Photography Blog DigitalPixels.net

The main problem with using an on-camera flash is the same as using the built-in flash, the light goes straight at the subject and flattens features and can cause red-eye. With an on-camera flash you almost always want to use a diffuser if shooting straight on. There are a wide range of diffusers such as my favorite, the Gary Fong Lightsphere. What you really want to achieve is a larger light source to help prevent harsh shadows. Without a diffuser, your best bet is to aim the flash at something you can bounce the light off of such as a wall, ceiling, foam board, reflector, or even a white shirt.

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The first thing we need to do is to connect the lights to your camera, for this we are going to need what is called a PC Sync port. On most Canon DSLR’s the PC Sync port is on the left side of the camera under a rubber flap. In the image here you can see the PC Sync port and the end of a PC Sync cable. In my typical setup I will have the main light plugged into the PC Sync port to fire it and the other lights will automatically fire at the same time because they have a built-in optical slave that will fire the flash when another flash is detected. Since this happens far faster then the mechanical shutter, the effect is that all of the lights fire at exactly the same. There is a limit of how fast the lights will sync to the camera but we will address that in a moment.

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The most popular studio lighting accessory? Hands down, the square softbox. Whether mini 12x12-inchers or 50x50-inch monsters, these boxy lighting tools are often the first thing to greet you when entering any portrait studio.

But does the square (or almost square) softbox deserve its popularity? For me, the answer is "no."

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Pocket wizard strobist - The Strobist Jet Pack

First thing was to place a black Bristol board on the table and then place a clear nylon sheet on top of it. (Actually, the first step was to convert my leaving living room table into a portable studio, but the wife was asleep so we were fine with it).

Then I placed the doll on the table and adjusted my Nikon SB 26 with a gelled gridspot and a radio slave. I set the flash to tightest zoom so the flash and gridspot will work together. (No point in having the flash on wide if I am trying to restrict light).

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Quantity

Among all the aspects of light, quantity is the easiest to control and manipulate. In fact, most of the controls found on your camera is designed for this function. The quantity or amount of light is controlled by your camera's ISO, shutter speed and aperture. If there's too much light then you get overexposure and too little will leave you with underexposure.

The photo below illustrates deliberate overexposure or what is called high-key. It shows how a photo would look if large amounts of light is allowed to hit the camera sensor.

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The artificial lighting learning curve for most photographers starts with a built-in flash or external flash mounted above the viewfinder. The photographs they take with a single flash look flat and boring because they lack shadows to create the illusion of depth or look unflattering due to the position of the shadows to the side of the head and nose.

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I just love gridspots. The amount of light control that a gridspot will give you is incredible. So, a while back I ordered some honeycomb grids from saxonpc. It is with two of those gridspots that I took the image on the left, but first thing first. In fact Saxon PC is specializing in making computer cooling solutions, little did they know that their honeycomb is just perfect for light control. OK, they knew, they made a site for it. Yet it was fun to say "little did they know".

One of the first projects on DIYP was a coroplast made gridspot, which totally rocked, but getting those nice black honeycombs tickled so much and I caved in.

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Low light...it can be a photographer's nightmare. But here are some basic techniques that I use daily to overcome this obstacle. Some of this may sound mundane, but I am surprised constantly by how many photographers do not understand these basic principles.

First, let's talk about lenses.

For those of you who do not already know this, we refer to lenses in terms of how "fast" they are. This is kind of a misnomer, but what it really means is his: how big is the aperture? The larger the aperture, the more speed you can get out of the camera...hence...how fast it is. The absolute minimum aperture for exposing images in low light should be f2.8. If you have a lens that has a smaller aperture opening than this, your ability to capture sharp images will be drastically reduced. Most "kit lenses" are f3.5 to f5.6, and most of them lose aperture as you zoom in (the closer you zoom, the smaller the aperture becomes). This can spell certain doom in low light. So the first, and most important tip is to invest in quality lenses. Invest in lenses that are f2.8 or faster...f1.8 or 1.4 is even more preferred.

Second, let's talk about film speed (ASA) or CCD speed (ISO).

In a nutshell, the larger the ASA or ISO 3, the "faster" that medium is at exposure. This becomes very important in low light situations. The downside is that the higher the speed, the more "noise" one can expect. As a rule of thumb, I typically use ASA/ISO 200 for sunny days outside, ASA/ISO 400 for indoors with good lighting, ASA/ISO 640 for indoors with medium light, and ASA/ISO 800 for indoors with low light conditions. I have found that anything higher than a speed of 800 produces too much noise for what I do.

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1) Setup your single light source (It can be a continuous source, a low power strobe or a 100 watt flash).

2) Make sure you use a very large light modifier for your source, such as this homemade light panel, a very large shoot through umbrella, or a large softbox (I like the 60 inch convertible white satin umbrella - about $38.00). But remember, any translucent white shoot through umbrella should work just fine as long as its big (at least 40 inches).

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In this lesson we show how to set up and shoot the perfect portrait every time. With a few simple tips and tricks, you can rig your portrait gear to save time and make those school portrait jobs a snap.

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With only a couple of well placed lights and a little imagination, shooting a fashion portrait can be easy.

Lighting Equipment

* Photoflex Boom
* Photoflex BoomStand
* Photoflex HalfDome2 Small White (strobe)

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