Flash photography is one of those subjects that seem daunting from ‘the outside’. It might seem like you’re chipping away at something so big that it might even appear incomprehensible.
I actually do believe that flash photography is one of those subjects where you have to grasp a number of things simultaneously, before anything makes real sense.
This page has just been added to the main set of pages on flash photography techniques. My intention is that it might serve as a solid starting point in understanding flash photography, with links leading to various other pages within the site. Hopefully it all converges to the same point – some aha! moments where everything seem a lot clearer. And hopefully that page will help some in making flash photography more accessible a subject than it might appear.
As always, your feedback and questions on that page is welcome.
The question invariably comes up: why a piece of black foam and not a white card or a piece of white foam?
I have replied to this in the various articles here, using this image below .. but I think the reply tends to be overlooked as the articles are pushed deeper. So with that, I thought I’d resurrect my reply to this one specific reply to that question.
I wanted to place my light source (ie, the area where I am bouncing off), at some point to the right of me, and above me, but also a little to the front of the bride. This way her arm and back to me, are under-lit compared to her face (which we see here as a reflection in the mirror.) Instead of a plastic light modifier or something similar, I used a black piece of foam to flag the light from my speedlight.
An open card with white on the one side might have thrown too much light into the room again, flattening the lighting. I don’t want that. I want directional light. I want that interplay between light and shade. I want contrast.
And in an opposite way of reasoning, a snoot might be too specific, since I do need a fairly large area to bounce effectively.
I like this piece of black foam. I can roll it a little bit with my left hand, and turn it into a snoot if I want to. I can also roll it back and open it up. Ultimately, this piece of black foam is simple, yet flexible. And this is what I use if I need to bounce my speedlight with a fair amount of control over the flash’s light.
Then there are also two other perennial questions:
- if there are no bounce-able surfaces, then you have to make other plans. You either have to use different light modifiers, or use direct flash, or ideally, off-camera lighting. You will obviously not be able to use a piece of black foam to flag yourself and your speedlight out of all kinds of impossible scenarios. You have to be adaptable in how you use light.
As a summary, I want to emphasise this point again – there is no quick fix. I am staunchly against the idea of a cure-all approach to lighting and flash photography. Specifically, the idea that a single piece of plastic attached to your flash will give you the best results all the time – that idea will hold you back.
You have to constantly adapt your technique by considering your subject, the scenario you’re in .. and the results you’d finally like to achieve.
This enigmatic image is my favourite from an event I helped photograph this weekend. A performance artist at a Bar Mitzvah party had this incredible act with a massive balloon which he’d manipulate, and dance with, and dance into, and dance out of. You really need to see a video clip of it. One of the many images I took during this sequence was this one where he moved right into the guests who were watching him.
The lighting on him was from the videographerwho was kneeling next to me. Since his act was so unique, and so fast-paced .. and the lighting changing, I wanted to make sure I covered all bases. I therefore shot alternate frames as fast as I could .. with flash, and without flash. This way I can always pick out afterwards what works best. I really like having both options to choose from iin situations like this. I want some photographs with flash to make sure I have well-lit images … but also some without flash, just in case the flash completely destroyed the mood and look of the photographs.
The way that I easily disable the flash with a button push, is by setting custom function F6 on the Nikon D3 body to disable flash output. It is the same for the D700, and if memory serves me, it is similar for the D300. With F6 set to disable flash with the push of the button with my thumb, it is very simple to take images with and without flash.
This is how I do the comparative images on this website, where I show what the ambient light looked like, and how an image looks with flash added. Unfortunately there is no easy way to do this on Canon D-SLRs.
In post-processing the image, I had to bump up the Exposure in raw processing by 1 stop. To saturate the colours like that, I went in to Lab mode and made a few adjustments. (More about that in follow-up posts on how to make your images pop in Photoshop.)
With flash photography, suggestions are often given that you should use rear-curtain sync. Most often for the wrong reasons. So here is when NOT to use rear-curtain sync flash … whenever you don’t need it. Sounds confusing? Well, let me explain …
Rear-curtain / second curtain sync
Your camera’s shutter consists of two curtains that open, and allows the light to hit the sensor or film.
