DINFOS: Pt. 1

Last week I was helping out at DINFOS, (Defense Information School) where they were holding the Worldwide Military Photography Workshop. Joe McNally has been involved in it for quite a while. (I am a fnugy, with this being only my second year.)

I'll defer to his description of the event and it various characters. He also posted several shots from the week and a rogues' gallery of many of the teachers, so I won't dupe that.

What I'll be doing over the next coupla weeks is to throw up a few photos, with OA-style walk-throughs, lighting diagrams and/or setup shots. Mine are all pretty simple setups, using just one or two speedlights.

Joe, of course, did most of his with 472 Nikon SB-800s, running his SU-800 CLS controller through one of the signal amplifiers at the nearby NSA (also known as "No Such Agency") for a little boost. That guy has some serious contacts.

This week's picture and walk-through, after the jump.
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The first photo is from a day in which we went out into the woods with some of the folks from Combat Camera , who graciously agreed were ordered to show up in full gear.

Hanging out in the woods near the firing range and obstacle course were the members of this year's Advanced Lighting Team. Being on the ALT means you spend a week learning about small-flash, location lighting from industry leaders like Joe McNally, and posers like me. Week-long class size: Six people.

It's really a fantastic deal, all the more so when you realize there is no tuition involved. On behalf of Ray, Bobby, Matt, Larry, Trav and Luke, I would like to offer a hearty "thank you" to those readers who are also US taxpayers from the 2008 ALT. (That's them lighting themselves at the top of the post, in a hastily produced group shot in the hallway outside of our classroom.)

As everybody was unpacking gear and talking about how to best handle the ugly, splotchy, midday sun-through-woods light we had, I threw a couple of SB-800s onto stands. I set them on 1/4 power and turned on their built-in slaves, which is a pretty standard preset for me when working against bright sunlight.

Within a few minutes, the Combat Camera folks were getting their camo paint applied, and most of us were making photos of that. Basically, think Strobist meetup, with Joe and I joining in, and a bunch of cool subjects in the woods.

Most of the ALT members worked mobile, using a single, hand-held SB-800 in CLS wireless TTL mode. So I just stuck my stands behind them, and eyeballed the subjects from the flash positions. That shows me what the flashes will see -- and light. I wanted profile lighting from front and back, but a little behind the subjects to make interesting shadows. in the foreground.


So, here's a diagram of the setup. In direct mode at ASA 200, my SB's are gonna give me plenty of aperture to work with at a ~6-foot light-to-subject range. You can expect about f/16, depending on the zoom setting of the flash. If you are not familiar with what your flashes will do in a situation like this, you may want to look at the posts on guide number and/or making a cheat sheet.

So, the light coming through the trees is of the ugly, early afternoon variety. But that's good, as it will be at a high enough angle to not screw me up when I am lighting their faces. To help matters more, I shoot from the direction that will keep the sunlight in a high-backlight mode. If it pops out, it's just another rim light to me. If not, that's fine, too.

For sync, I am going straight optical and manual -- using the SB's built-in slaves. I point the receiver windows of the flashes toward each other, and point a show-mount flash (low, manual power) towards whichever flash is closest. The other flash will see it and fire every time, easy.

As far as camera settings, the actual aperture and shutter settings are variable in a situation like this, depending on the ambient and the flash distance. And to be honest, I neither remember them now, nor considered them very important then. More important is the thought process -- it is more repeatable for a wider variety of situations.

Let's say for the sake of argument that the flash is giving me f/16 at that distance. That's a constant at ISO 200. If I need more, I will need to power up the flash, or move it forward towards the subject. And vice versa if I need less. I like being at 1/4 power, as it give me nice, fast recycles and the ability to double-tap. (See? That military stuff is wearing off on me already.)

So, at f/16, I am going to have an easy time with my shutter in open shade. Good thing, because that is the next step. I plug f/16 into my camera and chimp a couple frames until I find a nice, slightly underexposed ambient level. Maybe a stop down, maybe a little more. The shadows are way below that, which gives me good dark areas to light against. For the sake of argument that we are now at 1/160th of a sec.

