If you're a strobist like myself, how do you tackle a situation where you want to create a photo in broad daylight where you underexpose the ambient while using a fairly wide aperture while still staying below your max flash sync speed? And on top of all that, diffusing your flash for optimal results?
Answer? Click on the picture to find out how...
Canon 7D, 17-55mm f/2.8 IS
ISO 100, 1/160 sec, f/3.2...in broad daylight
You're good. Very good.....
If I even had 1/4 of your knowledge, life would be good!Awesome photo!
I just setup all my new equipment today to practice taking portraits and heck, I was proud that I actually knew how to put everything together! Thanks for all the advice...the softbox & umbrella are just the right size for the room I have to work in!
Denise
Great! I'm glad to hear it. Have you taken a few shots? Ready to post some examples? :-)
Originally Posted by Sean Setters
Actually there are a few I really like but my model (my daughter) won't let me post them ...but I'm working on it! []
Denise
I had a wonderful model tonight (Amber, as usual). I'll probably post the best from the series on flickr tomorrow. I just sorted through them this evening and picked out a few favs...
Great shot Sean. Seems like you went through a whole lot of prep to get that shot!! Have you tried putting your camera on high speed sync, in manual mode, then you use the aperture for the subject with flash, and shutter speed for the ambient. Joe Mcnally has several books on the subject,and teaches this in his seminars. Tried it out, and it works fantastic. A little trial and error involved, but once you get it down, you can foo with multiple lights, so on and so forth. I have some examples if you're interested(that I have recently shot).
Great shot, Sean! []
Of course, as a non-strobist, the first answer that leapt to my mind was part of your answer in the Flickr post - ND/CPL on the lens to cut the amount of light reaching the lens. A week after getting my T1i, while shooting portraits of my daughter outdoors in the daytime with an EF 85mm f/1.8 set wide open, I was confronted with a blinking 1/4000. Even the 1/8000 on my new 7D wouldn't have been nearly enough. A week later, I had a B+W ND #103 (3-stop) in my bag. Problem solved! I am now also playing with aB+W ND #110 (10-stop) for some interesting daylight long-exposure shots.
I have a 2 stop ND filter, but I've almost decided that's not enough for what I'm wanting to accomplish (hence the stacked filters). The Vari-ND filters from Singh-Ray seem best, but they are out of my price range. However, I found an alternative--the Fader ND from Light Craft Workshop. It works in much the same way. From what I've read, it's not built quite as well and has a couple of quirks, but for the price, it's probably just what I need. Unfortunately, it's out of stock.
Yeah. I debated 2-stop vs. 3-stop and decided on the 3-stop because, 1) the CPL provides ~2 stops, why duplicate that with an ND?, 2) looking at the number of stops I needed with f/1.8 on a bright day, 3 stops would have been enough (especially now that I have an extra stop of shutter speed), and 3) I could always stack the CPL, since that's a slim mount, for ~5 stops.
I looked at the Vari-ND, but decided that for cost relative to likely amount of use, and the desire to go to greater than 8 stops for some really long daytime shots (I have actually stacked my 0.9 and 3.0 filters on occasion), I'd stick with standard NDs.
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