Actually, I’m shooting for a couple of looks as the light changes.  For starters, I want to try some colorful, high-key portraits, which will be a combo of an umbrella key light and ambient sun backlight.  (For some great examples of this, check out MostlyLisa’s Flickr stream – her portraits rock!)

Later, as the light falls to twilight, I’m hoping to tryout McNally’s “How to Light an Elf” technique from The Hotshoe Diaries (checkout that chapter here on Google Books).  I won’t have a bridge in the background, but I am trying to workout a location that will show some city lights – or at the very least, some building lights showing through trees.

For this one, I figure on dropping the umbrella and trying a grid, which differs from how McNally shot it.  Dismissing the master’s technique in favor of my own sounds dumb, but who knows, maybe it will work.  And if not, then I’ll jump back to the umbrella and mutter my apologies to the photo gods!

So yeah, this is a short post with no photos (I did have some theory sketches, showcasing more of my mad drawing skills, but I lost them somewhere on my desk).  Sorry about that.  But with any luck, I’ll have satisfying results to share this weekend.

It’s taken years, but I think I’ve finally started to do it justice.

The trouble with the grove is that it’s a difficult scene to capture.  The composition is challenging due to all mix of vertical lines (tree trunks) and horizontal lines (which the trees are planted in).  The dynamic range of the light here is usually well beyond what the camera can handle, with bright sky showing between the trees, while their trunks are cast in shadow under the canopy.  It’s a tough capture, and I’ve got a number of failed attempts to prove it.

What made it different this time was the light; as the sun started to slide behind the hill, for just a few minutes it filled the grove with a warm, directional light that came in under the canopy and made the trunks glow.  I’m not the least bit ashamed to admit that this was one of those moments when I was literally running to capture the light, getting there just in time to make a dozen frames before the sun fell too low and the light was gone.

But in those few moments the understory was lit up, the textures in the bark came out, and I got my shots.  There’s a little credit due here to Moose Peterson, who posted a series of photos from a similar forest a while back – they served as inspiration when it came to composing mine.  I’m not sure I was consciously thinking about it when I was shooting, but reviewing the images now, I can see it.

We don’t call it “chasing the light” for nothing.  Sometimes it’s a short run across a field, while other times it’s a chase that lasts for years before we finally capture the image we want.

You know the one I mean.  The church hall, the school gym, the community center.  The name changes but the room is always the same, some variety of rent-a-space with a yellowed acoustic panel ceiling and flickering fluorescent tube lights (extra points if a third of the tubes are burnt out), where the decor consists of plastic tablecloths and battered folding chairs.  The place where, without fail, they turn the lights out at some point in the name of “atmosphere,” usually at the exact moment you’re trying to capture.

Birthday by candle light

In this case it was a fireman’s hall, and actually rather nice as such places go.  The walls were a bright off-white, the ceiling wasn’t 26′ above, and there were blinds on the windows.  Less than idea, but manageable, especially if you’re bringing in a couple of off-camera lights to beat the ambient into submission.  Get fancy with a gelled BG light and a regular key light, and it might even look pretty cool.

Suffice to say I wasn’t there to shoot the party officially.  This time I was just the guest-with-a-camera, figuring on shooting a few frames.  I had the 400D, the 50mm f/1.8 and the 70-210mm f/4, along with the 580EX.  The idea was to come prepared with low-light lenses, then use the Speedlite to kick a little extra punch into the scene.

The best laid plans…

As group shots go, this one isn’t portfolio material.  But it’s worlds better than what the birthday girl’s mom was going to get with her point & shoot.  The challenges here were twofold; getting everyone squeezed together so they’d fit in the 50mm, and getting enough light on them.

[As an aside, if you've ever tried to get a couple dozen teenagers into formation for a group shot, then you understand the urge to beat them over the heads with a folding chair, like you see on those wrestling commercials.  The little jerks are "too cool" to be shuffled into position by the directing mom, and respond only marginally better to the volunteering photographer.  This is why I hate group work...]

