Photo Equipment and How to Achieve Good Photographs with Proper Lighting

Hi everyone, I know this has probably been ask many times so please forgive me for asking again.

I'm a newbie into the photography world and would like some recommendations on lens and lighting to purchase. I'm starting off with a beginners camera: Canon Rebel XTI. Along with the kit lens, I purchase a 50mm F-1.8 II lens. What, I'm trying to do is these amazing shots I've seen other photographers do. The sexy black and white photos. Here are some of pictures I found:
http://viewmorepics.myspace.com/index.c ... ID=3585000
http://viewmorepics.myspace.com/index.c ... ID=3681824

How does this photographer achieve this? I've sent several emails to the photographer without any replies. Please offer any recommendations.

Thanks

That's not so much camera equipment as it is lighting equipment. On a crop-sensored camera that looks to be roughly a ~20-25 focal length shot.

The first shot was done with heavy back-lighting and what looks to be an accent light directly perpendicular to each side of the model from the neck down.

The second shot looks to have been lit with a light slightly off to the models left and up a few feet.

The author of the images even gives the clue in the second link posted that the effect is really just lighting.



neksus, that's a pretty good analysis of the lighting. The first one was pretty obvious with the heavy back-lighting the second was a little tougher.

Hi guys, okay can one of you guys explain heavy back-lighting? What are the possibility things he use? I want to try something similiar to this style.

For the betterment of your camera taking skills I'm going to first ask you to understand how to use your camera's light meter. On the XTi, it's the little grid of numbers that looks kinda like [-2] . . [-1] . .[0] . . [1] . . [2]. I apologize if this seems patronizing and you already knew that.

Once you have that down, it's as simple as exposing the scene for the background fill light and then re-centering (while keeping the exposure locked) on your subject.

I understand that doesn't make a whole lot of sense, but simply telling you how to shoot a silhouette with no technical knowledge or understanding of how it works won't benefit you.



The brightness of the light on her nose didn't hurt
Speaking of which, my studio lights should be here tomorrow! I'm so excited!

Thanks neksus... Yes, I totally need to understand that part first. I wish I understand what you mean by re-centering (while keeping the exposure locked)... Trying to make sense of it without seeing it is hard. But thanks for that.

Can you tell me if the combination I have below do any good shots? If so, what can I get out of it. I would like to see some work done by others who uses the ones I have so I can compared. Would you by any chance have any? If not, can you tell me what type of shots I can do?

Rebel XTI
50mm 1.8 Version II (about $100)
430 Version II Flash

Your camera is more than sufficient; that lens is a beast, especially for that price. Sure the 50 1.4 is better, but only slightly sharper on the corners and has full-time manual - whether it's worth the extra $300 is up to you.

Cameras auto-focus and exposure settings go off reflected light; if you're pointing at somebody outside in the snow, they're going to appear black because the whole of the scene appears bright. To fix this, you'd face the shade, auto-focus on something roughly the same distance away, thus locking the exposure settings, then re-center your camera on the target, keeping the shutter button half-depressed.

Oh, So Nice examples from the two black and white lights play shots. And pretty good analysis...

Thanks for sharing.