{"id":1240,"date":"2009-07-03T23:12:13","date_gmt":"2009-07-04T03:12:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.planetneil.com\/tangents\/?p=1240"},"modified":"2018-01-03T19:04:11","modified_gmt":"2018-01-03T23:04:11","slug":"the-progression-of-an-idea","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/the-progression-of-an-idea\/","title":{"rendered":"the progression of an idea .."},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>
\n[ click on photo to see a larger image ]<\/span><\/p>\n

the progression of an idea during a photo shoot; incl the use of off camera flash<\/h1>\n

Because of the positive comments I’ve had to the recent addition of video clips that show a glimpse of how I work, I thought I’d\u00a0show the progression of an idea.\u00a0 Not just how the actual image was made, but how the idea progressed.<\/p>\n

The photo above of Sarah and Mark at Coney Island, is from the day-long photo session where\u00a0we went\u00a0to different locations in New York.\u00a0 Where this image above started, was in a previous sequence ..<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Here I\u00a0just used the soft late afternoon light, diffused by the approaching thunderstorm.\u00a0\u00a0 Beautiful light.\u00a0 No additional light or flash needed.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Turning around, I saw the sky was darkening rapidly, and becoming menacing.\u00a0 As it turned out, about 10 minutes later we were dashing for the car as the rain started slamming down on us.<\/p>\n

Here is a test shot of Sarah against the sky:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Meh.\u00a0 There’s nothing going on there.\u00a0 There’s no drama, and no punch to the image.
\nThe camera settings here were: 1\/250th @ f5.6 @ 400 ISO
\nbut I wanted the sky to appear darker and more somber.<\/p>\n

So I added flash from a Q-flash in a softbox off to my right – a similar set-up to this one, but with a Q-flash instead of a speedlight<\/a>.\u00a0 The Q-flash is also TTL-controlled by the Quantum Freewire system, as shown here in this post on the lighting set-up I took with me to Vegas<\/a>. My assistant, the-other-Neil, held the softbox up high.<\/p>\n

Here it is .. the next step .. a test shot to see how it would look with Sarah lit with flash from the softbox, and with my settings such that the sky is now darker by more than a stop compared to the first test shot.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Aaah, now we’re onto something.\u00a0 There’s more drama to the scene now.
\nMy settings here:\u00a0\u00a0 1\/250th @\u00a0f6.3 @ 200 ISO<\/p>\n

So there is a 1.3 stop difference between this and the previous image, with the flash then exposing correctly for Sarah.<\/p>\n

A point I’d like to labor here for a while … TTL flash vs manual flash<\/a><\/strong>.
\nI know there are many hard-core strobists out there that would insist on the flash being on manual, and there are distinct advantages, primarily the consistency in exposure throughout a sequence of images.\u00a0 With Manual flash, once you have determined correct exposure, if your light-to-subject distance remains the same, then your exposure remains absolutely constant from shot to shot.\u00a0 This makes post-production a breeze.<\/p>\n

However, I often find that when I am working fast, I’ll take the speed of using TTL flash over using manual flash.\u00a0 In this example, I wanted to under-expose my sky by more than a stop.\u00a0 I changed both my ISO and my aperture … and my flash exposure followed.<\/p>\n

With manual flash, the usual method would be to determine the aperture and ISO for manual flash, and then control the background exposure with the choice of shutter speed.\u00a0 There is a chance then of hitting the ceiling at max sync speed if your background isn’t dark enough yet.\u00a0 So you’d have to figure out a shutter speed as a starting point, and then work out the flash power setting (at that specific flash-to-subject distance), and then figure out the combination of aperture and ISO.<\/p>\n

It works.\u00a0 I suspect the majority of photographers that do on-location lighting with off-camera lighting would work with manual flash.\u00a0 And any photographer that wants to get a grip on mastering lighting, absolutely have<\/strong> to know how to use manual flash. Comfortably and fast.\u00a0 And understand how the settings need to be juggled – shutter speed, aperture, ISO, flash power, light-to-subject distance.<\/p>\n

So … back to using TTL flash.\u00a0\u00a0Since TTL flash will follow my camera’s settings, it\u00a0was\u00a0faster for me here to just use TTL flash.\u00a0 Remember, the thunderstorm was brewing.\u00a0 (A video\u00a0clip that follows next week will show a sequence following this where we relied on the incoming wind.)\u00a0 But I digress …<\/p>\n

TTL flash follows my settings.\u00a0 I want to get 1.3 stops under for my background?\u00a0 (or more) … then I simply change my aperture and ISO and my flash output will follow.\u00a0 Simple.\u00a0 The possible\u00a0variation in exposure is something\u00a0I can live with\u00a0and can fix in post if necessary.<\/p>\n

Back to the sequence of images.\u00a0 Now, as adorable as Sarah looked … it needed something more, something a little more Fashion-y.\u00a0 So I added Mark and had Sarah lean back into him.<\/p>\n

Here is the image straight out of the raw conversion program:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The settings are still:\u00a0\u00a0 1\/250th @\u00a0f6.3 @ 200 ISO<\/p>\n

The composition needed to be tightened up, so I went for a more cinematic crop, and added some Photoshop fairy dust again to make the image pop even more .. and there you have it!<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

More articles on off-camera flash … <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[ click on photo to see a larger image ] the progression of an idea during a photo shoot; incl the use of off camera flash Because of the positive comments I’ve had to the recent addition of video clips that show a glimpse of how I work, I thought I’d\u00a0show the progression of an Read more inside…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":30253,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[11,15,17,22,24,110,422,1],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1240","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-digital-imaging","8":"category-flash-photography","9":"category-general-photography","10":"category-lighting","11":"category-models","12":"category-off-camera-flash","13":"category-sarah-raley","14":"category-uncategorized","15":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1240"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1240"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1240\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26401,"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1240\/revisions\/26401"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30253"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1240"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1240"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1240"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=1240"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}