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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Barn Doors and Blue Dragons

After reading Zeke's Nice Photo review of some pretty spiffy $10 speedlight-compatible barn doors, I ordered a set and did a little playing around recently.

Probably not using them the way they were intended, of course. I went with on-camera flash on a point and shoot...

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My son, Ben is growing up fast. He's seven years old and playing on his first competitive team -- the "Blue Dragons" in the local soccer league. He's looking more and more like a big kid every day, which as a dad is both a good thing and a sad thing to me.


Usually, the growing up process is a gradual thing in which you only notice the changes after they have happened. But in his last soccer game he drove end-to-end and shot one past the goalie for his first goal of the season (shown at left).

Then he just stood there with a bemused smile on his face. ("Wait, I did WHAT?")

He was a different person right from that moment. He has the soccer bug 110% now, and wants to score two goals in his next game. We watch highlight reals from the pros on YouTube together.

His soccer season is almost over. They play their last game today, and have a chance to end the season with a winning record.

He's not much for posing for pictures. But I am trying to make shots of him now that show the mix of little kid and big kid inside. Which is where the SP Systems barn doors came in.

I have been experimenting with the "fill-first" technique I talked about with Jessie and expanding that into other lighting styles and ratios.

Barn doors basically allow you to control the spill of the flash in four different directions. Sort of like an adjustable snoot. For this shot of Ben, I used a Canon G9 with an SB-800 mounted on the hot shoe and a set of SP Barn Doors clamped to the flash. (I am pretty sure that's the first time that combo has ever been used together...)

I like the way the light looks. When you are paying attention to your ambient flash balance and restricting light, even on-camera light can have a textured, subtle look.

I knew from experience that I only had a minute or two before I'd lose him. So I got into manual mode, got a good ambient exposure, dropped it down just a stop, and then added flash set in manual mode. (This was shot outdoors, in shade.)

I just chimped the results with flash and quicky dialed in a power level that looked good on the screen. The barn doors allowed me to just rake some light across the fence and the top part of his face to keep it interesting.

Note that I am specifically not mentioning f/stops, shutter speeds and flash power levels. Those numbers are not really important -- it is the process of choosing where your fill will be, relative to your main light, that is important.

Using a subtle lighting ratio and restricted beam can even on-camera light look a little unusual. And the hard quality of the light isn't so tough to deal with when the ambient is supporting it so closely. The one thing I did not like was the shadow behind the camera left ear, so I fixed that in post. (Hey, it's a snapshot, okay...)

As for the barn doors, they will fit the big SB-26s, and even the little SB-800s if you build up the side opposite the little clamp with some gaffer's tape. They fold up nice and small, too. Very nice.

And in just a couple of minutes I found a new way to play with a new light mod for a go-to technique on a headshot. I'll definitely be playing more with this in the future.

But not this afternoon -- I'll be busy shooting a soccer game. Go Big Blue.
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Related:

:: Nice Photo - Barn Doors Review ::
:: DIY Barn Doors ::
:: Blue Dragon Fevah: Catch It ::

A Flash of Inspiration

It's spring, and that means "Athletes of the Year" photos for many newspaper sports shooters. We get that same assignment every year, and with it the challenge to make the photos look new and different.

Naples Daily News shooter Greg Kahn came up with a novel way to capture the movement of his subjects this year by using an inexpensive continuous light source that can be found at any Home Depot -- rope lights.

Check out his blog post on how he did it, and be sure to click to see to the paper's sweet-lookin' final layout.

(Thanks to James for the heads-up in the comments!)

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