Tag Archives: Flash

Metering

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A few words on light meters.

When shooting studio shots like the ones I talked about, you use a flash meter. When doing that to accurately judge the right exposure, keep this in mind:

  • Have a spare battery at hand
  • Move the dome out. Do not leave it screwed in.
  • Use the meter in Flash-metering mode!
  • Only flash one flash at a time. Turn off other flashes when you meter one.
  • Start with your key light; then one by one meter the other flashes. These will be darker generally.
  • Ensure your meter is set to the right ISO.

Then use the measured aperture as your starting point and check the histograms on your camera for fine adjustments. I believe that “exposing to the right” is generally a good idea.

Also, don’t forget to use a grey card to get a nice white balance reference target.

A standard portrait setup

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Back to the standard “small studio” setup I described earlier. This time I shall talk a bit not about how it works – I assume light sensitive slave cells and Pocketwizards and cables are all old hat to you now – but instead, I will talk about how to use it.

As a reminder, here is such a four-light setup, again:

Four lights; and after the click, more about how you use them.

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That portable studio

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So when I pack by bags to do a location shoot, like today’s executive headshots shoot, you saw in a recent post that I bring rather a lot.

And what do I use? How does it look when it’s all set up?

That setup process, which takes about 45-60 minutes including carrying it all from the car in stages, results in this:

This setup consists of:

  1. A grey backdrop. I like grey because you can make it any colour, from black to white.
  2. The main (“key”) light: a light stand with Bowens 400 Ws monolight in a softbox. This is fired by a Pocketwizard (just visible, top left)
  3. The fill light: a light stand with a Bowens 400 Ws monolight into an umbrella. This is fired by the slave cell.
  4. The background light: a mini  light stand with a 430EX Speedlite, with a  Honl speed strap and a Honl 1/2 CTB gel. This light is fired by a Pocketwizard, using a Flashzebra cable.
  5. The hair light: another a light stand with a 430EX Speedlite, with a  Honl speed strap and Honl snoot. This light is fired by a Pocketwizard, using a Flashzebra cable.
  6. A stool.
  7. The camera set to 1/100th sec, f/9, 100 ISO, and equipped with a PocketWizard to fire the other flashes.

It doesn’t look like all that much, but when you write it out, and then add the power cables, connection cables, bags, and so on, it’s quite a lot.

Snap

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Me, snapped by a student last night:

The Nikon D80 camera is on manual. That means aperture and shutter speed are set manually, but it does not mean that the flash is manual!

The flash is still fully automatic – the camera fires a preflash, measures light return, and sets flash power for the actual flash accordingly. We call that TTL (iTTL, part of CLS, for Nikon; E-TTL II for Canon). The flash was turned back toward the ceiling behind the photographer:never fire straight into your victim’s face if the flash is the main light source.

Add a splash

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I recommended recently that you might want to add a  splash of colour every now and then. So here’s an example.

Our Christmas “tree”, lit with just a bounce flash. The background is exposed properly (I used -1.3 stops exposure compensation in Av mode). But still: kinda bland, no?

So let’s add a dash of colour. A pocketwizard connected to the camera, and one behind the tree connected via a hotshoe cable to a 430EX flash. The flash was on manual at 1/16th power, and on the flash I had a Honl Photo speed strap with a Honl Bright Red gel conveniently velcro’d on. Now we’re talking!

If I had had more cables (I am awaiting a shipment of hotshoe cables…) I would have added a green one as well. But this is already much better thwanwhat I had before.

Oh and just to show what the flash alone would have done: if I disable the bounce flash, here’s what that same shot would look like:

Bit overly dramatic, but add some more light and it has potential!

Here’s the setup:

(Small note: I have, I must admit, found the X-sync to Pocketwizard contact unreliable and I am not entirely sure why: Maybe the connector itself? But the hotshoe contact is flawless.)

And finally. I wanted red and green, but had only one working flash I could drive with a pocketwizard.

Solution?

Which, after a bit of back and forth with manual exposure, flash compensation, and remote flash power, gives me this:

Or, if you prefer a brighter room, this:

You see how much fun playing with colour and light can be?

Family snapshot tip

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If you are new to cameras, let me give you a quick tip for the holidays.

When you shoot pictures of your family, use “slow flash” (enable “slow” on Nikon, or use Av mode on Canon)  and an ISO of 400 or even more if it is dark indoors. That allows the background light to show, as well.

You will need flash, too, around the tree. But rather than the popup flash, use an external flash. And above all, do not do this with that flash:

Instead, do this:

That’s right – point the flash backward above you. Your happy snaps (photojournalists call them “grip and grins”)  will be infinitely better.

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.