Photography News Issue 43

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Photography News | Issue 43 | absolutephoto.com

Technique

1/200sec at f/8 ISO 400

1/160sec at f/8 ISO 400

1/125sec at f/8 ISO 400

Setting the flash power Next I switched on the trigger and set the power of the flashes. In flash mode, I placed the meter next to the subject, setting it to 1/125sec, ISO 400. At 1/8 power from the flash to camera right, and 1/4 power from the flash in the background, it gave me an aperture of f/11, ensuring a good exposure. From this point, though, you won’t be able to change the aperture or ISO settings without the flash exposure being affected. Any changes mean it will need to remetered. Modifying the light Up until this point I’d been using naked flash, but this is rarely the best. To improve things I added a softbox to the flash at camera right and a grid to the flash in the background; for the latter I also moved it opposite the first flash, giving more of a side-on highlight. Those changes affect the brightness on the subject, so I checked the power again using the flash meter. The diffusing effect of the softbox meant I needed to increase the output of that flash to near 1/2 power. The second flash, now from the side, I metered at just under 1/4 power, but to add more kick, I decided to overexpose a little, setting this at 1/4 +0.7.

The main technique on these pages used just two speedlights fired off-camera, but that wireless shooting can still give your shots a nice high-end look. If you want more control, you just need to add more lights, and the only limit is how much kit you want to move around with you, and how long you want to spend setting up. In the picture of an airsoft player on the right, four lights were used, which allows a more sophisticated look. As you can see in the behind the scenes shot, I used two Lencarta Safari 2 portable flashes to give strong, contrasty lighting on the subject from the sides. Then two Lencarta Atom flashes were added, one as a soft fill light from the front and another to provide a spotlight on the background. will look darker again, while the flash remains just as bright as it did at the start. However, if you close the aperture, or lower the ISO, both the flash and the available light will look dimmer; open the aperture, or raise the ISO, and both the flash and the available light will look brighter. What time of day to shoot There’s one more thing to understand before you get started. When shooting with most flashes, you can’t go beyond your camera’s sync speed, or the flash will only light part of the scene. This is due to the way the camera’s shutter exposes the sensor. On most DSLRs the sync speed will be 1/200sec or 1/250sec. What’s more, as you’ll need more flash power when using small apertures or low ISO settings, it makes sense to avoid the very brightest parts of the day. Unless, that is, you have a very powerful flash. Work out the available light exposure First, position the subject and the lights roughly as you want them in the scene. Here I started out by setting up one flash to camera right and another in the background firing back towards my shooting position. Both were

fitted with radio trigger receivers and the flashes set to manual mode, so power could be adjusted later. The main trigger I added to the camera, but left it switched off until the available light exposure was sorted out. In manual mode (M), I started out with an aperture of f/11 to keep the subject sharp and only blur the background a little, then set the ISO to 400 as the light was beginning to fade. Checking the exposure bar in the viewfinder, I set the shutter speed to correctly expose the scene and got a very low 1/4sec. Underexposing the available light With that 1/8sec shutter speed in mind, I increased the shutter speed in 1/3 stops until I got the effect I was looking for. A shutter speed of 1/125sec was enough to dull the available light by the right level, which equated to underexposing it by four stops (1/15sec, 1/30sec, 1/60sec, 1/125sec). No matter how fast or slow you set the shutter, the brightness of the flash output will remain the same, but as mentioned above you don’t want to go over the camera’s sync speed. What’s more, if the shutter speed gets too fast it will darken the background too much and you’ll lose the sense of ‘place’.

Above Below the camera’s sync speed, the shutter speed you set will have no effect on the flash. Here you can see how the sky gets lighter as the shutter speed slows from 1/200sec to 1/60sec, but the strength of the flash is consistent.

A shutter speed of 1/125sec was enough to dull the available light by the right level

More lights, more options

Side and fill lighting

Four light set-up

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