Photography News Issue 43

Photography News | Issue 43 | absolutephoto.com

Technique 24

Light anddark Lighting Academy Start your journey into the exciting world of creative lighting effects with PN’s Lighting Academy. This is the place to find out all about how flash and continuous lighting works and how it can be used to improve your shots. This month, how to mix flash with available light for dramatic results

Words & pictures by Kingsley Singleton

Thismonthwe’re looking at a quickand simple lighting technique that’ll give you dramatic results. Although you can use it indoors or out, it works most effectively in locations with plenty of natural light – and thanks to the stylish look it can turn everyday settings and subjects into something much more effective. It’s an easy technique to learn, and therefore very useful when you’re getting to grips with flash lighting. Because of the way it works, it really helps you to understand the principles of how flash works with your exposure settings, and how those in turn work with the available light. The purpose is to expose correctly for the subject, who’s lit with flash, and then to underexpose for the ambient light in the background. The degree that youunderexpose the scene is up to you, but once you start to shoot this way, you’ll see it’s easy to get it looking exactly as you wish. What you’ll need All you really need is a single flash for this technique – you can even use the pop-up flash on your camera if it has one. But it certainly gets more interesting when using a flash off camera, and firing more than one at a time. For the set-up shown here, I used a pair of speedlights with radio triggers to fire them. I also used a flash meter in this technique, which makes it much quicker and easier to judge the amount of flash power required to light the subject. A meter isn’t vital, and you can use trial and error to adjust the power, checking on the camera screen each time, although that’s obviously less accurate. I also used two lighting stands, both with tilting brackets to make angling the speedlights easier. See this month’s Buyers’ Guide for more tips on what kit you need. How much flash power do you need? Different flashguns have different levels of output. So how much do you need? The strength of the flash required depends on the brightness of the available light – that which

light and exposure settings. In principle any changes you make to the aperture, shutter speed or ISO setting can make the available light appear brighter or dimmer. However, of those three, it’s only the aperture and ISO that affect the way that the flash appears. For example, take a shot with flash, first using settings of 1/60sec, f/11 and ISO 200, then at 1/125sec, f/11, ISO 200. Compare the two and you’ll notice the brightness of the flash stays the same, but the available light is dimmer. Increase the shutter speed to 1/200sec or 1/250sec and the available light

is in the scene and not controlled by you. The available light could be from the sun, or from artificial light, like street lamps. If there’s lots of available light you’ll need a lot of power from the flash, but if you’re working on an overcast day, early in the morning or the evening you’ll need less power. The reasons for this will become clear as you work through the technique. Basic principles The basis of this technique is understanding the relationship between flash, available

Above Compare a regular exposure (above) to one that combines flash with underexposing the available light (left) and it’s a dramatic shift. Tweaking the flash position and adding modifiers, like a softbox and grid, also refines the lighting from the harsh naked flash (top).

Any changes you make to the aperture, shutter speed or ISO setting can make the available light appear brighter or dimmer. However... it’s only the aperture and ISO that affect the way the flash appears

Above Using just two flashes and the right exposure settings you can create dramatic flash-lit portraits. To gauge the power required from the flash, it’s best to use a flash meter. Test fire, then tweak the flash power until it matches your aperture and ISO settings.

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