Flash - Behind the scenes

[Canis Vulpes]

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'

[Subzero]

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.

[Canis Vulpes]

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.

[Saphire]

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.

[Subzero]

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.

[Don Hoey]

Originally Posted by Stephen Fox

The Steam Engine.....

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'

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.

Don

[Canis Vulpes]

Originally Posted by Don Hoey

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.
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!!

[Don Hoey]

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

[Don Hoey]

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

[Don Hoey]

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