Colour temperature
 

Here is a link that explains colour temperature in a non technical way.

For Stephen and other technical types I will keep searching.

http://www.dcmag.co.uk/Colour_temper...8to39cnPg.html

Don

Colour temperature 2
 

These links are a bit more technical.

http://www.aeimages.com/learn/color-correction.html

http://www.pcreview.co.uk/articles/D...ite_Balance/1/

Don

The crocodile shot...

The crocodile has an anodised coating that produces different colours in different light and directions. some of this coating has worn away through use. Its cira 1920, I think.

The specimen was placed on black card on a dining room table, SB-800 was mounted on camera to give general illumination. To bring the colours out on the crocs back I employed the SB-600 with diffusion dome pointing upwards to softly aim diffused light directly at the crocs back bringing out the colours...and it worked.

Sorry no photo of the scene because I dismantled under pressure of my photographic assistant who want to lay the table for lunch!

Thought for improvement:-

Next time use black cloth as a background to absorb light and shadows allowing more direct flash to highlight shine and colours.

Set camera to f11/f16 and reduce shutter speed yielding better Depth of Field (DOF).

The Gong..

Learning from the croc shot and now equipped with a few AP diffusers and a longer run of black paper. I decided to have a go at the brass gong with two miniature candle sticks in the foreground.

Illuminated using SB-800 on camera and SB-600 held by my photographic assistant. Both flashes have diffusers and fired through AP diffusers. The use of f18 (1/4) at ISO125 made it impossible not to use flash although lighting was good. The small aperture also made the background darker than in the croc shot above. Firing both flashes through two diffusers required +1EV on each flash but might have benefited with more as +0.5EV post processing was required for the finished article. SB-600 was panting a bit with this setup. Unfortunately due to the curvature of the miniature candlesticks they have been cropped out. Everything in the dining room was visible on body the them!

Sorry about the broken Dyson in the background!

Use of double diffuser has created a matt look to a very shiny piece, any assistance to how I can create a bit more 'life' will be appreciated.

Stephen,

The first thing to do here is to look at the image and to try and assess the effect that each light has on the final image.
Look for all the best bits since you do not want to loose them.

I have marked up a picture with my comments.
Daylight - despite the exif info I would suggest that it had very little / no impact.

For a picture like this I would try to determine light positioning with a series of test images one light at a time, building up the lighting.
So for this I would exclude the effect of daylight and use the Master flash to determine its best position. I would then add the second light.

As you are using TTL flash metering I would suggest that the SB800 being the most powerful ( master ) unit should be on a lead and be slightly further round than the SB600 was for this shot. The SB600 on slightly less power could be slightly higher than the 800 is in its on camera mount on this shot. How many hands have you got ? If that is not practicable try the SB600 without the diffuser to increase its relative power, positioned slightly further round than for this shot. A slightly hard light at a sharp angle to the Gong face should be OK as it will help bring out the dimples.

The slightly dull effect is I think a result of the closeness of the key light to the lens axis. Reflections from that diffuser.

I would strongly recommend a lens hood for the 50mm. Very hard to tell if light from the SB600 reflector is striking the lens and degrading the image but I would suggest it may be. If you have a skylight filter on and no hood I would suggest removing it for the shot, or using a ' black flag ' to prevent that light stiking the lens.

Guess you are going to have to pass all this by your lovely assistant and convince her its all worth while. The question is obviously .... before or after LUNCH !!

Well now thats put me publicly on the spot I look forward to seeing how you get on !!! :rolleyes:

Don

I took a break, thought out the situation, read Don's information on the header of this thread again and digested advice above.

I started at 10am first taking a shot in daylight, which was good but I wanted to use flash adding shine and darkening the background freize paper. Next I took the remote SB-600 and positioned for maximum shine, this was perpendicular to the gongs face then adding a reflector to keep the light up toward the face creating the shine apparent from the camera position. I then sought shine on the supporting arm to the right which came from diffused light from a remote SB-800 using SC-28 remote cord - Time now 10:30. I spend the next hour and half devising ways to keep the shine WITHOUT creating a shadow, all angles, positions and flash output strengths were tried but nothing would allow both shine and lack of shadow. I decided that this was not possible until I saw MKI black mat and pinned it to mask light away as not to create shadow however maintaining light through a AP diffuser. I finally finished just after 12pm.