So short people sitting in the front, tall ones on chairs in the back, everyone packed tight, shoulder to shoulder.  Their attention span already expired, teenage rebellion about to flare, I climbed up on a chair as far from them as I could get, bounced the flash off the ceiling at full power, f/8 and be there.  Photo done, go back to being “cool,” kids.  (Wow, do I feel old now!)

Of the three frames there was one keeper.  The edges got real tight, at least one person blinked, but from an off-the-cuff photo that will end up posted on Facebook and maybe even printed as a 4×6, it’s more than enough.  Mom and the birthday girl think it looks great and love me for saving the day.  Everyone’s happy.  I can get some cake now.

Of course, being a photographer, I can’t just sit there and make small talk with the adults for the rest of the time.  I kept shooting as moments presented themselves, mostly frames of Mandy’s little sister trying to dance with the Big Kids.  This is the perfect time to play around and practice some different techniques.

Any of us can take this shot – dial the flash up to full, fast shutter speed to freeze the action, and POW:

The bounced Speedlite takes a folding chair of its own and beats the ambient senseless.  Full-motion stop, everyone is lit evenly, and the photo looks like a thousand other bounce-flash party shots.  Boring.  So let’s play…  What makes this dance floor scene interesting?  Well, the girls dancing, of course.  So let’s translate that.

Speedlite on second-curtain sync (where it lives anyway), drag the shutter speed down as slow as I can handhold the telephoto without camera shake, dial down the Flash Exposure Compensation (FEC) until it’s getting along with the ambient instead of killing it.  Now the photo depends entirely on the dancers, who’s moving and who stands still.  The ones in motion blur out, the ones standing out there stay sharp, and it’s that mix that gives us something interesting.

Same idea here, except we’re focusing on the contrast between the little sister and the Big Kids, so we only show the Big Kid’s legs, while little sister runs off to find a new dancing partner.  Still dragging the shutter, still flicking light instead of blasting it.

Are these phenomenal party photos?  Eh, not so much.  They’re fun, the birthday girl will enjoy them, but there’s nothing amazing happening here.  This is guest-turned-photog, advanced Uncle Bob stuff.  But it’s good practice and makes you stop and think about what you could have done if you had come to really shoot.

If I were going to come in to actually shoot this party, this is how I think I’d have done it.  For starters, I’d kick the ambient down about 2-stops, then add in two (maybe even three) Speedlites with bold, warm colored gels and grids.  The gels will give a colorful club-like look to the scene and the grids will keep the flash beams tight, like spotlights, as they come down from a high angle and cut through the crowd of dancers, who will be standing in a circle in the middle of the floor.  (Why teen girls always dance like this is beyond my understanding – but they always do, bunched up in a circle, barely room to move, like a group of penguins on an ice floe.)

Set aside another Speedlite, this time gelled dark blue and bounced off the ceiling over the dancing crowd.  This will add another layer of overall color and contrast for the gridded lights to cut through, enhancing the club-atmosphere.  Between the two layers of colored light, there should be enough photons bouncing around to provide the basic exposure.  Some on-camera fill will help highlight the subjects as you shoot them (with a 1/4 to 1/2 CTO gel preventing the fill light from looking washed out and dull).

The white balance will need to be set manually; daylight might work well.  (If you leave it on auto, it will try to compensate for the gels.)

Planning this one out, it sounds like a lot of fun – hopefully I’ll get the chance to try it soon!

The 7D was the first Canon DLSR to include a Speedlite commander mode in its built-in flash, a feature that captured my attention very quickly.  For years now, Nikon users have has commander capabilities built into their DSLRs, SB-800 Speedlights, and dedicated commander units.  Canon shooters, on the other hand, have had…well, very little.

Very little, that is, if you’re looking for TTL control.  If you’re shooting Strobist-style, with manual flash settings, then any “dumb” radio triggers will work (although all units except the Canon 580EX lack PC ports, so you’re left at the mercy of hotshoe adapters).  So long as you don’t mind running from flash to flash to change the output, this works okay.

