Photographing in bright sunlight – find the shade!
Photographing in bright sunlight - find the shade!
Hard sunlight must be one of the most difficult lighting scenarios to work under. But with a bit of thought, we can work around it and still easily get photos that look great. It's a topic that we've touched on a number of times on the Tangents blog, (see related articles at the end here). Where I can though, the simplest approach for me though, is where I can, is to just not deal with the hard sunlight. I find shade. This maternity portrait session of Amy was taken on a bright day, and I wanted to avoid her squinting in Read more inside...Photography lighting patterns
I'm always very happy to feature Chuck Arlund as a guest on Tangents. Anyone who knows Chuck in person will tell you about the crazy energy he has, and how inspiring and innovative he is in his lighting. Back to basics. When shooting a portrait or any person for that matter it is good to understand some light patterns to help determine what kind of mood you would like to create.
Photography lighting patterns
a guest post by Chuck Arlund, Kansas City photographer Read more inside...Tutorial: How to use the guide number of your flash
Tutorial: How to use the guide number of your flash
GN = distance * f-stop Your flash's Guide Number (GN) is determined at 100 ISO, when it gives correct exposure at a certain distance, multiplied by the f-stop The idea that we can figure out the manual flash exposure by the combination of distance and aperture (for a given ISO setting), was covered in these recent topics: - getting the most power out of your flash / speedlite / speedlight - practical tutorial: controls for manual flash exposure In these articles, we relied on the display on the back of the Read more inside...Getting the most power from your flash / speedlite / speedlight
Getting the most power from your flash / speedlite / speedlight
This might be obvious, but the most power (or light) that you're going to get from your flash, is at full output in manual. Then the flash dumps everything it has. Full power. You could of course zoom your flash-head a little tighter and get more power / range, but essentially, you're at the limit. This is useful to know when you're balancing flash with bright sunlight. With this portrait of Shawna, out on the Las Vegas strip, I wanted that sun-flare look ... but I also wanted to balance the super-bright background Read more inside...Short Lighting with available light – and adding a little bit of flash
Short Lighting with available light - and adding a little bit of flash
When working with available light or flash or video light or any kind of additional light, the most important aspect of the light is the direction of the light. We need to take a moment and observe the light. Where do the light sources come from? What is the quality of the light? As a short-cut idea, I usually aim for Short Lighting, whether I am using flash or available light. More on the topic of Short Lighting: - Off-camera flash: Short lighting vs. Broad lighting - Bounce flash photography – Short Read more inside...Flash photography tip: Find your background, then your settings
Flash photography tip: Find your background, then your settings
With flash photography on location, we nearly always start off by figuring out what we want to do in relation to our available light. We might just need fill-flash, or or flash might need to do the "heavy lifting" and expose correctly for our subject in relation to the available light. When we have our subject in (relative) shade, and need to figure out our flash exposure, we also need to decide exactly what our background is. It usually works best to be specific about our background ... and how we position ourselves Read more inside...Gelling your flash for effect – Blue background
Gelling your flash for effect - Blue background
The idea of gelling your flash for effect has been a topic here a few times. I most often use gels on my flash to correct my flash when working with tungsten / incandescent light. There are times though when I gel my flash just for effect, creating a shift between my foreground (lit by gelled flash) and my background. In the examples shown in the several articles here, there wasn't the type of background where the effect can clearly be seen on easily recognizable "neutral" background. In the article turning day into night, we turned Read more inside...Off-camera bounce flash
Off-camera bounce flash
This portrait of an unusual model, Ulorin Vex, was truly simple in its execution - most of the work was done by Ulorin Vex with her outfit and her striking looks. Then, the composition and choice of background was the hotel room with this stripy wall paper. I thought the bold yellow and green stripes would complement her bright red outfit, without competing. Then the lighting - off-camera bounce flash - was simplicity itself. I had a speedlight that I bounced off a white surface to create a large light source for flattering, soft light. But it took me a few Read more inside...Flash photography technique – Turning day into night
Flash photography technique - Turning day into night
During the photo session with a couple, Laura & Todd, I wanted to add some variety to the images from the urban setting we were in. The sky had been overcast, but started to clear later on, leaving wispy clouds. Just perfect for a dramatic sky as the background. Of course, it is impossible to get your subject AND a bright sky equally well exposed without resorting to graduated filters or additional lighting, ie, flash. The technique with off-camera flash is quite straight-forward ... Read more inside...- « Previous Page
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