Three Photos, Three Different Approaches

Here's three recent shots of mine that I realised use very specific alternative lighting approaches, the sort of things we often discuss on here, so I wanted to show these alongside each other with an description of the flash use .... I hope the images are interesting and good for some flashy talk

First is a quite standard sort of indoor portrait, with a two-light set-up; one Main Light with a 60x60cm softbox placed to the subject's left (camera right) and a little high ..... and a 'Fill' light with Umbrella, fairly straight on to the subject. Here's an image of the set-up ....




The flashes used are the Pentax AF-540FGZ and Cactus RF60. The Cactus was triggered by the V6 Trigger on the camera, and the Pentax flash was triggered optically in SL2 mode by the Cactus output .... so Manual Mode, a mix of radio and optical triggering. The portrait is from the same session as one I showed a while back, but this one has less skin softening.


1) Pentax K7, D FA28-105mm, ISO200, F11, 1/180th






Next the baby went outside and I managed to get her propped up in her high chair This was a bright sunny day, with strong back/side sunlight, which I ended up using as a bit of rim light. I knocked out most of the ambient light, and the extremely distracting speckled highlights in behind, by moving into HSS mode, and a shutter speed of 1/500th. The same AF-540FGZ in the softbox was used as a Main Light, again off to the subjects left and facing downwards. The fill light this time was the AF-540FGZII on the camera, directly facing the subject. This was the triggering flash also, set to 'Wireless Master HS' mode. I had a P-TTL ratio split between the two flashes, 2/3 - 1/3, and a +1 compensation on the Main flash, 0 compensation on the fill one.


2) Pentax K7, D FA28-105mm, ISO100, F6.7, 1/500th






Finally the last shot is something completely different, a dynamic situation out with the family, no time to set up lighting gear, so just working with a single on-camera AF-540FGZII, with a 1/4 CTO gel on, and working to reduce the ambient a bit and bring out the subject with the flash. Here she was sitting in the shade with strong open sunshine behind, so the camera exposure settings and flash had to work together to create a photo with a decent contrast and lighting balance. I often tell people wanting to learn about flash that these sort of portraits simply don't exist without flash ...


3) Pentax K7, D FA28-105mm, ISO100, F6.7, 1/90th





Thanks for your views, I hope the shots and explanations are interesting .... Nigel

Those first two are lovely , the only spoiler to me is the amount of catch light in the eyes(the large shell shaped ones)
The 3rd shot is a nice natural outdoorsy shot.Good stuff though.

I replied already on "the other place".

Appreciated as always Nigel

To me the big danger of fill in flash is making the subjects look like cardboard cut-outs. Some of the examples presented 'at the other place' are seriously affected by this appearance. This is because the shadows indicate the light is coming from a certain direction but the visual appearance of the subject contradicts that.

Thanks Don, Peter and John . You're right Don, those sure are big catchlights! I could certainly look at reducing their brightness, although I find that Photoshop eye surgery can be hazardous

John, I think I know what you mean, when the contrast between the flash-lit subject and behind is very stark. Modelling with 2 lights should hopefully reduce the 2 dimensional 'cut-out' look, at least I hope it has here. Frankly in my situations I'm glad to get any light onto my subjects at all, let alone worry about the directions too much! I posted the same shots on PentaxForums, so I'm assuming you're talking about some other images you've seen there?

Here's another one from the outdoor session .... this has more contrast created by the 'lighting ratios' . In my first one above I did actually dodge a bit on the 'fill' side of the face, as I liked a lighter look .... this one below is exactly as the flashes created with no adjustment.