You have promised yourself that your next portrait shoot would be “next level” for your abilities. You want a set of portraits that could be considered fine art, and perfect for gallery enlargements. You want to capture your subject well, but you also want to grow in your abilities as a creative photographer.
Fortunately, fate would grant you both opportunities.
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ou’ve probably heard or read this a gazillion times by other photographers so I thought that I would be the gazilionth and one to tell you that creating a great photo is all about lighting. Light is what sculpts your scene. You can have the best composed shot but if your lighting is crap, good chances that your shot will be also. And sometimes to get good light, you’ll need to work with artificial light sources. One of the most popular light source used by photographers are strobes; also called flashes.
So I figured that I would give you my insights on small strobes (also known as flash guns or speedlights) in this multi part saga here on DIYPhotography.net. So let’s get right to it, shall we.
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In this post Gary Cosby Jr. shares some great tips on shooting with available light.
Shooting available light can be both liberating and enslaving.
Sounds like a contradiction doesn’t it? In fact, shooting available light frees you from all the encumbrances of dragging strobe equipment around with its stands, modifiers, strobes and possibly even power packs. On the other hand, shooting available light chains you to whatever the light is willing to do at a given time of day. So you see now how it can free you or chain you up. There are a few tips and techniques you can use to tame available light and bend it to your will in many circumstances. Best of all, you don’t have to purchase a thing to use this technique.
Note: File this one under ‘bizarre’, ’silly’ or ‘things to do on a boring rainy day’…
Looking to take a portraits with a quirky twist? Try ‘jowling‘.
Gridspot (or grid) is a studio accessory that you can attach to your flash. When the flash fires through the grid, the spread of the light rays is limited. The effect you get is very similar to the effect achieved by a snoot, but light more controlled and really hits a small surface. You often want to use a snoot or a grid for avoiding light spillage when you are setting up you back light.
Here is what you’ll need:
- Some black coroplast (you can get it in art stores and office depot)
- An exacto knife
- Glue
The first step is to measure your flash head. I use a Nikon SB800 which is six centimeters wide. Then, using the exacto knife, cut the coroplast into pieces of six by three. (If your flash is wider cut to something else by three cm). I did this by cutting a long six centimeters strip of coroplast, then trimming 3 centimeters at a time.
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One camera function that can be a lot of fun to play with (and that can get you some interesting results) is slow sync flash.
When shooting with a subject in low light situations you generally have two options; either to shoot with a flash or to shoot with a slow shutter speed.
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Capturing movement in images is something that many photographers only think to do when they are photographing sports or other fast moving subjects.
While there is an obvious opportunity in sports photography to emphasize the movement of participants – almost every type of photography can benefit from the emphasis of movement in a shot – even when the movement is very small, slow and/or subtle.
A softbox is a studio thingy that professional photographers use on their studios. Why? for a couple of reasons.
For one thing, softboxes create a smoother light – less hotspots (yea – those are the bright, burnt our noses in your photos), anther is smoother shadows. Most professional models are shot with softboxes to get that glamorous, look. Softboxes are also great for macro shots – they produce even diffused light.
Last weekend I was at a party with my point and shoot digital camera and wanting to take a few shots to help us all remember the night. The problem was that it was a poorly lit room and I needed to use my flash. The result was a lot of blown out images. The flash was too strong! What should I do next time? – Sally
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