Flash? Oh no!

Since I first picked up a camera with malicious intent again 2 years ago, I have largely avoided situations requiring me to use flash or otherwise add to the existing light in my shots. Yes, I had a Speedlight (Nikon SB-600) that I would use when I absolutely had to, but I hated the results I got and no amount of "but you just have to bounce the flash" made it better. In short, the results sucked. Thus, I confined myself to outdoor photography and to taking advantage of the outstanding low light capabilities of my D300. To be sure, I got some great pictures within those limitations but I was still restricted.

Back in October, I decided that I could no longer live with these limitations and that I had to figure out how to use, really use, flash to control the light in my photos. To that end, I started reading everything I could find and watching every video I could lay my hands on. I discovered Joe McNally's blog and video courses (arguably the most amazing lighting artist around and a damn fine photographer, too), David Hobby's blog (aka the Strobist), training from Scott Kelby, Neil van Neikerk's blog (a wizard with shaping a single, on-camera flash so that it looks like you didn't use a flash), Russ MacDonald's blog (anything and everything that should have been in the Nikon Speedlight manuals and is not) and many other resources as well.

I learned concepts for shaping light, diffusing light, adding more lights, setting flashes to provide different amounts of light (you can do that? -- who knew!), the joys of Nikon's Creative Lighting System (CLS) -- an advanced wireless system for controlling their lights (very effectively, too; see McNally above) -- and on and on. I discovered many reasons why my previous efforts had been destined to fail from the outset. I learned, really learned, how to operate my Speedlights and that all those "weird" adjustments not only are not weird, but are entirely necessary if one is going to make good photos.

I had never realized that the truly good pictures of people that you see in print and on the web look NOTHING like the reality of the situation in which they are made. Just outside the view of the lens in those photos, there are softboxes, umbrellas, reflectors, diffusers, strip lights and lord only knows what else. It may be pitch black dark when the image looks like daylight or it may be broad daylight and look like the middle of the night. And so, I began the process of completely remaking the way I think about light when shooting people, even outdoors. I've only made my first baby steps down the path but I've had a couple of successes that have made me think that I might, just might, have the beginnings of a clue how to do this.

I knew that in order to do this I was going to need more equipment so after much study, I decided the first steps needed to be with Speedlights, both for size and cost. The softbox and other light shaping tools I got to start with all had to be models that would work with a Speedlight rather than requiring a studio strobe of some sort. Then, it was time to experiment.  Experiments require victims. My family have been thoroughly victimized.  Luckily, they aren't complaining (much) and we're starting to get some really cool shots.

The first success was the family Christmas portrait. Ok, I didn't actually shoot it until AFTER Christmas but it's still the family Christmas portrait. I already think I would light it differently now but using what I knew at the time, I set my key light to camera right, an SB-900 shooting through a Lastolite Tri-Grip diffuser. The second light started as my SB-600 shooting through a Lastolite 40" umbrella with the bottom half flagged (blocked with opaque material to stop the light) set to camera left. I triggered the camera remotely and shot with the camera tethered to my laptop so that we could all see the results immediately. I had the lights balanced just so and we were ready, so we all went to change to "real" picture clothes. And the wheels fell off.

Now I knew that our picture clothes were darker than what we had been wearing during the set up and I expected to have to make some minor tweaks to the flash values as a result. What I didn't expect was for the SB-600 to go nuts and starting firing at full power, complaining the whole way that it was unable to deliver the requested flash power, and totally blowing out the image. I didn't figure out until later (with the help of Russ MacDonald, in fact) that the problem was all due to the way TTL metering is done in the camera. If I had been working behind the camera, rather than trying to be in the picture, I could easily have set the camera to spot meter just on a face, locked the value in, recomposed and shot the picture and had no trouble. In retrospect, doing that kind of self-portrait is probably done with less frustration by using manual flash settings and foregoing TTL metering altogether.  In the end, I ended up switching out the SB-600 for an SB-900 (more powerful) because I misunderstood what it was telling me. And through dumb luck (more accurately known as "my oldest son moved around just enough to get his face into the metering part of the frame") we got the shot. And, in my opinion, it's the best picture of the 4 of us we've ever had.

As always, click on a photo to see a larger version.

65mm, ISO 200, f/8.0, 1/6 © Richard Critz

82mm, ISO 400, f/5, 1/80
© Richard Critz

Next up, I tried a technique for "simulated sunshine". This was shot indoors on a snowy day.  If you look closely enough, you can see that there is some ambient light from outdoors coming through the window behind the Christmas tree. The light, however, is a bare SB-900 set on a stand, about 12 feet off to camera right, slightly behind my model and about 8 feet above the floor. I used no diffuser, no gel, no light modifier of any kind, just a bare flash and a willing subject (aka Mr. GQ). The flash was zoomed (unfortunately I don't remember to what setting) to give the light more punch. And it really is, I think, a creditable imitation of the hard light of the sun.

60mm, ISO 400, f/8, 1/80
© Richard Critz

Finally, I changed subjects (also willing, though more likely to complain about the lights going off in his eyes) to try for a dramatic profile shot. For this, I set the 24" softbox at camera right, facing exactly across the shot (parallel to the camera's focal plane) and with the edge closest to the camera directly in line with my model's nose. In order to avoid the "zombie effect" (which would have been somewhat masked by his glasses anyway), I had him keep his nose to the softbox but to look to his right with his eyes only. It's not much use for soccer player cards and school IDs, but the soft quality of the light along with the dramatic fall off into shadows was exactly the effect I was looking for. As a side note, this was shot only a few minutes after the "imitation sun" photos above, in exactly the same place in the room and with daylight still streaming through the windows behind the Christmas tree.

46mm, ISO 400, f/4.5, 1/100
© Richard Critz