Things learned from this experience:-

- Plan the shot deciding exactly the motivation
- Start with daylight adding flash units individually
- Persevere, a sweeter reward awaits after more time and effort


Sorry for the un-level behind the scenes. :eek:

Well in this behind the scenes shot I can see where the daylight bit came from. So I was not correct in not taking it into account in my previous post.

I have downloaded both images to view them side by side, and the differences are far greater than you would imagine if you view the images seperately.

Two firsts for you here then Stephen. Using the master flash remotely via SC-28 remote cord, and use of the very handy little reflectors. The great thing about your behind the scenes shot is that it shows the use as a reflector and a diffuser.

Well I hope that from the title of this thread you have now well and truely progressed from ' daunting ' to ' FUN '.:)

There will be no stopping you now !!!!!!!!

Don

With a few rules and things to watch for, flash photography can enhance almost any everyday photography subject. A little confidence can bring out what is desired, in the gong - shine was the motivation without shadow or noticeable evidence of flash to the untrained eye. I never thought yesterday using direct, undiffused flash straight at the subject.

Take 1 used totally diffused light just like an overcast day and severely limited any shine whereas Take 2 is similar to a bright sunny day with lots of shine but with potential of deep shadows.

The two photos can be seen side-by-side below for easy comparison.

Image supplied by Don Hoey.

Have now got around to trying out my macro flash system which consists of 1 Sigma EF 500 EX ST flashgun and two cheap Jessops flashguns.

I'm quite pleased with the results, but I do need to modify the brackets that hold the Jessop guns.

Harry

Welcome back Harry hope you had a good trip.

Nothing like picking a really tricky subject to try your new set up on. Very reflective white bits. It has all worked really well though. Flash glare is very well controlled.

Don

The Steam Engine.....

I promised a story first...so, This stream engine was made by my Grandfather in the early 1980's when I was a small boy. He would work on the design and bring it home at a weekend for checking and development. Saturday Morning's were special as He and I would be alone working and studying his latest project. One occasion we were testing operation of the piston and flywheel arrangement and with boiler filled with water and burner filled with meths we began our test. All worked to plan and the fly wheel spun quickly powered by the steam piston. Suddenly.....The stream engine was engulfed by flames and burned my Grandmother's table cloth (we were fooling around on the dining room table, much as I do with photography!) The stream engine once shiny and polished ended up black with soot and burn marks. The next week the steam engine returned but was never to operate again and laid dormant as an ornament for many years until I became its proud owner. One Saturday morning I decided to fill the boiler and fuel the burner to repeat the test and ascertain why it burst into flames. I found the piston still operational and it drove the flywheel but, I noticed a pool of fuel coming out of the burner due to its wick being too thin allowing too much fuel to flow. I imagine the fuel built up and ignited causing the fire all those years ago. mindful of a repeat I immediately pulled the burner unit out and stopped the test. With a better wick who knows how my Grandfather and I would have developed this, it would have probably been self powering.

Now for the science bit....

I started with no flash, just daylight to see what neutral daylight would do (see pic1). An okay image, but I wanted to create some shine and life as with the gong above. Introduction of flash tends to darken the background and lighten the subject giving more contrast naturally. Using a similar technique to the gong with a SB-600 remote flash I directed it straight at the subject and it did yield the desired shine effect but with heavy shadow. I tried to blend this shadow using SB-800 on camera flash aiming diffused light at the ceiling to fall behind the subject, tempering shadow. It worked to a certain degree but not entirely so I diffused SB-600 light using stofen diffuser then applied a AP diffuser (pic2) to achieve a soft light that did not introduce shadow. Finally I added diffused SB-800 flash pointed directly to put back some shine that double diffused SB-600 was loosing (pic3).

Final result, pic4. Image is also in the gallery under 'Still Life'

Hi Stephen,
I love the story, do they still "make" Grandfathers like that today!
Mine was a ships in bottle man.
The images of the engine are very, very good, and thanks for letting me see the transformation from natural light to final image using flash/reflectors.I must find something to try it out on.
regards Subzero.

Do you have any of your Grandfathers' ships in a bottle (sorry, could not work out plural of ship in a bottle) :)

They would make an interesting and very challenging subject for flash photography and a worthly cause for posting.

