30/11/2008 by jim.

Whenever you get a famous personality come to town it invites the typical media crush to get a photo while trying not to offend fans and annoy the subject themselves. It becomes very tempting just to shoot with on-camera flash and get the same shot as everyone else.
On this occasion Kate Adie arrived later than she wanted and three photographers ended up with 90 seconds to get our photographs. Fortunately all of the fans - a sell out event, were seated by then so I ushered her into a small area where I had set up a speedlite in a Lastolight ezybox at approximately 45 degrees to a chair and set Canon’s iTTL flash metering system on to ratio. I used a 580ex on-camera to fire the off-camera flash, giving the off-camera flash 3 stops more exposure than the fill in flash.
Using Canon’s iTTL is a way of shooting that the Strobist fraternity are only just starting to embrace but I have found it an excellent method of using of-camera flash when set up and shooting times are pushed to the limit and manually adjusting flash power outputs is not possible.
At least you end up getting a shot that is not the same as everyone else.

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14/11/2008 by jim.

The traditional business portrait can be a tricky assignement. It needs to engage the sitter with the viewer straight away. It needs to have a degree of animation to make the subject dynamic, it needs a degree of power to instill confidence.
For this portrait I used my favourite light - a 1.5 metre Octa on an Elincron Ranger Speed powered head. It was still daylight outside and the curtains didn’t close so I need to overpower the ambient light. I needed to use 100 ISO to get the best quality from my camera. I wanted a greater depth of focus than usual, shooting at at least f16, I wanted drama yet maintain shadow detail and the Octa makes that possible. I also used a couple of small Canon Speedlites using good old Strobist techniques to add a little hair light and also to put just a hint of light into the background.
I miss the old days of Film Star portraits when they all held a cigarette in their hands. Hands are weird things to photograph, leave them out and the subject looks too static, include them and they can just appear to wave about in thin air. They can add power to a portrait but they also have the ability to do exactly the opposite.
Lots to think about and the pressure is usually intensified by lack of time. Busy men have tight deadlines. You just got to love doing business portraits. I do.

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10/07/2008 by jim.

This modest young lady has won 107 sporting medals plus a Squadron sword and I needed a shot that was a bit special for the story. We went out onto the track but that was a bit shabby so we found the best spot that we could and laid the medals out.
In order to hide the condition of the track I underexposed the ambient by 1.5 stops and selected Tungsten colour balance on the camera. This would make the track dark and blue making it recede (hopefully).
I then used a full CTO on the main flash (Canon 580ex) to the left of camera. As it was windy I used a bare flash rather than a shoot through brolly.
I then placed a second flash (Canon 430ex) on the ground, behind the young lady, zoomed in to 105mm.
These were sync’d with Elinchrom Sky ports.
This lighting managed to hide the shabby track and make our subject look like the hero she really is.

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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.

Posted in Strobist, Lighting 102, General photography | No Comments »

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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