This is true for all focal plane shutter film cameras, (as opposed to those with leaf shutters),
and true for all digital cameras that have a mechanical shutter, (as opposed to an electronic shutter.)
To allow light to hit the sensor (or film), the first shutter opens, and then some short time duration later, the second curtain closes. Now, in using slower shutter speeds than max sync speed, most D-SLRS and speedlights allow you two points at which you can sync your flash.
You can either have your flash fire right at the point when the first shutter has opened, (first curtain sync), or juuust before the second curtain (rear curtain) closes.
This gives two different effects when your subject is moving laterally across your frame. The way the ambient blur records in relation to the flash-frozen moving subjects, looks different for those two ways of syncing your flash. If you’re photographing people (or any subject) in low light, and you use flash .. while that subject is moving, then rear curtain sync will most likely give you the best effect. (More about that in a follow-up article later on.)
However, when your subject is static, there really is no difference in how your photograph will appear .. except when you’re using TTL flash, and you’re photographing people looking at the camera.
I love sharp images. Crisply sharp. However, I’m not stuck on the idea that the image has to be sharp over the need for an image to have impact. Images that draw us in usually have emotional impact of some kind. But still, I like sharp.
How sharp your subject appears, is a balance between a bunch of factors we have to balance, whether with careful forethought, or just intuitively. Shutter speed, choice of aperture, subject movement, your own movement, choice of equipment, and our own technique. All of these things splinter further into numerous choices we have to make at the moment we take the shot.
I offer the following as an anecdote about recent problems I had with soft images. There’s no real advice here, except perhaps that we sometimes need to step back from our habits, and look further to find the source of a problem.
I noticed that when I shot vertical portraits with my Nikon D3 and Nikon 24-70mm lens, that I would often have soft images. They would either be slightly back-focused or slightly front-focused. The horizontal images though would be pin-sharp. I even tried a second copy of the lens on my other D3 body in a way to isolate the problem, and see whether it is my camera or the lens that were causing the image softness. Big surprise … the same thing would happen. I’d randomly get unsharp vertical photos. I just couldn’t entertain the thought that two lenses were faulty in exactly the same spurious way.
Then during one shoot, I noticed something in my handling of my camera and lens ..
This favourite images from a recent wedding, is one which I’d like to analyze a little as to what went into creating it.
First of all, I am usually quite specific about my backgrounds. A cluttered background can really bring down an image which might otherwise have worked. So in a case like this, when creating the romantic portraits outside the venue with this couple, I was on the look-out for something interesting to work with. When I saw the twinkly lights in the trees outside, I knew that it would definitely make a great out-of-focus background.
I then needed to position the couple in relation to the background – and in this case use a lens with a longer focal length to help place them. A wide-angle lens would’ve given too wide a field of view. I need a tighter composition.
But in how I wanted to position the couple, I also knew the light on them wasn’t ideal. I would have to add on-camera flash as a quick fix for the lighting. Since I was working alone, I couldn’t rely on an assistant to hold a reflector or an umbrella / softbox. I therefore looked for something to bounce my flash off .. and I figured that I could bounce my flash off the outside walls of the venue. I did so at an angle, that I could still have a measure of directional light on them.
These two things then combined to make it this particular spot that I used:
- an interesting background, and
- an area I could bounce flash off.
Since I knew I would be losing a lot of light from my on-camera speedlight in bouncing flash off a large wall outside, the short telephoto that I wanted to use, also needed to be a fast optic.
A recent post on the benefits of using off-camera lighting, the question came up about how I work when I’m on my own and don’t have an assistant holding up a softbox. Using off-camera lighting does make your options easier in how you position your subject, since it is much easier to have great portrait lighting on your subject. By adding light to your subject with the flash & softbox combination, you have the freedom to be less concerned about perfect light on your subject.
When I work on my 0wn, I approach things differently. I now have to not only consider how I place my subjects in relation to the background, but also consistently look at the light on my subject.
With an on-location portrait shoot a while back, the session was for 1:30 – 3pm while the sun was overhead. And from experience we all know that with the sun overhead that it isn’t the most ideal conditions to take photos under, especially portraits ..