But for TTL flash, there were exactly two options: the antiquated ST-E2 Speedlite Transmitter, or a 550EX/580EX flash hotshoe-mounted in master mode.  The ST-E2 only shoots forward along the lens axis and only triggers groups A & B; if you want to use group C, you’re out of luck.  That leaves a 550/580EX, and personally I’ve always found the idea of using a $500+ 580EX on-camera as a master unit incredibly annoying; it’s large and somewhat unwieldy, and it seems like a very poor utilization of an expensive flash.

Canon ST-E2 Speedlite Transmitter

The 7D stood to correct this with a built-in master capability; suddenly your Canon Speedlites can be controlled from the camera’s menu system.  Set your groups, ratios, manual output – no more running between flashes, it’s a whole new level of control in the camera, where it should be.

Problem is, it doesn’t work very well.  Consider the physics: the 7D’s flash measures 1″x.25″ in size.  That’s a hugely unimpressive .25 square inches total.  And because of the pop-up mechanism, the flash head will only face forward; there’s no bounce or swivel.  It’s underpowered, tiny, and restricted – puny is the word that comes to mind.

After having used it in a range of situations, I’ve become disenchanted – while it was a good idea, and a noble try at matching the Nikon system, I have to say that it is ultimately of little use.  If your Speedlites are in front of the camera, with no obstruction between them and the built-in flash, then it’ll work pretty darn well.  But start adding in any variables – the sort of variables and setups that you’ll actually find in the real world – and the whole thing falls apart.

Half way through my last studio shoot, with half the Speedlites failing to fire simply because of their physical placement, I broke down and threw the 580EX on the hotshoe and flipped it to master mode.

Whoa.

Instant change.  Immediate improvement.  Suddenly I’m blasting commands out of a flash with a 2.75″x1.5″ emitter (that’s 4.125 square inches).  An emitter that can be tilted and swiveled around a complete hemisphere, with enough power to bounce it off a ceiling.  Where before I was working in a corner with only partial success, I was able to blanket an entire room with command signals.

Overlay of Canon 7D built-in flash vs. 580EX Speedlite flash.

Sadly, there’s just no way around it.  For dependable communication coverage and command capabilities, you need a master-capable Speedlight on-camera.  The built-in mode is more gimmick than useful tool, and frankly I believe that it should be relegated to the Rebel series, as it’s more likely to fit the needs of a hobbyist/advanced amateur with a single off-camera Speedlite than it is a professional with a full setup.

What Canon needs is a whole new unit.  There are faint rumors of a new Canon Speedlite coming soon.  My guess is that it will be a unit designed to challenge Nikon’s SB-900 (which is a very impressive Speedlight).  It will certainly retain a master mode, and will likely interface its menus with the newest EOS cameras.  But in my opinion, this is still a stopgap measure.

I return to what I said before – using a $500 Speedlite solely as a commander, adding little or no actual light to a scene, is like buying a BMW and using it only to run for groceries.  A flash with the power of a 580EX is meant to be used to light a scene!

Canon needs to go back to the drawing board and design a brand new commander unit, one that will bury the pathetic ST-E2 and give professional photographers a real option when it comes to commanding their Speedlites, which they’d then be free to use off-camera as lights.  This new unit would need tilt/swivel capability, and whether it uses visible or IR light pulses would depend on the engineers, but it should be designed to throw an aimable, powerful command pulse, with no option whatsoever for actually adding light to the exposure.

Let us use our commanders to command and our Speedlites to light!

Far more often than not, shooting in natural (ambient) light seems to be synonymous with shooting in low light – at least in my own experience.  I end up at parties, birthdays, family gatherings, nights out, whatever the occasion, and the result seems to be the same; some room with more shadow than light.  The trick, then, is to make the most out of whatever natural light you can get.

This is our typical “natural light” scene – late evening birthday party, overhead room lights off, some others still on in the background.  At this point, the only thing we’ve got going for us is candle light, and unless your subject is celebrating becoming an octogenarian, candle light is worth about squat.

Unless you have a fast prime.  In which case a modest dozen-or-so candles, mixed with f/2.2 & ISO 800 at 1/40th net a photo that’s not only usable, but actually quite nice.  There’s enough ambient in the background to provide separation, there’s plenty of light on his face, and although the cake has washed out quite a bit, it’s still recognizable, as are individual candles.

