Category Archives: Light

Nick

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OK, so I spent the day photographing St Nicholas, i.e. Santa Claus, in the mall. The real one (pull his beard, it’s the genuine thing).

So how do you do this? See yesterday for the tethering article, but I thought it might be useful for you to see how this is done in other equipment terms.

I used, and with the help of my assistant Daniel set up, the following in this order:

  • Lights:
  1. Two 400 Ws strobes (Bowen) on light stands, firing into umbrellas.
  2. A pocket wizard on each light to fire it.
  3. Power set to 4/5 as a starting point
  • Camera:
  1. Canon 1Ds MkIII, with power supplied by mains adapter.
  2. A tripod
  3. Wire release for the camera.
  4. 50mm f/1.4 lens (any lens would have done)
  5. Pocket wizard (to fire the other two)
  • USB cable to the computer.
  • Computer, tethered as per yesterday’s article

First, I set my camera to manual exposure, 100 ISO, 1/125th second, f/8. Then I set the lights to that, using a light meter.

Then I tried a test shot without  flash:

This is very important. I wanted the ambient light in the mall, which varied due to a large skylight, to not affect exposure. So that picture above should look dark. Else variance in the sunlight will affect my pictures. One lovely thing about studio lighting is that it is consistent.

Then I did a custom white balance (I had to shoot JPG for the printing company, so this was very important). So I shot a grey card on Santa’s seat, and set my custom WB to that exposure.

Then I set the camera “style” settings to extra saturation by one click. (I am shooting JPG and we have bright Santa- and kid-colours).

And then I was ready. Here’s me:

Having tuned a bit (set my aperture to f/9 instead of f/8 to reduce exposure a bit), I am now ready for shots. And for Santa!

And the great thing is that I was able to stay at these settings all day. And every picture was sharp as a tack, exposed perfectly, and the right neutral colour. This is what I love about studio light. Even in a mall, with a portable studio. Of course it is important to check every now and then that you are still set right – JPG, 1/125th sec, 100 ISO, f/9. But if you make no mistakes, you get the same great light all day.

And Jolly Old Nick will be happy, as will the kids – and more importantly, their parents.

Red Green

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Here is my Canon 7D with a few of my speedlights (pro speak for “flashes”), pocketwizards, and cables:

Sometimes I use them for standard lighting. Sometimes I use effects -more often than not colour. Here’s four of them firing at once, with some of those excellent (try them) Honl gels:

I try to add a splash of colour every now and then. Like here in this outtake from a recent shoot (see the slight green on the subject’s left, our right?)

And I recommend that you try this, also. Recommended.

This season, think “red ” and “green”. Seasonal family pictures, but add some splashes of green and red light to the fun.

For this, I would use manual and pocketwizards. But here’s the key: I would still use TTL for the main (bounced-off-the-ceiling-behind-me) flash. So the normal flash is on the camera (or with the 7D, off the camera), while the “effect” flashes are fired with PW’s from the x-synch socket, and set manually to, say, 1/4 – 1/16th power.

That’s what is happening th that “four flashes side by side” shot above: the two left flashes are fired by the 7D’s popup flash using e-TTL, while the right two are fired by Pocketwizards that are driven by the sender PW on the camera’s x-synch contact. Yes, that works fine!

Bright sun = flash

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The brighter it is, the more you need your flash.

Huh? That sounds counter-intuitive?

Not when you think about it. Bright sunlight means harsh, contrasty sunlight.  Contrast means that part of your picture will be too dark or too bright.

Here is Sedona, AZ, last week:

Not bad. But can you see how dark the foreground is?

“But you can use exposure compensation, Mike, plus one or two stops”, I hear you say.

Yes, but then the entire picture goes brighter, so the background would be all washed out – too bright.

So the only way is to turn your flash on. And now you get this:

And that is why you should always carry a flash – even on the beach, even in Mexico, and even in Arizona. The brighter it is, the more you’ll be likely to occasionally (or more than occasionally!) need it.

Movie night

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Yesterday night I and a few photographer friends watched David Honl’s two-DVD workshop combo, “Light”.

David Honl is a well-known LA-based international photographer whose blog you can see here. His DVD shows him using small flashes to do various professional shots, and he both shows and explains how he gets the excellent results he does.

Disclaimer: I am on David’s Round Table, together with Joe McNally, Lucas Gilman, Ken Cedeno, Cherie Steinberg Coté, and Gavin Blue. I am delighted to be on the Round Table because Dave’s small, light and convenient small flash modifiers have made my life easier, and I am inseparable from them.

Since the roundtable is not a paid position, I feel perfectly qualified to comment objectively on this DVD.

So, the details after the break:

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Outdoors Tip

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You should definitely get one of these:

A Hoodman Hood Loupe. With it, you can see your LCD even in bright outdoors daylight. It adjusts to your eyes and it magnifies, as well. Invaluable, and I would not go anywhere without mine.

I am so glad I had mine in Arizona last week. Otherwise I would not have seen what I was getting in bright “creative light” like this:

Or this:

Without a Hood Loupe, you are guessing. A sin “I think they’re OK, and when I get indoors I’ll see for sure” – if you can even see the display at all.

Glass

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When photographing glass, please make sure that reflections of flash or window light are either absent or neutral.

With giant wine glasses, this is not easy:

But as you see in this studio picture, it is not impossible either. Although it took me a while, just being attentive to the reflections helps move them out of the way.

 

Bounce

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..or use high ISO. When you take pictures in a restaurant with dark high ceilings and walls – nothing much to bounce off – you get bad pictures – the flash pictures love to hate.

Even when you use a Gary Fong Lightsphere:

IMG_1314

Better, but clearly not panacea, then: this light is not ideal. Harsh shadows, flat light, unflattering skin.

So under those circumstances, it is OK to use very high ISO. 1600 ISO at f/4 at 1/60th second, with a bit of bounce (even high, far walls and ceilings will bounce something back), gives me this:

IMG_1303

Better, and perfectly OK for large prints, and it avoids that clearly “flashy” look.

You can also use a slow shutter speed (on Nikon cameras, engage “Slow Flash”; on Canon cameras this is normal in Av mode).

Pic of the day

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Look at this recent newspaper picture of Elizabeth May, the leader of Canada’s Green Party:

I shot that with a 16-35mm lens set to 33mm on a full frame camera. Exposure was 1/60th second at f/2.8 at 800 ISO, using – what else – bounce flash.The wide angle gives the image depth.

But ignore the technical details and ignore politics. Does this not show what a delightful people-person she is? And a politician who does not hide her wine glass when she sees the press gets full marks for integrity.

This is also a good example of a photo where the foreground is blurred and the background is sharp. That is why you pick your own focus point. If you use the “all focus points are used and the camera picks” mode, you will get the foreground object in focus. Which may not be what you want. Which is why photographers use just one focus point mos of the time.