A fashion shoot above Shanghai

This assignment was a fashion shoot set on the top floor of a 90-year-old high-rise overlooking Shanghai’s Bund.

The pros were amazing: you get a bird's-eye view of the entire Bund riverfront. The cons, however, were extremely limiting. We had only one narrow corridor, less than 1.2 meters wide. On top of that, the wind was relentless.

Given the space constraints and the wind, I opted for compact and portable modifiers instead of large ones like the Para. I went with tools like the P120 wide angle reflector, a Beauty Dish reflector, and a Litepipe P. Alternatively, I used a Focus 110 umbrella collapsed down to about 70mm. I also used the bare bulb with a large 90cm diffusion panel directly in front as my key light.

The sunlight that day was brutal. At noon, with ISO 100, we were shooting at f/16. But the high power output of the Stelos allowed me to easily kill the sunlight. Even though I was shooting at full power almost the entire time, the Stelos’ battery capacity had me covered for the full day.

The Stelos’ compact size made it easy to set up lights quickly in the tight space. For most shots, a standard stand was more than enough to hold it steady. I didn’t need a C-stand in most cases.

As the sun set, I turned on the Stelos’ LED modeling light and switched the color temperature to warm. This allowed me to slow down my shutter speed and mix the warm continuous LED light with the white flash light. The Stelos’ insanely fast flash duration meant I didn’t have to worry about shake or blur from the slow shutter.

The Stelos is undoubtedly the best form factor for flash photography and the ultimate solution for professional photographers shooting on location.