I wrote about deleting the ambient in the past, special thanks to a contribution by Ed Pingol.   This article had lots of attention and was linked all over the internet on forums and throughout the web-sphere... Simply because, the idea is practical, functional, and really creative!  Here is a photo from that post.  Go read the article to get up to speed on turning down the ambient.  Its also a great resource to identify which cables / dodads are being used to make this setup happen.

Fast forward to a new really cool setup....I just wanted to give some props an amigo of mine Sergio Photographer, also the photographer Sol & I hired to cover our wedding day.  Recently, he engineered a setup to work for him in environments that were challenging his productivity.

Introducing his 3 light rig:

Outdoor daytime configuration. 3 SB-800 units, 2 with Pocket Wizards attached and one without (one Pocket Wizard activates two units). The transmitter is attached to the bottom of the camera (to keep the hot shoe free for a flash later on) with a 1/4 -20 ¾ inch long set screw. The flash mount is a Lastolite Triflash unit,  attached to an inexpensive SLIK monopod (lightstick). The cables are custom made from Paramount Cords.

Sergio writes:

Like many of you, I like to keep things simple and tote around as little as possible. There are many times that I need extra power, especially outdoors in Arizona. Using the sun as your backlight requires a lot of power from a flash unit. A lot of photographers carry Quantum flash units and some even carry bigger moonlight heads. I try to use what I already have and it is easier for me to combine the power of 3 SB-800 units for this type of shot; and then later (when no longer needed) I just take off two of the flashes and use them for my on-camera flash at the reception. The third flash is used on a lightstand or in some other way depending on the situation.

Nikon D700 | ISO 200 | Aperture:20 | Shutter:250 | Lens: 24-70 at 24mm | Alien Skin Film 2.0
I asked the groom to jump and the flash was powerful enough to illuminate him completely and froze him in midair.

Nighttime reception configuration. One unit (with Pocket Wizard) stays on the mount and is used as the lightstick. The flash without a Pocket Wizard gets attached to the camera; I normally use this flash (covered) solely as a focusing aid; but I uncover it when I need some fill light. The third flash is optional and it is normally used on a lightstand across the dance floor or in other locations.


Notice Sergio's flash setup for the reception, after finishing with the 3 light setup.  Interesting how he is leaving us hanging here with the motivations behind whats happening with his camera mounted flash unit being all taped up!  Interesting, eh?  I hope he will share with us soon why his imagery is so friggen awesome at his receptions.  Seriously, if you havent already go take a peek at his blogito if you haven't already.   His work is very inspirational.  Remember, we hired him to photograph our wedding, the guy knows his shit!

Sergio even has a bobble head doll...this guy is out of control!

Saludos Amigo for the submission!  Hope to get more from you soon!
Che Guero Mateo

On the coat tails of my last post about cross lighting, I had a submission from a Canadian photographer who really is doing some amazing off camera flash work.  These photos incorporate a 2 light setup, which in my book, challenges the ordinary because most togs out there are only using 1 slave, if any at all.  Dan and Kat from Stone Photo write:

This location was a bit of a happy accident. We were shooting on location in The fabulous Summerland B.C. a holiday destination in the Okanogan on a beautiful lake with lots of awesome mountains all around. But when Kat and I were scouting the day before we found this really wicked old church that totally inspired us to bring some Urban into this landscape rich destination. Ashley (our beautiful bride) is totally natural in front of the camera and needed very little direction. Cory (our super macho fireman groom) needed to do nothing more than gaze at his lovely bride to make the pose work.

The shot was lit with our trusty Norman 400B @ 400 w/s with the standard 2D reflector to turn the sun into a star. Kat held the Norman feather toward Ashley as she was a little further away. We had a bridesmaid hold an SB-28 @ full boogie & zoomed to 85mm for Cory's dark Jacket. Lighting gave an Exposure ISO 200 F/22 @ 1/250. We wanted to be one stop under "Sunny 16", so 1/200 (or 250) at ISO 200 at f/16 would be balanced with sunlight...and f/22 would be a stop under. We put a bit of a tilt on this one and shot at 24mm, we didn't want to totally warp the perspective. But the slight tilt and converging lines nicely puts emphasis on Ashley and, hopefully, the eye goes to her white dress first also.

The whole time we were just laughing a joking around with them too. We try never to take ourselves too seriously or act like lighting is a great science, getting technical in front of your clients is no way to make them relax.

Here is a case when our artistic vision was blessed with fantastic subject matter. We had been tossing around the idea of doing something fashiony with one of our brides as a creative in a downtown Urban Setting and maybe rent an insane or out there dress... you know something different. We love white...don't get us wrong. But who could pass up this opportunity. We showed up and saw our very own "Lady in Red" and had a blast for the rest of the day ;). This Image was largely inspired by the dress. I was just dying to make her float/fly....or jump in this thing and try to freeze the action with flash. And flash we did use....but jumping wasn't really an option in heels.

