C&C These photos please!

SabrinaO · Jun 28, 2011

Kerbouchard said:
Sorry, it was a bit late when I was typing that and I can see where it might be a bit confusing.

Basically, you have 4 pieces to the exposure of the shot.

ISO
Aperture
Shutter speed
Flash power

The first two will effect your background and your flash exposure.
Shutter speed will only effect your background(assuming your subject has less ambient light on them than the background).
Flash power will only effect your subject.

So, basically, it all depends on you being able to use an ISO and an aperture that will give you a shutter speed less than 1/200th of a second and still have a subject that is underexposed. You then fine tune your shutter speed to get the exact look in the background that you are going for. You then adjust flash power to bring your subject up to the level that you want it.

If you can't get a low enough shutter speed, you choose a lower ISO or smaller aperture. Since you have a few alien bees, you can afford to get your aperture up into the f/11(or smaller) range and still manage to put out enough light to do what you are looking for. I like to get my shutter speed to around 1/100th of a second so that I have room to fine tune. If I'm just barely getting 1/200th of a second, then the light is controlling me and I don't have many options for how I want my background to look.

Take a look at this link, and spend some time with the links on the right column. It's a great resource, and one that taught me a lot when I was first learning flash. http://neilvn.com/tangents/flash-photography-techniques/3-dragging-the-shutter/

Neil explains it better than me and he has pictures and examples to boot.

Thankyou for your explanation and the link! Awesome

bazooka · Jun 28, 2011

Here's a little trick I got from Hobby and modified it for my use.... for every flash head you have, get a Lumiquest speedstrap ($8). Go to Walmart or hobby lobby and buy 5/8" velcro Dots. On each side of the gel, stick a "hook" velcro dot on each end. Flip the gel over and stick a loop dot on each end (4 dots for each gel). This solves two problems. Firstly, you do'nt have to attach sticky velcro (permanently) to your flash head or mess with gaff tape or lose light by putting the gel in your diffuser (what I used to do). Secondly, you can stack your gels on top of each other (so you do'nt have to carry as many different kinds).

EDIT: I just realized that the sample gels you have will probably not be long enough to do this with.... I cut mine to about 4.25". Any shorter and they won't wrap around onto the speed strap (depending on your flash). Fortunately, they're cheap. Head over to midwestphoto and buy a color correction gel pack. They also have the speedstraps...

You should seriously go through the lighting 101 course at strobist. It will drastically improve your lighting abilities so if something looks wrong, you'll know why and how to fix it.