![\"\"](\"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/images\/guest\/joshlynn\/JL6_1714.jpg\")
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For a semi-guest-post this week, I thought I’d use a photo taken by my friend Josh Lynn, and reverse-engineer the lighting. \u00a0By scrutinizing the photo, we’ll try and decipher how he set this up. \u00a0I did of course have the help of double-checking with Josh himself, and by checking the EXIF data.<\/p>\n
Josh is a\u00a0New Jersey wedding photographer<\/a> –\u00a0but this photo of our model, Danielle, was taken at a recent photo shootout in Manhattan. \u00a0Josh led a group of photographers showing some lighting techniques.<\/p>\n So let’s see what we can figure out here …<\/p>\n <\/p>\n 1. direction of light.<\/strong><\/p>\n Looking at the photo, the first thing we need to figure out, is the direction of \u00a0light<\/strong>. \u00a0It is apparent that Josh had used\u00a0additional lighting<\/strong> of some kind.\u00a0The main source of light was set up to camera-left. \u00a0We can make a pretty good guess at how high the light must have been, by looking at how the shadows are placed<\/strong>. \u00a0The first place I would look as at our model’s face, and see how the shadow of her nose falls on her face. And from that we have a fairly good idea of the placement of the light.<\/p>\n 2. color balance.<\/strong><\/p>\n Next up, the bold colors should tell us that there were light sources with different color balance<\/strong>. \u00a0From experience, I would take a guess that we had a tungsten light source on our model, allowing a daylight background to go blue-ish in comparison. \u00a0 This jump in color balance would be explained this way. \u00a0We have a pleasant warm color on her face, but this sharply changes to blue.<\/p>\n 3. \u00a0gelled flash or video light?<\/strong><\/p>\n Now that we have a strong idea that our model was lit by some tungsten light source<\/strong>, we have to figure out what exactly Josh used here to light – video light or flash. Video light tends to have a strong fall-off to the edges<\/a>, giving a spot-lit effect on our subject. \u00a0 The light that falls on Danielle is more widely spread than we’re used to when we use video light for stills photography<\/a>. \u00a0So I would take a guess that Josh had used flash here … and he confirmed this, and he also said he had used one of the gels that came with the Nikon speedlight to gel the flash for tungsten.<\/p>\n 4. \u00a0light modifier on the flash?<\/strong><\/p>\n Next we can try and decipher whether Josh had used a softbox here, or some kind of light modifier. \u00a0 The fall-off to the shadows on her, would indicate that there was no softbox used. \u00a0I’ve also worked with Josh before, so I know he has a preference for using a bare flash<\/strong>. \u00a0Checking with him now, he said that he had used direct off-camera flash<\/strong> here. \u00a0The flash was held up on a monopod by another photographer.<\/p>\n 5. \u00a0Camera and flash settings. <\/strong><\/p>\n Looking at the photo, it would appear there is a shaft of sunlight that falls behind our model. \u00a0The sun can also be seen as a reflection in the window. \u00a0(Josh did confirm the hot spot in the window is the sun, and not a reflection of another flash.) \u00a0 We can therefore guess that the shaft of sunlight was quite bright. \u00a0Our model is standing in the shade. \u00a0This had to have been deliberate positioning of our model<\/a><\/strong> to have her in even light, and then use additional lighting.<\/p>\n This all implies that we would’ve had to be close to maximum sync speed, with a low ISO and a small aperture. \u00a0This would’ve under-exposed our model .. who we then light up with off-camera flash.<\/p>\n Here is where a look at the EXIF data comes in handy, to see the specifics:<\/p>\n And there we have it … Josh used maximum flash sync speed<\/a><\/strong>. ISO was 400 .. and our aperture was f10 … which is a fairly small aperture. \u00a0Personally, I would’ve dropped the ISO by a stop, or two stops, to get a medium aperture. \u00a0But these are choices the individual photographer makes to fit with a specific style.<\/p>\n 6. TTL flash or manual flash?<\/strong><\/p>\n Something else that the EXIF data tells us, is that the camera didn’t detect a flash that fired. \u00a0This would mean that no TTL flash was used, but that the off-camera flash was fired by a wireless transceiver, such as a PocketWizard Plus II unit<\/a>. \u00a0This then would imply that Josh had used manual flash<\/strong>. \u00a0With the Nikon speedlights, you can use Auto mode quite easily. \u00a0However, it just made sense to use manual flash<\/a> here.<\/p>\n And there we have the final image. \u00a0Exposure for the background (ambient light), we use flash to expose correctly for our subject model in the foreground<\/a>.<\/p>\n Over the past few weeks there have been several articles re-iterating a method in how to balance flash with available light – and I hope this example helps in showing how this specific method works in a different scenario.<\/p>\n More articles on off-camera flash … <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" combining off-camera flash and ambient light For a semi-guest-post this week, I thought I’d use a photo taken by my friend Josh Lynn, and reverse-engineer the lighting. \u00a0By scrutinizing the photo, we’ll try and decipher how he set this up. \u00a0I did of course have the help of double-checking with Josh himself, and by checking Read more inside…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":30129,"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":[15,22,24,31,142],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-2898","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-flash-photography","8":"category-lighting","9":"category-models","10":"category-photo-shoot","11":"category-reverse-engineering-a-photo","12":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2898"}],"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=2898"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2898\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27681,"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2898\/revisions\/27681"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30129"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2898"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2898"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2898"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=2898"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/neilvn.com\/tangents\/images\/guest\/joshlynn\/JL-Danielle-exif.jpg\")
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\nThere are good reasons for this choice.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n