|
February 20, 2012
on-camera flash modifier system – Spinlight 360
For the past few weddings I have photographed, I’ve been testing out a new flash modifier – the Spinlight 360. I’ve been putting it through its paces, checking whether I like it and whether it would hold up during actual shooting of an event. And I do. So *this* post is the public premiere of this device. The auspicious announcement of the Spinlight 360
Instead of just diffusing flash, or having a bounce card, the Spinlight 360 also encompasses the idea behind the black foamie thing – that it is all about the direction of light, not just how your flash’s light is dispersed from on top of your camera.
I’ve had many people suggest I should sell the black foamie thing, but for me the BFT has always been about the technique, rather than the actual device. And I loved that it was so cheap and easily crafted. But it has its limitations when there is nothing to bounce your flash off, and you really need a bounce card to act as a larger surface to create softer light. Also, the BFT wasn’t easy to adjust from horizontal to vertical position. But with the Spinlight 360, you can easily rotate the black card which flags your flash. It is flexible and adaptable.
So here it is – a versatile modular on-camera flash modifier.
More info on the Spinlight 360, and info on how to order one.
If you find these articles interesting and of value, then you can help by using
these affiliate links to order equipment & other goodies. Thank you!
Stay informed of new articles via the monthly newsletter.
Also join us on the Tangents forum for further discussions.
Comments (11)
January 2, 2011
The flagship articles on flash photography techniques was (and probably still is) the backbone of this blog. But since I posted the first few pages on flash photography on planetneil back in 2006, my own understanding and technique have steadily improved, as has my writing style.
Part of my list of things-to-do this year then, is to update the older pages. The images especially needed to be updated. Stronger images, and with less of a wedding bias. Although the techniques can be applied to pretty much any field of photography, I think that some people might have been dissuaded from reading further when they saw the site predominantly featured wedding photography. For this reason, I’ve also made an effort in the past year or two to bring a much wider spread to the range of topics here.
And with that, first up for a face-lift is the page on how to bounce flash. While much of the material will be very familiar to regular readers of this blog, hopefully with new images, and adjusted text and links to other articles deeper in the site, it will be a welcome refresher on the topic.
If you find these articles interesting and of value, then you can help by using
these affiliate links to order equipment & other goodies. Thank you!
Stay informed of new articles via the monthly newsletter.
Also join us on the Tangents forum for further discussions.
Comments (11)
January 4, 2010
combining flash and ambient light
Going by the emails that I receive, one of the areas that many photographers struggle with is that of combining ambient exposure and flash exposure. This question is also expressed in other ways. It can be a frustrated, “where do we even start?” I also often see it expressed as an involved step-by-step deconstruction of technique, making the entire process more complex than it is.
In reply to that, and many other emails I’ve received in the past few months, I’d like to offer an analysis of a few images from a recent shoot.
[ click on the photo for a larger image ]
One of my favorite clients has the most adorable baby boy that she wanted some portraits of. I had to shoot fast, since his attention span was .. oh, zero. He’s still a baby! I also wanted to be able to cover myself in getting some available-light only portraits, and some with bounce flash. I didn’t want the flash to be overwhelmingly bright. And in bouncing the flash, there was also less chance of disturbing the baby. So I had to mix it up in order to get some variety, and be sure of images that worked.
The image at the top was shot with the Nikon D3 and the Nikon 70-200mm f2.8 AF-S
Lighting here was a combination of available light and bounce flash. And as usual, I used the black foamie thing to flag the flash so NO light from the flashgun fell directly on the child.
My camera settings: 1/100 @ f4.5 @ 640 ISO, using TTL flash
The FEC was not recorded, but would’ve been around 0EV because my flash isn’t merely fill-flash here, but fairly dominant.
Now where the settings look like they might be informative, I also often feel that these numerical values are a diversion. Too many photographers will get hooked on the choice of f4.5 over another aperture. Whey 1/100th of a second? Why 640 ISO?
The truth is that this could’ve been a different combination of settings. What is important here, is the quality of light. It is our major concern here, and should interest us more than f4.5 at this moment.
The light on the baby’s face is directional. There is more light coming from camera left .. and from this you should be able to deduce that I did indeed bounce my flash to my left. Using that piece of black foam to flag my flash, I was able to get directional light like that.
