The Good Left Undone
All because of you, I haven’t slept in so long. When I do, I dream of drowning in the ocean.
This is how I feel at the end of every single semester.
NIKON D700 and 85.0 mm f/1.4 shooting f/2.8, 1/250 s, ISO 400 at 85 mm. Taken at 2009:12:08 23:09:06
Just one more week of finals… Hit the break for setup shot.
Lit by an SB600, camera left, 1/4 power flash, shot through my ghetto cereal box softbox. Remotely triggered via on camera flash. Two sheets of folded paper to reflect the light back.
So here’s how we do this:
1) It’s all about controlling flash strength. Sure, I could have pushed my flash closer or kept the shutter open a little bit longer, but I did each for a reason. First, by setting the shutter speed to the max, I can more easily turn the background (and table) black. I’m essentially blacking out the ambient light so my flash is the only thing lighting the scene. Next, I “chimp” my flash until I find the perfect distance for the proper amount of reflection in the table and light fall off–don’t want too much light to wrap around or to accidentally light the brown curtain (since we want it to be black).
2) Once you’ve got those factors set, it’s all about your aperture. You’ve set your shutter speed and flash distance so all you have left to play with is aperture, ISO, and flash power. Find the appropriate depth of field you want.
3) Now set the flash to the appropriate power using a reasonable ISO. Sure, I could have added 2 more stops (full power) of flash and dropped my ISO to 100, but what’s the point? The noise difference between the two is minimal, I’d rather save my flash battery and not have to wait as long for it to recycle. Conversely, I could have bumped up my flash AND bumped up my ISO to increase the depth of field, but that’s just not the feeling I was going for.
4) Once that’s all done, soften your shadows. You can use anything here… a couple folded index cards, a couple folded sheets of paper, a white t-shirt, it doesn’t matter, but you will probably want to soften them up at least a little. It just gives everything a nicer feel and a bit more depth.
Like magic. See how ghetto my setup is? Really, you don’t need fancy equipment. Nothing some cardboard, tape, and tissue paper can’t fix here…
you’re so cool