2016 will be the year of the Monkey according to the Chinese calendar, so for our holiday card this year we ended up dressing our little one up as a monkey. This is the shot we ended up using for the card although I did manage to get a few more good ones.
Shooting little babies is tricky. She actually can’t sit up yet so we propped her up with some pillows and gave her a banana to play with. It was very difficult to get her in the perfect position and everything ready, then to get myself with the camera back in the perfect position.
Monkey Baby – XT1
For this shot, the camera I used was the Fujifilm XT1 with the 56mm f1.2 lens. I also only used one light; the Einstein E640 flash unit with a 48″ Westcott Rapid Octabox. What ended up happening was even with the power turned all the way down on the flash head, it was still too bright, so I had to aim it up and partially bounce it off the ceiling. I think it’s one of the drawbacks of Fujifilm’s lowest ISO only going to 200. The Einstein was just about one stop too bright when shooting wide open on an f1.2 lens. The good part about ISO 200 is even if you are one stop over exposed; you can always recover that information.
I believe I used a Kodak Ektar simulator but I can’t remember exactly. It was something in VSCO’s Film 5 Pack. Pretty much the only pack I use these days.