Light Painting - Example

I cannot for the life of me think of why I haven't done light painting before. I believe the first time I actually tried it was when I was in Joshua Tree National Park doing some star trails. The foreground needed some light so I used a flash light to expose them. Fast forward to 2012 and I brought it back to the table for some of my wedding clients.




Here's what I used to get this shot: 
- Nikon D800 Digital SLR Camera
- Nikon 35mm f/2.0 Lens
- Nikon SB-900 Speedlight
- Tripod (any will do really)
- iPhone & Flashlight Type App.
- A dark place.
- A subject(s) that will stand still.

The camera settings are open to interpretation based on where you are. I played with my ISO between 200-400. My aperture was around f/8 and my shutter speed was very slow, around 10-15 seconds until I had something worth while.

The main concept for properly exposing the shot is: 

1. You need stop down the aperture and low ISO so that the light you paint with just tickles the subject. If you are wide open then one hit of the flash will flood your shot.
2. You use your speedlight in manual mode off camera and do a "test fire" so the flash hits your subject. Do this to taste.One hit may be all you need while other times you may need. Other times, you can pop a couple behind your subject. f-stops around f/8 and f/16 start to show this awesome starburst effect with light that can be really cool.
3.  The shutter speed needs to be slow so that you can run around and paint with a continuous light source. In my case, I had my iPhone and some flashlight app that changed my screen color. What you see ghosted in the background is just the light emitting from my iPhone as I ran around my bride and groom. The exposure was so long that I didn't get picked up however. Be creative, you can use whatever continuous light source you want. Even rope lights and kid toys.
4. Always be moving when running through the frame. If you are slow or your flash hits you then you will show up in the shot. Otherwise, with such a long shutter speed you shouldn't even show up.
5. You need to have your camera on a tripod. I set my camera to a 5 second timer so I can get prepared to run around like a crazed lunatic.
6. Your subject HAS to be standing still. If they move, that slow shutter speed will surely pick it up and then you have to re-do the shot. Try to shoot while it's warm out because even cold shivers can get picked up.
7. TRY AND PRACTICE BEFORE YOU TAKE IT TO A SHOOT. No client feels comfortable when you are fiddling with gear and not able to make the shot after you hyped it up.

That should be all. Thanks for your support.
Comment if you have any questions.
~ Michael

How To Fake a Backdrop With Flash

Do you fancy those dim lit portraits with the subject's face lit and surrounded by darkness? I'll be you think you need a professional studio, backdrop and a ton of fancy lighting to achieve that same effect huh?

If you know anything about flash photography then you already know that you an fake a black backdrop... But did you know you can fake it even outdoors on a sunny day?

How to simulate a black backdrop even outdoors on a sunny day.

 All you need is your camera, external flash (a speedlight will do) and a light stand.

All you have to do is shut out as much ambient light as humanly possible. Once you have your black ("under exposed") image then you are ready to use your flash to illuminate only what you want to add back in. You are essentially overpowering the ambient light with your flash.

You'll need a camera that has a manual mode. You must be able to control the ISO, shutter speed and aperture to achieve the desired results. Your flash also needs to have manual controls so you can adjust the intensity of the flash.

With the flash being off-camera, you'll also need a way to trigger it... You have a couple options here:
- Hot shoe extension cable.
- Wireless trigger: The PocketWizards are the best money can buy. It opens up a whole new world for you and off-camera flash photography.
- Your Camera & flash's built in slave. That is one of the many reasons I love Nikon. They have made it so easy to fire your Nikon brand flash using only the pop-up flash on your camera to trigger it. My Nikon D800 and Nikon SB-900 work great together.

Now that we have gear covered, let's get into the technique...

First, set your camera's ISO as low as you can. This setting comes from the good ol' film days where you had to buy film with ISOs that were suited for what you were going to take pictures of. ISO 100 was for extreme daylight while higher numbers like ISO 800 or 1600+ were for indoor, dark locations. Using an ISO like 100 means that it will take a lot of light to expose the image. ISO 1600+ need less light to expose the image. For our needs, we want it to be really tough for ambient light to affect our exposure.

 the shutter speed needs to play nicely with your flash. Although the two really don't have any effect on one another you do need to be wary of your camera's flash sync speed. This is typically 1/200" or 1/250" on most cameras. Refer to your camera manual for that info. If you go higher than this sync speed then you will notice a black bar affecting your image. This is from the shutter closing before the flash has time to fully fire.

