I have this photo posted in the people forum but I though I would share it here too.
Everyone needs a good photo of their mom, right? Well I went over there last night for dinner (grilled shrimp, mmmm) and there happened to be a great sunset. I usually have my photo gear with me and some extra lighting essentials. This was not a planned shoot and I am glad se was dressed well and willing to have here photo made in such short notice.
For this image I used my Nikon D700 and the SU 800 wireless flash commander to remotely fire a SB 900 in a small softbox on a boom stand. The flash had a -0.7 EV and the exposure was set for the sky. ISO 400 at f/4 with the Sigma 50mm f/1.4 lens. She really liked the photo, I hope you do too.
yes i woud have liked a little more face in the pic, otherwise good colors and technigue, makes me want to find out more in the SB flashes and what you can do wiz them:-)!
Hi Todd,
Really nice job. Regarding setting the exposure for the sky. Did you meter it using matrix on the D700 and then underexpose it a bit. If so by how much did you underexpose off of what the meter was telling you? Based on other posts I have seen it seems fairly common to underexpose the sky by 1 or 2 stops in these types of shots to make the lighting more dramatic. Colors are great.
Thank you for posting.
Rooster L200 wrote:
yes i woud have liked a little more face in the pic, otherwise good colors and technigue, makes me want to find out more in the SB flashes and what you can do wiz them:-)!
Well I recomend the Nikon Video, "A Hands-on Guide to Creative Lighting" with Joe McNally & Bob Krist. It is 2.5hrs of flas photography.
allstarimaging wrote:
Hi Todd,
Really nice job. Regarding setting the exposure for the sky. Did you meter it using matrix on the D700 and then underexpose it a bit. If so by how much did you underexpose off of what the meter was telling you? Based on other posts I have seen it seems fairly common to underexpose the sky by 1 or 2 stops in these types of shots to make the lighting more dramatic. Colors are great.
Thank you for posting.
Hi and thanks for the comments. As for the sky, it was already fairly dark so I just used the matris meter in camera and metered the sky.I don't recall bringing it down much bit if I did it was maybe 1/2~1 stop. Briging the sky levels down per other posts that you have see is true, but that is usually in mid day conditions. So you can just meter the sky with matrix or center and that would do well for you.
I rarely use CLS, as I normally shoot in total darkness and use radio triggers for distance. However, your shot perfectly shows how CLS works with iTTL to balance ambient light and flash. Great shot.
I talked to a Nikon district manager last summer and asked about built in radio triggers. He said they couldn't do it. The reason he gave was that each country (actually each region such as EU, Japan, North America etc.) allocated the radio spectrum in different ways. Note that Pocket Wizard has models for EU, models for U.S./Canada, and models for Oriental market, each operating on different frequency. Nikon guy said it would be too confusing to have all that variety of equipment out there, and very expensive to do the testing and get government approvals etc. Canon rep told me the same thing back in April when I was at a photo convention in Chicago.
