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| Nikon D4, 28-300mm, ISO 100, 1/250, f/4.5, Off-Camera Fill Flash with Alien Bees 1600 and fired with Pocket Wizard Plus System. |
Walk and Talk
This past week I was privileged to photograph on a college campus. I was combining two things that give me some of my best photos. By combining off-camera flash and having people moving I get two great results; great expressions and good color.
The very first thing I started with on the assignment was a group photo, but the best results as far as expressions was not when they were standing still, but when they all walked towards me. Now mind you I almost lost my photo assistant a few times. He was having to walk backwards and keep the same distance from the group constant. This was to ensure I had good exposures.
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| Nikon D4, 28-300mm, ISO 100, 1/250, f/6.3, Off-Camera Fill Flash with Alien Bees 1600 and fired with Pocket Wizard Plus System. |
Since I had a good group and we finished early with the group photo, I then broke them up into small groups and then had each of those do what I call walk and talks. We assign one person to talk and the others to listen, not just with their ears but their eyes. So, the person talks. The others listen and then they all are walking towards me.
Thankfully we didn’t have the assistant ever fall this week while walking backwards, carrying lights and watching the subjects to be sure the light was on them.
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| Nikon D3S, 14-24mm, ISO 200, 1/50, f/5.6, Off-Camera Fill Flash with 2 – Alien Bees 1600 and fired with Pocket Wizard Plus System. |
Buildings
I love shooting buildings at dusk. The photo here of the building and the students walking is at 7:55 p.m. and sunset is at 7:58 p.m. I love this digital camera. You can see all the information, like what time I shot the photos. While the sky looked better at about 20 minutes after sunset, we had to let the students go to another commitment.
We had them walk through the scene a few times. The building is being lighted by my two Alien Bees 1600 on full power. They are being powered by the Vagabond batteries made by Paul Bluff.
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The photo above was taken at 8:24 p.m. and as you can see the sky is much darker blue, but not black. I use the Alien Bees to light up the building since this campus didn’t have lights on their buildings at night.
Fill flash in the woods
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| Nikon D4, 28-300mm, ISO 250, 1/80, f/9, Off-Camera Fill Flash with Alien Bees 1600 and fired with Pocket Wizard Plus System. |
One of the ugliest lighting is under trees. You get a green cast due to the light going through the leaves. What I did here is used the off-camera flash with the Alien Bees 1600 to kick in light from the front to mainly offset the green light. I also benefited from having light in their face rather than raccoon eyes. Raccon eyes are caused by top lighting, which you see during the day and gives you dark circles around the eyes.
Fill flash in direct sunlight
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| Nikon D3S, 14-24mm, ISO 200, 1/200, f/13, Off-Camera Fill Flash with Alien Bees 1600 and fired with Pocket Wizard Plus System. |
Why use a flash in direct sunlight? You need to avoid raccoon eyes and also if you want you can help drive the audience to the subject by the use of the light as I have done here.
Fill flash inside
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| Nikon D4, 28-300mm, ISO 3200, 1/125, f/6.3, Off-Camera Fill Flash with Nikon SB900 with the lightest green gel that comes with the system. Also, I am using the Radio Poppers radio transmitters with the Nikon SU-800 and Nikon SB900 so that I do not have to be in the line of sight for the infrared to work in triggering the flash. |
When I am inside and people are working like this lady on her computer, you are just as prone to get raccoon eyes as outside. Why? The reason is the fluorescent lights above her are acting like the noon day sun. I have the photo assistant hold the flash and direct it to her face. The Nikon SB900 is zoomed to 200mm and therefore is light using a grid on studio strobes. It is directing the light to just her face.
To balance the flash to the room lights I used the lighter green gel that comes with the Nikon SB900 system. To get the correct lighting I took a custom light reading by using the ExpoDisc and had the assistant point the flash to the lens when I did this. I tried both green gels that came with the camera and the lighter of the two gave the best result in balancing the color with the rest of the room.
The sync speed was set to Slow-Sync. I shot the photos in Aperture Priority on Auto ISO with the maximum shutter speed set to 1/100 so I would avoid the color shift that happens with fluorescent lights.