Outdoor Lighting Workshop 8-7-10

My Outdoor Lightning Workshops have been a great success these past few weeks. Last Saturday we held the workshop at Virginia Beach bright dark and early. We started shooting and lighting before the sun came up. The goal for the day was to create different looks and from the results we achieved, I'd say we accomplished our goal.

I'm going to be breaking this into 3 different blog entries. This first entry will showcase balancing the ambient exposure with flash exposure. For our first series of shots, we wanted to capture all the dynamic colors of the sunrise and be able to light the subject using off camera flash.

My first shot of the morning was a quick exposure check. We had a gorgeous sunrise and my goal was to capture the bold and vibrant colors. I started with my Canon EOS 7D paired with the Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L . (f/4, 1/80, ISO100)

Once I established my base ambient exposure, I had one of our models get in place for another quick exposure check. Same settings.

Now we're ready to add light. Since we were working at sunrise, the light was changing fast. I adjusted my shutter speed to 1/125 to ensure I still retained the same boldness of the sky. I used a White Lightning X3200 gelled with a 1/2 CTO inside Photek 60" Softlighter II camera right. When using large modifiers outdoors, it's a good idea to have your lights on sturdy support. For this setup, we used the Impact Turtle Base Century C StandNow we're ready to add light. Since we were working at sunrise, the light was changing fast. I adjusted my shutter speed to 1/125 to ensure I still retained the same boldness of the sky. I used a White Lightning X3200 gelled with a 1/2 CTO inside Photek 60" Softlighter II camera right. When using large modifiers outdoors, it's a good idea to have your lights on sturdy support. For this setup, we used the Impact Turtle Base Century C Stand
Here is the result.

This is what the setup looked like.

Come back on Friday to see some more shots with a totally different look.
Visit my Facebook page for more images.

Adding Props

I like to do things to mix it up a bit. Whether it's shooting at different angles, unique compositions, or as seen in this image, adding a prop. I found this vintage umbrella on ebay for $15. I think it adds a nice touch.

This shot of Alex was taken with a 5D Mark II 70-200mm f/2.8 L IS. TThree 580EXIIs firing through a shoot through umbrella at 1/4 power. All of them were triggered with on PocketWizard PlusII with a 3/4 CTO on each, camera right.

Cheating the Sync

Most DSLRs these days have a maximum synch speed with the flash at 1/160 to 1/250. The shutter speed can be faster than the maximum synch speed but the flash will not fill the entire frame. This is problem when shooting in a studio where there's very little ambient light, but not that big of a problem when shooting outdoors where there's plenty of ambient light.

1D Mark III 24-70mm f/2.8 L
(ISO50, f/5, 1/400)

3 Canon 580EXIIs firing through a shoot through umbrella all at full power camera left.

I cheated the native sync speed 0f the 1D Mark III which is 1/250.

What's a good portrait lens?

What's a good portrait lens? I get asked this question a lot. There is really no such thing as a "portrait lens." Some lenses are better than others for portrait photography because of their focal length but just about any lens can be used for portraits. Typically 80-135mm is a good focal length range for portraits but sometimes I don't like being typical. This shot of Mandy was taken with a 400mm f/2.8 L IS. 400mm is pretty far from the typical 80-135mm range but the results are magnificent.

Lights on / Lights off

Lighting is as much about what you don't light as what you do light. As photographers, we have the ability to orchestrate the viewer's eye with composition, leading lines, and how we light. Light can put the focus on something specific and the absence of light can remove the focus on what's not important.

With the image above, I light the model's face with directional side lighting to emphasize her hair, eyes, and lips. I also placed a light underneath her dress to give it a glow and the lead the viewer's eye from her face to something almost as important; her wedding dress. I made sure the light didn't contaminate the background so then only thing that's visible is her.

In most cases, defined shadows can be distracting but in this image, the shadows adds a nice artistic element. I used a single strobe inside a beauty dish which puts out light that has a bit more contast that a softbox does.