I leave the aperture last because this setting IS something your flash works with. The aperture is the opening in which the light enters while the shutter speed is the duration of how long that light gets let in... The lower the f-stop (f/4, f/2.8), the bigger the opening and thus the more light gets let in. The higher the f-stop (i.e. f/8, f/16) the smaller the opening so less light enters.

I would recommend your camera to be set to ISO 100, 1/200" and f/5.6 as a starting point... This is a definite balancing act. We are probably maxing out the ISO and shutter speed due to camera and flash sync limitations.* The only things we can tweak now are the aperture and flash settings.

 * fun fact: The Nikon D70 has a 6mp sensor but has an electronic shutter with a flash sync speed of 1/500"! You better believe I own one of these cameras.

Take a test shot without a flash. If your test shot still shows some background and ambient light then the only thing you can do is raise the aperture to f/8, f/11, f/16, etc. As a last resort you can find a little shadier spot to position your subject in. That little bit of shade could be the difference you need.

Now that you have successfully killed the ambient light, it is time to incorporate the flash. You cannot change the settings of your camera at this point. You have locked down your settings to achieve essentially your black backdrop.

The flash has 4 things that can affect it's impact on an image. Two are camera settings and two are flash settings:
- The ISO
- The Aperture
- The flash's power
- The flash's distance to subject

We have ISO and Aperture locked down so we can only control the flash's power and distance between flash and subject.

Put the flash an arm length or two away from your subject to start and then dial the flash's manual power up or down until you have the right intensity of light. Once again, the flash should be in manual mode and you should be working with flash power that is something like 1/1, 1/2, 1/4, 1/8, 1/16, etc...

You will see in the image above that a soft box was used outdoors to literally soften up the light. This also helps to wrap the light somewhat around your subject's face instead of just being harsh with a hard stop between shadow and highlight.

Also, notice the position of the flash. It is on the opposite side of where I am taking the picture and "fanned" out to help with that wrapping of the light around their face.

Feel free to try the same thing indoors. If you don't have a flash then you could always experiment with window light, reflectors and stuff of that nature...

Thanks for stopping by.
~ Michael

Light Painting

Hello everyone. I just wanted to share a shot from a recent wedding that I photographed.

This was all done IN CAMERA! No Photoshop has been used.

Can you believe that the cool swirly blue light was made with my iPhone?

Want to know how this photo was taken? Stay tuned...

Nikon Flash And Exposure Compensation

Just a quick FYI for you Nikon shooters out there. In case you didn't know already, Nikon does something really cool (yet can bite you in the you know what) when you are shooting in Av, Tv or P modes.

Cameras are getting smarter, but they are still stupid. The technology now is better than ever yet the cameras still can (and do) get fooled.

When you set your camera up to shoot in Aperture Priority (Av), Shutter Priority (Tv) or Program (P) mode, all that the camera does is set your Shutter and/or Aperture values for 18% gray. Awesome if you are shooting concrete, crummy if you are shooting a bride.

We therefore have to "enlighten" the camera and tell it that what it 'thinks' it knows is wrong and override the settings. This is done via the Exposure Compensation button. Set it to some plus or minus value and the camera will then over/under expose each shot by however many stops you choose...

But how does that work if you have a flash mounted to your camera?

Nikon has the best flash technology that I have seen par none and they thought long and hard about this and came up with the following:

Nikon takes the flash exposure compensation that the speedlight is set to AND THEN factors in what the camera's exposure compensation is. What this means is that if your flash is set to -1 ev (exposure value) while your camera is set to +1 ev then your flash will actually be outputting 0 ev.

If your camera is set to -.3ev and your flash is set to -.7 ev then your flash will actually operate at -1 ev...

If you are studious enough then you may be asking yourself "...but what happens when we switch our camera over to Manual mode?"

