Many people have already seen this kind of effects on some other sites and polls but this was my étude (as they call it French) with the Black Straws Grid and my subject ;)
I decide to take my first shot, of this series, with on-camera so that I could compare the results with the other ones.
I call my service model and he was not so in the mood for this kind of shooting as you can see from the above on-camera flash picture :)
Next I decided to move the light to left and afterwards to the right.
Since I'm in Lisbon and I do not have all the other lights to compose I decided that this will be made with only one light (580EX) on top of an old tripod I have here just in case and with the Gadget Infinity triggers. This way I can test them, again, this time attached to the tripod under a normal shooting condition with a subject.
Here is the effect that causes the side light.
The settings were (this is not really important for this, but in case someone ask for it) ISO 100, 200 for sync flash and I think I was working on 5.6 or 6.3 for aperture. What was important here was to see the effect of the light rather then the accurate metering.
In the next shot you can see the back light giving some contour of the subject. Maybe with this you can play with different light intensities and colors and also not use the Black Straws Grid like I did... well I leave that up to you. Or imagine just a light on the eyes of the subject, or object or...
Another position that I like very much is the 45 degress (also more or less it goes by taste) and here is the effect on one side or the other. Keep in mind all of the things that distinguish one side and the other of the subject and choose the really good side to light it.
Both sides are not really at the same position, as you can see, but try to do it yourself and see how difficult it become when you are the photographer and the model at the same time. It drives you nuts...
Can you imagine the same thing but with the lights coming from behind?
Well here you have them, remember this was made with the Black Straws Snoot Grid this is why the light is so concentrated and why it's called a la French "Étude" :)
And the same light but from under. Sinister looks... or to give some detail at some part of the face... leave it up to you to try.
Moving the light to the front of the subject gets more attention as you can see in the next one's.
You can also notice that the opposite side of the light catches the model shadow and also gives a nice light to the background, maybe you can zoom in or use an umbrella or add another light or move yourself into another position... or move the light.
To finish I made a front and back under shots to end this Étude.
Always pay attention to the light and move it around so you can feel it and above all know your lights with your eyes shut remember that a little strobe sometimes is very powerful.
Leave you with a photo I took during this Étude that pleased me a lot.
Have fun and thanks for coming back.
Until next time... grab your camera and shoot something ;)
Rui
The settings were (this is not really important for this, but in case someone ask for it) ISO 100, 200 for sync flash and I think I was working on 5.6 or 6.3 for aperture. What was important here was to see the effect of the light rather then the accurate metering.
In the next shot you can see the back light giving some contour of the subject. Maybe with this you can play with different light intensities and colors and also not use the Black Straws Grid like I did... well I leave that up to you. Or imagine just a light on the eyes of the subject, or object or...
Another position that I like very much is the 45 degress (also more or less it goes by taste) and here is the effect on one side or the other. Keep in mind all of the things that distinguish one side and the other of the subject and choose the really good side to light it.
Both sides are not really at the same position, as you can see, but try to do it yourself and see how difficult it become when you are the photographer and the model at the same time. It drives you nuts...
Can you imagine the same thing but with the lights coming from behind?
Well here you have them, remember this was made with the Black Straws Snoot Grid this is why the light is so concentrated and why it's called a la French "Étude" :)
And the same light but from under. Sinister looks... or to give some detail at some part of the face... leave it up to you to try.
Moving the light to the front of the subject gets more attention as you can see in the next one's.
You can also notice that the opposite side of the light catches the model shadow and also gives a nice light to the background, maybe you can zoom in or use an umbrella or add another light or move yourself into another position... or move the light.
To finish I made a front and back under shots to end this Étude.
Always pay attention to the light and move it around so you can feel it and above all know your lights with your eyes shut remember that a little strobe sometimes is very powerful.
Leave you with a photo I took during this Étude that pleased me a lot.
Have fun and thanks for coming back.
Until next time... grab your camera and shoot something ;)
Rui
7 comments:
Very helpful info thanks for the setup... keep it up great job i will spread the word on your blog. Graham
Thanks for all the information we all, I am sure, apreciate the time and examples.
Thanks to strobist.com for the heads up (thanks David)
Great demonstration and cool to see you are from Lisbon! I actually had a chance to visit there two summers ago and enjoyed it!
how do you attach your 580EX with the radio remote trigger to your light stand? I have 3 lightstands here (especially with the connectors to put a studio flash on them) and I have a camera tripod here too, but I don't see how I could safely attach my 580EX to one of them ... do you have some kind of adaptor or what?
HI there Tom,
thanks for the post.
I usually a attach the flash to the light stand with cheap a hot shoe adapter that you can buy from any photography store. Mine are from Hama and they also have a PC sync cable attached in case you wanna connect the Pocket Wizard system.
The adapter has a hoke under it so you can screw it.
Here is the Spike adapter from Manfrotto (Ref.118) so you can attach the Hot Shoe adapter to the stand (It has 2 sides one 1/4" and the other 3/8")
http://www.manfrotto.com/Jahia/site/manfrotto/pid/2746
and here you can look at Hama Hot Shoe adapter (Ref. 00006951)to the flash
http://www.hama.de/portal/articleId*3962/action*2563/searchMode*1/bySearch*hot+shoe+adapter
Hope this is what you are looking for.
The websites are for picture references since you can try and search the items on some other places.
Hi Rui, thank you for an awesome article. I have one question: how did you trigger the slave flash when it was behind you. As far as I understand, the slave flashes must be triggered via infrared, and so require a line-of-sight to the master flash. However, in the scenario with the slave behind you, you're in between the master and the slave, so blocking the infrared transmitter/reciever.
Hi jeff,
first thanks for the comment on the article.
To answer your simple question no Infrared used. You just have to use trigger via radio like Pocket Wizards, Gadget Infinity or some other one's available on the web and you can even put one in the bathroom and fire it from the living room even they both see each other.
Also check my article http://lightingmods.blogspot.com/2007/06/gadget-infinity-pocket-wizard-side-by.html
for more info.
After reading the article you will know what I mean.
Thanks again for the comment and stay tuned for more great stuff.
Rui
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