Eos Discovery Roundup 3/3 – Off-Camera Flash
Using speedlite to be in charge of the light, no matter the conditions, has become second nature to me for quite some time now. But most people still seems to think that mastering the light is the exclusive privilege of high end pro’s with huge budgets. So I really wanted to show a simple speedlite setup on the Eos Discovery Days.
We started out with one main light: a speedlite (Canon Speedlite 580EXII, but you can use just about any flash) on a stand with a small white shoot through umbrella. But first I made sure I choose the right aperture, shutter speed and iso to prevent any available light in the picture. Just fiddle around with the setting with your camera in M-mode and take a few pics (without any flash) until you get a completely black frame.
I deliberately tried to get the lighting close to the continuous light source in the first part of this roundup. Off-course it’s not completely identical but it comes pretty close and way more affordable and flexible than a Broncolor pack and head with a beautydish.
Basic maybe, but this kind of light almost always works. Then I came back to the same problem we had in part 2 of the roundup: no separation between model and background. To solve this, I put another speedlite opposite the main light as a hair light. A grid (made of cardboard and black straws) keeps the beam tight so I could aim it right where I wanted and avoid flare from light spilling onto the front element of the lens.
In part 2 I showed how to get more available light in, to brighten up the background. I could have done that here too, but decided to add a third speedlite as another way to get more light onto the background which gets you even more separation between model and background. That third flash was aimed at the background (dark grey seamless) by Joachim. By changing the zoom setting, power and position of the flash you can create lots of different effects on the background.
I’m usually not a big fan of even backgrounds, so as I final adjustment I took some branches (decoration) and put them between the flash and the background to create a pattern of shadow on the background. Play around with the distances between background, branches and flash to create different effects.
This technique is commonly used in lighting for photography, film and video. There are lots of patterned devices on the market called ‘cookie’ or ‘gobo’ (from Go Between) but you can just as well make them yourself of use something you find on the spot.
I think wireless TTL (automatic flash metering) is great for some situations but in these kind of circumstances I prefer to shoot all manual (camera and flash) because this gives me complete control and makes sure that my lighting will remain the same if I work around the subject using different focal lenghts, crops, …
Once you get the hang of it, you can do a setup like this in 2 minutes.
Let’s check another set with the same lighting. The big difference between this setup and the lighting in part 1 of the roundup (with the Broncolor), is caused by the difference in distance between Erika and the background. In part 1, she was closer to the background which allowed Erika and the background to be lit with one single light. In this part, I put Erika a bit further from the background. Feel free to google ‘light + inverse square law’ but if you just remember that light looses its intensity pretty fast over distance, you’ll be fine. In this case the light was pretty close to Erika (less than 1 meter). If the background is 2-3 meters behind Erika, the difference in light intensity between Erika and the background is relatively big. So big that it rendered the background black. If I’d put Erika close to the background (like in part 1), the intensity difference would be relatively low, keeping enough light on the background.
A hair light is basically what it says: a (back)light on the hair of the subject. You can get a stronger effect by lighting part of the face too with that light. Then the hair light becomes a ‘kicker’. Play with it, it can create amazing effects.
Lighting terms are sometimes used … ehm …lightly and there are lots of different interpretations on what a hair light and kicker mean. But this is how I define them.
I don’t use seamless paper very often but it can come in handy sometimes. The most popular color for a seamless is probably white, but to me a grey background is much more versatile. First of all because I generally don’t like white backgrounds. But more important is that with grey I can get any shade of grey by adjusting the power on the flash. And I can add color by placing colored gels on my flash. I can easily make the background go black by making sure no light falls on it or I can nuke it with flash to go completely white.
Next time, some sun falls into your living room window, filtered through a three, curtain, … take the time to study it. Make (mental) notes about the patterns thrown on your walls and check out what causes these patterns. And when you’re on a shoot and can’t find an interesting background, think about those patterns. With a bit of MacGyverism you’ll probably find something that can be used as a cookie/gobo to create a similar effect. EVERYTHING IS LIGHTING GEAR!
This is a pretty basic standard light setup and I personally like to go a bit more extreme in my lighting. But I hope that it at least motivated some people to think beyond available light only.
Excellent, thanks for explaining this in such clear terms. Your lighting is perfect, it’s amazing to see how much can be accomplished with some basic strobist gear.
Lovely portraits! May I ask what did you use to trigger the external flashes? Pocket Wizards?
Thanks
@Zsolt: In this case I used the Canon ST-E2 infrared transmitter but I use PW’s too. Depends on the situation.
Great series Bert. It was very well laid out and explained. BTW, great portraits.
The questions I have for you are around setting up hairlights or rimlights.
Specifically, do you feather the light in (slightly angling the flash away) or do you use a gridspot directly pointed at the side of the person, or do you use a combination of both (feathered-grid)? Also, in the portrait of Erika above, was the hairlight gelled or was it just straight flash?
Thanks for the inspiration and lessons on triangles..never noticed that before… =)
Bert,
My first post here after following your blog for sometimes now. I really dig your photography style (from lighting to post processing), absolutely beautiful and very genuine. Could you please please go quickly over your post processing techniques sometimes in the future? Specifically the shots that came from the Sunbounce video at the beach, absolutely amazing. Thanks again for the blog!
Like alim I have a question about the hair light. You indicated that you used a grid (cardboard and black straws) to focus the light on the models hair. So what would one do if they did not have a grid for their flash? Move the hair light closer to the model and reduce the power?
Thanks for all your postings, I really enjoy reading them. Keep up the good work!
@Mark:
If you don’t have a gridspot, you could as well use a snoot (preferably a long one). The beam from a snoot won’t be as tight as from a gridspot, but depending on how you aim it, it will still be okay for this purpose. (BTW: moving a bare flash on low power closer when used as a hair light *might* also work, but only if it’s completely hidden by the model – otherwise you’ll get some ugly spill light and flare… and avoiding this is one of the reasons of using grids or snoots in the first place.)
I forgot to mention:
…and if you don’t have a snoot, it can easily be built wherever you are, if need be from just a piece of thick paper/card board. (As opposed to building a gridspot from black straws etc… this usually takes a while *g*)
Thanks
@Alim: Aimed it straight where I wanted it to be. With such a tight grid, there’s not much to feather anyway. No gel.
@Khuong: Welcome to the interactive part of this blog
I have some plans for post around postproduction.
@Mark: I couldn’t have answered it better that Manuel did (thanks M). But I guess there’s no reason not to have a snoot or grid.
Bert,
What is your parameter settings on your canon cameras? Your photos got natural colors, makes them alive
Wil, I always set it at neutral. I don’t set any parameters in camera.
I’m intrigued by your justification for the gray seamless. I’ve always tended to the white ones because they are easier to make a nice, even white, and I can get them gray or black, too, by keeping the foreground lights off them and then adjusting background light power. So what advantage would a gray background give me over this?
@Chris: You are right, you can do it just as well with a white background (or even a black one). It’s just a matter of what you want to do most. I’m not a big fan of white backgrounds (and to a lesser degree, black). So I usually prefer grey. I have all three but if I only carrying one color, I take the grey because that’s what I’ll be using most likely. In the event that I need white or black, I can easily do that without changing the paper. If you like to shoot on white, it would be probably wiser to take a roll of white paper. Hope this answers your question.
Yes, wonderfully. Thanks for the reply and the great blog.
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