Comments on: flash & ambient light – reverse engineering an image (2)

By: Blake

Blake — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 20:03:22 +0000

richp beat me to it – I was going to say CTO gel to make the sky blue.

By: Neil vN

Neil vN — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 23:12:50 +0000

I wanted to reply to the questions about high-speed flash sync, so posted it all in one new massive article. Hopefully it will explain things clearly and help everything fall into place. Neil vN

By: richp

richp — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 18:19:28 +0000

Great shot. My guess is that he would have used a white balance to create the bluer than blue sky, then gelled the flash so the couple was in a ‘normal’ color cast.

By: Neil vN

Neil vN — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 03:35:47 +0000

Josh sent me the original out-of-the-camera JPG. This will give everyone an idea of how the image was enhanced in post. Neil vN

By: Pat Reynolds

Pat Reynolds — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 02:59:20 +0000

The second image is just stunning – looks quite oriental with the unbrella & that fabulous tree framing the subjects. Thanks so much for sharing the shots and info with us.

By: OwenS

OwenS — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 02:26:03 +0000

Thanks for sharing Neil and Josh. Would love to see more of these reverse-engineering posts :)

By: OwenS

OwenS — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 02:22:25 +0000

Oh i just saw Josh’s comment oops!
Well at least it was a shoot through rain umbrella! :D

By: Josh

Josh — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 02:21:13 +0000

Stephen, Close.. no stand was involved.. :)

As you can see in the SOOC jpg vs the final.. I upped the saturation and corrected the horizon. I forgot about that when I posted before.

Lee, To overpower the daylight I would need MORE strobe. Thats why the comment “for an image like this..”

When you use HSS, the power of the strobe (or what it meters for) is less then when below the standard sync speed.

As an example – Keeping the following items constant
1) Flash power is set to FULL
2) distance from flash to subject
3) ISO
4) Ambient or available light

(the rest is hypothetical and I am just making guesstimates)
At the 250th mark.. say the flash meters at f11
Now, once you go over the 250th mark to say 1000th the flash would meter at 5.6.

Once you go OVER the 250 mark you lose light that is available for the exposure due to the length of time the flash is ON. For another visual reference see page 43 of Neils book.

Josh

By: OwenS

OwenS — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 02:10:58 +0000

With HSS the flash is set to a successive series of pulses at very high speed. As there is no effective ‘sync’ with the camera as such you dont have a max sync speed nor the shutter block/curtain effect on the image…as far as i know?

Regarding Michels comment, you will only really get falloff on the couple once the flash is at a certain power. As well as this, the flash is only aimed and zoomed/snooted at the umbrella not at the couple so i stil think it was shoot through.

By: Stephen

Stephen — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 23:54:10 +0000

So, John Lo, the assistant was behind the umbrella, like this?

Does that mean I actually got something right?