Stephen. Thanks for posting the finished picture with the way you set up the flash and reflectors. It has turned out really well just enough lift with the light without any harsh reflections.
Its a fantastic looking engine I would love to have something like that on my shelves. your grandad did a grand job of engineering.

Sorry Stephen, for my bad English, it is ONE ship in ONE bottle, and no I sadly do not have keepsakes from him, that I can share with you.
regards Subzero.

A nice story to go with the picture Stephen,

Our nephew got us involved in steam years ago. As a young lad he was facinated by fire and water. He now owns a full size agricultural engine of his own.

Always nice to go behind the scenes like this. Thanks for posting. It does show what you can do with limited kit.

Technically you have discovered through the use of the AP diffusers that the bigger the light source the softer it is. Use of the Stofens really spreads the light to the edge of the reflectors ( no hot spot ), so turning your pinpoint light source into a far bigger one capable of wrapping its self round the subject.

An excellent result.:cool:

Don

After reading Don's kind words I thought to explore what a diffuser actually does to light and attempt to demonstrate it. We all know if diffuses and softens but how.

The image below shows a cross of light originating from a Stofen diffuser and this is gathered and diffused once more by the AP diffuser held approx 30cm away. Sorry its not central!! :eek:

Behind the scenes of Robs BLT shoot
 

I am posting this behind the scenes picture as a follow up to Stephens posts, and to show the effect of a large area diffused light.

As this was in my workshop the subject has been lit by the single flash unit only. ( Exposure 1/160 sec @ f18 ). The key being that the light source through the diffuser was quite a lot larger than the subject. The light would therefore wrap itself around the subject. Although a studio unit is inside the Apollo lightbox it has the same power as my SB80-DX. I use it as a matter of conveniance - its mains powered so I can leave it switched on all the time.

The SB80-DX was needed to trigger the studio unit only, so was positioned below bench level so as to have no influence on the exposure.

Black flags were used to limit the amount of lighting behind the main subject.

Don

Behind the scenes of the D100 The Gold Box Series
 

Taken as part of a series that themed Gold.

The base for this is a piece of aluminium. It was designed to go below a sink unit, but I thought it may have a better use so did not fit it.

Due to the highly reflective surface great care had to be taken in lighting the scene with flash. A large diffused flash was used forward of the scene to provide top light for the camera. A single flash was aimed at the front edge to take advantage of the reflective nature of the base. Light being bounced to the gold boxes and then reflected back into the scene.

The hardest part was positioning the lens box to reflect the logo onto the camera info screen. This could not be seen in the viewfinder so positioning was trial an error.

Don

Behind the scenes of the Gold Box Series Madness
 

When tidying up after the Gold Box D100 I had a crazy idea. That of using a silver flash umbella as a backdrop and reflecting the gold colour from the boxes back into the scene, so completing the Gold Box series with a bit of a bang.

Crazy idea as this is designed to be a super reflective surface. It does however have a texture to provide interest.

There is a version taken without the gold reflection in the ' Critique ' thread.

A focal length of 35 mm was chosen to give greater depth to the brolly as I wanted to include the mechanism and give greater prominence to the lens. The taking camera was about 400 mm from the subject camera. In these circumstance it proved impossible to include a reflection on the camera display screen. The reflection of the brolly handle you can see, is from a section an inch above the catch.

Don

Brilliant idea and photo. On close inspection it is possible to notice a soft shadow caused by the black flag on the wide shot in the D100 and gold boxes photo.

The Duelling Pistols....

Unlike my other work I spend a long time composing this shot where previously I was too eager to get to the flash challenge. I must have spend 30 minutes trying different compositions.

Pic1 shows undiffused flash pointing directly at the subject, not pretty! Diffusion was going to be key to this shot and through experimentation I managed to get something near with a soft shadow from the RHS pistol on its side onto the book. To reduce/eliminate this I used SB-600 with diffuser through an AP diffuser pointing upward so only a small contribution to overall exposure as made (pic2). Pic3 shows how light was reflected directly, not diffused toward the main subject. The reflector made the light source much bigger illuminating gently without shadow the entire photo. Pic4 is the finished article and can also be viewed in the still life gallery.

Stephen,
Picture 2 shows a good example that although you are using flash you can effectivly control the amount of light you get, and are not limited to its full output.

