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The Power of Fill Flash
anonymouscuban
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I recently posted a couple different threads with pics of my muse in our backyard. One series was with only natural light, no fill of any kind and the other set was with fill light added. We took some photos again this morning and I thought it would be interesting to demonstrate the huge difference flash can make and with little time and effort added.
This first shot I took with no flash. I had her stand in an area of open shade with just a hint of sun hitting the right back of her head.
Now this second shot is basically the exact same setup, same aperture, same shutter, ISO, focal length, same processing, same everything, EXCEPT that I fired a single flash head in a 48" octobox that was stationed on camera right.
Huge difference, I think. Now, I could have done a much better job exposing her face in the first pic but then that would have overexposed the background. As shot, I exposed for the background. I then adjusted the flash power so that the exposure from the flash was balanced with the aperture I had set.
One of things, during the learning process, that made the light bulb go on for me was to think of balance when using fill. By balance I am referring to the light in the background being balanced with the light in the foreground. There are different ways to achieve balance. Instead of lighting the foreground I could have tried to lower the light in the background to match the exposure in the foreground. Now that's a lot more difficult than adding fill light right but it can be done. They do it in movie shoots all the time. No matter how you do it, the objective is to get the light balanced.
Another thing that clicked with me was the concept of working with what is out of my control and then adjusting what I can control. I can't control the sun, well... not easily. So this means I have to meter and set my exposure for the ambient background light. I can then adjust my flash power until I achieve proper exposure with the parameters set for the background exposure.
Another thing I can control is how much sunlight is hitting my subject. Again, very hard to overpower sunlight with flash. So the easier option is to place the subject in open shade... or at the very least, place them with the sun to their back.
Put the sun to their backs? Isn't that exactly the opposite of what I've always been told to do? This was so counter-intuitive to me when I first started out. But yes, put it to their backs when shooting with flash. Again, it's easier to control the power and direction of your flash than it is to control the power and direction of the sun. The important thing is to look for any light spill on their face, arms, body because your flash will not overpower it those spots.
I really suck at explaining this stuff but thought I give it a try since I know how confusing this all was to me initially. Hopefully some of you find this helpful. I welcome others to chime into the discussion with their own tips or tricks.
I should mention that it took me about 7 minutes (I timed myself LOL)to get the octobox open, on the flash head, light positioned and metered correctly before I was ready to shoot. Just wanted to illustrate that this doesn't have to take long or a lot of effort to do.
Here is another shot with the same setup.
This first shot I took with no flash. I had her stand in an area of open shade with just a hint of sun hitting the right back of her head.
Now this second shot is basically the exact same setup, same aperture, same shutter, ISO, focal length, same processing, same everything, EXCEPT that I fired a single flash head in a 48" octobox that was stationed on camera right.
Huge difference, I think. Now, I could have done a much better job exposing her face in the first pic but then that would have overexposed the background. As shot, I exposed for the background. I then adjusted the flash power so that the exposure from the flash was balanced with the aperture I had set.
One of things, during the learning process, that made the light bulb go on for me was to think of balance when using fill. By balance I am referring to the light in the background being balanced with the light in the foreground. There are different ways to achieve balance. Instead of lighting the foreground I could have tried to lower the light in the background to match the exposure in the foreground. Now that's a lot more difficult than adding fill light right but it can be done. They do it in movie shoots all the time. No matter how you do it, the objective is to get the light balanced.
Another thing that clicked with me was the concept of working with what is out of my control and then adjusting what I can control. I can't control the sun, well... not easily. So this means I have to meter and set my exposure for the ambient background light. I can then adjust my flash power until I achieve proper exposure with the parameters set for the background exposure.
Another thing I can control is how much sunlight is hitting my subject. Again, very hard to overpower sunlight with flash. So the easier option is to place the subject in open shade... or at the very least, place them with the sun to their back.