The light is soft. Since I bounced my flash into the room, and it bounced off the walls, and furniture, I will have soft light.
So those two aspects of the light from my flash is easily understood – soft directional light.
Now let’s look at how I chose to balance my flash with the available light …
(more…)
Comments (46)
December 22, 2009
This question repeatedly comes up as response to the various articles here on my favorite light modifier – the black foamie thing.
For anyone new to this, here are the two main articles on how I use a piece of black foam to flag my on-camera speedlight:
- the black foamie thing,
- my choice of flash modifiers
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.
Looking at this image, which also appears in my book on flash photography:
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.
- yes, I do use other flash modifiers at times. But indoors, (and even outdoors), where I have surfaces I can bounce my flash off, this piece of black foam gives me the control I need. And the results are there in the images that I show on this site, as well as my work as a wedding photographer in New Jersey.
As a summary, I want to emphasize 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.
If you find these articles interesting and of value, then you can help by using
these affiliate links to order equipment & other goodies. Thank you!
Stay informed of new articles via the monthly newsletter.
Also join us on the Tangents forum for further discussions.
Comments (21)
January 3, 2008
using bounce flash outdoors
While the bounce flash techniques described on these pages are heavily dependent on shooting indoors which provide those places to bounce flash off … it wouldn’t seem possible to use these techniques outdoors. After all, you can’t bounce flash off the clouds. (Although we’ve all seen photographers attempt this outside.)
So while there are obvious limitations in applying these bounce flash techniques outdoors, there are times when these techniques can still be quite effective.
As a start, an example that I show in the tutorial pages is of this image taken at a wedding that I photographed in Aruba.
Here I had my daughter hold up the gold side of the Lastolite reflector. And hopefully this gives the idea of light from the sun setting over the ocean. (It had just gone down, and the light was blandly grey.)
However, these bounce flash techniques do imply some kind of surface to bounce your flash off. But you shouldn’t feel limited by not having an obvious area to bounce light off. Have a look at this sequence:
Nice evening light:
Settings of .. 1/125th @ f2 @ 1000 ISO .. exposed properly for skin tones and the dress.
BUT, the evening sky and the light from the lamp are lost.
1/250th @ f2 @ 320 ISO …
Nice enough detail in the sky and the lamppost, but the couple is lost in murkiness.
So this is (for me anyway), the kind of opportunity where a touch of flash would work wonders.
So I turned my flash-head 90′ to my left, and bounced light into the shop displays.
Not any particular surface .. just off the general shop displays.
And here are the results, still at 1/250th @ f2 @ 320 ISO.
It works for me, and I know my client will love it when she sees it.
To show you exactly what I was bouncing light from, have a look at the shop displays to the left in this test shot:
… and this crop from another test shot:
Yup, I bounced flash off that stuff. Nothing in particular .. but, enough light will spill back from whatever is struck by the light from my flashgun .. to give enough light on my couple to enhance the photo.
Here’s another example :
It was really dark already. This was at 1/100th @ f1.2 @ 1250 ISO
Canon 5D and 85mm f1.2 II
I was really squeezing the last bit of light out of the setting we were in. I wanted to use the tree behind them with the last remaining autumn leaves, but the evening light was also coming from behind them. So their faces were shaded. Not good.
I therefore bounced flash off the brick wall of the temple. I’d guess it was about 10 meters from where I was standing. But enough light spilled back to register at that wide an aperture and high an iso. Because the light from the flash is now coming in from an angle, the foreground doesn’t have that typical on-camera flash look to it.
Here’s another image from the same sequence.
(I did edit this though for the dark rings under his eyes from lack of sleep. )
But in this example and the previous one that I show here, I got lucky.
There was some kind of surface or objects nearby to bounce light off.
So, would these techniques work outside ?
Maybe. Quite often not, but sometimes it will. It depends.
It will require some thought.
If you find these articles interesting and of value, then you can help by using
these affiliate links to order equipment & other goodies. Thank you!
Stay informed of new articles via the monthly newsletter.
Also join us on the Tangents forum for further discussions.
Comments (14)
|
|
