practicing with strobes

[CD51]

I have very little experience using my strobes, I have used them for a few pictures of friends and family. I think I try a little to hard to eliminate all the shadows so it gets a little bright on some shots.

 

[tirediron]

Generally speaking, you don't want to eliminate all the shadows. Shadows provide definition and shape to the image. Shadowless (other than high key) is generally referred to as 'flat' (Think "Passport photo").

Shadow example:

 

[Derrel]

Yes, shadows can really HELP, although over the last decade or so there's been a big emphasis on-line about the desirability of, "Soft, shadowless lighting," you might say. But the desirability of very soft shadows, and soft, low-contrast lighting has, I think, been over-played on the web and on YouTube. Harder light is NOT necessarily bad! Shadows help show shape, and texture, and shadows give distance and depth clues; the human eye and brain are both very attuned to reading shadows, in exceptionally short amounts of time. We use shadows as a way to gauge size, shape, distance, texture, similarity/difference, and so on. So...maybe think more about where to make the shadows fall!

 

[CD51]

Thanks for the feedback, I think I need to keep practicing using the modeling lights to try and set up for some shadows. Anyway you slice it I get to have fun playing around with my lights.

 

[CD51]

Sometimes I wonder if as a shutterbug that just likes too take pictures, continuous lighting my be a better option? I really don't have the desire to try and become a pro, just have fun taking pictures and getting the good feeling of the occasional wow that's pretty good.

 

[Derrel]

Before digital capture, I think continuous lighting was more of a help, since it could easily be 1)seen by the human eye and 2)metered using in-camera metering. But now that digital cameras are so widespread, I think speedlight flash is more viable for beginners or those who only seldom or occasionally use their speedlights. Not that continuous lighting became less-viable once digital arrived...continuous light is STILL a good way to work for some things, especially with digicams.

There's a lot of help available in the form of YouTube video tutorials devoted to learning and perfecting speedlight lighting methods.

 

[CD51]

Before digital capture, I think continuous lighting was more of a help, since it could easily be 1)seen by the human eye and 2)metered using in-camera metering. But now that digital cameras are so widespread, I think speedlight flash is more viable for beginners or those who only seldom or occasionally use their speedlights. Not that continuous lighting became less-viable once digital arrived...continuous light is STILL a good way to work for some things, especially with digicams.

There's a lot of help available in the form of YouTube video tutorials devoted to learning and perfecting speedlight lighting methods.

Thanks for the info, I'll check it out.