A friend of mine, Carol Beuchat, is a photographer who specializes in dog portraits and dog shows. She was at the recent Westminster Dog Show, and needed to photograph this beautiful whippet, Chanel, for a magazine cover. Since it was in Manhattan and it was ice cold freezing outside, we had to photograph the dog indoors. The hotel lobby where the attendees to the dog show stayed would have to be the setting. And would have to make a great setting.
The one foyer of the hotel had these gleaming metal elevator doors. Carol carefully figured out the image’s background in relation to where she would let the dog’s handler hold the dog .. and positioned herself there with a long lens. (Canon 70-200mm f2.8 IS )
Since the dog would easily become bored, we had to figure out the exact place we wanted the dog to be, and also figure out the lighting well ahead of time. Once we were ready, the Chanel’s handler would bring her down, and position her. A few frames … and Carol would have the shot.
We had to be meticulous about the setting-up – and still be very flexible during the actual shoot …
In many of the articles on the Tangents blog, I’ve described the way that I bounce flash indoors when photographing events. This photo is an example from a recent wedding – the bridesmaids are watching the bride and groom dancing.
The important thing to notice here is that everyone there is evenly lit, whether closer to the camera, or further away. This is achieved by NOT bouncing the flash off the ceiling towards my subject … but rather to flag my flash so that there is no direct flash falling on my subject. And then I bounce my flash off some point equi-distant to everyone. Then the light has the same distance to travel to everyone … and everyone will be evenly illuminated by the flash. NO need for the local correction brush in ACR / Lightroom. It’s all done in camera!
This technique is also very useful when photographing corporate events. You will inevitably have someone closer to the camera – possibly with his back to you. The way then to get everyone equally well exposed, is to bounce off a wall or the ceiling to the side of everyone … in such a way that there is equal amount of light on everyone.
A regular reader of the Tangents website, Alex Perry, works as an event photographer in Washington DC … and he just posted an insightful article about this technique on his blog. With his kind permission, I’m including the illustrative diagrams here. But check out his blog post to see his description of how he uses this at events.
The idea here is that if you bounce flash towards the group using a bounce card or that infamous piece of tupperware … you still have the people closest to you over-exposed compared to the rest of the frame.
In contrast to that, here is what happens when you flag your flash, bouncing your flash ONLY off a surface parallel to everyone in the frame …
Hopefully these diagrams will help in making the concept more clear. Thank you for this excellent contribution, Alex!
Chuck Arlund is a Fashion photographer based in Nashville whose work constantly impresses me. As a friend, I occasionally have the privilege of getting to interrogate him on his technique. What surprises me every time then, is the simplicity of his lighting. His setups are rarely complex, but always effective. I feel quite fortunate that he agreed to a guest spot this week to explain more about his approach to on-location lighting. (Also check out his blog for photographers.)
simple and effective on-location lighting techniques
Nikon’s TTL flash system is generally accepted as being quite exceptional. The camera and speedlight working together according to various algorithms to control the flash exposure. The TTL flash exposure will depend on various factors – the tonality of the subject and scene; the brightness of the scene; and how the camera interprets the sections of the metering pattern. The other factors quite possibly also includes data from the lens.
How these factors inter-relate, we can only guess at. We can make educated guesses; and many photographers have taken time and effort to do test shoots to see how the cameras and speedlights work. To make things even more interesting, Nikon offers two modes of TTL flash metering: TTL and TTL BL.
The way I understand this to work, is that with TTL BL flash metering, the camera takes the ambient light into account when calculating the flash exposure. With TTL flash metering, the flash metering would appear to be de-coupled from the ambient metering.
Similarly, with Canon, you have Average / Evaluative flash metering for TTL flash. (This is set on the camera body via the custom functions.) Again, the way I understand this to work (and I’ll gladly be corrected or fine-tuned on this), is that with Evaluative TTL flash metering, the camera takes the ambient light into account. And with Average TTL flash metering, the camera is less biased by the available light..
So which TTL flash exposure mode to use? TTL or TLL BL? In the end, I work in a fairly simplistic way …
Last weekend I had the great pleasure of photographing Jeannie D, a well-known South African TV personality. Actually, “well-known” is an understatement – she’s a bit of a star.
The shoot was for the cover of Top Billing magazine. The cover image had specific requirements for the setup of the scene – a Manhattan apartment, with a view of the city in the background. I’ll post more of the actual cover shoot later on, but in the meantime wanted to show some of the portraits of Jeannie D that I got in between the TV crew setting up, and the setting being prepared …
For the shoot I brought in 3 Q-flashes and a barrage of umbrellas and softboxes and reflectors, as well as a Profoto AcuteB 600R kit (B&H) with softboxes. But I photographed a number of portraits, such as the one above, using just the available light in the apartment. The apartment was a corner apartment, and so had a lot of light flooding in from two sides. The light then reflected back from the white walls inside. It was like shooting inside a massive softbox. You just couldn’t go wrong!
This week’s guest blog post is by a Calgary wedding photographer, Mark Pawlyszyn. He is one of the standout members on the Digital Wedding Forum, where his work easily caught my eye. His style in his wedding photography has steadily become more impressive over the course of just a few years. As such I am very honoured that he agreed to a guest spot on the Tangents blog.
