flash Archives - Page 7 of 12 - TimeLine Media Blog

January 20, 2014

Personal, Photography, Travel | 0 comment

MLK Memorial at sunrise

Martin Luther King Memorial, Washington, DC - ©TimeLine Media

Today is Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, a holiday in the United States observing the birthday of the great civil rights leader. He fought for equal rights in the 1960’s using non-violent marches and speeches as his main vehicle for his message. There is a new memorial to MLK located at the Tidal Basin in Washington, DC, a place that does not have many monuments to people that were not presidents of the nation. It is concurrently right in the line of cherry trees that bloom in spring bringing many visitors to the area.

Tidal Basin

On this morning, there were so many photographers and TV stations that were there to cover the holiday. There were speeches and other presentations that would take place at the memorial, and of course I wanted to see what the scene would be like. It was probably not the best day to get a distraction-free view of the memorial with all the people in the area, but it was so nice to see so many that took time out of their day off to pay tribute to such a historical figure on the holiday created in his name.

It was an awesome sunrise this morning. There were lots of clouds in the sky that reflected the sun nicely across the tidal basin, and right into the memorial. With his statue facing East, the sun makes for nice portrait light when it is low in the sky. This is what so many of the photographers that got up early were waiting to capture, and today did not disappoint. After I got many photos from that vantage, I wanted to try and get something different. There are some really nice stone walkways that lead visitors to the memorial, with quotes carved into the stone.

Off Camera Flash

I did not like how the default camera settings were making the image, so I thought that adding flash would help! Here is what the manual settings in the camera looked like. I wanted to keep the deep blue in the morning sky since the blown out look did not add anything to the photo.

Next I added some flash that is warmed with an orange, or CTO gel on the front:

I really liked how this turned out – so for the final shot, I just moved back a little from the wall, and zoomed the lens out as far as it could go. This way, I could get in some of the large white stone in the background that was reflecting the rising sun. I was happy with how it came out!

MLK Memorial, Washington, DC - ©TimeLine Media — MLK Memorial, Washington, DC – ©TimeLine Media

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January 17, 2014

Ballroom Dance, Event, Photography, Technology | 0 comment

Metering with Flash

From the post about starting with flash, I did get a question about how this affects the camera metering. Great question! As a review, the meter in the camera measures the amount of light that is reflected off your subject. When you shoot in manual mode where you specify the aperture and shutter speed of your photo, the in-camera meter will tell you whether or not your settings will produce a good exposure. A good exposure is or an overall 18% gray image.

The computer in the camera does not know anything about the subject you are photographing. Moreover it does not know what you are attempting to do. So it takes all the data from dark to light that is coming into the camera, and it spits out a scale. Where on the scale it meters will show you what your current settings will give you. If you are in the minus side of the scale, your overall image will be dark. However, if you are on the plus side of the scale, your image will be bright. The question came in from a recent image I posted from a product shoot where I photographed the viewfinder with my iPhone, and the scale was all the way to the minus side! Were my photographs all too dark or underexposed?

Flash Setup

Nikon viewfinder during product shoot - ©TimeLine Media — Nikon viewfinder during product shoot – ©TimeLine Media

This is where you need to add the flash, and the meter that is built into the flash can take over. If you are using the through-the-lens or TTL metering of your flash, there is a pre-flash burst that fires as you hit the shutter button. In that small time, this burst will be enough information for the flash to take in the scene, like your in-camera meter, then dial in the right amount of flash to add for a good exposure. You do not have to do any calculations or adjustments, the speedlight will do all that for you! This is one of the reasons these small units are so powerful. In quickly changing circumstances such as a wedding reception, or indoor event, you can turn in different directions very quickly and keep making flashes without changing your settings before each photo.

Bar Mitvah photo - ©TimeLine Media — Bar Mitvah photo – ©TimeLine Media

Just like using your in-camera meter, however, there can be some drawbacks. Depending on what you have in front of your lens, you may get over-exposed or under-exposed photos. Again, the camera cannot make any decisions on how you are composing your photo. It just sees dark and light. This is the reason why there are so many flash bulbs that will fire at the start of American football games – the cameras in the stands just see that light needs to be added to the scene. Why will using flash in this instance not work at all? I’ll post about that soon!

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January 16, 2014

Family, Photography, Technology | 0 comment

Adding Light with Flash – Tech Thursday

With the advances in digital photography, it is easier to explain how the camera calculates an exposure. Additionally, it is easy to visualize that a larger aperture opening will let more light into the frame, or a faster shutter speed will let in less light. Once you memorize that lower ISO values are less sensitive to light than higher ones, you have the basics of the “Exposure Triangle” mastered.

Flash Portrait

Getting photographers to start using flash is a difficult step. They start to freeze up. Almost as though they just put the camera back in Program mode again. They let the camera make all the decisions like they did when they first started taking photos. Just like the settings for Aperture, Shutter Speed, and ISO, working with flash can be straightforward. However, it does add another layer to the considerations when making images. I hope that through some posts, I can get you to experiment more with your flash. Hopefully you will learn how to control it to improve your photography. It will set you apart from “natural light” photographers that never add flash. There are many that choose to do this for artistic reasons, but do not be afraid to add this to your toolkit. You will be able to make images that are IMPOSSIBLE without the flash. If you have aspirations of photographing weddings, or events, you will need to use flash at some point in order to make images that grab attention.

Pet Portrait

In my previous post on flash, the settings on the speedlight were in the default TTL (Through-The-Lens) mode. This is the equivalent of the Program or P mode. The camera and flash work together to calculate how much light to add to your scene to get a good exposure. The computing power built into both ensure that you will get good exposures – and you can still control some of the aspects of the image. You can use TTL mode in Aperture priority so that you can set the depth of field in your image to keep that control over your composition. This is the first step – and likely you will get good results with the TTL settings on your camera. I’ll post how you can take control of this just as you do with your other settings in your camera to make even better images.

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Posts Tagged ‘flash’

Tidal Basin

Off Camera Flash

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Flash Setup

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Flash Portrait

Pet Portrait

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