McNally, Models, & Modifiers....Oh My!

My buddy Steve and I took a trip to Dobbs Ferry, NY. Dobbs Ferry is about 30 minutes outside of Manhattan......well more like 2 hours outside of Manhattan with NY rush hour traffic. We drove 8 hours, through 5 states, and through a torrential down pour all to see Joe McNally. Was it worth it? ABSOLUTELY!


Anybody that knows anything about photography, more specifically lighting, knows who Joe McNally is. I saw Joe in action a few months ago in Boston at Photoshop World. I was impressed enough to buy his latest book "The Hot Shoe Diaries." The whole title is actually "The Hot Shoe Diaries: Big Light from Small Flashes." As you might guess the book is about getting the most out of small speedlights. The images in the book are just breathtaking. I also decided to buy his first book "The Moment it Clicks." Another display of imagination, creativity, and inginuity.

When Joe annouced that he was conducting a lighting workshop, I immediately made plans to go and I am so glad that I did. Steve and I arrived at a large white building that Joe rents as studio space but is also used as a warehouse. There were about 16 students there and about 9 or 10 of Joe's staff/friends. We were served a light breakfast with coffee. Joe started out by introducing himself and his friends and the students also made brief introductions. There were actually more than one Canon users :)  Joe actually was thoughtful enough to bring in Syl Arena from pixsylated.com . Syl is commercial shooter from Cali who also is an expert with Canon gear.

After intros and a quick inspirational slideshow, we immediately starting absorbing the knowledge Joe was dropping. What I loved about Joe's approach to teaching is he does not come across as a "know it all." He's been shooting and lighting for probably longer than I've been alive but he'll be the first to tell you that light can have a life of its own and often time it's unpredictable. Joe never talked about precise formulas, ratios, or even used a light meter. His approach was more of "Let's try this and see what happens." More often than not, the lighting was spot on but there were a few times where it was way off. Joe explained that stuff like this happens and explained how to troubleshoot your way back to good lighting. He often started out with one light and one modifier and slowly built up to more lights and more modifiers until a masterpiece was made. Throughout that process, we ran into real world issues and learned how to stay calm and work ourselves through them.

Not only did we work with small speedlights, we also worked with big studio strobes with ocatboxes as large as the spot on Jupiter. Seeing Joe's plethora of gear was like browsing through the studio section of B&H (actually more like Adorama in Joe's case) We all got a chance to shoot several different lighting schemes with a different model at each station. He then broke us up into groups and allowed us to pick a model and a location to shoot at. This is where Syl was extremely helpful. He was able to answer Canon specific questions. Before I forget, I must apologize to him again. I nearly blinded him by accidently popping three 580EX IIs off at point blank range. Sorry Syl.

All in all, the experience was great. Joe impressed me in more ways than one. He was knowledgable, humble, nice, and funny. He memorized all 16 of the students' names. His staff and friends were all great. Just a tremendous pleasure to work with. The models were great too. Almost forgot. The food was home made and it was delicious. No cold cuts and stale bread. We had eggplant parmesian, chicken and veggie stir fry, rice and beans, salad, and dessert.

Here is a shot of a model I took. Her name is Bethany and she was extremely nice to work with. I used three of my 580EX IIs bare bulb with a 3/4 CTO on each of them.


Here is a shot of Joe at work:




Oh, almost forgot. I've found a way to set off 3 speedlights with one Pocket Wizard. I bought 2 of Lastolite's Triflashes.


I thought it was a pain to connect 3 Pocket Wizards to each of the speedlights. I found a Y adapter at Radioshack that allowed me to connect 2 speedlights to one Pocket Wizard but I still needed another Pocket Wizard for the 3rd speedlight. After doing a lot of searching online, I found this from Belkin:

It allows me to connect up to 4 speedlights to 1 Pocket Wizard.

Here's my setup:


Does it work? Absolutely!