Profoto Pro-8a Air

8/14/2019 Profoto Pro-8a Air

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Better Digital Camera #3 5

21

MontalbettiCampbell

Nick Rains takes his camera behind the scenes of our cover shoot.

Looking out o the plane window

as we came in to land, all I could

see was rain lashing down and

heavy clouds draped over the city.

Welcome to Sydney in June.

I was ying down rom sunny Brisbane

to meet up with Denis Montalbetti and

Gay Campbell who would be shooting an

image or this magazine’s cover, and using

some high end studio ash which Denis

wanted to test out.

Ater being dropped o by cab atthe wrong end o the industrial estate,

and having to trudge through the rain

to fnd B2 Studio, I was wondering

what I had let mysel in or. Ater all,

Montalbetti and Campbell are legends in

the industry, known or their uncompromising approach

and wonderul sense o style, and here I was stomping

through the rain to spend a whole day in the studio with

them, watching them create something special or my

cover.

I was directed to Studio 4, and stepped into a vast

space o white to see Denis and the crew setting up aairly complex lighting rig at the ar end. There was a

controlled sense o purpose right rom the beginning

– Lauren, our model or the day, was having her hair

done, Denis was measuring light levels and adjusting the

strobe positions – it all seemed very calm and organised,

and that’s the way it went or the rest o the day.

Thinking back to my days shooting commercial

work in Sydney back in the 90s, I was rather expecting

rantic rushing around, mad panics and a general mood

o mayhem. But no, apart rom the model’s latex pants

being too big (baggy latex is an odd look!) and Gay

having to rush o to fnd new ones, everything went

swimmingly well.

ConceptIt all started when I

approached Denis to be eatured in Better Digital Camera;

my idea was to eature him in the What’s in the Bag

section but Denis mentioned that he was interested

in comparing the two top studio ash systems’ high

speed ash durations. This sounded like a great idea andit gradually escalated into Denis and Gay shooting an

&



22 Montalbetti & Campbell

image or their book that I could use or my cover – rom

my point o view this was quite a coup.

Between us we managed to bring together all the

people we needed to get the look Denis and Gay had

in mind. Sun Studios agreed to provide us with their top

Broncolor Scoro packs, L&P sent over their equivalent

Prooto Air packs and we cut a deal with B2 Studios asa neutral venue which had enough ceiling height or a

ull trampoline. Denis wanted to see i the claimed ash

durations o 1/4000th o a second were realistic and to

see i he could totally reeze a bouncing fgure – hence

the trampoline and the big studio. On top o all that we

decided to use the best possible capture device and

Bruce Pottinger rom L&P brought over a pre-release

Phase One camera with the latest P65 back.

LightingDenis set up a airly simple lighting arrangement. Two

heads running rom a single pack were placed behind

icelite screens to illuminate the white background and

allow it to blow out to almost pure white.

One head was put in a big Octa light shaper on a

ull height boom to act as a key and another head went

into a low strip light to act as a fll and even out the light

allo rom the key light. Since the model would be

wearing a shiny black outft it was important to control

the contrast between pale skin and black costume.

Throughout the day both the Broncolor and the

Prooto ash systems perormed admirably – Denis does

not give his strobes an easy time, he expects them to

work when he needs them to work and they did this

without a single glitch, hour ater hour, shot ater shot.

The claimed ash duration o 1/4000th was hard to

confrm. We had a ash meter that measured duration as

well as light level but unortunately it was the only bit o gear that let us down that day. It showed the Broncolors

running at 1/3200th when they were set to 1/4000th but

we could not repeat this check with the Prootos later on.

Based on the published data the Broncolor Scoro

packs peak at 1/12,000, just like the Prooto Air, and at the

power settings we were using (to get F11), both were in

act indistinguishable. I we had gone down to F5.6 the

Prootos would have been running at a shorter duration

than the Scoros but given that the 1/4000 setting we

were using roze the motion anyway, we would not have

been able to tell the dierence.

Again, based on the published data, the Prootos can outperorm the Scoros – at max power the Scoros run

at 1/240th as compared to the Airs at 1/1600th. Also, the

minimum duration or the Prootos is not at minimum

power as you would expect, but at about 1/16th -1/8th

power. The Scoros ollow a more usual pattern o reducing

power to get a shorter duration throughout the whole

range.

CameraDenis has never shot with a Phase One back beore and

at frst was a bit concerned about his lack o amiliarity

with the equipment. He was pleasantly surprised to fnd

that the our big buttons on the P65+ are simple and



Better Digital Camera #3 5

23

obvious to use. “I like it, it just works” was his verdict ater

just a ew minutes exploring the menus.

We ran a Firewire 400-800 lead rom the tripod

mounted Phase One camera to an 8-Core MacPro

running Capture One sotware so all the images would

be previewed on a good, colour calibrated monitor –essential or checking ocus and exposure.