Great question and I'm glad you asked that...
When you switch over to Manual mode, the flash exposure compensation will still honor the -.3ev or -.7ev or whatever your exposure compensation (along with flash exposure compensation) is set to.

So make sure your camera's exposure compensation is set to 0ev when you want to make sure that it isn't going to affect anything.

Enjoy!
Michael

Getting Cheap With Your Flashes

Speedlights are EXPENSIVE!

I get a lot of questions where people ask me what flash I recommend for them. Now I am a Nikon shooter so I will be using their speedlight models while getting my point across to you all.

The most popular choices for Nikon shooters are the SB-600 and the SB-800 / SB-900 models. If you are a Canon shooter then many or all of these bells and whistles also differ between Canon's 430EX and 580EX speedlights.

First, let's address the most important thing... PRICE. The SB-600 is around $200 while the latest SB-900 comes in at around $450 and up. So far so good?

Next, the SB-600 is much smaller in both size and weight (10.6 oz. to be exact). That can be nice especially if you do not have a battery grip attached to your camera or if you have a more compact D-SLR (a la the D40, D90, etc..). The SB-900 weights in at just under a pound (14.6 oz.) and it is big! It is more solid and rugged and the hot shoe is more robust.

Now for what's under the hood. The SB-600 does have less power but not enough to be a deal breaker. Flash power is rated in what's called a guide number. The SB-600 rates in at 98 while the SB-900 rates in at 111.5 at ISO 100.

Since the SB-600 outputs less power, you get more shots with your AA batteries than with the SB-900. It is almost a 2 to 1 difference so it is pretty considerable!

The SB-600 is an older model so it supports both new and old TTL modes (i.e. i-TTL, D-TTL and Auto TTL) while the SB-900 supports only i-TTL. No biggie here unless you have an older camera model like the D100.

So far the SB-600 seems to be kicking some butt right? Now for where the SB-900 excels.

First, the lens coverage is pretty substantial. You can zoom your SB-900 all the way up to 200mm and that means you have yourself a nice range to do some creative lighting. I know that I have used the 200mm zoom to get more reach or to give the effect of having a snoot attached. To contrast, the SB-600 can only zoom to 85mm. This isn't a big deal if you don't use flashes for creative lighting or off camera flash too much.

Next, the SB-900 has the ability for the flash head to turn a complete 180 degrees left and right where the SB-600 can rotate 180 to the left but only 90 degrees to the right. This can be a pain for you bounce flash shooters like me.

You also cannot hook up an external battery pack to the SB-600 while you can use the SB-8 or 9 battery pack for more oomph and faster recycling.

In wireless TTL mode, the SB-600 can only act as a remote / slave while the SB-900 can also be a master / commander flash. If you use manual mode then you can go all the way down to 1/128 power with the SB-900 while the SB-600 only goes down to 1/64 power.

Other features that are pretty nice on the SB-900 is the ability for it to receive firmware updates, has overheat protection (which you should immediately disable), adjustable light patterns and gel filter identification.

Nikon is also nice enough to include a diffusion dome, gel filters and a built-in bounce card with the SB-900.

So what is my suggestion??? Eventually get both!

Start with the SB-600 and then keep it and get the SB-900 when you get more into advanced flash techniques. Now this suggestion goes for anyone who shoots a camera other than a flagship model like the D3s. All other models have a built in flash and many of which allow for it to act as a commander flash. D3s users do not have that built-in flash so the SB-900 is really needed simply for that commander mode feature.

Nikon D700 Hot Shoe Problems

So this post is more about something to watch out for.

I have a couple D700s and have had the same problem on each of my bodies with a couple Nikon SB-900 Speedlights. What ends up happening is that the speedlight flickers and misfires when any sort of movement happens. I must have gotten flashed a hundred times last week.

The D700 is an amazing camera and its low light capabilities is just stellar. However, I still use flashes A LOT and it is a real bummer that this camera can't keep up with a heavier flash.

For the time being, I took a hammer to the hot shoe, very gently, and tapped the hot shoe flaps so they fit the speedlight tighter. I also used needle nose pliers to gently pry the metal things inside the hot shoe as well to make for a tighter fit. There is a $30 Nikon WG-AS3 Flash Water Guard which I used more to keep the flash tighter to the camera ever since this happened the first time. Unfortunately, I lost mine . A new one is on the way and hopefully that can help to further keep the D700 in working order without needing to be sent to Nikon.