Put the sun to their backs? Isn't that exactly the opposite of what I've always been told to do? This was so counter-intuitive to me when I first started out. But yes, put it to their backs when shooting with flash. Again, it's easier to control the power and direction of your flash than it is to control the power and direction of the sun. The important thing is to look for any light spill on their face, arms, body because your flash will not overpower it those spots.
I really suck at explaining this stuff but thought I give it a try since I know how confusing this all was to me initially. Hopefully some of you find this helpful. I welcome others to chime into the discussion with their own tips or tricks.
I should mention that it took me about 7 minutes (I timed myself LOL)to get the octobox open, on the flash head, light positioned and metered correctly before I was ready to shoot. Just wanted to illustrate that this doesn't have to take long or a lot of effort to do.
Here is another shot with the same setup.
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14-24 24-70 70-200mm (vr2)
85 and 50 1.4
45 PC and sb910 x2
http://www.danielkimphotography.com
Hmm... you may be right Daniel. Not completely sure to be honest. However, I've always considered this fill flash because I am, in fact, filling the shadows, no?
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regardless, they're neat shots!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
14-24 24-70 70-200mm (vr2)
85 and 50 1.4
45 PC and sb910 x2
http://www.danielkimphotography.com
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fill_flash
This sounds an awful lot like what Alex described.
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I think you actually underexposed the background slightly. Sure, you've got some bright highlights, but it's actually pretty dark. You then used flash to light the subject.
When I think of filling, I expose correctly for the scene in general, but then use the flash to add where the light can't get, if that makes sense.
Also, what was your shutter speed? Just curious. That will affect how the flash/ambient balance is working together (here it's flash dominant, IMO)
PS 7 minutes to haul the light out there, open the octo and position it. So much work!
This is a GREAT discussion, btw - thanks for starting it, Alex!!
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I think there's a confusion between the similar terms of "fill light", versus "fill flash". What you have there is fill flash. A fill light is used to soften contrast from an additional main light. The sun is definitely not a main light in this shot as it's not at all on her face.
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Yeah... that makes sense. Fill flash vs. fill light that is. I've always understood the term Fill Flash as I explain it above. Fill light is a different term all together I guess.
And yes, the highlight bands in the BG are a bit distracting and I think it's why Diva felt the BG is underexposed. It's actually not, IMO, it's just that there is quite a bit of range between the dark water and the bright areas of the pool decking.
Will definitely try that Hack. Actually, this morning I did play around a bit with a speed light but not in a modifier. Simply with it on the hotshoe with a stofen diffuser. It's been quite a long time since I shot this way so I wanted to experiment a bit with what I can accomplish with a simple setup of a camera and speedlight. Not sure how they turned out yet since I've yet to see them on a monitor but we'll see. I will share in this thread no matter what to add to the discussion.
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1
So this first shot is with the same setup as the shots above with a few minor tweaks. First, I moved the light over towards the side more to create a rembrandt light pattern. This creates a bit more shadow on the face and body. It was my attempt to see if I can eliminate the "cutout backdrop" look that Diva mentioned about yesterday's shots. I think Diva will find the catchlights a bit more "natural".
2
With this next shot, I wanted to see what I could do with just a speedlight flash mounted on the hotshoe. I set the speedlight to -2EV (guessed, no science) and took the shot. No bounce or anything, just a straight on flash shot. Not bad I think. Doesn't look "flashy" to me. The flash added some catchlights to liven the eyes and just enough fill to her face. Notice I have just a bit of flare from the sun in this shot, which was behind her. The flash from the speedlight was not enough to overpower the flare from the sun.
3
Now here in this shot, same as above but I moved her just a couple inches forward to get some sunlight that was peaking over the roofline on her hair. I don't remember exactly but I think I also bumped the flash power up just a hair to -1.7EV on this shot. I think just those minor adjustment really made a huge difference.
