24/06/2008 by jim.

Don’t you just love High School theatrical productions. I certainly do, especially from a photographic point of view. Loads of youngsters dressed in character and willing to strike a pose. It just makes my life so easy that I want to produce something a little bit special for them using Strobist off camera lighting techniques.
For the lighting of this shot I used a Canon 580ex speedlite through an umberella, above and to camera right, set on half power with a half CTO filter.
The background was lit with a 430ex zoomed in to tighten the beam and on 1/16th power.
The camera was on manual; 1/80th at f8 ISO 400 and sync’d with Elinchrom Skyports.

I have only recently changed over from Bowens Pulsars to Elinchrom Skyports to sync the lights and I must say that I am very pleased with them. Very light and compact and so far, very reliable. A big plus is that when I use my big Ranger RX Speed lighting gear, I also get remote control of the power output from the camera.

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15/06/2008 by jim.

In full Sun it is difficult to avoid burnt out highlights and deep shadows so I always use fill-in flash. This can end up with a flat looking image if the flash is left on top of the camera or if you use the built in flash most cameras have.
Getting the flash off the camera and balancing it with the daylight evens out the dynamic range of the photograph and also lets you keep the shape and modeling in the subjects face.
In this shot the Sun was strong and coming from camera right. The sky was interesting so I adjusted the camera exposure to keep detail in the fluffy clouds. The easiest way to do this was to observe the exposure while the camera was set to aperture mode, then change to manual mode and decrease the exposure by 1.5 stops.
I then set up a flash (Canon 430EX) on a stand to camera left set to slave mode.
I used a second flash (Canon 530EX) set to master mode on a manfrotto bracket on the camera that enabled me to lift the flash about 12 inches above the camera. This was sync’d with a Canon shoe cord.
Using the flash ratio controls on the master flash, I set the flash to the left to be 2 stops brighter (4:1) than the flash on top of the camera.
As a result the main light for the shot is the the flash to camera left. Next is the Sun at -1.5 stops and then the camera (fill-in) flash at -2 stops. Effectively, I am using 3 lights including the Sun.
You can see that the image maintains detail in the sky and the subject has got a face with contours and shape.

In another version of the shot I used the trees in the background, underexposed by 1.5 stops again, to give me a dark back drop.
The main light was to camera left and the fill was on top of camera at -2 stops. The Sun in this shot was directly behind the subject.

I hope this gives some insight into using flash in bright Sunlight.
Have fun.

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20/05/2008 by jim.

It’s great when you get one of those jobs that just calls out for a little something extra to lift it out of the ordinary.
I was covering a Romany Travellers awareness event at Gordon Boswells Museum and those wagons are so colourful you just can’t wait to pour light all over them. I decided to exercise some restraint and held back the light from various areas and then add a CTO gelled light inside the wagon.
Add to that a photogenic couple of models and I was a happy bunny.

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29/06/2007 by jim.

http://strobist.blogspot.com/2007/06/lighting-102-12-position-distance.html

As usual I am running behind schedule. Due in part to my work load and also because my main model is working at opposing times to me.

The early lighting 103 exercises are quite simple really but it’s the simple stuff that is important to grasp so that when life gets complicated you have a much better idea of where you are going. Lighting gets philosophical!!!!

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27/06/2007 by jim.

http://strobist.blogspot.com/2007/06/lighting-102-introduction.htmlExercise 1 on the Strobist site has been posted and concerns the angle at which your light source reaches your subject from.

Already I am late at having a go at this exercise. To some this may seem like simple stuff but I believe that it will be worth the effort to start at the beginning and follow the whole job through.

As soon as I get some shots taken I will post them to the Flickr stream and place a link to it.

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12/06/2007 by jim.

So, what is lighting 102 all about?

First of all Lighting 102 has nothing to do with me.

It is the brainchild of David Hobby, a Baltimore Sun photographer, who writes and teaches photographers to get those small strobes (What we English call flash guns) off the hot shoe of your camera and into a place that will improve the lighting quality of your photograph. No more burnt out faces staring back at you with red eye thrown in for good measure. As a bonus he does not like spending loads of cash on equipment to make all of this possible. What a guy!!!
This blog is not going to echo David’s good work and excellent web site, visit his site by clicking on the “Strobist” link to the right of the page and learn direct from the master. If your new to using flash with your camera see his pages on “Lighting 101″, by far the best primer on flash photography on the web.

David’s latest venture is a new teaching series that is inter-active with participants from around the globe posting their photos on Flickr and on their personal blogs just to share this wonderful learning experience. This new series is just about to start and I hope to post some of my lighting exercises on this blog. Feel free to join in, leave comments and generally participate. Just remember, when you get addicted to off-camera flash photography and it starts to take over your life - blame David and not me.

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