With this recent wedding – the same one as posted here- the ceremony was moved indoors because of the approaching thunderstorms. The ceremony was going to be held in the large reception room in the late afternoon, under the chuppah. I once again had no choice but to add flash to balance the shaded side to areas lit by window light.
I want to post this image as an example again of how I use directional light from my on-camera flash. Instead of using a generic light modifier on top of my speedlight, I used The Black Foamie Thing. I was using the 70-200 mm f2.8 to capture the bride’s expressions as she exchanged rings with the groom. Now, from my point of view where I was standing, I had more than a 180′ range in how I could rotate my flash-head to bounce flash to light up my subject. I also had about a 120 degree angle in how I could swivel & tilt my flashhead from right behind me, over & above me, and even tilting tht flash-head forward here. So I really had a wide range in how I could bounce my flash.
But for me, only one direction really made sense …
A question that I was asked via email, that I thought would be of interest to everyone.
Gary Payne wrote
Neil,
I just finished your book, and I would like to thank you for putting together a great book on lighting that an amateur without a studio and tons of lighting equipment can actually use. Its great. Now, I want to re-read it, camera and flash in hand, and really start to learn.
I have one question: When using ambient light, I understand that you set your exposure using the camera’s manual mode, then use flash to fill in. My question, when your shutter speed goes below that usually used hand-held, do you count on the speed of the flash to produce a sharp image or go to tripod or monopod? Or, increase either ISO or f-stop until you reach and acceptable shutter speed?
Gary .. You are entirely correct in that I usually increase my ISO or open my aperture, to get a high enough shutter speed for sharper images. I can count on the flash freezing the action when I am shooting in lower light levels, and my ambient light is around 3 stops or more under-exposed. This means the (TTL) flash will be the dominant light source, and the short duration of the flash will freeze the action
But when we get to situations in low light where we are using flash in nearly the same amount that the available light is, then we can’t rely on flash to freeze the action. I prefer not to use a tripod for my wedding photograhy, since it slows me down for the style that I work in.
I thought this might be a good opportunity to run through some examples again, and look at how we’d approach these scenarios. Then we can see what effect the flash might have on giving us sharper images .. or not. In other words, let’s see where flash would help freeze movement. I used tungsten-gelled flash there (bounced over my shoulder) to help open up the shadows cast by the strong video light.
First, let’s start off with a scenario where flash is just a delicate touch of fill-flash to help lift the shadows:
As you can see here, the available light is just gorgeous. I purposely turned the bride and flowergirl away from the sun coming through the trees in the late afternoon. This way the light falling on them from the camera’s point of view, is very soft. So I just needed a touch of fill-flash (around -3 EV) to help lift any shadows.
camera settings: 1/300th @ f4 @ 500 ISO
It is obvious that in this instance, the flash would have no effect on freezing the subject since it is the merest hint of light. Therefore the actual shutter speed we choose; and how carefully we hold the camera and lens; and how still our subjects are .. all these will be the deciding factors on how sharp the image will be.
Similarly here, where the bride wanted a photograph of the bridal party during some air time … I needed a fast shutter speed to freeze the action.
1/500th @ f4.5 @ 640 ISO .. lens set to 24mm
I choose the ISO such that I could get a fast shutter speed. I did go into high-speed sync mode .. which implies that I would lose range on my flash. But I could accept that, since I just wanted a touch of fill-flash again. So with this example too, the actual shutter speed that I choose will determine how sharp my image will be.
However, it becomes slightly more involved when we use flash when the light levels are low …
To juice things up a little bit, I’ll be adding the occasional guest blog spot from other photographers - more variety; different voices; a wider range of topics; and perhaps a unique take on things.
Ever get stuck in a situation where the location is less than ideal? Whether it is poor lighting, distracting backgrounds, or clutter, as professionals photographers we are still required to take beautiful images. The images below show how using the proper lens choice, aperture, and angles can save you in a difficult situation.
Last week I had a bride who waited for the ceremony in the church nursery. For a brief moment I panicked over how to photograph in such a difficult location. As you can see, I had to deal with some bright colors, toys, overhead fluorescent lights and Noah’s ark on the walls.
Thank goodness we had a fun bridal party that was willing to play …