4
This last shot, I moved back to my Alien Bee flash head with the 4' octobox but this time, I moved the box a bit more in front of her for a loop pattern. She's in the same position as the previous shot with the sun acting as the kicker/rim. Couple things to note... first, notice there is much more contrast in this shot. That wasn't done in post. It's because the power from the larger flash head was able to overpower the flare from the sun and added contrast. The second thing to note is the warmer tone of the light on her face. Again, WB was done exactly the same between shots. The difference, again, comes from the power of the flash but also the slight difference in color temp of the flash head itself but also the octobox.
I'm really curious to hear what you guys think of these shots and which you find most personally appealing. I like them all and was quite surprised at the quality of shot one can get from a speedlight on camera.
Please ask any question or information you'd like. I'm hoping to experiment more and learn through these exercises so feel free to contribute.
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To me, four has a "studio" quality. The others while nice, again to me, are done well, evident that the person taking them really knows how to use his/her camera, but lack the richness of number four.
One through three may be more in line with current styles, but I sometimes question exactly why current styles are what they are.
You know, I think one thing to consider here is a different modifier; the octobox doesn't have much spill, so it focuses the light tighter than a big shoot-through umbrella would. I think, taken overall, that's what gives these a more studio feel (that even more than the catchlights). See what happens if shoot through a big umbrella; I'd just be interested to see how it affects the overall "look"
These are really beautiful images, each and every one - it may be a "technical exercise", but they are some killer shots!
PS Love the way you've balanced the lightsources in #4. Just lovely.
Bryce, I also lean towards the look of 4. I think there is a richness and polish to it that the others don't have. As you said, it may not be the exact look that people shoot today but like you, I also wonder what set that trend... was it purposeful or just a lack of lighting skills?
Diva... I used to shoot a lot with umbrellas. I will try that next, maybe tomorrow morning. I will use a 43" shoot through to see what affect that has. Maybe a happy medium between shots 3 and 4? We will see.
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Not exactly what you mean.....if I stepped on Alex's thread I apologize.....my reasoning was using hi speed sync to use the shutter to bring down the bkg brightness and let the flash expose the subject.
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You did not Hack. I hoping to spark discussion in this thread so we can explore different techniques. I want to learn as much as I can.
And to be honest, I haven't really used HSS that much. I do imagine it would come in handy for those days when you have not choice but to shoot during the day when 1/250 is not going to be fast enough to get the background exposed without stopping down the lends and sacrificing creative DOF.
BTW, here is a shot from yesterday morning. Did have a lot of time to really try something too different. I used my octobox again but this time, I removed the inner and outer diffuser panels. The octobox I own has a round reflector you can slide onto the center so it resembles a very large Beauty Dish. It's a little bit of a harder light but I like it.
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I've gone away from umbrellas or the octabox outdoors now in favor of a larger beauty dish for one or two subjects. I find I have much better control of the lighting.
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Thanks Gaby. We love our backyard. We really got lucky with our home. It was in pretty bad shape when we bought it but that worked in our favor. This is our 3rd home and we were no strangers to remodeling. We could see the potential where I guess others could not. It's been a labour of love for the last 10 years but it's become our little slice of paradise.
I believe all the shots I posted in this thread so far have been shot wide open, if not close. Around f/2.8-3.5 depending on how bright out. As far as sync speed, Most are shot at no higher than 1/320 since I am using studio flashes in most of the shots and they don't have high speed sync. And yes, the AB800 is set to about 1/8 power, maybe 1/4 power on the high end. Also correct, the speedlight shots were done on iTT-L with -2EV or there abouts.
Yeah... that last shot came out quite nice. Now, just to be clear, it's actually shot with the 4' octobox. But I don't have any of the diffusers on it. And this octo comes with a parabolic reflector that you slide onto the middle, so essentially, it becomes a large beauty dish. Here is a picture of it.
It was the first time I use it in this manner. I plan on using it this way more often. Nice light from it.
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