This image of Amy, one of our models at a workshop, is a fairly straight-forward portrait using off-camera flash in TTL mode. And it is ideal for an overview again of how easy the ambient & flash exposure metering is. The basic approach with this on-location portrait is to expose for the ambient light in the background, making sure our subject is somewhat under-exposed ... and then to add off-camera flash with a softbox. The first question that came up was - how did I meter for the ambient light?
Read more inside...
Multiple off-camera flash - gelling your flash for effect
All the light you see in this photo, is from two speedlights. The blue color in the background is because I gelled my one flash. While that might give you the idea that I gelled the background flash with a blue gel, what I actually did, was gel my main flash with two 1/2 CTS gels (affiliate). That's all I had with me, but I wanted those hard cold blue tones to the background.
A single 1/2 CTS gel would take the flash to 3700K. Adding a 2nd gel didn't take it as far as a full CTS would've, but closer to 3350K, going Read more inside...
Mimicking window light with off-camera bounce flash
Continuing the photo session with Ulorin, we worked inside the hotel room for the next part. The photo above is a candid shot of Ulorin fixing her hair between changes in clothing. Ulorin's next outfit shown in this article, was more revealing than the previous outfits during the photo session. (Just a heads-up for the Tangents readers who are surfing from their workplace.)
Photographing inside the room, I initially tried to work with just the window-light, but hit a small snag. The indirect light through the window kept changing Read more inside...
manual off-camera fill-flash, controlling the contrast
In using a softbox outdoors on location, we easily get beautiful soft light. When we work indoors however, where the flash dominates, then the results can look very contrasty. The reason for this is that outdoors, the available light acts like a fill light. This is especially true when we consider our available light in our overall result and balance our flash with the available light. With the softbox being the only light source, the light, while still soft, can be too contrasty for our liking. Still, that single softbox is a Read more inside...
A favorite image from today's workshop in San Francisco - an on-location portrait of our one model, Ulorin Vex.
The light from the off-camera speedlight in a softbox, delivering a mere touch of fill-flash. Most of the light is from the available light coming down between the buildings on this street. I framed her against the background of those shafts of light on the side of the building, to give a slightly enigmatic backdrop. Read more inside...
I had the opportunity recently of photographing Robert Wyatt, a pianist affiliated with Steinway, at the Steinway offices in New York. This photo was taken as we were set to leave after the photo session was already done. I was immediately drawn to the symmetry of the architecture and the lavish foyer below. The pose and framing was deliberately centered.
For this lighting setup, I quickly pulled out the Lastolite softbox again, and used it as a single light source. It was all that was needed for a simple portrait here. But earlier on, for the Read more inside...
Part of what makes wedding photography so rewarding, is keeping contact with clients over the years as life continues past the wedding date. Maternity photo sessions .. babies .. kiddos .. it's all part of how couples' lives unfold. If we're fortunate as photographers, we remain part of it.
So it was with great pleasure that I had a maternity photo session with Renee and David. As usual with a photo session, I like to mix things up in terms of the lighting ... all with the intent of getting more diversity in the selection of images: Read more inside...
off-camera flash photography: distance between softbox and subject
There are all kinds of formulas for how to figure out the optimal distance between the softbox and the subject. One of the most common suggestions is to use the diagonal of the softbox. While I believe this might something you can play around with in the studio, I do think it is an overly technical way to approach it when shooting on-location.
Working on-location am usually concerned with:
- getting my composition,
- direction of the light from the softbox (in relation to my subject's positioning),
- my shooting Read more inside...
We have a winner for the contest we had last week, where we had to reverse-engineer the lighting in a photograph. I'll be contacting the winner who will shortly receive a $50 B&H gift voucher. Thank you everyone for vigorously participating!
Here is Josh Lynn to explain what he did for the lighting in the contest image, of which the photo above is the wider shot. This photo reveals more of the one light source. ... Read more inside...
Comparing those two images, you should notice two things immediately:
- the sky is brighter in the top image.
- the grass in front of the group is more lit in the bottom photo. In other words, the accent is more on the guys in the top photo, since grass in front of them are less well lit.
Both images were lit by a single off-camera softbox, using a speedlight. My on-camera speedlight was set to Master, but with its output disabled. Therefore only the Slave flash (in the softbox) was lighting the group. I liked the exposure on them Read more inside...