Picture 3 is great as it really demonstrates a bit of lateral thinking. A method of triggering the SB600, and providing a large area light source.

In the final image lots of detail has been retained in the yellow cloth, and the exposure front to back on the white page is excellent.

Those copies you bought, of Amateur Photographer with the free reflector offer have certainly paid off. :D

Don

Using Black Flags in the Manfrotto 701RC2 shoot.
 

In the image of the internals of the 701 head I wanted to concentrate the viewers attention on the vane and counterbalance spring. To do that a good degree of flash falloff towards the back was required. As the subject was only 12 inches front to back, I could only acheive the effect by limiting the amount of light reaching the back of the scene. This was done with black card, see attatched pic and graphic.

The main light was a large diffused flash. A second undiffused unit was set to graze the surface to give some texture and fill light. Its angle and power were controlled to limit its light getting to the back of the scene.

Don

Calming reflections....

Before photographing the Spitfire ashtray I racked my mind for ideas to calm shadows, ideally a light tent would be used but in absence of such equipment decided to use.... a white bin liner :o

With an assistant holding the huge diffuser/reflector I took the spitfire shot which has calmed reflections of Mosquito/Hornet (still undecided!) but flattened any interesting highlights and shadows from the Spitfire fuselage and wing area.

Below is the assistant and bin liner with end result.

Stephen,

I think the white bin liner has added its own reflection, which being white, has given the effect of dulling the polished surfaces. If you don't mind I would like to post a composite with the Mossie to try and explain.

Don

Feel free....:)

Thanks Stephen,

I will try to do this in PS8, this machine does not like PSP7 which I normally use. It may therefore take a while.

Don

Finally made it Stephen.

Graphic not quite up to usual standard. I have put most of the info in the graphic as easily printed.

In essence its a case of looking at all the surfaces and working out what lit them. This is a case of adding controlled reflections to bring out the shape. Be prepared to spend a bit of time as there will be a fair degree of experimentation. Adequate reward required for your assistant. :D

I have added your Mossie pic as it is easier to reference here rather than a gallery link.

Don

Behind the scenes of PC Remote Control of Camera
 

Today I had a more serious play with remote control of the camera using a laptop.

In the past I have used a 2 1/2 x workshop magnifier to assess a picture I have taken. Quite often when the image is downloaded onto the pc I find flaws, and have to reshoot. The idea here was to down load images direct to the pc and view them full screen nearly immediately.

I attatch a marked up first shot to show what would not have been visible at the time of taking the picture.

Lighting for this was quite easy as the attached image shows. After the first shot which was taken as a flash exposure of 1/160 sec. I had to remove the reflector as it created an unwanted highlight and reduce shutter speed to 1/15 sec to allow a bit of light from the door to fill in the shadow from the collet ( shiny object bottom right of picture )

Further details are in the ' Camera Remote Control through a PC ' thread.

Don

Attached are two images showing my basic setup for shooting flowers indoors.

Firstly I must apologise for the poor photo of my setup, but I just could not get the angle right so as to include everything.

For a backdrop I used a cardboard box covered with a white sheet, Illumination was provided by my two Jessops mini slave flashguns.

These you can just see behind the laptop and are placed on the table facing upwards and slightly to the rear of the flower.

I also have my Sigma Super set to slave mounted on a tripod above and behind the flower, the head being angled so as to illuminate the backof the subject.

To trigger these slave I have my Canon twin light macroflash with both heads angled to light the subject, these are operating at 2/3 power, but with the righthand head delivering only 3/4 of the power, lefthand head is firing at full 2/3 power (hope that makes sense)

With the macro flash it's possible to contol the total flash output, but then it's possible to further control the lights on the individual heads as well as the angles. These heads can also be rotated around the axis of the lens.

This is the link to the first upload of "Cherry Blossom" http://www.worldphotographyforum.com...500&ppuser=150.


Harry

Very impressive Harry. An interesting post, thanks.

Don

Just looked again at the control panel on your Canon twin light macroflash.

That unit looks to be VERY impressive.

Don

Flash photography - Fun!
 

After a quiet period and some one to one tuition from Don I have attempted more flash still life photography.

Using a self standing monopod as a lighting stand with SB-800 and a 38" lastolite reflector/diffuser I created a large light wrapping around the subject. The photo was created in a very short period of time taking longer to setup the kit and composition than getting lighting right. Photo shows exactly how lighting as setup.

