So, I spent some of the weekend and first couple of days this week playing around with it. It seems so simple to use off-camera lighting when looking at other people's pictures, but actually trying to put it to use yourself is a lot more difficult. I've done a lot of reading about off-camera lighting, looked at a lot of pictures and studied examples of how other people are using it. But, the first time I turned the light on and popped off my first shot with it, I was sadly disappointed in my 'natural' abilities.
I had Paige sit in for me so that I could try to figure out flash output, distance to subject, angle, shutter speed, aperture, etc. I also played around with using a shoot through umbrella versus bare bulb. While she was patient with me, it got boring for her to just sit there, so I had to try using the timer and get in the shot myself.
It takes a lot of work to get a shot just the way you want it, and even at that, there's always something that you could do to make it better.
I know that I'm brand new at using off-camera lighting, so I don't expect to be all that good at it right away. It will take a lot of practice, but I'm excited to get into something new and excited to see some of the results that I can get.
Paige's brother was in town over the weekend and the first half of this week. Last weekend we ran an 8k trail race and he ended up getting 3rd place overall (6 minute/mile split over 5 miles of hilly difficult terrain!). He got a medal and got to stand up on the podium and everything. I thought it was pretty cool, so I wanted to try to get a few pictures of him with his medal.
This first shot I took, I wanted to get a little more dramatic lighting that just kind of highlighted his profile and showed a little more emphasis on his medal. I shot this one with a bare flash, angled down so that the focus of the light was on the medal and the light feathered up slightly towards his face. I had the flash zoomed to about 50-85 mm so that it would be tighter and not spread too far. I also wanted to keep the background pretty dark and didn't want any light spilling back.
The second picture is more of a typical 'portrait' style shot. This was done with the umbrella on the flash to give a more even, softer light across his whole upper body. I had the flash zoomed out to about 35mm, which filled up the whole umbrella to create the softer light. I tried to take the background a little darker in post processing, but didn't do a great job, so he has a slight halo around him where I didn't fill properly. I'll fix that eventually and get the final picture posted in here.
All in all, it was a fun time. I got a few other pictures that came out pretty well, but didn't have time to mess with them and get them uploaded on here.
Thanks to Chad for posing for me and congrats again on killing it at the race.
Let me know what you think.
T.
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