February 18, 2009

Spring Training #2

Near the end of practice, I noticed that I had a wonderful sunset behind the boys as they did their final batting practice.  I set my camera to underexpose the ambient light by about 1.5 EV and then set my flashes to overexpose the subject by about 1.0 EV.  I wanted to saturate the colors of the sunset, but show all the details of the boys batting.  Again, I placed the two SB800s on each side of the batter at 45 decree angles, but this time, I replaced one of the boys with a dad (to avoid injury).  Again, my VALs did a great job.

Overall, I was really impressed with how the CLS worked.  In about 100 shots, I think I only had two or three flash failures.  After this little test, I will try some additional tests for the system.  Who knows, I might be selling my AlienBee triggers if I keep getting good results, because it really is easier to adjust the flash levels from the camera as opposed to adjusting them at the flash.

Enjoy.

Camera settings:  Nikon D700, 70-200 f/2.8 at 150mm, shot at ISO 800, f/8 and 1/180 of a second.

Post Processing: 

Lightroom—set white and black points, adjusted white balance and added clarity and vibrance.

Photoshop—did some clean of spectacular highlights on the boy's batting helmet.

2 comments:

  1. The balance between the flash and the ambient light could not be better. You successfully saturated the colors in the sky. Really nice action shot that also shows the overall scene. Job well done.
    Anne

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  2. Nice photo. The sunset adds a lot to the photo. I also like the concentration of the little boy.
    Debbie

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