Hand Held Flashes

As a portrait photographer working primarily on location, I am constantly faced with the challenge of creating studio lighting on the go.  Of course the obvious solution is to bring studio lighting with you and set up when you get there.  But who wants to do that.  I drive a sports care, not a moving van, and I don't really want to spend my day setting up and breaking down all that gear.  The solution that I use is to combine existing or ambient light with off camera flashes to create the effect I want.

A typical assignment for me is to go on location and photograph a business portrait.  The lighting gear I would take with me would be 2-580 EX, 1-430 ex,a STE2 to trigger them, a reflector  2-32" umbrellas and 2 stands. (I use Canon gear but the technique can be used with any stobes set up to be fired remotely.)  The only things that add extra bulk to my camera kit are the stands so I make sure to use the lightest ones I can get away with.

Here's how I put it all together.

The 2 580 ex flashes are put on the stands with the umbrella's. If needed, the 430 ex is used for background seperation but it is seldom used.  For a portrait, one strobe is used as the key light, the other is used as a hair light.  Fill is from a reflector.

To get the exposure, use the camera meter to get a ambient light reading.  Set the strobes to put out the same exposure.  I prefer to use manual settings bit ETTL can work as well.  This is the basic setup.  What is really cool about this is that by changing the shutter speed, you can lighten or darken the background and shadow areas.  Increasing the shutter speed will darken the background.  Decreasing the shutter speed will lightenthe background.

Getting use to this technique takes some practice but is well worth the effort to learn.  Not only will it save time, it will also save your back. David Ziser is a master of this technique and a visit to his blog http://www.digitalprotalk.blogspot.com/ is well worth it. Another great place to get info this technique is at the http://www.strobist.com/

The nice weather has hit Vancouver and it has been great to be getting outside and enjoying the BBQ. The other evening, I was over at some friends enjoying some wine and company. The conversation moved to photography and one of the folks asked if I could take a look at their camera. They were planning on taking it to the repair center because it was no longer exposing the pictures properly.



I took a look at the camera and everything seemed fine so I asked what the symptoms were. According to my friend, the camera had started to have really bright areas in the picture where they could not make out any detail or sometimes the subject would be really dark. The camera had just started doing this but up until now it has been a great camera. After talking a little further I discovred that they had never used the camera outside until now. It turns out that there really was no problem with the camera other than the inherent limitations of the cameras sensor.



Camera sensors have a limited dynamic range. That means that they can only record a limited difference in brightness between highlight and shadow. If the range between the highlight and the shadow is greater than the camera can record, then the highlight will be burned out (white without detail) and the shadows will block up (black without detail).



So, instead of taking the camera in to be fixed, I showed my friend a couple of techniques that would let them photograph within the dynamic range so that the cameras sensor could handle it. The first technique was to look for open shade and stay out of the bright sunlight. The second was to turn on the flash to put light in the shadow area.



Photographing outside on a bright sunny day does create some problems. Keep in mind the limitations of your camera so that youdon't get burn out. Also, try not to let the sun shine directly on the front of the lens when taking your picture. If this happens, the quality of the picture will be greatly reduced.