The exposure settings are fairly modest and non-too hard to handle, but the trick that really makes the image work came in post (although it could have been done in-camera, if my brain had been thinking about something other than cake).  Even with the Tungstun white-balance setting, candle light is very warm.  But import the image into Adobe Camera Raw, click the WB adjustment dropper, and click that nice white frosting on the side of the cake, and viola – perfect white balance.

Yes, it does remove that warm, cheery glow of the candlelight, but in this instance I think it gives the photo a unique quality, making it more about the subject than about the occasion.

So the next time you’re stuck in some dark cave trying to get a few good shots, try leaving the zoom lens and Speedlite at home, and go wide & prime.  Work the ambient, instead of beating it over the head with a strobe.

It started small, just a couple of us out there with a single monoblock strobe & softbox, swapping the PocketWizard between cameras and sharing exposure settings.  While one of us was shooting, another played the role of Voice-Activated Lightstand and held the strobe aloft.  We got our model up on the lid of a rusty old dumpster and shot him against the brick wall, and then really lit a fire and shot him against the sky.

This is the sort of thing that we’ve all read about on the Strobist site, but I think all too many of us have never actually done.  Well, we did it.  The whole thing was trial & error; plug in the settings, blast off a shot, and chimp to see how it worked.  We just figured it out as we went, although in retrospect, the setting was practically custom-made to our needs.

Being behind the building, the loading dock was in mid-afternoon shadow, which made it much easier to overpower the ambient light with a strobe.  We put the models against the blue sky and shot at or near the max sync speed, f/11-f/16, ISO 100.  (The range in f-stops helps determine the lighting ratio between the model and the sky.)

The trick to this kind of work is, keep the light close to the model.  I mean CLOSE - as in, just barely out of the camera frame (this is where a VAL comes in real handy).  The closer it is, the more light is reaching the model without dissipating out into space.  With the monoblocks we were using, the power was at about half the entire time; with Speedlights, a full-power punch was needed.

And as you might expect, a single model evolved into all three of them out there, in the cold, poor Joe with his shirt off, looking incredibly badass.  They didn’t take a lot of prompting, changing poses every few shots, usually to something even better than the one before.  This is the part that I find the most amazing – take a look at these shots:

One was taken with an AB + softbox on a stand.  The other was taken with my Speedlight ProKit 6 reflector on a hotshoe-mounted 430EX Speedlite, shooting at full power.  I don’t know about you, but I don’t see a whole lot of difference between the two.  At the time I was being impatient waiting my turn in line, so I threw the ProKit & flash on just to see if it would work.  I’m blown away at how well it worked!  I think that if I had stuck it on a lightstand and fired it off-camera, the difference between the two would have been almost impossible to see.

And frankly, if you can’t guess which photo used which lighting setup, I’m not telling!

This is the kind of shooting that lies at the heart of the Strobist concept, and it was an incredible thing to see a whole group of photogs squeezed onto that tiny loading dock, models balanced on a dumpster, and everyone taking turns and rocking the light.  It goes to show what a single strobe can do; it goes to show what a simple, even ugly, location can be made into.

It also shows what you can do with a group of great models.  These are three really fine folks who aren’t a fraction as mean as they look in the photos.  In fact, it became hard for them to keep a straight face with some of the poses, and there was a lot of laughing.

And the stinkin’ dumpster has probably never seen that much love!

We began the morning with models in the studio; I had my full Speedlite rig setup and we worked through several lighting variations, ending with a clamshell lighting setup that worked great with our beautiful model:

I got wrapped up in shooting and didn’t get setup shots like I should have, and I couldn’t even begin to tell you what the lighting ratios were – we simply changed camera settings and moved the lights until they worked.  And they did work.

What I can tell you is a couple of points that quickly became clear, through working with the models and through the insight of some of the more experienced photogs present.  First off, when it comes to working with models, you’ve got to keep them in motion – just get them to move in different ways, and have the camera to your eye to capture the perfect moments when they come.   Give them direction, encourage them, get them to repeat poses and movements that worked.  Models – especially inexperienced ones – are usually looking for some form of guidance; you’ve got to let them know what you want them to do, know that you’re engaging with them, otherwise they freeze up and get nervous.

