Comments on: Manipulating Natural Light with Simple Tools

By: wizwow

wizwow — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 03:12:48 +0000

Hi Christine,

You do need to have some way of knowing the ambient reading, and how the flash will react (power/distance) to it.

If you do know that the ambient is f-8 (at your given shutterspeed), then the flash would be set at a distance/power to render f-9. That is 1/3 stop brighter than the f-8 ambient. A meter makes it so much easier to figure, but you can also build a string meter. See this page.

Hope that helps.

By: Chrissy

Chrissy — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 15:41:41 +0000

Wizwow… these are beautiful!!! I don’t know if you read the comments on this post anymore.. but I wanted to follow up on ksquires’ question “the speedlight was set to only add 1/3 stop over the ambient natural light”

Forgive me for the newbie question, but how do you get the speedlight to do that? I have a speedlight (just learning) and know how to dial it up and dial it back, but I don’t understand how you do that in relation to ambient light. I don’t have a light meter … is that required? Thanks!!!

By: wizwow

wizwow — Thu, 22 May 2008 11:55:20 +0000

ksquires:
What that means is that the ambient light reading (ambient meaning the light on her face as opposed to the direct light coming from behind) was taken with a meter on ambient facing the camera. Let’s say it was f5.6 at 1/200. The flash light would have measured on the face at 5.6.3 (6.1 on the more modern cameras I believe. My older meters do not have the third stops, just tenths over/under. With such little power and light directed to the face, the exposure of the skin is not changed, but the shadows and eyes are ‘opened’ and the shot has more snap.

By: Buzzer

Buzzer — Sun, 18 May 2008 19:11:20 +0000

Don, thanks for the detailed information you left in regards to wedding_photographers comments. I learn so much from your site and what I catch of your video on you tube.

By: ksquires

ksquires — Sat, 17 May 2008 18:17:40 +0000

“the speedlight was set to only add 1/3 stop over the ambient natural light” – could you explain this concept in more detail?

Thanks.

By: wizwow

wizwow — Fri, 16 May 2008 10:56:55 +0000

Not hard to do at all. Just keep the flash on axis of the camera or the nose. In this case I kept the flash on axis of the camera so the face is getting light straight from the angle of the camera. That keeps shadows to a minimum. You must have an angle to have a shadow, so I keep my light on axis. This means my assistant has to constantly be aware when I move so the light moves with me, and if I am lighting on a stand, I make the model move but keep her in line with the light.

By: wedding_photographer

wedding_photographer — Fri, 16 May 2008 10:45:48 +0000

I’ve returned several times to this post to look at Stacia’s incredible photo. What strikes me today is how little contrast there is between the left side of her nose and her cheek – I’m sure this adds to the photo’s impact.

Is this an effect that’s easily replicable under a certain light, does it require post-processing or did it just happen that way?

By: wedding_photographer

wedding_photographer — Wed, 14 May 2008 12:23:29 +0000

Lovely light! I am particuluarly impressed by the photo of Stacia and the wonderful combination of back-light and fill-in. Well done!