The shutter speed and aperture are not what is important. The amount that we are underexposing the ambient is what is important, as that is what will determine the depth of the shadows. I used the back, camera right strobe (not visible on my foreground subject) to make sure I could separate any subject from my ambient background on both sides. This allows me to drop those shadows further if I want.


In-Camera Tweaking

Now that we have the settings in the ballpark, start shooting. Take a frame or two and quickly chimp for any final adjustments.

• Flash too bright or dark? Vary the aperture to fix it. Then adjust the shutter in the opposite direction to bring the background back to where you were.

• Background too bright or dark? Adjust that with the shutter speed.

• Entire photo too bright or dark? Adjust it all at once with the aperture.

This might sound a little daunting if you have not tried it. But trust me, it is quick and easy once you have a little experience. And most of you can probably run through you aperture and shutter settings without taking your eye off the viewfinder. Not so, those CLS buttons. For me, at least.

BTW, for those of you who are into TTL/CLS, Joe just posted a new training video at Kelby Training. It is quite good (I actually watched it twice) and more on the advanced side than the first two classes he put up. And make sure you catch his post on the DINFOS stuff, to see what was done in the woods with five Combat Camera subjects, a mess of SB's and only ten minutes to do the photo.

Next up from DINFOS will l be going mobile -- shooting flash blur on the run (okay, fast walk) using a moving VAL.
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Related Reading:

:: McNally's Post ::
:: SB-800 - Built-In Slave mode ::
:: 55th Combat Camera Company ::
:: Guide Number, Your Free Flashmeter ::
:: Make a Cheat Sheet for your Flash ::
:: Kelby Training: Joe McNally ::

Podcasting on Benadryl

Bill and Ed have just posted an interview we did last week for LightSource.

Bear in mind that this is allergy season for me. So no, that is not what I normally sound like. Also bear in mind that I had a pretty good shot of Benadryl in my system. So I'll be surprised if any of it is coherent. Props to both of them for putting up with me.

If you can get through that, you can listen to the interview here. And don't stop there -- they have a whole mess of lighting talk to fill up your iPod with over at LightSource.

I am listening to episode 64, with Tim Tadder, right now. Good stuff.

(NOTE TO SELF: Next time you do a podcast in May, just put a clothespin on your nose and be done with it.)

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Bert Stephani - Confessions #7

Grab your binky and a bottle of water. Bert's back with another "Confessions" video. There's all-new techno-trancy-housey music. And black undies, too...

(See better res still photos on Bert's blog.)

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Help Rid the World of Direct Flash

Did you know that any time a new reader is introduced to Strobist, an angel gets its wings? If you are on Facebook, now you can tell other people about Strobist here.

Thanks!

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Lighting 102: Assignment | Work That CTO

We've talked about the primary use for the CTO warming gel -- balancing strobe, which is (close to) daylight balanced to the color of incandescent light. In a tungsten room you CTO your flash, set your WB to incandescent, and Bob's your uncle.

But the CTO is such a useful, sweet little gel to have around, we can't stop there...


CTO Overdrive

Pictured above is Shadi, whose stunning good looks proved to be such a distraction to the ladies in the Dubai intermediate class that we had to move outside to disguise the fact that he was clearly making them all hot under the collar.

And hot it was. Dubai is about 172 degrees in the shade in the afternoon. But they make up for it by sucking all of the color out of the sky for your photographing pleasure. To call this sky a hazy grey is to do grey a disservice.

But that didn't stop us from getting a rich-blue, ad-hoc portrait of Shadi in the courtyard. We had to be quick -- people typically start to burst into flames after about five minutes outdoors in the afternoon there. So to get this shot of Shadi, we walked three SB-800s out, already on stands, and set him up in a triangle configuration.

We essentially dialed in the blue background by shifting the camera's white balance to incandescent, even though we were shooting in a daylight environment. The white balance "fixes" tungsten light by throwing a lot of blue in there. Hence our newfound color.

The back flashes were with no gel. We let them push a little bluish rim light to accentuate the sinewy muscles that define Shadi's neck. Ladies, you may wish to sit down and/or grab a glass of water at this point.

But take a look at that area, because that's what an ungelled flash gives you on a tungsten/incandescent WB setting. You can see the photo bigger in a new window here.