Second, I’ve come to the conclusion that the pop-up flash on the Canon 7D is just too weak; the built-in commander mode is wonderful, but even working in my corner of the conference room, it didn’t gave the power to trigger the slaves consistently.  Suck it up and buy an extra 580EX(II) and slap in on the hotshoe in Master mode and then go to town.  The 580EX throws a ton of light and triggers the slaves every time.  And from my understanding, the new 580EX II will talk to the 7D, giving you control over features directly from the camera.

(And there’s a rumor going ’round that Canon is about to release a new Speedlite…  Something even better than the 580EX II, to counter the Nikon SB-900?)

Finally, if you really want to kick your model shots up a notch, get some motion in them.  A $40 pedestal fan from Lowes got Alli’s hair blowing around and gave a whole other dimension to the photos.  I scrapped the stand that came with the fan and slid part of it’s post over the top of a lightstand – fit perfectly, and gave me an adjustable height range.   The two shots posted above wouldn’t be half as good if her hair was just lying there motionless.

While I was playing with Speedlites, Tony in the next room had his entire studio setup going; we’re talking a massive muslin background, several Alien Bees lights with modifiers, an iMac, everything but the kitchen sink.  I didn’t tap into that setup – big strobe setups aren’t really my thing – but I did step in and shoot a few frames with one of the afternoon models, sort of over Tony’s shoulder.  While he blasted away with the big guns, this is just a 580EX on-camera, bounced off the ceiling, with the 70-210mm f/4 wide open:

It’s warm from the bounce off the tan ceiling tiles, and there’s just a bit of softness that comes from using that particular lens fully zoomed, combined with the f/4 aperture.  Simple, but elegant, and not at all bad for bounce light.  This is the Strobist concept: you can hit a model from all angles, with multiple monoblocs, and get one look; or you can hit them with a single, bounced Speedlite and get a completely different look.  One is no more valid than the other, they’re just different ways of doing the same job, and having both setups on site that day made it really easy to see the ways they differed.

We closed out the workshop shooting outside, which is a story I’ll continue in the next post.

In the meantime, I want to wrap this one up with a final impression – this Strobist workshop was the most fun I’ve had with a camera in ages.  I cannot over-estimate how helpful it was to be there participating, or how fulfilling it was to coordinate the event and see it through to the end.  I can say without any doubt that every single person who attended walked away with killer images, having learned something new, and having met and networked with an amazing crew of photographers & models.  Everyone there interacted and helped each other – we stepped into each other’s setups and traded transmitters, we shared exposure settings & held gear, and the folks not shooting offered suggestions from the sidelines.  You couldn’t have asked for a better crowd!

It’s not a question of if we’ll do this again, it’s a question of when, and we’re already starting to form some ideas there.  For anyone out there who has never attended a photo get-together/workshop, I strongly suggest that you do so.  Both Strobist and DPChallenge.com groups meet up all the time, all across the USA – and even internationally.  If you’re serious about photography, if you’re serious about wanting to expand your skill set and get better, then it’s worth the investment to be at one of these events.  And if you find that there aren’t any near you, then do what I did, and make one happen.

It is completely, without a doubt, worth it.

Partway through the thread, some genius pointed out that if you placed your setup in a corner and shot diagonally across the room, you gained several feet in terms of useful space between yourself and the backdrop.

**d’oh**

Here I am for the last several months, lamenting the loss of my living room studio due to the addition of a futon sofa, which made it impossible to clear out enough space to work in without moving furniture to another room – something that wouldn’t fly with my housemate for any period of time.

But if I set up diagonally, then I have two big corners to stack furniture in, still with room for lightstands, the model, myself, and decent separation between the BG and other elements.  Holy cow, this could not only work, it could work better than any of my previous attempts!

You see, the problem with small studio spaces almost always ends up being a problem with light.  In a large, proper studio, you can put a good distance between your model and the BG, far enough that each can be lit independently, without cross-contamination.  In a small studio, that becomes problematic at best – you fire off an umbrella + strobe combo on a model standing 3′ from the BG, and some of that light will spill onto the BG, contaminating its exposure.