Anyone else have (or had) similar problems? Comment below and share your stories.

Thanks for stopping by,
Mike

Thinking In A Flash

I have a D700 with the SB800. I know how to adjust the settings to get the right flash output after I've seen in my histogram, but in a wedding a lot of times the moment is gone and you can't take a second shot.

Please give advice on how to think through the settings? How far are your subjects when you use 1/4, 1/8 power, etc? Do you constantly change your flash or do you change your distance from the subject? Bride walking aisle?

Thank You!"

Thanks for writing. I too use the Nikon D700 and have myself the Nikon SB-800 and SB-900 speedlights. The one thing that stood out to me in your question was that you were mentioning stuff like 1/4 and 1/8 power. That is leading me to believe that you have your flash set to Manual mode and not TTL (Through The Lens). Manual mode was handled a certain way back in the film days. Guide numbers, distance to subject, blah blah blah. Technology has really advanced and TTL takes away "almost" all those complicated trig functions and stuff that film photographers had to do before. I do have an article about TTL Flash work that is worth looking at for a little more background on what it does. I moved to different hosting providers so some of the images in the article are MIA for the time being. I will get those back up as soon as possible because nothing beats visual examples of all this complicated terminology. Note, this article is in regards to the flash in TTL mode and OFF CAMERA and on a light stand. Not too many differences but just be aware that things are different than on-camera flash.

So to answer your question, I don't really think at all. You can too. Just set your flash to TTL mode and give that a whirl. End of story. What happens in TTL mode is that a pre-flash is fired just before the actual flash does. This pre-flash illuminates your subject and that information is recorded by the camera. The camera takes that, plus the focal length of your lens plus your current camera settings (shutter speed, aperture and ISO) and comes up with the proper "median" flash power that will correctly light your subject. Take a look at the image and if it is slightly too dark or too light then that is where the Flash Exposure Compensation comes in handy. Dial that up or down to tell your flash "Hey, whatever you are thinking, increase or decrease it some" and it will listen and do just that. Flashes are very obedient like that.

Great question! Keep them coming!

Take care.

Gelling Your Lights

This is a simple tip on how you can achieve a better (and more accurate) colors with your images. Mind you, this is for when you are shooting with a speedlight (whether on or off camera) like the Nikon SB-900 or Canon 580EX II or even with studio strobes.

Let's take this down to the most basic situation where you will be using a flash to help convey my message.

So you are shooting a wedding in a normal sized room that is light with incandescent bulbs. These bulbs are giving off a warm, amber color. If we were shooting without a flash then our in-camera white balance should be set to incandescent or a custom Kelvin temp of something like 3200K or something within that range. That is all fine and dandy so shoot away.

But what happens if the room is dimly lit and you need a flash to help light things up? Flashes are daylight balanced around 5400K so what will happen is that the light from the flash will conflict with the ambient light from the incandescent bulbs and you will get various color casts on your subjects or background. Welcome to Photoshop hell at that point!

All we need to do is gel our flashes with the proper CTO filter so we can essentially modify the daylight balanced speedlight and mold it into becoming about the same Kelvin temperature of the ambient light that is around. In the situation above, an amber filter over the speedlight would bring that 5400K speedlight down to the 3200K range. DON'T FORGET TO SET YOUR WHITE BALANCE TO INCANDESCENT AND NOT FLASH!

If your white balance is still off then that is okay because you are at least in the same realm of light without worries of any serious color cast that would be noticeable. This is a very easy fix if you shoot in RAW.

Nikon's SB-900 comes with a couple gels to correct for different lighting conditions. These gels even have some intelligence to them and allows the flash to know which one is mounted. If you are shooting in Auto white balance mode then the flash can tell the camera what filter is over the flash so the camera can take the necessary actions for providing you with a fairly accurate image and color rendition. They even include a real spiffy gel filter holder that snaps on to the flash.

So what is the lesson we learned today boys and girls???

Thanks for stopping by,
Mike