Most of my Portrait and Wedding work utilises natural light with the aid of reflectors. Sometimes however, it's necessary to introduce a splash of flash to the scene which can add a touch of sparkle and a third dimension to the image, especially when the ambient light is flat and dull. I use Nikon speedlights for this purpose and C&G Photography have SB700 and SB900 units. When fired off camera, these are triggered by a Pixel King transmitter and receiver set which allow shutter speeds of 1/8000 sec to be used. This can be very handy when shooting in bright conditions with fast lenses, as you're not forced to select a smaller aperture to control the shutter speed which can be the case with some other transceiver sets. Most of the time I like to shoot wide open or stopped down no further than F4. Having a high speed sync facility on the Pixel Kings allows me to shoot with large apertures and high shutter speeds and a great deal of creative fun can be had as a result. The image below was from a test shoot a couple of weeks ago. The setup and technique was fairly simple and I have included a diagram to illustrate where the flashes were positioned in relation to the model Emma. The first thing I did was to take an image of Emma without the speedlights in place and work out the pose I wanted her to adopt, and the exposure of the ambient light I wanted to record. I decided that underexposing the image by -1.3 E.V. would result in a darker, moodier image with a brooding sky, and once the flashes were introduced, result in Emma really standing out from the background, a real pop effect. Once happy with the pose and ambient light settings, the key light was placed to the right of the model, approximately 6 feet away. The light source was the SB900 with softbox fitted to a light stand. I tested different power settings to achieve a nice bright even light across Emma's face and clothes, and i found that 1/4 power worked best. The fill light was then added to the left of Emma, this time a SB700 with softbox, attached to a Manfrotto tripod approximately 8 feet away. This was used to fill shadows and even the light from the SB900, and a setting of 1/8th power seemed to work well. I was shooting with the Nikon D4 and 70-200mm F2.8 at F4, 1/2000th of a sec, ISO 200 to achieve the desired exposure for the background.
As mentioned at the beginning of this post, I don't use off camera flash a great deal and I have a lot to learn. But I'm very happy with my first results, and having the knowledge and ability to use flash when the light is flat, or when you just want to be a bit more creative, can allow for some amazing results and really take your photography to a whole new level.
Simple diagram of the setup.
Nikon SB700 to left of model, 1/8th power through softbox.
Nikon SB900 to right of model, 1/4 power through softbox.
If you want to learn more about strobist setups then check out
www.ricknunn.com .You will find a lot of excellent information there.
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