Tom Bol Photo Blog

I am always interested in working with light, both above and below water.  Think about those over/under shots shot with a fisheye where you can see both the fisherman’s feet on the bottom of the river, and him casting his line above the water.  The challenge with these images is often the underwater part is a lot darker than the above water part.  Bright sandy bottoms and high over head light help reduce this contrast problem.  How to trigger a flash underwater?

There are some great housings that can trigger dedicated underwater strobes.  I use an Ikelite housing for my under/over shots.  But unfortunately I can’t jam a radio trigger in the housing, it fits to tight to the camera.  And I don’t want to use underwater strobes, I’d like to use my SB900s.  A flexible housing by Ewa-Marine would allow you to attach a radio trigger to your camera and shoot it underwater.  So how to waterproof those SB900s?

One option would be to get a separate Ewa-Marine housing to put your flashes in.  I chose a less expensive option.  I put my SB900 in a rafting drybag that is clear and allows the light to come out. About $30 bucks.

Does a radio trigger shoot through water? Yes.  The top kayaking shot has three SB900s triggered in the kayak, and one SB900 underwater under the kayak (weighted to the bottom with rocks in a bag, see pic).  So far this set up has not leaked.  You could always go for a more durable underwater case or housing.

This shot confirmed the Skyport wireless system will trigger flashes underwater.  The next step is to add more strobes and get the light exposure right, a little hot in the above shot.  But now that I know things work, it is just a matter of time before putting someone in the water with all those flashes!

Ring flash is a special flash that circles the lens and projects right on the lens axis.  What is unique about this flash is the circle reflections and outlining shadow it produces.  This flash is often used in fashion, but it can be used anywhere.  Generally there are two styles of shooting with this flash, one using the ring flash as fill, the other using the ring flash as the main light.  We found another use experimenting the other day, using the ring flash primarily for reflections.

Our set up for this image included 5 Elinchrom rangers using 4 Freelite A heads and 1 Elinchrom ring flash on camera. We started with a ring flash on camera set as the main light on the model’s face.  We added 20 degree grids on accent lights coming in from the side and behind the model.  These lights provided the highlights on the shoulders and neck.  Next we used a boom to put a square Elinchrom Rotalux box over the model to add accent and detail to his hat.  This box was gridded so the light wouldn’t spill onto the background.  The last light was a 40 degree gridded head placed behind the model aiming at the backdrop.

As with many photo shoots, it wasn’t the planned images that we liked the best, it was the spontaneous ones that really worked. Chris (model) brought some glasses as a prop, and we shot some images with him wearing the glasses.  But then he held them out in front of his face, making the ring flash reflections much more prominent and interesting. With this idea rolling, we worked on moving the glasses just right so his eyes weren’t blocked in the background.  A great thing about working with experienced models is they often bring their own ideas to the shoot, and Chris had a good idea here.

Tech: Nikon D300s, 24-70mm lens, 1/250 at F8, ISO 200.  Elinchrom Rangers, Freelite A heads, Elinchrom ring flash and Skyports used to trigger the flash.

I seem to be attracted to water and strobe.  I photograph a lot of water sports, so I am always looking for a different way to shoot familiar subjects.  I  was in the Tetons recently and had a chance to produce some ‘glowing sea kayak’ images.  Here is how it works.

For this image I placed 4 Nikon SB900s in plastic ziploc bags and attached universal Elinchrom Skyport radio slaves to the flashes.  I use hotshoe cords from Flash Zebra to attach the speedlights to the transmitters.  The flashes were set at 1/4 power in manual mode, zoomed out to 14mm with the wide angle adapter.  I put a flash in each hatch and two in the cockpit with the paddler.  The paddler left her spray skirt off so the flash in front of her would spill onto her face.

I set up a tripod on the lake shore, tested the flashes (hoping no one got a shock!) and waited for twilight.  I had the paddler be very still since the shutter speed was set to 13 seconds for this shot.

To enhance the blue and still keep the warm skin tones on the model I combined two images in CS4 created from one raw image.  The first shot had the white balance set at 3200 to get the blue skies, the second image had the white balance set to 5500 to get warm skin tones.

Anytime you use flash around water you have to be careful.  I’m planning on using my 1100 watt Elinchrom Rangers for a similar shot, but can’t find any models to volunteer at the moment.

Tech: Nikon D300s, 14-24mm lens, 13 seconds at F13, ISO200. Four SB 900s used with Elinchrom Skyport universal transmitters, attached with Flash Zebra cords.

Flash comes in a variety of styles and shapes, from simple one light set ups to complex multiple light scenes.  Sometimes simple is all you need.  I have been shooting a lot of assignments lately, from college campuses to indoor skating to Alaska tourism.  And I have to say one technique has saved the day time after time, one speedlight used in a fill flash mode.

Fill flash refers to using your flash so that the flash blends both the ambient light with the amount of flash on the subject.  Fill flash isn’t about making the flash a dominant part of the shot, more like just sneaking it in to where people may not even know it is used.  Fill flash is often used to control contrast by reducing shadows, filling in those dark areas under hat brims and tree branches.

