March 2, 2013

Using Flash Creatively—No. 2



Before I go into today’s photo, I would like to discuss what the blank pallet on which Steve and I were working.  This photo was taken by one of the other photographers at the meet-up.  In the photo, you can see that the sky has virtually no color in it.  You can also see where Christine was standing in relation to the barn.  You can see the gate that we positioned to create the shadow cast on the wall.  And, finally, you can see how dark it was within the barn.
In today’s photo, I wanted to simulate a sunset shot.  The first thing I did was to select an aperture of f/6.7 which would make sure that I would have sufficient depth of field.  I then, dialed in my shutter speed so that the ambient light in the door at the rear of the barn would more-or-less match what the light would look like at sunset.  I then set the power settings on the flashes so that the light would simulate sunset.


In post processing, I did warm-up and decrease the intensity of the light in the door to better match the overall scene.
Enjoy.

Camera settings:  Nikon D4, 24-70mm f/2.8 at 44mm, ISO 100, f/6.7 at 1/60th of a second.
Post Processing:
Lightroom 4—applied Nikon Portrait preset during import, set white and black points, decreased shadows and increased highlights and added vibrance and clarity.
 Photoshop CS5—applied nik Color Efex Pro glamour glow and pro contrast to image and warmed and decreased intensity of light in door.

6 comments:

  1. I have looked, no studied, this photo, your write up and the overall photo for some time and I would never had believed that you could produce this out of what you showed me you were working with. Really good job and great thinking of what might be rather than what you were seeing.
    Taylor

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  2. You did what you set out to do. Cool shot.
    Allen

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  3. I like this one. You did what you wanted. I would never had guessed that you could get this photo from what you were presented.
    Tally

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  4. Most interesting how you are creating these out of what does not appear to be much. Hope you continue this series for a while. Thanks.
    T

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  5. You told me what the setting were on each of your lights but I was wondering how you decided on those settings. The whole scene, except for the doorway, looks like it is underexposed by about one fstop.
    Mark

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