March 19, 2013

Using Flash Creatively—No. 5



Last week, I ripped-off Joe McNally, so I thought it would only be fitting that I rip-off a lady this week.   It’s your turn, Lindsay Adler.  Lindsay is a very talented fashion photographer who does some outstanding how-to photography videos.  She recently took place in the GPP Shootout with John Keatley and Zack Arias.  You can watch a video of the shootout here.
Lindsay’s idea is to create flare by placing a plastic decoration very close to your lens and shoot through it.  You must set your lens to a relatively wide opening such as f/2.8 or wider.  This technique can produce some spectacular results, however, it is a hit-and-miss proposition because you are never really sure what you are going to get.
In this photo, I placed half of a clear Christmas ball in front of my lens.  I had a Nikon SB 800 behind and slightly to the side of Emili and an Elinchrom Quadra in front of her.
Enjoy.
Camera settings:  Nikon D4 on a tripod, 24-70mm f/2.8 at 50mm, ISO 100, f/2.8 at 1/180th of a second on a tripod with a Nikon SB 800 behind her and an Elinchrom Quadra in front of her.
Post Processing:

Lightroom 4—applied Nikon Portrait preset during import, set white and black points and added vibrance.

5 comments:

  1. Five excellent posts on lighting. Very helpful. Thank you.

    Dolores

    ReplyDelete
  2. Keep ripping people off. I have never seen any of these. I really enjoy learning how they are done.
    Troy

    ReplyDelete
  3. Wow. I want to do this.
    Allen

    ReplyDelete
  4. I want to do this. I tried to but never got anything like this. What's the secret?
    Byron

    ReplyDelete