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ADVANCED PHOTOGRAPHER ISSUE 54
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H T E C H N OPEN FLASH LIGHTINGN ACADEMY IQU FL AS
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OPEN FLASH LIGHTING ACADEMY
SET-UP. Creating a dark background for the strobing flash to pick out the subject is vital. Even with a black backdrop, use deflectors to block any stray light. Set to the same power, here our flashes were placed at either end of the movement.
WORDS & PICTURES KINGSLEY SINGLETON
Leap into stroboscopic flash Use multiple bursts of flash in the same exposure to create a brilliant trail of movement in your pictures
REPEATING FLASH. Shooting with the flash as the main light source during a long exposure, its frequent bursts pick out only the subject’s movement. The key is setting the correct flash power, then tailoring the number of flashes to the subject. Fair Isle jumper optional, experimentation vital.
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Stroboscopic flash photography (also called ‘repeating flash’) is an open flash technique in which your lights are triggered multiple times in short succession. Combined with a long exposure, this means that any movement in the frame will be picked up as a series of separate elements, each one lit by a burst of flash. You can see here how the movement of a gymnast is recorded through a sequence, making it a nice creative lighting technique for showing action and energy*. It works because flash duration is very short – from about 1/750sec to much shorter depending on the unit – so it captures movement with very little or no blur at all, and in a darkened space, only the subject will be visible. You can try it with any moving subject – from a bouncing ball to a moving car – the only limit being the number, and power, of flash units you use; the more you have the more coverage you’ll get, so the subject can be larger and move further. In this technique feature you’ll find out how to set your flashes to stroboscopic mode, how to control the number and speed of flashes, and also how to set their power and position for the best results, along with all the camera settings you’ll need, too.
*Remember to check that your subject and any spectators do not have a sensitivity to flashing lights before you try this technique. ISSUE 54 ADVANCED PHOTOGRAPHER
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OPEN FLASH LIGHTING ACADEMY BACKGROUND TOO LIGHT. It’s not just the right flash mode and exposure settings you need – also very important is the background. This needs to be dark to make the subject stand out against it, so avoid light surfaces (as here) and position the flash far enough away so that it would spill onto the backdrop. You can also block the flash from hitting the background.
ONE LIGHT. With only one flash used the effect still works, but it’s uneven because the closer the subject gets to the light the brighter they’ll be. A second light is preferable, but you could try positioning the flash above and having the subject move less so the coverage is more even.
Setting up Whatever your subject, you need to find a location that’s dark. We shot in a school gym, in the evening, where we were able to turn off all the ceiling lights. This location worked well with our gymnast subject, although we still needed to close the blinds to obscure street lighting, and cover up some doors to remove any distractions. Shooting in a studio will likely give you more control than on location but you can use this technique outside, too – really anywhere that has little or no ambient light will do. So why does ambient light get in the way? Well, for starters the flash lit subject needs to be brighter than the background, or they simply won’t show up. With a static subject, this wouldn’t be a problem, but because they’ll be moving, anything brighter will show up more strongly and you’ll lose them. The darker the background the better they’ll show up, but even small lights can be a problem, because they’ll show through the subject and break up the flow of their movement. Space is also a consideration, because you need enough room for your subject to move and you may
IF, AT THE POWER YOU’RE USING, YOU CAN’T OPEN THE APERTURE ENOUGH FOR A GOOD EXPOSURE, YOU’LL NEED TO INCREASE THE FLASH POWER
THE KIT WE USED For this technique we used two Lencarta Atom 360 flashes, but many accessory flashguns have a stroboscopic mode, for instance the Canon Speedlite 580EXII (called Multi) or Nikon SB-900 (called Repeating Flash). Available as a complete kit (including the flash head, powerpack, reflector and other accessories) at £449.99, the Atom 360 will fire as fast as 99Hz for 20 flashes at its lowest (128th) power setting, which is quite something to see. In fact, our eyes didn’t recover for some time! At the other end of the same scale, you can fire up to 99 flashes at up to 15Hz. Like all flashes, at higher power settings
the number of flashes you can fire drops off. Its flash duration is as short as 1/10,000sec, too, so you can guarantee pin-sharp images of moving subjects. lencarta.com
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also need space behind them for the flash to fall away into darkness; if your background is too close, the flash will light that up too, and again you won’t be able to see the subject. Exposure settings & flash power With the background sorted, switch to manual exposore mode. A good place to start is by estimating the time it will take your subject to go through the range of movement you want. For us it was just under three seconds from the start of the move to the finish, a distance of about five feet. This meant that the shutter speed needed to be at least 3secs – any shorter and we’d have cut off their movement. The shutter speed can be longer, too, because it’s the strobing flash that lights the subject, and therefore the timing of the flash is more critical than the opening and closing of the shutter. However, if you leave it too long you will begin to pick up more of whatever ambient light is in the scene, so it’s best kept as short as possible. ISO can be kept low (if you have enough power), which again keeps ambient light under control allowing the subject to be clearly picked out by the flash. Finally your aperture should be set to the power of the flash you’re using. With one of the Atom 360 flashes in position we set it to 1/64th power and switched off the room lights. A test shot was taken using a