To light Shadi's face, we had to get the light from that flash to be appropriate in our new, tungsten WB setting. So we warmed it up with our CTO, turning it into the "correct" light for this setting. In effect, one little orange piece of acetate turned this whole environment blue.

Well, two pieces, actually, as I added another 1/2 CTO to bring the flash beyond "correct" and have it warm-light Shadi's face against the blue. This is a neat trick to whip out on a crappy day (or at twilight on a no-show sunset) when you need some atmosphere. I have used it for food shots and moody portraits alike.

You may also notice that we are underexposing the ambient by a couple of stops to get a good, rich color. It is not enough just to shift it -- you have to knock it down, too. We could have easily warmed up the rim lights, but I like the steely effect of that blue rim. Especially for a man who just oozes confidence as does Shadi.


You can do it indoors, too, with the daylight streaming through a window.

I faved this photo a ways back, 'cause I just loved it. Turned out it was shot in Dubai by none other than Sid Siva, (AKA Sid the WonderVAL) who I would be shooting with out in the UAE desert only weeks later. Small world, huh?

Sid used the exact same color shift technique on this biz portrait in Dubai. Set the camera to incandescent. Crank the exposure until it looks rich, and throw some CTO-gelled flash in where it counts.

Sid for the win.


You're Getting Warmer... Warmer...

So the CTO (plus another 1/2 CTO) thing is a staple for me when I need to drop back and punt on a colorless day. But I have been seeing some stuff come upstream from you guys which is making me wanna use my CTOs even more.


Check out this climbing photo, by Dr. Benny. This photo rocks. Just pushed a little CTO up in to there with the camera set on daylight. The CTO gives you the familiar warm of a tungsten bulb -- or that last hint of golden light at the end of the day when it gets really red.

That splash of light just totally makes the photo. Just a little beam of last-minute sun coming through a hole in the unseen rocks. Only not quite, you see as you take a second look. Because the daylight is coming from up top. The crosslight thing he has going on is totally sweet.

Think light balancing for a second while looking at this photo. What makes it sing is where The Doctor chose to expose the ambient light before adding in the CTO splash. He could expose for the highlights, let the rocks go darkish, and build that CTO right up in there.

Perfect.


And this photo, voted by me as the "Photo I am Most Likely to Rip Off" of the month. Mazzapix mixed some CTO light (through a straw grid) with some straight light from another flash in a daylight WB shot, and made a quick test for a headshot look like a movie poster.

That is what I am talking about.

You may sense that I get just a wee bit excited when I start talking about gels. And why shouldn't I? All of these photos were made with the help of a tiny little piece of orange acetate. And the samples are free. How can you not like that?


Your Turn

We have not done an assignment on L102 in a while, so it is time to break out the cameras.

This time, you'll be using a CTO gel in one of the two ways described above -- both technically "rule breakers," if you will. You'll either be doing the tungsten WB shift thing in a daylight environment, or throwing some CTO into a daylight WB setting in a daylight environment.

The subject matter is open, meaning that some of you will namby-pamby your way through it with a teddy bear, or a mannequin or an egg (please, oh please, not an egg.) But others will use this as an excuse to stretch. And you know I live for stretches.


Here's the Deal

For this assignment, your tags will be:

Strobist
Lighting102 (note, no spaces)
WorkThatCTO (no spaces)


You can see all of the photos from this assignment here. Discussion for the assignment is here.

The assignment is due at the end of the day on June 24th.

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Related Posts:

:: On Assignment: Spring Desserts ::
:: On Assignment: Man in a Boat ::


NEXT: Discussion - CTO Assignment

F Stop: Navy SEALs

Working on tomorrow's L102 post (time for another assignment) but noticed Zack just dropped a new F Stop issue in. This time it is Morgan Silk, shooting SEALs and talking about lighting / post production.

Little hint to Morgan: When you shoot them, don't tell them your main light is called a "Beauty Dish."


(More at The F Stop Magazine.)

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DVD Update

The Lighting Seminar DVDs are sold out. A second printing is underway, with an estimated arrival of the end of June. MPEX is taking orders in the interim, but will not charge until the DVDs ship.

Backorders will have priority, once the new run comes in.

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