A Filosophy of Flash

[snowbear]

Anybody else been able to get white down to black???

I've turned white snow grey by following the meter. Does that count?

 

[amolitor]

Anybody else been able to get white down to black???

dude, you are the guy who pointed me to Zack Arias' white seamless tutorial. See part three.

ETA now I'm not sure it was you, I thought it was, but maybe not. Anyways, it's in there. I definitely picked up the tip on TPF someplace, and google will find it for you in a moment.

 

[pgriz]

Here's the key thing about artificial light: It doesn't create lightness, it creates darkness.

To be sure, you can just use it to light stuff up so it's not dark any more, or to permit a usable shutter speed, and that's the original use. There's nothing wrong with that

The important uses are all putting light on one thing, pushing the exposure up, so that another thing appears dark. You're creating shadows. You're losing the background in darkness. By lighting the model up enough, and not lighting the white seamless background, the background goes black. Or grey, if you light it a little. By creating shadows on the model's face you make her look fat, or thin, or terrifying.

Go make some darkness!

I'd like to see some examples of white seamless paper rendered as black through the application of massive amounts of light on a human subject. I do not happen to have ANY such pictures and I do not think I can think of one that I have ever seen where that actually happened. And I only have 2 x2400 W-s, 1x1600 W-S, 1x800W-s,1x600 W-S, and 3 x 400w-s, and 500 W-S in ancillary small packs...and have occasionally used the two 2400's and the 1600 all at once...on the same set...and yet, I cannot recall EVER having been able to push white down to BLACK.

Anybody else been able to get white down to black???

Perhaps we have a failure to communicate? IF you illuminate the main subject, and keep any and all spill light from hitting the backdrop, then the backdrop has little or no light to reflect, and thereby will appear dark or black. No?

 

[Derrel]

Like snowbear stated, "I've turned white snow grey," and "does that count?" Turning white objects and materials into black objects in a photo makes for a nice mental image, but the idea that it's an easily-achieved or even infrequently achieved, normal occurrence weakens the argument and the example. As I stated, I have a lot of strobe power and have never, not once, lit something so,so over-the-top that white paper was rendered black. The Space Shuttle could go into space and return to Earth's atmosphere; just because an aircraft has wings does not mean it will go into space...see where I'm coming from?

I dunno, I do appreciate people who think about photography amolitor, I truly do. This thread has had a rough go of it. First, from the whole nonsensical derailment of your thread brought to us by the the artificial light is actually natural light brigade...and now through a couple of days' worth of time decay, this thread seems to be having a tough time generating any traction or promoting any understanding or discussion. Yes....adding light can create shadows, and shadows are important. But just as often, the introduction of artificial light into scenes lighted naturally, is designed to eliminate shadows that we find unpleasant, and to eliminate the shadows that obscure.

The terms "raccoon eyes" and "needs fill light" have probably been paired more times since the internet was invented than in the prior 150 years of photo history.

And once again...I'd love to see some pictures of white background paper that's been rendered black; such photos are not very commonly encountered...they are in fact so uncommon that the idea specifically being listed as a key example of a 'theory' or 'concept' seems of dubious merit to me. I'm not saying it's "impossible". I mean hey....we can now split atoms.

The Space Shuttle can leave Earth's atmosphere...but you do not hear me saying that the goal of flight is to "leave Earth's atmosphere and orbit the planet for days on end..." I'm done with this thread. It's just not worth any more effort.

 

[amolitor]

I think I'm gonna wrap up my contributions here too. I'm going to close with a restatement of the idea, though, so we don't end on a note of 'wait, what IS artificial light?' and 'can white seamless truly be rendered black, or merely dark grey?'

The idea I want to express is simple and non-controversial. Without hyperbole, it is this:

When you add light to a scene you are photographing, in the final image some parts will become lighter, and other parts will become darker. You may find it useful to consider thoughtfully what parts are getting darker as much or more than what parts are getting lighter.

 

[HughGuessWho]

I think I'm gonna wrap up my contributions here too. I'm going to close with a restatement of the idea, though, so we don't end on a note of 'wait, what IS artificial light?' and 'can white seamless truly be rendered black, or merely dark grey?'