The shot above is just one example of many from recent shooting. We had a couple modeling on a dock with beautiful reflections and sunny day.  But the sun cast strong shadows on the subjects, so we popped just an ounce of flash to eliminate shadows and make the color pop.  Remember the difference between a nice image and a better one is often a simple detail like adding a little fill flash.

Tech: Nikon D3, 14-24m, F14 at 1/250, ISO 200, SB900 shot in fill flash mode at -1.

Spending the day in airports traveling to Alaska, a perfect time to add one more blog post before getting really busy up north.  Had a chance to upload another short video shot on the D3s.  Once again I relied on the Glidetrack for the moving shots in this video.

For sound we are using a Zoom H2 portable recorder, great sound from a very small device.  The soundtrack on this piece was created in Garage Band.  If you are a Mac user and haven’t worked with Garage Band, take a look at this program.  It offers endless ways to create your own soundtrack, and perfectly sync the beat to your video.  We edit everything using Final Cut Pro.

Tech: Nikon D3s, 24-70mm, 1/250 at F11, ISO 100.  Two Elinchrom Quadras were used to light the climber.  Right light shot through a 27″ Rotalux box, other head shot through at 30 degree grid from the left side.  Skyports triggers the strobes. A little drama was added in CS4.  Video shot using the D3s, 14-24mm and 24-70mm lenses, and Glidetrack used for moving shots.

The Poudre river near my house is running at peak flows right now, which means time to kayak, and photograph kayaking. Nothing beats being on the river on a sunny day surfing a good wave.  My friend Patrick is always on the river, so we thought he would be a perfect subject for a short multimedia piece.  See the video.

We have been using the Glidetrack for some moving video shots. This clever mini dolly system produces great moving shots using the D3s.  The first few clips in this video are using this system. Below is a shot of the set up in the water.

To solve the problem of contrast on Patrick boating we used one Elinchrom Ranger shot through a Freelite A head with standard reflector.  The A head has a faster flash duration and better for stopping fast moving action.  We get many questions about how the Elinchrom Rangers perform.  Put simply, they always perform…in rain, wind, sand, tornados (seriously!) and even getting soaked by a large river wave (not recommended).

Tech: Nikon D3,  24-70mm, 1/250 at F11, ISO 100.  Elinchrom Ranger shot through Freelite A head, standard reflector.  Skyport System used to trigger flash.

I have been in Moab a lot lately, two assignments and one workshop, always enjoy getting back to the desert.  One night I went out to a boulder with some petroglyphs, and tried some lightpainting with my D3s.  Since the noise performance of this camera is hard to believe, I experimented with both long and short exposures for differrent effects with the stars.  I really liked how the stars rendered sharp with exposures around 20 seconds, which required an ISO of 3200…hardly any noise, amazing!

I like my white balance set around 3000 Kelvin for the deep blue skies it produces, but wasn’t that happy with how flat the rock and petroglyphs came out.

With my white balance set to around 6000 Kelvin, the rock looked good.  To solve this white balance issue, I saved two copies of the original raw file, one with a white balance for the sky, and the other for a good white balance for the rock.  Then I combined the two in CS4, and brushed back in the warm rock in the cool blue sky shot. The top image is the result.  Tech: D3s, 14-24mm, 20 seconds at F4, ISO 3200.

If you use SB900s, like I do, then you may wonder how to attach them to some accessories since the flash’s larger hot shoe plate won’t fit a standard TTL cold shoe mount. One item we use frequently are Manfrotto Justin Clamps, they are very handy to attach SB900s in a variety of situations. The SB900 will not attach to the cold shoe mount that comes with the Justin Clamp, but there is an easy fix.  I unscrew the plastic cold shoe mount and replace it with a Stroboframe flash mount adapter.

To attach the Stroboframe bracket, use a 1/4″ x 3/4″ set screw socket.  These screws can be found at any hardware store.  Just screw the socket into the clamp, and then screw the Stroboframe bracket onto this.  You’re ready to go!

Back in the office after being on the road awhile.  The weather is starting to warm up in Fort Collins, so more and more bikers are hitting the roads.  I decided to photograph a local rider near the foothills the other day.  Since I think of road biking as a fast high energy sport, I decided to shoot a really edgy image.

To accomplish this I used 5 Elinchrom Rangers, 4 heads with 10 or 20  degree grids, and one head with a small softbox.  Two gridded heads were aimed directly at him from the side.  Two more gridded heads were aimed from behind to hit his backside.  The softbox was powered down just to fill in light on his face, but not wash out the effect of the edgy gridded strobes.  No problem getting separation of his colored jersey, a little harder with his dark legs.

I shot this with a long lens, the Nikon 200-400mm to narrow the angle of view and crop out the lights and background.  The trick being so far away was getting my timing right when the rider came riding through the right spot.  Tech; Nikon D3, 200-400mm, ISO 100 at 1/160 at F18.  Elinchrom Rangers used with A  and S heads, 10 and 20 degree heads, and one square 24″ Elinchrom softbox.  Skyport wireless system used to trigger the flashes.

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