Lighting...How does he do it?

DigiMattPhotography

I found this guy on Pbase and he has the most amaizing night portraits. But I can't figure out how he is lighting it. Can anybody here reverse engineer his lighting...? I am guessing he is just using a flash hand held shooting in eTTL mode. But he might be setting up a stand with a softbox and using manual flash,...which would be much more difficult to balance with ambient.

http://www.pbase.com/albertjou/image/84747799

aktpics

DigiMattPhotography wrote:

I found this guy on Pbase and he has the most amaizing night portraits. But I can't figure out how he is lighting it. Can anybody here reverse engineer his lighting...? I am guessing he is just using a flash hand held shooting in eTTL mode. But he might be setting up a stand with a softbox and using manual flash,...which would be much more difficult to balance with ambient.

http://www.pbase.com/albertjou/image/84747799

I would agree with your first guess. Judging by the harsh shadow on her arm (first picture) it looks like a camera mounted flash.

If I were going to try to reproduce it I would set up my exposure for the background first. Then use the flash as fill and adjust the flash compensator until I was happy with it.

Definately something I would like to try, though. Nice shots!

Antonio Correia

My thoughts:

Yes, I think he is using the flash hand held.

He exposed to the background underexposing by half a stop, then he focused at the girl and shot with the flash in ETTL II.

May be he was using a ST-E2 or a PW.

For my taste and/or as I see the photo in my monitor, it looks too much light on the girl.
He pushed the colors giving them density.


He was using a snoot here, I guess


SORRY. He says he was not using a flash. Then, only one option: a portable source of light balanced to the WB of the camera.:D

Pretty obvious here.

SloYerRoll

I agree w/ Antonio.
Flash is hand held. (using a light stand at this close of an angle would have been a waste of setup time)
Don't think he tried to underexpose the bg. That just happened when the setup "ttl'd" the subject. The reason I think he ttl'd is the girl is is really hot in regards to exposure (she's cute, not hot) and from what I've read, ttl can be infamous for overexposing things when they are close to the flash.

@Antonio: He could have been using a snoot or barndoor, he also could just have pointed the strobe at a very high angle, allowing only the subjects to be lit from the light falloff. Not correcting you, just sharing what I've learned so you can do the same if your in a pinch!

All the colors were oversatureated in post.

On a non lighting note:
He should have brought the subjects chin out towards the camera more. It would have helped round out her face more. The pose he has there is natural, but natural poses rarely are the optimal way to pose someone.

I think he was using ambient on the third shot Antonio talks about. I'm hard pressed to not see how he did that w/o some lighting. Whether it be flash or a constant light source. He was using light. Flash is just a pulse of constant light, so it's the same to a camera at decent shutter speeds.

Just my 02

hgernhardtjr

Actually, the EXIF states NO flash was used. Perhaps he used a battery powered quartz movie/video light (I've done that before) or spotlight, or even a light stand with photoflood assuming he had power available. No sure way to tell without contacting the photographer.

pathfinder

Antonio Correia wrote:

My thoughts:

Yes, I think he is using the flash hand held.

He exposed to the background underexposing by half a stop, then he focused at the girl and shot with the flash in ETTL II.

May be he was using a ST-E2 or a PW.

For my taste and/or as I see the photo in my monitor, it looks too much light on the girl.
He pushed the colors giving them density.


He was using a snoot here, I guess


SORRY. He says he was not using a flash. Then, only one option: a portable source of light balanced to the WB of the camera.:D

Pretty obvious here.

I think you are correct, Antonio. But I agree, that flash in Manual mode could be used to create this sort of image also.

Your exposure for the background would determine your shutter speed and might require a tripod and a model would can stand very still.

ziggy53

Canon cameras will not "sense" or report non E-TTL flash. Only E-TTL flashes will report in the EXIF.

It does look like the light is from an electronic flash, probably an auto or manual "simple" flash. The light appears to be highly collimated and "hard", which implies probably a small, focussed umbrella or grid.

The angle indicates off camera and I only detect a single source of light for the subject.

pathfinder

Ziggy,

If I understand you correct, then any PW triggered flash will not be entered as flash in the EXIF data? So he could have a flash in one hand trigged by a PW perhaps.

Since he says he did not use flash, this must be a continuos light source of some type. Extra light was added in some manner, and I agree with your statement that this is a small, portable light at close proximity due to the hard shadows. The color temp also suggests flash to my eye as well, tungsten or xenon would be much warmer I think.

SloYerRoll

PF:
I can only speak on my setup and that's Nikon w/ PW's. You CAN trigger a flash w/ PW's and not have it show up in the exif. I attached my fluke meter to the center point of the hotshoe (where the PW attaches to the camera) and no matter what setting I had it on, the fluke registered a pulse).
I then took a few shots w/ my PW's with the flash "off" and exif tells me there was no flash when indeed there where lights a blazing.
I shoot the humble D50 though, so this may change in the big league cameras.

As you already mentioned. The light is too "white" to be a standard light source. Even if you took the time in post to cool down the shot for WB compensastion, that would dramatically effect the b/g colors which look spot on for a shot like this IMO.

Also you see the model in multiple ambient lighting situations. But this etheral light still stay s the same temp no matter what...

I'd bet your dime to my dollar that he was using a strobe on the shots in question. The others suffer from a bad case of noise.

Bill_M

Moved to a separate thread

Thanks,
Bill

SloYerRoll

Bill_M wrote:

Related to this thread, how does one expose on a certain part of a scene & focus on another? This is something I"ve struggled with in the past (mainly portraits at sunset). If I want to expose for those beautiful sunset colors, but focus on the model 5 feet in front of me, how is it done?

Thanks,
Bill

Hey Bill,

That sounds like a great topic for another thread. I (and others more knowledgable than I) can tell you how to do this. You will get much more visibility if you post your own thread though.

Regards,
-Jon

Bill_M

SloYerRoll wrote:

Hey Bill,

That sounds like a great topic for another thread. I (and others more knowledgable than I) can tell you how to do this. You will get much more visibility if you post your own thread though.

Regards,
-Jon

done...thanks.

pathfinder

Manual Mode gives you complete control of exposure.

You are no longer dependent on what your meter reads, or what spot is chosen for metering - whether the focus/exposure point is white, gray or black.

Antonio Correia

SloYerRoll wrote:

... @Antonio: He could have ... light falloff. Not correcting you, just sharing what I've learned so you can do the same if your in a pinch!...

I wouldn't mind if you were correcting me !

Antonio Correia

Bill_M wrote:

done...thanks.

And the link is ... this