We had the idea to prop Faye up on the bench and then we though we aught to throw Greg (the groom) in there too. I mean duhhh, she ended up resting her feet on the bench and greg's knee. Heals got tossed (by Dan) and then cleverly put back in the shot (by Kat). We used a few people to help with this one. We knew we wanted two points of dramatic side light and thought is would be cool if the kicker could throw long shadows on the rather plain looking concrete floor, so we threw our Quantum T5D-r (with assistant) @ 1/2 power behind the Groom on Camera Left. To light everyone/thing from the front we gave a groomsmen an  sb-28 zoomed wide to 24mm and set @ full power. To finish everything off Kat fluffed the dress and jumped out of frame in time for 1 shot. We shot 4 or 6 frames in total. Final Exposure was ISO 200 F/8 @ 1/250, shot at 35mm.

We just love manipulating our environment and create something remarkable. And we love to have fun! ;) :P  

Thanks Dan & Kat for the contribution.  Adding 2 lights is always a challenge to the ordinary setup.  Glad to see someone else who doesnt take the technical side too seriously in front of a client... Props amigos!  Lots of off camera flash motivation over on the Stone Photo Blog too!

Saludos,

matt

I'm very surprised by the amount of photographers I meet who are shocked to learn that we use flash in full sunlight.  I know this topic has been discussed before here and other sites. Strobist remains the absolute #1 resource for those who want to polish up on your flash skills.  Follow this link to read one of his lighting tutorials on cross lighting.

Shooting in the full sun can really flatten your subjects so we, as responsible technical photographers, must assume the duty to make a difference when placed in this situation by turning on a strobe :)   David Hobby has initiated a good bit of discussion on this subject and while this article talks about using TTL, we also want to point out that you can use your pocket wizards with manual flash power too.

Check out David's sketch of a potential cross lighting setup.

Discussion on this photo diagram here.

Here is one of our recent attempts.  Sol put a speedlight on 1/1 (full power) about 4-5 feet from subject.  Triggered by Pocket Wizard.  Flash is 45-60 degrees from camera's angle, pretty much an exact remake / setup of the above diagram. 

photo by Sol.

Saluods,

mateo

I've been shooting with the 5d II at night during all receptions and using higher ISO and bringing in more ambient light.  One of the issues that always presents itself is the fact that its so easy to use a slave flash to light up everything under the sun (when there is no sun).  This technique is fine, except it tends knock down or take away any ambient light that existed.   Blast em doesnt = better.  

What we are doing these days is using Neutral Density Gel to actually take the power of the flash down by 1 or 2 or sometimes, 3 stops.   I'm shooting OLD Sb-28's that are already at a lower power level than today's Sb's (800 + 900).  Or the 580 EX II.   The 28 simply is an older unit that I can dial down to 1/64 power.  BUT, thats too bright for most of my stuff, considering I'm usually shooting to bring IN that ambient light, make some sort of atmosphere out of the reception vs give it atmosphere by dominating flash bursts.   Make sense?

Before I get into MY own images, Id like you to spend 30 minutes reading this entire blog post.   My friend Dave from DQ studios recently posted a blog post about off camera flash and hinted on this very subject.   The main problem with these flashes is they are just too stinking HOT.  In order to preserve the mood and save the ambiance in the room, we must turn our flashes WAY down.  Dave spent ALL day writing this blog post.  Dave and Quin are pretty stinking HOTness behind the camera coupled with off camera flash work.   Check out his thoughts:

Nikon D700 + 105mm f2 @ISO1250, f2.2 & 1/100. Off-camera flash: Nikon SB900 triggered via Quantum FW10w Transceivers

Dave writes:

Yesterday I was talking with a marketing director of a flash company about flash needs in the 21st Century.  We all know we love balancing and, at times, overpowering sun with flash.  But how about lighting with off-camera flash in low-light/high-ISO surroundings?

There’s lots of relatively high-powered flashes made for bright shooting and overpowering dark scenes.  What’s lacking is a professional strobe with *really* low-powered output for accenting low-light environments.

“We’re not in Kansas anymore …”

For sure, click here to read his full article.

On the same subject, but outside on the beach, I still must preserve what ambient I've been given.  In this case, I had a dance floor and some stage lights but also, mixed with dim dim tungsten lights in the trees, and many other low power light sources.

I've posted a few images here to give you and idea of what I'm talking about...

This one was shot at ISO 1000 using 2.8 shot at 1/13 of a second.  I pulled a little movement off by zooming in on the lens to get the floor moving. The flash with 1 ND filter, set to low power (1/64) is blasting away at the girls on the floor. The slave flash acts as my shutter, freezing action, letting everything els

Shot a 1/25 of a Sec.  I little camera movement from left to right so the ambient starts to jump off the page.  My flash becomes my new shutter

This just a scene setter shot of the dance floor with a very low power flash giving me some side light, keeping just enough on them not to take away the mood the light from the dance floor was giving off.   Perhaps a little too hot on the flash...

This one should help you in a big way :)

cheers,

matt