HONL Speedlight Modifiers

If you've not seen these yet do check out the video just posted by Practical Photography magazine on their video tutorial website.

The great news is that in the UK, Flaghead are now officially distributing them on behalf of HONL, so those of us in the UK won't have to import them anymore and incur shipping fees (although the exchange rate with the dollar ain't so great right now).

Its not an advert for them, but was so inspiring that I'm going to try to pick up some online from Calumet later in the week.

Post Script - Calumet have run out of the speed straps today (1st December 2008) (they are the velcro things that go around your flash and attach the various modifiers to it). So I've ordered some from Robert White instead. Between them they are currently the only UK retail distributors of HONL products.

Hard Rim Light : Sin City

Film noir (literally 'black film') is interesting me a lot since I started thinking about the lighting102 assignments. Its difficult to define exactly what makes a film film noir, but people seem to agree that since the classic golden age in the 1930s and 1940s the tradition continues. In terms of cinematography some hallmark characteristics are strong back lighting, with hard shadows. I like this light. I dug out my DVD copy of Robert Rodriguez's Sin City the other night and watched it again with an eye to the lighting. Ignore the CGI post-prodcution backgrounds and additions but just look at the placement of the lights in this image sample. Lots of shadows on the front (from the camera's perspective) but light coming in hard from left and right or behind. I really like this light. We'll be seeing more of this in later assignments, and in my personal work too.

Summary: Lighting102 1.1 - Position | Angle

I'm told by various people involved in adult education (sorry, life long learning) that reflection is integral to the learning process. So I fully intend after each assignment to sit down and think about what I've learned. Whether or not that actually happens remains to be seen of course.

I have been taking my flash(es) off camera for some time but I remember that it was a revelation when I first did it and compared the results to the sort of images I was getting when that flash was stuck to the top of the camera.

This time around I've been struck more by the fact that you can totally ignore the ambient light; ISO 100, set the shutter speed to close to the camera's max sync speed (1/200 for my 20D when I'm using cactus v2 radio triggers - the theoretical 1/250 doesn't work well) and a medium aperture (f10-11). It kills both my domestic ambient tungsten lighting and gloomy winter daylight stone cold dead. At those settings my flashes were working comfortably at around 1/16 - 1/32 power when they were unmodified, ungelled, and about 1-1.5m away from the subject. A good headshot or still life set up. Obviously I'd have to allow wider apertures for full body shots or environmental portraits when the flashes have to be further away, else their battery life would diminish rapidly. But the point is I have control over how much ambient light to start with. I know I'll come back to that subject in later assignments.

On a related theme I tried setting the camera's white balance to flash - with the ambient light not a feature the WB was well balanced on that setting. Its only the ambient light/flash light mix that you start to worry about colour balancing and using gels. I turned all the images here to black and white in Aperture software to concentrate on the directional lighting but the original colour images were ok - a nice white light on that WB setting.

Lighting102 1.1 Position | Angle - Excerpt

An excerpt from my attempt at the Strobist lighting 102 assignment 1.1 - Position | Angle.

The rest of the set is here.

A whole load of images from this assignment plus background and set up information on my flickr photostream here

Lighting102: 1.1 - Position | Angle

I've started my journey through the lighting102 course, appropriately I thought, at assignment 1.1.

Meet Fred. Or Mr Polystyrene to you (for that is what the label said on the box when it arrived from the ebay seller to my front door). He's my new muse. Patient. Reliable. And no back chat.

This is the start of my Strobist Lighting102 journey and Fred will be traveling with me most of the way. Its much quicker working with him than doing self portraits and he has a pretty consistent reflective relationship with light which might help with comparisons later on. I've chosen for this assignment to keep things black and white at this stage because we aren't concerned with colour just the angle of the light. I like things simple me.

This image shows on camera flash of course.

Some information about the set up for this and the rest of the series on 1.1 Position - Angle:

- Canon 20D with 24-70mm f/2.8 lens set at 50mm focal length about 1m away from our subject. Hand held. Shutter speed of 1/200 to get close to max sync speed and an aperture of f11 to kill the ambient lighting. ISO 200
- Ambient lighting of single tungsten bulb. Correct exposure with no flash at ISO200 was 1/8 f/2.8
- Fred is about 0.7 metres in front of the wall behind
- Vivitar 285HV on Manfrotto Nano stand set at 1/16 power and consistently at 1m distance from our subject
- Cactus v2s trigger

Lighting 102 1.1 Assignment here: strobist.blogspot.com/2007/06/lighting-102-unit-11-positi...

Lighting102

A very early new year's resolution. Time to get back to basics and learn something for a change. So I'm going to work my way through the strobist lighting102 course to get this lighting trickery into my head once and for all.

Year Zero

no:more:saviours

Year Zero begins 01.01.2009

More information coming soon.

Same old propaganda at www.nomoresaviours.com

Johnny