Same thing if you’re trying to blast a BG to pure white, and the model is too close – reflected light off the BG will bounce all over that little studio, and cause halos and wash-back effects on the model.  Simply put, you need distance between elements to keep their exposures independent.

Fortunately, there’s another simple fix that will, if not solve the contamination problem, then at least help with it.  Enter 4×8′ sections of black/white foamcore.  As the name suggests, it’s foamcore, black on one side & white on the other, and it comes in big sections.  (Because of the size it’s not cheap and it can be difficult to find.)

Hook two sheets together with a heavy-duty taped “hinge” and you’ve got a self-standing gobo, large enough to place between your model and the BG (which way the black faces depends on the setup).  Place it so that it’s just out of your shots, and it will help keep the two zones separate.  If you’re feeling really fancy, stick a sheet on the ceiling, black side facing down, to soak up any stray bounce from up there as well.

And viola, your spare-bedroom studio goes from DIY to pretty cool.

(Now I just have to find some stinkin’ B/W foamcore that I can actually afford…)

The goal is to get in, setup, and be ready and waiting by the time they’re all there so we can get them into position, arranged by families within the group, and shoot the thing before anyone starts to burn out.  Then we can disperse them to relax and do smaller family shots, without the tension of keeping everybody “on deck.”

The last time they had a group shot done, they all wore black and white, shot against a white wall, and processed the prints as B&W.  It’s a look that they like, so we’re recreating it this time.  The background will be a large off-white wall in the house, which I’ll blast to white and adjust in post.

Lighting will be in the form of a pair of Speedlites with shoot-through umbrellas, high up on the stands and shooting across the group, one from each side, with some feathering.  To keep everyone sharp, I’m going to need a small f-stop, f/8 or f/11, although the properties of a wide-angle lens will help maintain DOF.  The trick is to light everyone nicely, without head shadows, so between the umbrellas and the aperture, I’ll need to push out a lot of light – I wouldn’t be surprised if the Speedlites fire at half or even full power.

I’ll be using the 7D and shooting RAW, but I’ll have the Picture Style set to monochrome; it won’t affect the RAW file at all, but the preview image is always a JPEG, and will display in B&W with that setting, which will let me get an idea how the final photo will look after conversion.  Since we’re working in a confined space I’ll be using the 17-40mm L.

In a perfect world I’d be able to get a third Speedlite in behind the group, to both kick up the white wall and add some separation between it and the group.  I doubt I’ll have enough room for that here, so what I may do instead is put it camera-center on the boom stand and crank it down from overhead as a fill/booster.

Anytime that you’re working in a fixed space with a large group, you end up with two primary variables.  The first is, of course, the people – if you’ve got a good crowd that’s having fun with the process, your life is easy.  Happy people make good photos, whereas a group of people who’d rather not be there will look that way.  The second variable is the room; even when they tell you it will be a fairly open space, you can count on having to move photos off the walls, furniture out of the way, and distracting knick-knacks from the mantle.  It’s Murphy’s Law that there will always be a sofa in the exact spot you need to place a lightstand, so the trick is to come prepared – Justin Clamps, booms, and when all else fails, Voice-Activated Lightstands (also known as assistants).

In theory, this should be a straight-forward gig.  Hopefully reality plays out that way!

If we had a house with a big, proper kitchen, I’d be careful to setup a very precise studio rig.  Aimed & balanced strobes, diffuser panels, maybe even a light tent for some macro shots.  Since our current kitchen is about the size of a medium bathroom and every available surface was covered with baking supplies (not to mention move-about room at a minimum), I had to make do.

These were shot with a variety of lenses, all lit by two Speedlights; one bounced off the ceiling, and one bounced off the wall behind the table.  At first I used E-TTL II with a +1 2/3 exposure compensation, but then switched to a 1/4 manual flash exposure.

So these may not be the most technically perfect shots ever, but I believe they are solid.  And more importantly, I think they capture some of the process that goes into making them.  At any rate, they smelled great while baking and tasted even better when they were done!