Monthly Archives: March 2013

Of Indoors Flash, And The Mode You Use

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When you shoot with a flash indoors, what exposure mode should your camera be in?

Of course I would say “manual” – my camera is almost always in manual exposure mode. But why do I say that? Why manual – why not, say, aperture mode?

Let me explain. Here’s what the cameras allow the shutter speed to be in the various modes:

The Canon engineers decided that:

  • in Aperture mode (Av), the camera will expose as it sees fit. That could mean a shutter speed of, say, three seconds… not ideal!
  • in Program mode (P), the shutter shall not be slower than 1/60th second. Also not ideal: unless you like very high ISOs, you may well want to go to 1/30th or even 1/15th, when using a wide lens, to get enough ambient light in.

The Nikon engineers decided that:

  • In both A and P modes, the shutter shall not be slower than, usually, 1/60th second. Not ideal: unless you like very high ISOs, you may well want to go to 1/30th or even 1/15th, when using a wide lens, to get enough ambient light in.
  • In both A and P modes, when you enable the “Slow Flash” setting, the camera will allow slow shutter speeds to expose as it sees fit. That could mean a shutter speed of, say, three seconds… not ideal, either.

So neither of those modes are perfect for indoors flash shots. Hence, S/Tv, or better, M is the way to go!

 

Light Shifter

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Your camera, as regular readers here know, is a light shifter. It shifts light to not “what it is”, but “what you want”.


So the first question you always (always) ask when doing a flash shot is, what should the ambient light do? What do I want?

And then you arrange your exposure triangle (Aperture, shutter speed, ISO) according to that need.

And then you add the flash.

The failure to do this leads to more flash confusion than anything else. It also leads to a creative failure. The studio may be well lit, but why use it like that? Increase shutter speed, close down the aperture, and lower ISO, and you can get a bright studio looking like this:

So again, when doing any flash shot at all, your first question is not about the flash, but about the embient.

I am teaching flash tonight st Sheridan College. Saturday at Vistek in Toronto. And in the coming weeks in Hamilton:  http://www.cameratraining.ca/Schedule.html it is worth being there if you want to unleash your creativity.

Sam The Studio Man

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When I prepare a tricky shot, I tend to use  stand-in model while I work on light, so the model does not need to stand there for half an hour while I adjust and move lights.

But these stand-in shots are often good, which is why I use them. While preparing to shoot model Danielle, I shot Sam Taylor, who runs the studio I teach in (see www.cameratraining.ca and click on “Schedule”).

I set my exposure for the window: 1/60th sec, f/5.6, 400 ISO. Then I added a strobe with a softbox, and I moved Sam far enough from the window so the strobe would light him up (from 45 degrees above), but would not light up the reflective inside of the window too much. And then I set flash power according to my camera settings. Finally, I did a little desaturating in Lightroom. Result:

Short lighting, great grunge, serious expression, rule of thirds, good balance of background and foreground. A tricky shot, and one I am delighted with.

One of my students remarked on how refreshing it was to see the problem solving process, and to realize that photography is in fact problem solving, yes it is. When I set up a shot, I do not have all the answers, but I see what I want, and I know how to solve problems “step by step” until I get that result.

And sometimes you change your mind. In the final model shot, I could not move the model away from the window, as she sat on the sill. Hence I could not get rid of a shadow cast by the snooted speedlight I ended up using. So then the shot changes entirely: if you cannot beat the shadow, embrace it! To spare those of you who are sensitive, I shall not show you that shot here (it’s a nude),  but if you are interested, click here to go to my tumblr feed.

(By the way: have you considered being photographed this way? if not: consider it. Some beautiful shots of yourself like this are worth making. If you don’t, you may well regret it later in life).

 

Breaking the rules

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One of yesterday’s shots was a shot with very bright back light:

As you see, this image is so bright, that the flare in the lens is causing a lack of contrast. Here’s how much I blew out the background: red means “loss of detail”. Which is what I want for the background.

Now for that flare. I can see that the histogram, as a result, shows that there are no true blacks:

And now to finish the image, I can do a little post work – very easy. Drag the “Blacks” control to the left until the histogram touches the left edge. There are true blacks in the image so I want to see them as true blacks. And drag the “Clarity” control to the right until I get the right look. Which was like this:

That leaves me with the finished image as follows:

Which as you can see is much better than the original, Look a her hair, for instance, and at the flare (or lack of it, in the finished image) on the dress: problem solved.

This is a rather extreme example, but you will encounter this frequently. Keep this in mind, then:

  • Note 1: know your lenses and how they react to back light.
  • Note 2: remove your lens filter – it would have made the flare much worse.

And note 3: you are allowed to do some post work. Another sample:

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Note: The new workshop schedule is now up on http://www.cameratraining.ca – book soon to ensure your place. Flash, Canon/Nikon TTL, Nudes, and Studio Portraits are all available.

 

 

 

Workshop Shot

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A few from today’s workshop:

We shot all sorts of light today. The shot above was made like this:

While one strobe above the model, fitted with a snoot (the strobe, not the model), gives you this:

A snooted speedlight combined with just the right exposure and a slow shutter, plus a little post TLC, gives you this for an LED hoola-hoop:

One of the students pointed how how much of the photography creative process is problem-solving. And that’s exactly right. Its problem solving!

This shot called for some creative problem-solving also:

And I think the thing to realize is that the problem solving process is not annoying  or scary- rather, it is the fun part!

More tomorrow. After I sleep a little!

 

Prepped!

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Tomorrow I teach “The Art of Shooting Nudes” in Hamilton, Ontario, and I am looking forward to it very greatly. I rewrote and updated the material; we have a great model and an MUA; great studio, wonderful participants (there’s one more spot open for a last minute interested photographer, by the way).

A lot of this course will be about light. But it is also about posing, composition, and about the fact that nude is not lewd. Students are a mix of men and women.

And it is not all about being explicit every time, either: often, implied shots are great:

Use selective focus. Fill the frame. Use the right light for your pictures. Experiment. Break the rules.

And nudes are timeless.

How timeless?

Here’s how timeless. This is a shot I made the other day with tomorrow’s model:

And… lo and behold…

After I took this, I found this next image online.

From several thousand years ago.

Plus ça change….!