Before I start into the main area of my blog article, I wanted to say that I really admire what Neil has done here. Tangents has always been one of the best resources around for learning flash and photography techniques. When I first discovered this place there was a wealth of information about how much you can do with very little equipment, and although over the years a lot has been added to this foundation, what Neil does so well is to show how great lighting techniques can be readily accessible to just about anyone.
But what if you actually enjoy time-consuming or complicated setups? For good or bad, this is something I tend to do. My motto is, why use one flash when you can use ten? (To be honest, I think the most I’ve only ever used at once was eight). I also like to plan things in advance, to have certain ideas for a wedding and try something new. It’s cool to have new poses and locations, but I also like to have complete concepts, like a theme within the images.
This image is one example that comes to mind is from a wedding I did last winter. The bride contacted me shortly before the wedding to say that she wanted some photos in the nearby cemetery. She wasn’t into anything dark or gothic; she just wondered about the lives of the people there and if anyone still thought of them. So she sometimes visited, just to kind of make sure someone still thought of them. When she told me this I had an idea for an image—something positive, but with a moody atmosphere. I sketched it out and sent her an email to see if she’d be up for it …
This topic – balancing flash and ambient exposure – seems to one that many newer photographers struggle with. The big hurdle seems to be the basic starting point – how do you decide on the exposure for each?
I’d like to explore this topic a bit with this post. The trigger for this was a question that someone emailed me regarding an image in my book on flash photography. Instead of answering the question directly, I thought that a wider answer might be more illuminating. We’re still on that perpetual quest for more aha! moments. So let’s see where we head with this. (I’ll come back to the specific question and answer at the end of this.)
But why do we even want to add flash to a subject when the available light is soft?
The answer is that with flash we can control the direction and quality of light, and create a more dynamic image.
We don’t necessarily just use flash to avoid camera shake and / or poor exposure in low light. We use flash to create better light on our subject. We can ‘clean up’ the light that falls on our subject. Or to create more dynamic and interesting light. It’s about control. We decide. So where do we start?
The simplest approach for me, when I work in fairly flat and even ambient light, is to under-expose the ambient light by a certain amount. Then we add flash for correct exposure. So how much do we under-expose the ambient light by? Well, it depends. Usually a stop is good. Two stops can also work. If you’ve seen some of the images in fashion and music magazines where the subject is in a pool of light .. yet, the sunlit cityscape is darker, then that is because the photographer under-exposed the ambient light by 2-3 stops. Even in bright sunlight. So we have some leeway. That should ease some of the anxiety.
Under-exposing the ambient light by a stop, and then adding flash … is but one scenario, and one recipe. This approach won’t apply to every possible situation you might encounter .. but it’s a good starting point in grasping that Big Question – where do we even start in balancing flash and ambient light?
Let’s start of with an example where the previous method wouldn’t work:
settings: 1/125 @ f3.5 @ 800 ISO
lighting: Q-flash T5D-R, in TTL mode diffused by medium softbox to the right
(A speedlight in the softbox would’ve worked just as well here.)
Here’s the image without flash, just so we have a reference ..
I am sure the designer of this phonebox intended for it to have this distinctly cartoon-like face. When I saw this, it instantly drew my attention. It really looked to me like a constantly-surprised wide-eyed face. Something out of Disney’s animated movie, Beauty & The Beast. This then is my choice then for this week’s entry in the Alive for 365 project.
The photograph had some Photoshop work done to it to give it much more snap than the straight-out-of-the-camera version. Oh, and the lighting was bounce flash with available light …
An icy cold day in the Meatpacking District in Manhattan … and a brave model that insisted on going bare feet. That’s just a glimpse of the latest NYC Photog Shootout gathering that took place on Saturday. This shootout is part of the ongoing series of events arranged by Rob Nicholson. There were many familiar faces in today’s group amongst the new. Good opportunity to say hi to old friends, and make a few new ones.
As with the previous NYC shootout in June 2009 , I gave some instruction on some of the basics of manual off-camera flash to the groups. We worked with a Q-flash and a softbox (and sometimes without the softbox), and a bunch of Pocketwizards that I handed to anyone in the group who didn’t have. Strange thing – I ended up with one more pocketwizard than I started out with. Bonus! (Actually, if you were there and you’re missing one, let me know.)
It was a bit of the Wild West out there with the huge groups of photographers firing away.
The second group had an interesting addition to the shoot …
Francesco showed me this image on Facebook, rightfully proud of this captivating portrait. He mentioned that he used some of the techniques mentioned on this website. Since those techniques are accessible to every photographer , and the results can be so striking, I asked Francesco to expand a bit on how he shot this. He also explains a little about his post-processing in Photoshop.
Sometimes it is true that the best experiences are the result of an unplanned event. Whenever possible I always carry my camera bag with me. In it is a quick portrait setup consisting mainly of my Nikon D700 with the Nikon 70-200mm 2.8 VR lens, and a SB900 speedlight … and of course a handmade half snoot made with a black piece of cardboard velcroed to the flashgun.
The opportunity for this picture came while at work when one of my friends and former colleague decided to visit us with his beautiful little son. I do not work full time in a photo studio. Nothing was scheduled nor planned ahead, but I can say this made this picture even more rewarding …
