring flash at f11 adds just enough punch to open the shadows.

Comments: While Arnold was blowing this big league-sized bubble, the producer asked him how many fish tacos he wanted for lunch.

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  • reggie

    Any reason why he shot this at such a small aperture? Is deep depth of field harder to achieve in large format cameras?

    • http://GuessTheLighting.com/ Ted Sabarese

      good question, reggie. this lens’ aperture range is f5.6 – f64, so f22 is kind of the sweet spot. Like f8 or f11 on a 35mm camera lens.

  • Scott

    Ha! Great laugh, Ted.
    You are becoming quite the (leg-pull) artist :)

    The sweet spot on that lens is probably more like f11. At f22 the dof @ 8′ is maybe 2′.
    But there’s more distance from hand to flag than 2 feet. Image is flatter too (longer lens). Portra NC -1?! lol :D

  • Julien

    Simple but really efficient light setup

  • http://www.facebook.com/trogddor Travis Smith

    Close but not quite… The film was 160VC probably shot and developed normal. The lens was a 180mm Macro probably around f/45 and the light was a small source (check out the shadow) probably like a 7″ reflector.

    • http://GuessTheLighting.com/ Ted Sabarese

      Wait a second Travis. Do you have insider into that you’re holding out from us? If so, please give us more scoop.
      Ted

  • bizior

    I know it might be a weird question, but what size is the American flag used in the picture? Is it bigger than 4 x 6?
    thanks!

    • http://GuessTheLighting.com/ Ted Sabarese

      Bizior, on this blog, there is no such thing as a weird question. Though I have no idea the actual dimensions of that flag, I’d guess it to be about 4×6. Thanks.
      Ted

      • http://www.bizior.com bizior

        @tsabarese: thank you so much for confirming it :) this site rocks!

  • Van

    What was the watt/s for each, brand of lights, monolights or battery packs?