For those of you interested in seeing some behind the scenes for lighting.



Courtney Cain
Ao Topsoul
Denver(ish) Colorado

Here's what i used, as far as lighting...
2 sunpak 544's at 1/2 power
1 ab800 at full power



I had to double up the sunpaks in order to match the power out put of the ab800. In addition I usually shoot with my sunpaks at 1/2 power so the duration is quick enough to freeze the movement. For more on flash durations... http://www.joesmalley.com/flashes/

For optimal sharpness your flash should be putting out a duration of 1/1000 or faster, especially in a situation where you are shooting directly into the sun.

For this trick i decided to use one flash for the ground/stairs, and the other 2 to highlight Courtney.

A lot of time people forget about lighting up stairs/surroundings which can be just as important as the main subject. For this light, you want it far away from the axis of the camera, or else your lighting will be flat and generally boring. This takes a lot of practice, but with enough time and effort you will start to recognize what position of light is best for certain obstacles (rails, ledges, gaps etc.)

Questions? Post them up!

-bs

hey,

thanks for your tuts, i could really use some of them.
but i'm a weorking poor and have just a SB600 and a SB800.. the rest of the money went off for the Pocketwizards

see my picts in the other topics and on
http://www.dailydirt.wordpress.com
and
http://www.fourproductions.ch

greetz
claudio aka starscream

Do you do much post production?

Generally yes, but this image was pretty much straight out of the camera.

-bs

Your reflector is pretty banged up.

And I love my B800. Strong and cheap.

I accidentaly pushed my lightstand and the flash tipped over from 3ft and still worked with some marks and scratches on the casing.

that photo is amazing by the way.. are the killer bees a 1/1000 flash duration at full power?

haha yeah my reflectors are beat.

the 800 is supposed to be 1/1100 at full.. but as you lower the power the duration becomes longer... at 1/32 it is 1/550.

-bs

Sweet.

Could you post up the metadata from the picture?

yoo B. how'd you manage to shoot at 1/640th. with out pushin the flash sync hella bad... lemme know you secrets bluh.