Ronan Palliser's Photoblog

Yet again Ronan you make an interesting technical explanation of something that most of us just take for granted when we see it in professional shots but for which we have no idea of the complexity that goes into achieving the end result. Sweet!

Yip…this is a good article!

Do you use CLS at all, or do you always keep in manual?

Thanks Charles and Glenn!

I will on occasion use iTTL, but it would be rare – I prefer to manually set the flashes. Whenever possible I use the wireless feature of CLS to trigger flashes, even if I am setting their power manually. That wasn’t possible here as only 2 of the four flashes I used would support it, and the other two optically slaved would have been confused by the pre-flashes. But generally, where it can be used, it’s great.

I like the repeatability and predictability of manual over iTTL which is why I generally opt for that when doing off-camera flash stuff. For instance this shot is an example: http://www.ronanpalliser.ie/blog/2009/12/11/dolce-group-shot/

My best guess for the green color cast is that the top of the stairs is being lit from some other light out of frame upstairs. Do you have a fluorescent light up there anywhere?

Interesting, though not perfect.

The shadows of the ceiling light and the thermostat, as well as the stair banister – even though they are more or less subtle – are very distracting. The additional shadow play on the ceiling above the lamp is just too much.

Instead of dismissing this scene and going to the next flash-lit image in a week’s time, I’d really be interested in how to do away with these flaws and optimize the photo – of course without any post-processing.

For instance, the flash around the corner on the floor just seems in the wrong spot. What household light source is placed on the floor? The shadows caused by this light alone make for an unnatural look.

I know it’s easy to criticize when you’re not doing it and I admit that my skills probably couldn’t produce a better result, but I sure would not be satisfied with this photo and try a lot harder.

I would welcome it if you did too and showed us what can be squeezed out of this set up.

Joe – I ruled out that idea myself initially but now that I think about it it’s possible the bathroom door (above my head when I took this shot – i.e. a floor up) was open with the light inside there (a fluorescent light) switched on. I didn’t dwell too much on it at the time as I was always going to do this strobist style, but I guess at ISO 1600, 1/15s, f/8 some of that light from the other end of the landing would have registered. Good spot!

Georg – I agree entirely that it’s not perfect, and I will be trying to find a solution. There isn’t one that comes to mind for me given the dimensions and shape of the hall especially but I’m all ears if anyone has some ideas. The motivation for me to put the light on the floor pointing up was so that the bounced light would come from the general area of the ceiling light you can see in the frame. If there was space to soften the flash first it would do a lot for the shadows of the ceiling light itself I guess but the space on the floor is too tight, given that I need the flash to be out of frame. If I solve that problem successfully in camera, I’ll definitely be posting about it here!

What if the light to the left was up on a light stand, and still pointing back into the top corner, to bounce the light back down towards the thermostat? Or snoot it, so that the light is not travelling directly from the flash to the visible walls?
Does this make sense?

[...] you’re interested in lighting in photography, this is an interesting blog post about how the photographer used many light sources to photograph [...]

Thanks for the suggestion Glenn – the space is very tight, but if I can get a lightstand in there with legs not too splayed (or photoshop them out – though that kind of defeats the purpose here) it is worth a try. This shot is definitely one I’ll be returning to so I’ll let you know how it goes!