Once we started shooting Denis was immediately

impressed with the quality o the captures. During

ocus checks we would crowd around the monitor

and when the image was displayed at 100% on

the screen, we were all stunned to see how the

combination o high resolution and lack o an anti-alias

flter could render even fne gauzy material with such

great fdelity.

ShootingOnce we got all the costumes and makeup sorted out,and Denis was happy with the lighting, our model,

Lauren, hopped up onto the trampoline and, under Gay’s

direction, spent the next ew hours bouncing up into

the air whilst holding a pose. She was a total trooper, not

once complaining until, as the aternoon wore on, she

fnally had to answer ‘the call o nature’ made increasingly

persistent rom all that jumping.

Denis shot almost 20GB o images, each one being

around 60MB as a RAW fle and 180MB as an 8bit TIFF.

Finished ResultsGay took the fnal images and superimposed the fgure

onto a background o roses – as you can see on the

Denis Montalbetti & Gay Campbell

www.montalbetticampbell.com

Studio Assistant: Alex Porter

Studio: B2 Studio, Alexandria,

Sydney

www.b2.net.au

Talent: Lauren Burnett rom

Vivian’s Model Management

www.viviansmodels.com.au

Hair: Clive Allright / Work Agency

Hair Assistant: Jayde Allright

www.workagency.com.au

Styling: Cassandra Scott-Finn

www.cassandrascottfnn.com

Makeup : Martin Bray/

Look Production

Makeup Assistant: Jenna

www.martinbray.com

Broncolor Flash: Sun Studios

www.sunstudiosaustralia.com

Prooto Flash: L&P Photographic

Phase One Cameras : L&P

Photographic

www.lapoto.com.au

Latex Costume: www.rubber.

com.au

Top Hat : www.houseopriscilla.

com.au

Retouching: CREAM Studios

www.creamstudios.com.au

Production Stills were shot by Nick Rains on a Canon 5D MKII

using 17-40, 85 and 24TSE Canon lenses. All images were shot by

available light at 3200ISO.

You can see a short video o this shoot here:www.betterdigitalonline.com/blog

Denis Montalbetti

cover. The image eatured prominently at the PMA Show

in Sydney on the Fujiflm stand where it was displayed

along with other Montalbetti and Campbell images as a

series o 2.4m high prints on Fujiex.

Better Digital Camera Magazine would like to thank the ollowing people or making the day such a success:



24 Montalbetti & Campbell

Flash Pack ShootoutI was expecting to see some signifcant dierences

between these two high-end systems, but as the

preceding article suggests, there is very little to choose

between them.

Both cost about the same to rent, and on paper the

Broncolor Scoro claims 3200J against the Prooto Pro-8A’s

2400J. From shooting both it seems that this 1/2 stopdierence is not readily apparent.

The Scoro recharges a tiny bit aster – 0.8 sec vs

0.9sec which is negligible really.

Both can take a ull commercial workload, continuing

to pump out ull power discharges hour ater hour.

Denis Montalbetti thought that the light quality rom

the Prooto was superior; certainly it was slightly more

wrap-around, but the heads did not have the exact same

diusers over the tubes which might account or this.

The Scoro has an interesting eature allowing a

head to be plugged into more than one power pack

or a ‘ping-pong’ discharge o theoretically 4 rames per

second on ull power i you ran it o 4 packs. Wow.

I it’s short ash duration that you need, then the

Prooto has the edge. At ull power it’s 1/1600, as

opposed to 1/240th or the Scoro and at about 4-stops

down rom max power, the Prooto is still up around the

1/12000 mark whilst the Scoro only achieves this at its

lowest power settings.I’d call this a dead heat, both are excellent proessional

outfts that will do the job reliably and with no uss. Buy

either one and you will be completely satisfed.

Broncolor :

www.sunstudiosaustralia.com

(02) 9641 5555

Profoto :

www.lapfoto.com.au

(02) 9906 2733



studio 01

Australias rst completely integrated

creative space

camera and lighting facilities

production services

event management

gourmet catering

set construction

props service

unit b2 46 - 62

maddox st

alexandria

nsw 2015

www.b2.net.au

[email protected]

p.02 9690 0033

f. 02 9690 0986

24 hr / 7 day access, set fabrication & design, high ceilings

digital camera hire & sales, photographic lighting hire & sales

commercial kitchen, 2.6 x 3.6 metre doorways, standard attage

10 & 20 amp single phase, 20 & 32 amp 3 phase total 300 amps

wireless internet, scaffold & scissor lift, furniture, props hire & sales

daylight studios, unlimited parking, airconditioning, catering service

casting & audition rooms, delivery service, plinths & rolling platforms

solid timber ooring options, polished concrete oors, storage space

b2

australian owned studios built to world class standards.

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Profoto Pro-8a Air