Practice Session

This weekend has been very busy. I have had two girl gymnastic shoots, a family session, and a toddler session right before the Super Bowl. On Saturday evening, since I had everything out, my youngest son ( Co ) help me do some practice sessions. Actually, I have been wanting to do more lessons from the Strobist site. But first, I work on getting the white background lighting the way I wanted.

These first two shots I used two flashes aimed at the background doing TTL. Those two flashes were set at 50mm zoom. The third flash was my main light shooting through an umbrella. I am getting great light on Co but notice that my background just is not white enough. I can’t get very technical about the ‘why’ but I do know that with TTL, it only allow enough power to get the right exposure. Since I had the right exposure on Co, the camera controlled the two flashes to use a low power setting. Here are the two images.

Then I took the two flashes off TTL and put them on manual. This did give me more control over power but I still had to turn it down. I think I started off at 1/6 power and ended up at 1/80 power. At 1/6, I found that light bounce off the backdrop and washed out my camera as seen below.

Notice that the stool top is gone, Co hand is gone with the side of his face. Once I turned down the power of the flashes, I was still able to get a more white background than a light grey color. These next two images are much better. I am still getting blinkies on the background, but I am not getting enough light now to wash out my subject.

I only have three flashes using the Nikon wireless control. I still wanted to add just a little more. So, I took one of the flashes and aim it at Co’s head, changing the zoom to 80mm. I took the other flash and moved it to the middle and background. I changed it’s zoom to 28mm. Now, take a look.

I like these better just because it adds a nice hair and shoulder light to give separation. Though, what I think might work better is to have that hair light above Co than below.

This whole time, I was shooting roughly at 4400K for the White Balance. I really wanted to practice with using Kelvins when I don’t have my Calibration Target with me. The next image is at 3700K.

Notice how cool blue everything is starting to get. The background, hands, face are all turning bluish color. You might have thought I turn on the air-condition . The next image I bump up the Kelvins to 5000K.

It sure did warm up the image. That actually looks really good when using flash. I like it when the skin tone color is what it is suppose to be. Well, what happens you bump the image up higher? Good question, and that is what I did, I bump it up to 6000K.

Now the image is really warm. Maybe too warm. Notice that the background and skin are turning to a yellowish color (actually the skin might be more orange). Ok, now I know that I need to shoot when using flash around 5000K. But what if I am shooting outdoors or indoors without a flash? Good question. This is how I think of it: Incandescent (or Sunrise/Sunset) ~ <= 3000K; Sunny Day (Noon) ~ 5000K; Overcast Day (shade) ~ >= 7000K. So, the redder the color the lower the Kelvin temperature and the bluer the color the higher the Kelvin temperature. It is still confusing but the more you practice the more you will understand how to adjust White Balance.

I mention earlier in the post that I wanted to work on an exercise from the Strobist blog. The exercise I worked on was Lighting 102-1.2. I always wonder how a photographer could make the background darker. This was a great exercise in showing that I have control over the amount of light that falls on to the background. So, I took away the other two flashes and just had the flash shooting through the umbrella. The light was 5 feet from Co and 10 feet from the background. The flash was set at 1/13 power and the camera was set to ISO 400 f5.6 1/125 shutter. Now, I realize I did not follow the exercise precisely. The shutter should have been at 1/250. On this first shot, the background is a nice gray color. Remember the background is white.

Then I moved the light 1 foot from Co. My camera settings were f9 1/125 shutter using 1/30 power on the flash. Check out that background now. It is a much darker gray.

I realized that in order to make it darker, my subject will have to be further from the background. So, I moved Co twice finally he was 10 feet away from the background. The light would be 11 feet. I took the shot with the same camera settings. It did get darker but not black.

We ran out of room so, I couldn’t move Co. I realize that I could change my flash power. So, I changed it to 1/80 with the camera settings at f9 1/160 shutter. That did the trick. Thinking back on it, the power on my flash was too strong to begin with. In those first shots, his cheek and ear had the blinkies. The last image even though is dark, the right side is exposed close to the correct exposure.