Since I have been shooting a lot of portraits lately at F2.8 during bright daylight hours, I have had to shoot using high speed sync to get the right exposure. The other day I photographed Tory, a model in town, and we were going for that selective focus look. Exposures of 1/1000 and faster at 2.8 were the norm. High speed sync confuses a lot of people, maybe it should be renamed “shallow depth of field sync”, or SDFS mode…or not! But anyone using flash and wanting selective focus at wide open apertures needs to master this technique. If you are a Nikon shooter you can set this mode in your custom functions in camera, for Canon shooters this option is on your flash. In high speed sync mode the flash is shooting a rapid burst of flashes so there is always flash occurring no matter where the shutter curtains are in the exposure. This allows you to shoot at any shutter speed, but it also reduces your flash range a lot, especially if you are shooting through an umbrella.
To help with the power issue I have been using the Lastolite Triflash bracket. After Lastolite provided me one for an article I was writing, I went right out and bought another. These brackets are really handy, allowing three TTL flashes to be mounted and shot through an umbrella. This greatly reduces recycle time and really helps when shooting in high speed sync. And if you are close enough, the optical slave will trigger all three flashes even though the optical eye isn’t facing the camera directly. Lastolite is coming out with a new version which will lock tight the TTL flashes in the bracket.
I used this set up for all the images here. For the images of Tory high on the staircase I used a manfrotto 24 foot lightstand to get the umbrella high enough.
Tech: Nikon D3, 45mm tilt shift lens, ISO 100, top shot 1/800 at F4.2, lower image 1/1000 at F2.8
Recently we did a shoot in a gym, photographed a table tennis player. I really like playing, but when I learned the model, Chris, had a $300 paddle…well, I’d be happy shooting pics instead of playing against him. I wanted to create a number of images, smash shots, static portraits, moody dramatic scenes. We carted in a ton of lighting gear, hauled in a table and set up the scene.
One issue we dealt with, and this one comes up a lot, is trying to control the light in a white space; in this case, floor, walls and ceiling. We first set up an exposure so only our flashes would render, no existing nasty sodium lights. But the trick is adding directional light to the picture, using grids and snoots. We wanted to use a softbox, but this bounced off every surface and watered down the nice dark scene we wanted. To solve this, we added a grid to a small overhead softbox, and used 20 degree grids on the other heads in the scene. This eliminated spill on the white surfaces.
This final shot of the day was a subtle moment. Everybody was winding down, and Chris was leaning on the table bouncing a ball. This presented the prefect moment to use overhead light and the tilt shift lens to add some blur. Tech: Nikon D3, 70-200mm and 45mm tilt shift lenses, Elinchrom Rangers, Manfrotto stands and Skyport wireless system. Action shots around ISO 200, 1/200 at F11. Tilt shift shot ISO 100, F4 at 1/250.
Just did a drive across the mountains in Colorado, and a lot of it was in a whiteout…hazard lights blinking crawling along the highway looking for the road. But as soon as the snow started to slow down, I realized we were missing a great photo op with all the fresh snow in the trees. We grabbed snowshoes and headed into the forest, a magical quiet place, and I knew once again my tilt-shift lens would add the effect I wanted. I photographed my wife heading down the trail for the first image.
I liked this image a lot, but I also wanted to add some interest via flash. I set my camera to high speed sync, positioned a single SB900 off to her right, and shot away. Using a fast shutter speed allowed me to darken the daylight exposure about 1 stop. Tech: Nikon D3, 45mm tilt shift lens, 1/500 at F2.8. High speed sync used with one SB900, triggered by a SU800.