Steffen Jahn : Airship Shooting with CGI-Technology

Freezing cold at night, blistering heat during the day, sandstorms and violent blizzards: the deserts in the South of the USA are quite a challenge - especially for photographer teams in the winter months! Anyway : this was the chosen location for an airship shoot. Luckily they had the help of CGI aka Computer Generated Imaging. This is a technology mainly used for car shoots. A digital model of the car, which is generated form the carmaker's 3D production data, is simply integrated into an already shot background. With this knowledge and a CGI-Team that knew how to use it Steffen had no problem facing the task of doing the airship shoot in this unfriendly environment. With this tool to his aid he was able to use the perfect lighting for his pictures during heavy storms. With a mobile workstation they were able to generate a pre-visualisation on location, which by the way is ideal for critical motives, precise shoots and complex backgrounds. Now the photographer and the AD had the chance to view the final image right there, keeping them safe from any unwanted surprises. With the use of a HDR-360° they were able to record the exact lighting at the location to plug into the rendered object. The result was a harmonic composition of the object with the real background.