Photo can be seen in gallery... http://www.worldphotographyforum.com...php?photo=5631

Stephen,

All the kit being used here. ....... Do I see another new toy. :D

A really good idea using the monopod as a light stand. The picture is a good example of flash fall off without using black flags. Exposure is spot on as I can see the pattern in the egg shells.

I notice you used the 28 - 70 and ended up at 52mm. Also f13 ..... seen that number before ..... thats what I set when I use the Multiblitz at a similar distance. Nice soft light through the Lastolite. So now you have the equivalent of my big softbox for a lot less.

Don

Behind the scenes of the ' Behind The Lens ' shot.
 

The idea for the shot came from a couple of PM's with Nikon Foxy Bob.
The only flowers we have are on one fushia plant so that became the subject choice. The camera ... well thats the down to doing something a bit different. Lighting was by a single diffused flash, triggered by the SB80 on a remote cord and is just visible under the table. Exposure and focussing were manual.
I remember trying something similar in my days of film and I was able to make a print from 2 negatives. Achieving accurate registry in the enlarger was the biggest problem so it was not that easy. Not a problem with digital as long as register was maintained at the time of shooting.

The camera with the prism attached was set up as in the attached pic. Once F3 focus on the flower was achieved the prism was removed, taking care not to move the F3. To enable viewing of large images to check for effect, the D100 was controlled by a laptop. Two images are attached, one to show the effect of the focussing screen image through using a single exposure for camera and flower, and a seperate one concentrating on the focussing screen, where the light fall off on the camera, from the flash, was controlled by black flags. Camera position was quite critical to stop the blackout effect from the split image of the focussing screen. ( focussing aid before the days of A/F )

Frustations, there were some. Due to seriously limited space a knock of the tripod meant resetting and re shooting both sets to maintain register. This happened as I moved the flash between the two exposures. Camera battery running out of power then finding after recharging that the flower had moved - see BS 3.

Despite thoroughly cleaning the camera before starting, dust specks miraculously appeared and were made very obvious with flash. More time was spent cloning these out than combining the images.

The final image is also attached to save returning to the gallery.

Don

Behind the scenes of Black on Black Nikon F3HP
 

Following two previous gallery submissions I had a brief from Nikon Foxy Bob, to take a picture of the F3 against a black background.

There were two considerations for lighting this. I had to seperate the black camera from the black background, and put life into the lens.

To seperate the camera from the background I used a diffused flash top light. Reflectors were used to bounce light back into critical areas. A large lastolite reflector, with a flash fired from behind it provided light for the lens. The colour you see is from the lens coating.

The biggest single problem I had was manually focussing the 28-105 lens on the D100, as I wear glasses and the big softbox limited the light from the overhead striplights. I could not reach the main lightswitch through the tangle of light stands and tripods, as can be seen in the behind the scenes picture so had to rely on the two above my lathe which is behind the D100. Once again I used a laptop to control the camera and check the effect of adding each reflector in turn.

Pictures attached.
1) Behind the scenes view.
2) The areas affected by each reflector.
3) The final image.

Don

Blimey Don, that looks like quite a task! What it must be to be retired. Lovely soft lit end result. Thanks for the tops, I'll have a go at a similar shot of my K1000 when I have the time.

Don, you'll be the death of me. I've just spent an hour experimenting with different angles, bits of white paper, bits of tin-foil, bits of kitchen-roll, and I still can't get rid of the shadows in the corners!

Getting tired and frustrated now. You'll have to make do with the best effort so far, which I'm not particularly happy with.:(

I know this thread is about flash, and there have been some lovely examples, but I thought it would be worth mentioning another technique. Being a cheapskate at heart, I thought I could use Quartz Halogen lights to take photographs of items I wanted to sell. Each light cost a mere £5 from Asda so an experiment would not break the bank. Attached are two example images of a lens I subsequently sold on ebay. I used a couple of Lastolite diffusers to soften the light from the lamps and some reflectors to lighten shadows. The main problem I had was the background, as I only had A4 sheets of white paper. Of course the great advantage is that you can see the modelling, and adjust to suit. The disadvantage is that you have to do the work in a room shielded from all other sources of light.

Leif