6 months ago Dylan Patrick flew to Charleston SC for a week to film our latest tutorial; The Cinematic Headshot. As always, editing this 6 hour tutorial was much more difficult than we expect but I'm excited to announce that it is finally available.
No Studio, No Problem
Within 1 year Dylan went from being a struggling actor/bar tender to a full time portrait photographer without ever using a studio. Managing natural light outside can be difficult but Dylan's lighting style brings the benefits of studio lighting out on location.
Learn About The Gear
Dylan has simplified his bag of gear into just 1 camera, 1 lens, 2 speedlights, 1 reflector, and 2 modifiers. Photographers on any budget will be able to easily afford the equipment necessary to shoot similar images. To see Dylan's full list of gear that he recommends, click here.
Learn How To Light
Dylan's photography isn't about expensive gear, it's about the knowledge of how to use what you have. In this tutorial you will learn how to light in ideal lighting situations, extremely harsh lighting situations, and even at night. Dylan's techniques will help you produce repeatable results in any location at any time of day.
Learn How To Edit
50% of Dylan's signature look can be attributed to his coaching and lighting, the other 50% comes from his post production. This tutorial includes 4 different RAW files that you can use to follow along with Dylan as he works. After following along in Photoshop for over 3 hours with Dylan, you'll know everything necessary to edit your portraits at a world class level.
Buy Now And Start Watching Today
This tutorial is a digital download. Immediately upon purchase you will be emailed links to download all of the chapters and Raw files. You can watch these mp4 files on a computer, burn them to a DVD or BluRay, stream them to your TV, or upload them to another device like an iPhone or iPad to watch at your leisure.
The picture of the blonde-haired woman with the blue shirt is just amazing. It's very crisp but the background is completely obscured/blurred as well.
When i get the cash i will buy all of these tutorials!! ALL
looks like a GREAT video!
what's the octo he's using again?
www.fstoppers.com/dylanpatrickgear
Thanks!
I'm going to add another comment now that I was able to see the video from home...these promo videos you guys make for your products just kill it...every time. I seriously hope Fstoppers is planning on making some kind of a commercial production arm to their business.
I'm admittedly not going to buy this now(I'm coming to the Bahamas instead and am tapped out), however, I have seen very few videos that make me WANT to buy products like these do.
Thanks for the kind words Jason. I can't wait to see you in the Bahamas!
Yes, definitely. Couldn't be more excited and looking forward to meeting everyone.
The funny thing is with a 1 year old and a tighter-than-normal budget I had little hopes of getting out of town for six days by myself for photography workshops....... that is until I showed your promo video to my wife. There was a snippet about Patrick taking his whole family there and how great the resort was and she was like "well I think we should go if you want to go".
I nearly fell out of my chair.
Wait, a THIRD headshot tutorial from fstoppers?!?! Definitely money to be made here. Ok, time to add "headshots" to our list of services... :-) Just yankin' your chain guys. ... *gone off to edit the site*.. Has Peter Hurley gotten a haircut (and a shave, and a new wardrobe yet?) Call me once he does!
This looks awesome.. I'll have to get this for sure :-)
I bought this and like it so far. Heading into the new year I want to start working on architecture/real estate/interiors, but this past weekend I had a few people inquire about me doing professional headshots for them. After already buying Mike Kelley's great Original, I got an e-mail from FS pitching this series, and in the preview they said this is an area that every photographer should know how to do. I agreed and bought Original #2. I see Peter Hurley's as a great basis on coaching, interaction and positioning, so (eventually) I may buy that one to hit the headshot angle in a 360-degree manner. /rambling
So glad you are enjoying it Ian. If you need anything or have questions don't hesitate!
It took me a second to figure out how he did it but suffice to say it is quite simply long lens compression + high speed sync and a good deal of distance from the subject to the background. It's a great result & it will be a wonderful tutorial to be sure. However, it's a very simple and rudimentary technique (Strobist 101???). Neutral Density filters could likewise be used to control the ambient light and then use your flash or strobe in full capacity.
I think the ND filters would save a lot of trouble from using HSS with multiple strobes to beef up the power, etc, however, when you have to stop down that much can you even nail focus with an NDS on your lens when using such a shallow DOF?
I'm sure it's possible but just wondered how much more difficult the actual shooting is by going that route. Would be nice though...you could throw HSS and special triggers right out the window.
Hi Jaranu & Jason thank you for the feedback! You are exactly right regarding you concern over ND filters. I'm certainly aware that ND filters can be used, and have played with it myself. The issue for me is in two parts the first is simply that when you are shooting in very bright conditions you will likely need to use more than a 2-stop ND filter. I've experimented with 4 and 6 stops and what you find is that focus becomes and issue especially at 200mm at f/3.2 or f/2.8, but even more important than that is 4 to 6 stop ND filters make it much much harder to really read your models expression (especially considering I want them in the shade for total control of the light on them) and that for me is paramount in Headshots. The 2nd is business related, with HSS I'm able to shoot at anytime and see my models clearly with no focusing, color or vignetting issues, this translates to being able to shoot more people in a day. You also have the same ability to add more strobes in HSS as well for more power. We just wanted to show what you could accomplish with minimal gear!
Shooting headshots outside is great when you have decent weather year round.
Savi you are correct and I have to say that I do love LA (my move here only happened this year) for this reason, however my start was NYC and I photographed year round in NYC, in the cold, and in the snow. Admittedly my business was slower in the winter months but I routinely photographed people despite the cold. It just requires a lot of hot tea and popping inside every 10-15 min or so :-)
I want this so bad! I just got one of your portable disc for the speedlight and that thing is incredible! Can't wait to be able to afford this tutorial!
Hey Dylan, greetings from Wellington, NZ. I bought your tutorial yesterday ... awesome work. Well done !!!. The damn exchange rate makes the price NZ$ 300 but feel I still got value out of the purchase. I have always shot portraits indoors using my trusty Bowens lighting kit and was curious to learn about shooting outdoors using Speedlights to create the Cinematic effect. The tutorial saved me a truck load of "trial & error" time to find out the best combination of gear and settings. The other valuable insight was your approach to "direction" ... love the "come and get me" for girls and "kick my ass" challenge for guys. I do portraiture for fun so looking forward to hunting down some models for a few shoots over the next few weeks.
Hey Dylan, I currently shoot headshots (lots of them) in my studio and only periodically on location. Though I'm doing more and more location shooting lately for a variety of reasons. Love the highly compressed shallow DOF and your "cinematic" look! I'm used to using studio strobes rather than speedlights and will sometimes take one on location (an Elinchrom monohead BRX500 with a li-ion inverter). But my Elinchrom gear isn't capable of high speed sync and so I have to wait for exactly the right lighting conditions (often plus low power plus lots of diffusion) or I just use a reflector rather than strobe in order to be able to open the lens right up and blur out the background at 1/250th max sync. So I'm thinking of dropping the big bucks on the new(ish) Profoto B1s (or possibly the Elinchrom ELB 400) because of their high speed sync capability and much greater power than speedlights. Have you used these and are you sticking with speedlights just because of weight and cost, or is there some other drawback you see to using B1s over speedlights? Great trailer and I'm thinking of getting the tutorial just because I love your work ... and you can never stop learning!!