Why Use Strobes?

 This post is a continuation of the previous post which I had done on balancing ambient light with strobes.

Below is a classic example of why one would need to use flash and balance it with ambient light. The basic thumb rule is you are limited to the sync speed of the camera which is about 1/200 of a sec. The other two are shutter controls the ambient light and the aperture controls light of the strobe. For the photographs below I was at F8 with a shutter speed of 1/125 at ISO 200. We get a slightly overexposed imaged for the outside but the inside is all dark. If you notice the ceiling on the inside you can see I have switched on all the lights but it is of no use.

Only Ambient Light

For the image below I used two strobes  and bounced the light to bring the exposure on the inside to F8. One strobe was aimed at the man and other at the celling. The photograph below looks more natural, something our eye would see but, this is something the camera cannot capture. This is one of the reasons to use strobes and balance it with ambient light.

Ambient Light With Stobe

Blow is another example how you can use flash. If you look at the lamp in the photograph below it looks like it is on. When I switched it on it was powerless. The light was not enough from the lamp to show up in the image as I was using a strobe to light up the room. To make the lamp look like it is on I hid a hide a flash inside it and set it on its lowest power. There is a small snoot aimed at the coffee cup and the try with a grid on it to give it a bit of punch.  The photo looks natural light shot but it is not! (three lights in this photo. One aimed at the ceiling to light up the room, one for the lamp and one for the coffee try.)

Lamp With Hidden Flash

Until next time happy shooting.

Balancing Ambient Light With Stobes

Locations are always an interesting challenge when it comes to lighting. Recently I have been photographing a lot of locations and luckily for me there has been plenty of mixed lighting situations! There is the beautiful sunlight outside and, the tungsten and florescent bulbs inside with different colour temperatures. Add this to the fact that there are no lights in the middle of the room only on the sides. Take a look at the Photo 1 below for to get a sense of what I was seeing.

 The first image is with ambient light. There is the yellow light on camera right and there is evening setting sun on the outside. If we use ambient light the image does not have a lot of punch. The image has less contrast and the colours are all off.  I wanted to keep the curtains open to show the outside.

Photo 1: Ambient Light

The Photo below (Photo 2)below is the same photo but there are four lights which have been used to make the exposure. There is one on camera left. A studio strobe with a 30 degree grid on it. The second light is between the bed and the wall . There was a fall off light to the middle of the room from the light coming from the big strobe. To bring it up exposure I added a small flash at half power and the exposure next to the flower vase came up. The next light is next to the right curtain. This was to add a bit of light to the curtain. The flash was a quarter power. It was more to highlight the curtain than do anything else. There last artificial light is on camera left next to the curtain on the right. This was to simulate a light coming in from the hallway. This again is a big flash with a 30 degree grid on it.

Photo 2: Use Of Flash And Balanced With Ambient Light

When all these lights work together the room looks like a natural shot which is due to the natural light coming from outside the balcony. Since flashes are daylight balanced or nearly that the outside gets a bit of orange due to the setting sun. This light was a major source of light and in Photo 1 and was blowing out but not so in the second photo as the overall exposure of the room was raised and matched with that of the outside.

More in an upcoming post on balancing ambient with flash. Until then happy shooting.

Finally Studio Strobes

Well it turns out you should not go to Chandni Chowk, especially the camera market, with money in your pocket, there is a very high probability you are going end up spending most of it. The reason I write this is because I just live it. Leaving aside the details which would make for an interesting blog post in itself, I finally took the plunge and picked up studio strobes. I have resisted them for a long time but could not any more. After having used flash off the camera for a long time using strobes was not a significant transition in terms of understanding of physics but when it comes to power Strobes rock!!!.

Don't get me wrong the flash is great, but sometimes, in the immortal words of Jeremy Clarkson, you just need more "POWER". Add to this the advantage of a a modelling lamp and ultra fast recycle times, its just more fun.

Having tested the light with my light meter I realized I had quite a bit of "POWER" at my disposal even at ISO 100. I was shooting mostly at F8 with various modifiers put on a strobe. If you notice I just mentioned a strobe (singular). Here are some photos from my experiments. One of the photos has a minor levels adjustment but the others are straight out the camera with just a crop.