The idea I want to express is simple and non-controversial. Without hyperbole, it is this:

When you add light to a scene you are photographing, in the final image some parts will become lighter, and other parts will become darker. You may find it useful to consider thoughtfully what parts are getting darker as much or more than what parts are getting lighter.

And that is the hardest thing to accept and learn when first starting out using flash.

 

[o hey tyler]

When you add light to a scene you are photographing, in the final image some parts will become lighter, and other parts will become darker. You may find it useful to consider thoughtfully what parts are getting darker as much or more than what parts are getting lighter.

This isn't even necessarily true. You realize that right? Just because you add light doesn't mean that any part gets darker. That has to do with how your camera is set up and if you know how to expose for ambient or have a desire to.

 

[runnah]

Adding light makes things darker?

mind = blown

 

[HughGuessWho]

Adding light makes things darker?

mind = blown

Adding light to some parts of a composition CAN make other parts (non-lit) darker. Have you never used flash?

 

[runnah]

Adding light makes things darker?

mind = blown

Adding light to some parts of a composition CAN make other parts (non-lit) darker. Have you never used flash?

I've used the little one that pops up on my camera when taking photos of myself in the mirror.*



*sarcasm

 

[HughGuessWho]

Adding light makes things darker?

mind = blown

Adding light to some parts of a composition CAN make other parts (non-lit) darker. Have you never used flash?

I've used the little one that pops up on my camera when taking photos of myself in the mirror.*



*sarcasm

You...You Silly Guy :er:

 

[jake337]

There's actually two ways darkness gets made:

The light we apply casts shadows, and those matter. In many cases more than the light itself, in that what we care about is the shadow more than the highlight.

The light we apply also lifts the brightness of the objects we apply it to, making everything else relatively darker, which can be used (or which can bite you) in a variety of ways.

You can also cast a reflection of darkness. Subtractive lighting.

 

[TCampbell]

Here's the key thing about artificial light: It doesn't create lightness, it creates darkness.

To be sure, you can just use it to light stuff up so it's not dark any more, or to permit a usable shutter speed, and that's the original use. There's nothing wrong with that

The important uses are all putting light on one thing, pushing the exposure up, so that another thing appears dark. You're creating shadows. You're losing the background in darkness. By lighting the model up enough, and not lighting the white seamless background, the background goes black. Or grey, if you light it a little. By creating shadows on the model's face you make her look fat, or thin, or terrifying.

Go make some darkness!

I'd like to see some examples of white seamless paper rendered as black through the application of massive amounts of light on a human subject. I do not happen to have ANY such pictures and I do not think I can think of one that I have ever seen where that actually happened. And I only have 2 x2400 W-s, 1x1600 W-S, 1x800W-s,1x600 W-S, and 3 x 400w-s, and 500 W-S in ancillary small packs...and have occasionally used the two 2400's and the 1600 all at once...on the same set...and yet, I cannot recall EVER having been able to push white down to BLACK.

Anybody else been able to get white down to black???

Close... no human subject. Some time ago, I happened to notice the spectrum of light on the hallway floor created by light sunlight that was shining through the corner of a piece of crystal.

I laid a white sheet of copier paper on the floor so the light would project onto the white sheet and took the following photo. I adjusted the levels to bring the dark gray down to a black (and also slightly cropped in), but I've included the original so you can see the straight-out-of-the-camera version as well.



No flash used, but the hallway wasn't dark... it's just the difference in light from the spectra and the white sheet behind it makes it appear dark (in the same way that a movie is projected on to a "white" screen and yet the images can be nearly black.

If the light is very close to the subject and the background is far enough behind the subject then the inverse square law can render the white paper as many stops darker. E.g. suppose a light is only 3.5' away from the subject face. At 5' you lose 1 stop, at 7' you lose 2, at 10' you lose 3 stops, and at 14' you lose 4 stops. You'd have put the background 20' back to lose 5 stops... but by the time the background is 4 to 5 stops darker it's going to appear _quite_ dark even if it is completely white. While a modern camera's dynamic range is certainly more than 5 stops (so you're not going to get "black"... you'll get very very dark gray), it would be trivial to adjust it to black in post just by using the levels or curves tool -- and really without having any impact on the look of the subject.