Nighttime in the Christmas Village

[peety3]

EOS-1D Mark III, 24-105/4 at 47mm, manual exposure of 1/80th f/8 ISO 2000 on tripod.


580EX II as trigger, two 580EX IIs zoomed to 50mm (I think) as A remote flashes through Rosco 103 and 359 gels firing through a shoot-through umbrella about 4' above the scene, one 580EX II as B remote flash through Rosco 3407 "Roscosun CTO" gel from camera right just above camera level zoomed to 105mm (I think). I think the A:B balance was 2:1 or 1.4:1, but 4:1 wouldn't surprise me either. I had to double up the A remotes to get the flash confirmation to actually light - I didn't want to sacrifice aperture or ISO any further.


My girlfriend and I were shooting pictures for an event invitation to show her Christmas villages at her annual "Hot Chocolate Party". We hadn't talked about what/how we were going to do it, other than thinking we wanted to "upstage" friends who had done a related concept for their holiday party (wine glass with ornaments in it, photo shot while pouring wine into the glass). She was more thinking that we'd shoot hot chocolate or something, but when she saw me composing this shot, it gave her the inspiration to build a vignette for another shot.

[Bryan Carnathan]

Thanks for sharing - and for the explanation of the shot as my first question was "How did you light that?". Looks nice.

[Dann Thombs]

I love the cold cast the picture gives off. Thanks for the explanation too.

[peety3]

"In a former life", I did sound and lighting for a variety of events, including theater work. My boss knew the tricks of night, cold looks - his old favorite was Rosco 58 I think. He was doing a show once that was being filmed for TV. A runner came in from the TV truck and said "can you back the lights down? it's blowing out our cameras!" - I love how these colors can give such a neat look but the white snow on the rooftops is still white. I carry 58 and 359 normally, on the off-chance that I'll get to do a night look. Unfortunately it rarely works, as it pretty much has to be a daylight-balanced base (for the deep blue to work right) but the ambient has to be dark enough to be below the power of my flashes (which are only passing ~9% through the 359). I think that translates to "ambient has to be 6.5 stops below the flash's full power abilities" - ouch!