getting to know bare flash lighting

[Daniel Buck]

So, using flashes to light up (or help light up) my subject has been something that I've been interested in doing for a while, I finally took the 'plunge' and have done my first few tests with some cheap transmitters to see if I actually like this type of shooting. The consensus? Yea, I love it So some pocket wizards are on order, as I know the unreliability of the cheap transmitter/receivers I have now will only frustrate me, infact I'm already frustrated with them, but they served their purpose, to make sure that I like this type of shooting before I spend decent money on pocket wizards! (which is probably the most logical route that anyone will eventually take for off-camera flash shooting, right?)

Anyway, I first tried a few small things inside, and then moved up to a full car shot (cars are my main subject in mind). Here's one of my smaller tests, as well as my first car test, Would love to hear some feedback from people who work with strobes/flashes often!

 

[Asher Kelman]

Daniel,

How is it that some of the best always gets left till last! I see this bottle is waiting and so is the car.

I like the lighting on the bottle. Where did you put the flashes and how many do you have? There's a nikon guy who uses scores (or even, who knows, perhaps hundreds of them) to light a large plane!

Asher

 

[Daniel Buck]

Daniel,

How is it that some of the best always gets left till last! I see this bottle is waiting and so is the car.

I like the lighting on the bottle. Where did you put the flashes and how many do you have? There's a nikon guy who uses scores (or even, who knows, perhaps hundreds of them) to light a large plane!

Asher

Just two flashes for the jug. One behind it shooting straight up against the wall to get the nice gradient on the wall/refraction, and then one about 45 degrees up and 45 degrees to the left of the jug. For the car, it was only one flash, but I popped the flash a whole lot of times

 

[Asher Kelman]

Both came out well. So you were working with film in these bare bulb tests?

 

[Daniel Buck]

Both came out well. So you were working with film in these bare bulb tests?

oh, sorry I should have mentioned that. No, these are digital. However, once I'm more confident with the setup, I'll be doing some 4x5 & 8x10 stuff with it too. Though most likely I would be using my digital as a 'polaroid test' right before I mount the big cameras up for the shot I'd love to have a nice 8x10 transparency of some of this stuff

 

[Asher Kelman]

With most digital cameras, there's no "T" setting and one cannopt do repeat flash exposures. So, how did yoiu pop the flash a bunch of times? Do you have the shutter set for say 60 seconds and then pop the flash by hand, not connected to the camera?

Asher

 

[Daniel Buck]

With most digital cameras, there's no "T" setting and one cannopt do repeat flash exposures. So, how did yoiu pop the flash a bunch of times? Do you have the shutter set for say 60 seconds and then pop the flash by hand, not connected to the camera?

Asher

For the car shot, I did several different approaches, since I'm just still figuring all this out. The entire image is a composit of all the shots (each layer plussed onto the next, each layer containing only one flash hit). Some shots I set the flash on a stand (or layed on the ground and fired the camera like normal with a cable release, 1/160th second. the rest of the shots I put the camera into a 10 second timer, walked over to the car held the flash where I wanted it, wait for the poof, then walked back. I did this because it was quicker than setting up the stand each time where i wanted it. I didn't do to many shots with multiple flashes because I was having a hard time getting the cheap transmitter and receivers to play nice, so I did it all with one flash. Pocket wizards are being shipped to me as we speak, so I'll be doing more shots with multiple flashes all in one capture very soon

I would have done some shots with a bulb shutter (just left it open for a minute or two) but there was to much ambient light for that, I just wanted the light from the flash, so I left the shutter at 1/160 and aperture at f11 (I think)

 

[james sperry]

hey daniel,
i've been looking at the shots you have been posting and i like how you have the shots set up and the lighting effects. i used to take photos of the cars in a car club i was involved with. but, you really should think about either removing the car tags from the vehicles you shoot or blur them out in an editing process. people referred to as "haters" love to call the police and report things that didn't happen.
i understand that these are probably test shots but when you go to do the real thing ... don't forget to clean the cars. macguiers has a liquid spray that really works good on the fine scratches in paint (especially with black paint and flash photography.)

 

[Daniel Buck]

hey daniel,
i've been looking at the shots you have been posting and i like how you have the shots set up and the lighting effects. i used to take photos of the cars in a car club i was involved with. but, you really should think about either removing the car tags from the vehicles you shoot or blur them out in an editing process. people referred to as "haters" love to call the police and report things that didn't happen.
i understand that these are probably test shots but when you go to do the real thing ... don't forget to clean the cars. macguiers has a liquid spray that really works good on the fine scratches in paint (especially with black paint and flash photography.)

Thanks for the tip on the plates I usually leave them unmodified though, I've never heard of anyone being reported for doing something they didn't do, but I suppose it's possible. If the owner wants the plate to be blocked out, I usually encourage them to just take the plates off for the shoot, especially the front plate here in CA, since we have to have front plates. I think bluring or erasing the digits in photos just looks horrible, rather just take it off

Yea, I don't wash my car to often, 1/2 because I'm lazy and would rather spend what free time I have driving it instead of cleaning it, and then 1/2 because it seems to get dirty so quick it doesn't seem worth it. Dirty cars don't bother me, so long as they are fun to drive ;-) My car (in the local clubs anyway?) has kind of been the joke car that is never clean, but that doesn't bother me, and I'm not scared to take it off road either, local to us we have a nice flat dry lake bed that is open to the public lots of fun to be had out there!

 

[Mike Shimwell]

Hi Daniel

I like both shots, and the dirty car particularly. Nice and grungy

If you shoot Canon, the timer remote allows you to do B or T exposures. I've shot a 45 minute exposure once on the 5D and up to a few minutes fairly regularly.

Mike

 

[Daniel Buck]

Here's one from this afternoon, I'll post some more tomorrow, we did a few dark shots in a garage with multiple flash hits again, like the mustang shot above. This one is all one shot, two flashes, 1/100th at f8 100ISO, digital.

 

[Daniel Buck]

the other two from yesterday evening