Review | Creative Product Photography with Dale Travers & the Profoto A1

Words and images by Dale Travers 

Image credit: Dale Travers

 

I’ve been lucky enough to have used Profoto lighting for more than 8 years now. I have never had a more reliable light for everyday use, either in a studio for 8 hours straight or shooting on a remote mining work site. I’ve travelled the country with Profoto lights and they have never failed me. This same level of quality and reliability has come to the smaller Profoto A1 range. 

 

The Profoto A1 range is basically a small, more portable light with a round head and great modifier range to suit. These little workhorses are a great addition to the camera kit and give you the same control and quality of light you’d expect from the Profoto name. 

 

I had the pleasure of testing one out on a recent product shoot for a client and was very pleased with the results. Here’s why.

The Concept 

The idea I had for this shoot was a darker, more technical shot than the commercial product photography you’d normally see on a manufacturer’s website. I wanted to push myself with lighting and create something I hadn’t seen before with this product.  

 

The product in question was a bike made specifically for one of my clients, Sarah Crowley – currently the world’s number 3 long course triathlete. The nature of a custom bike setup lent itself to a unique photo, and I really wanted to show off the customisation involved in such product.

The Setup

Let’s start with the setup for the main frame. I set up my Manfrotto tripod with the Canon 1D Mark II and my Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS III USM lens. As you can see from the picture below, I had a light on a strip box from high above and behind creating a rim light along the top and wheels of the bike.

 

To hold the bike up and limit the amount of Photoshopping involved later, we used fishing line strung from a cross beam. This took more than an hour to set up. My assistant then cleaned the bike of any dust and fingerprints while adding more lighting. 

 

I added a Profoto D1 from right side of frame to light the front of the bike, and another Profoto D1 left side of frame with a beauty dish and a grid for a focused beam of light on the rear of the bike.

 

I also added a Profoto B10 with a zoom reflector and another 10 degree grid for another focused beam of light in the crank/pedals area.

 

Enter the Profoto A1

 With these main lights set up, I then coordinated with my assistant to pop flashes of light around the bike using the Profoto A1 with a grid to give us the very small beams of light. 

 

The quality of light from the Profoto A1 is outstanding. These little flashes deliver the same beautiful Profoto light that the big boys do, but in a smaller package. The colour temperature is consistent, and thanks to its round head the A1 projects light in a nice even spread like you’d get from a studio flash. 

 

The round head also allows you to attach a range of modifiers, including grids and gels, via a magnet system. This is where I found this flash to be a huge benefit on this product shoot, and a great addition to the larger studio lights. Controlling the light was easy. Using a small grid allowed me narrow the beam of light to target certain areas of the bike. Using such a small flash also allowed us to shoot the details of the bike, highlighting very small sections by light painting with a focused beam of light. Focusing in on product names, I could highlight these areas and give them the attention they needed to bring the product to life. 

 

Another advantage of these Profoto A1s is the ability to control other lights when the flash head is on the camera itself. When you start building more and more lights into the scene, one flash can control them all via buttons on the back of the unit and a bright LED screen showing what each flash is powered to. It becomes a new remote and can also double as a fill flash, filling in those shadows to retain detail.

 

With swappable rechargeable lithium ion batteries, the more recent Profoto A1X gives you up 450 full power flashes (compared to the Profoto A1’s 350 full power flashes). Great for shooting on the go and long days behind the lens. 

 

I’d definitely recommend the Profoto A1 or Profoto A1X as a great lightweight addition to your camera gear. Super portable and with the added advantage of remote controlling other flashes via the one head on camera, it’s a great combination of flash and remote. 

Main Shot

 The finished photo consists of 7 frames, Photoshopped together using the Profoto A1 flash-highlighted section of each frame. This can only be achieved with the camera locked off on a tripod.

 

Detail Shots

After completing the main photo, we used the Profoto A1 again to take some closeup detail shots of the bike. This flash was perfect for this as it’s very small and targeted.

 

Final Word

As you can see, this photo is considerably darker than a typical website product photo. The lighting and background change the mood to a more stealth beast of a bike, giving it more personality. This lighting would not be achievable with large strobes. The Profoto A1 flash head really came into its own when highlighting parts of the bike and illuminating small features. 

 

7 image composite – shot by Dale Travers using Canon 1D Mark II + Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS III USM Lens @ f8, 1/160 sec, ISO 100 | Tethered capture though Adobe Lightroom

 

It was very challenging to achieve this lighting but I’m glad we made the effort and created something that was not there before, pushing ourselves with new equipment and learning along the way. Big thanks to my assistant Ben Haslett for all his help, and CameraPro for the use of their studio and equipment. 

 

You can check out all the new work we are creating with Sarah Crowley on our Instagram accounts: 

instagram.com/sarah_stan_crowley

instagram.com/daletravers

 Want to know more about Profoto,
studio lighting or commercial product photography?

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