Gossen Digipro F held by the subject, which gave us f/5.6 at ISO 200. An aperture of f/5.6 also gave us more than enough depth-of-field to keep the subject in focus, especially as they were moving laterally to the lens. The reason for tailoring the aperture to the flash power, rather than the other way around, is that only certain flash powers will produce enough bursts of light; lower power recycles quickly, but higher power takes longer and can’t keep up, so keep it down for more flashes. For instance, the Atom 360 flashguns we were using can’t be used in Repeat mode at ½ power or higher. Of course, you can work out the flash power via test shots on the screen and histogram if you don’t have a flash meter. Just check the subject isn’t too dark, or burning out. If, at the power you’re using, you can’t open the aperture enough for a good exposure, you’ll need to increase the flash power or ISO accordingly. Finally, focus with the room lights on, but switch to manual focus before shooting so the camera doesn’t hunt in the darkness. ISSUE 54 ADVANCED PHOTOGRAPHER
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LIGHTING ACADEMY
SETTING NUMBER & FREQUENCY OF FLASHES
TOO MANY: 20 FLASHES AT 10HZ
Triggering & timing the flash The last purely technical aspect is setting the number of flashes required and actually firing the flash. The latter is no different to any other off-camera flash technique, and you can use either wireless triggers or a sync cable to set them off at the start of the exposure (we used Lencarta’s WaveSync Commander system) to simultaneously trigger both flashes. You can also trigger them manually via the test button if you have a helper (or do it yourself if your camera is on a timer or trigger). Doing it manually lets you time the flashes to highlight certain phases of the subject’s movement (see panel opposite). On the other hand, it lacks the rhythmic precision of the automated route and you may find syncing multiple flashes difficult. Setting the flash frequency is very simple, too – and you can ignore this whole part if you’re intent on firing the flash completely by hand. First you need to find your flash’s stroboscopic mode – Canon calls this Multi Mode while Nikon calls it Repeating Flash (RPT). On the Lencarta Atom 360 it’s also called Repeat Mode (RPT). Once in the mode you’ll be asked for the number of flashes to be fired in total and a Hertz (Hz) setting, which just means how many times per second you want the flash to fire. So, ten flashes at 5Hz would keep the flash firing for two seconds, five per second; 20 flashes at 10Hz would also last two seconds, but with ten flashes per second. To work out the total time the flash will keep firing you just divide the number of flashes by the Hertz.
FLASH POSITION. With the right-hand flash moved to a 45˚ position, lighting on the subject is fuller, but it’s also more noticeable on the background. If you have a black backdrop, this will be less of an issue.
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TOO FEW: 3 FLASHES AT 1HZ
REPEATING FLASH. Picking the number of flashes and how fast they fire depends on the look you want and the speed of the subject. Flash power is cumulative though, so if you want many you’ll need to lower the output.
As mentioned before, the number and speed of flashes is limited by the power you’re using, but it’s also an aesthetic choice. For instance, do you need more flashes to show the movement of the subject as a stream, or fewer so that you can more easily identify their shape? If you’re shooting a serving tennis player, whose arm will move very quickly, you might want many flashes, but in our example, fewer than ten worked out best. If you use many flashes, making the subject ‘overlap’, you’ll need to lower the power, because the flash power is cumulative and likely to burn out the subject. There’s little point firing more flashes than can be accommodated throughout the movement of the subject. Again, flash power is cumulative so the light will build up on a static subject, and with our example, if the flash had kept firing at the end of the movement when she’d come to rest, it would have shown her in an unmoving position. This not only looks less good than a smooth movement, it will lead to burnout. The only way to tell is to keep shooting and varying the number of flashes until it looks right. Flash position & modifiers Like any lighting technique, the position of your flashes and how the light is modified is hugely important. We tried several angles before settling on one at either end of the movement. This works for a number of reasons. Firstly, flash power is fairly consistent throughout the zone of movement: with both heads at the same power, just as one is dropping off in strength, the other comes in to compensate. Second, lighting the subject from the side gives good contrast on the subject and keeps the background dark – we found that when experimenting with the flashes at 45° to the subject too much light fell on the backdrop. The light in front of the subject was also set slightly higher to catch her in mid-leap for some shots. If you need greater coverage or want to fire the flash from above, placing it on a boom arm is helpful. Modifiers also helped to stop the light spreading. Using simple spill kills we got a harder light, but again that meant it stayed on the subject with each flash instead of being diffused over the location. That meant softboxes, hemispheres or umbrellas were off the menu; channelling and directing the light was more successful. @advancedphotog
PERFECT YOUR TIMING IN BULB MODE Towards the end of our shoot we experimented with Bulb mode instead of a regulated shutter speed. This meant that we could time the exposure to finish on a more interesting flash, such as with the subject in mid-air. The shutter and flashes were triggered as normal at the start, but ended slightly before the last flashes in the sequence when the subject was landing. It’s a method that can help isolate certain points in the movement, and you can get similar effects by manually firing the flash yourself. As usual with Bulb mode, a remote or cable release is advisable to prevent movement being passed from you to the camera.
DO YOU NEED MORE FLASHES TO SHOW THE MOVEMENT OF THE SUBJECT AS A STREAM, OF FEWER SO THAT YOU CAN IDENTIFY THEIR SHAPE? THANKS TO… Gymnast Tilly Allen of Huntingdon Gymnastics Club, member of the English National Squad 2014/15.
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06/02/2015 10:17