How do you consider your outdoor lighting?...

[specialman]

Having a mull over if I'm doing things bum-about-face when it comes to using flash outdoors and just wanted to get people's take on how they assess the situation and how they go about using their equipment.

I generally work to the sync speed to get underexposed backgrounds, depending on how moody I want it. A lot of the time the camera is dialled to 1/250sec (my max sync speed) partly out of habit, and partly because in many situation, 1/250th gives me what I want.

Of course, then I'm at the ceiling of how I can nail the ambient - my sync is maxxed out and unless I whack on ND filters - I have no room to kill the ambient further if needs be. So aperture comes into play to control the overall ration between ambient and flash. This in turn means that the aperture is now dictating to me the flash power and here comes a point when the power of a speedlight just can't cut it. Some people I've talked to do the exposure calculations against the flash setting they're using and then the shutter speed allows them to tweak the ambient.

Am I working in an insanely illogical way or and I doing what you guys do?

I talked to a guy at Focus 2011 who uses a mobile studio set-up (Bowens) and basically takes the meter of the flash exposure and then sets the ambient to suit his needs. But he has seemingly big power with that rig. But that style of working meant I had to make a speedlight act as a key light and overpower the sun - not always possible.

I don't know if this is a good example:


Pellets by Pat MacInnes, on Flickr

*Nikon D2x
*Sigma 14mm f/2.8
*ISO 100
*1/200th @ f/6.3
*Nikon SB800 through a 28" Westcott Apollo softbox (set to 1/2th power)

I'm at half power on the flash already, using it as the main light source for the angler. The quality of the light is good from the softbox, but that's also making me overpower the flash to cope with the diffusion. I'm nearly at max. sync speed (a third of a stop away) but I'm only getting f/6.3, which is fine for the purposes of DoF in this shot but if I want more - say f/11 - then I'm pishing in the wind aren't I?

Have I just created a clear-cut reason to buy a mobile, battery-powered solution like a Ranger or Safari? I wonder.....

Of course, ISO can be increased but then I reduces the effectiveness of the sync speed unless I turn to ND filters but then again, with NDs I need to open the aperture or pump in more power, which I haven't got....

Maybe I'm tying myself needlessly in knots here and my results are fine most of the time, but it's got me thinking if there's a better way....

 

[Michael Sewell]

Not all my scenes are approached in the same manner, but generally, I meter the scene for ambient and have the synch set fairly low, say 1/60, 1/80 or 1/100
I then match the flash (usually Lencarta Safari) to the ambient, sometimes taking the aperture higher in the process, and use the shutter speed to further reduce the ambient if needed.
As stated, that's when using the Safari. If I'm on speedlights, it can be a completely different approach, depending on whether I'm on Radiopoppers or manual triggers.

I would seriously consider the Safari.

BTW, nice image

 

[Mike Jackson]

I don't do a lot of outdoor flash work Pat but that's similar to the way I work except that I'm now using multiple flashes more often now. I generally meter for ambient and then under expose then throw the flashes in in E-TTL mode with up to two flashes. If I need more flash power I have to go manual as I've only got two 580EXs and my other flashes are a Yungnuo 560, 2 Nissin Di466s and an old flashgun which won't work in E-TTL slave mode. With 6 flashes I've normally got plenty of power to overcome the ambient but normally two is sufficient most of the time.

I looked at portable studio lights but I spend a fair bit of time shooting a long way from vehicle access and like the portability of using speedlights.

 

[Mahoneyd187]

From what I can assume, you are a professional photographer who mostly shoots out and about, away from studio. Based on that alone I would strongly recommend a dedicated battery pack system. Many more options, lots more power.

Speedlights are o.k....but overpowering the sun and dropping ambient?..you're gonna want power my friend

 

[specialman]

From what I can assume, you are a professional photographer who mostly shoots out and about, away from studio. Based on that alone I would strongly recommend a dedicated battery pack system. Many more options, lots more power.

Speedlights are o.k....but overpowering the sun and dropping ambient?..you're gonna want power my friend

Yep, I think I'm reaching that point - it's the 'big' shots where small apertures and lots of light are needed that I can see benefitting - but there's a massive budget issue (i.e. I have to pay for my own equipment) that I have to overcome first. I know the safari gets good press, as does the Ranger system but £900-£1000 just as a start - before modifiers etc - it's a massive investment that I don't actually directly make money from. However, I'm hoping for a tax rebate to come back sooner rather than later, so that may be taped into if the missus doesn't make me spend all of it on repairing the house!!!

 

[Garry Edwards]

I know the safari gets good press, as does the Ranger system but £900-£1000 just as a start - before modifiers etc

Yes, it's a big investment but not as big as you think
The Safari classic is £140 for the head and £500 for the generator, making £640 (add another tenner for the standard refledtor) not £900 - 1000. That gives you about the equivalent in terms of raw power as 10 hotshoe flashes
Add a high intensity reflector for £50 and you've got a light output equivalent to 25 hotshoe flashes, because the high intensity reflector outputs 2.5 x more power than the standard reflector.

Back to your original question - there are basically 2 ways of doing it, and both are perfectly OK.

If you 'take the studio outdoors' You compose for the background and background lighting and then light the subject with the flash. This generally involves having the flash power on the subject high enough to overpower the ambient lighting, either subtly or not, as you prefer. This makes high powered flash essential

If you go the other way and make use of the ambient lighting for the subject as well as for the background you simply add enough flash power on the subject to provide fill, as required. High powered flash can make life a lot easier but you can often manage without it. The trick is not to 'lose' shutter speed, which means having a camera that can sync at high shutter speeds (obviously a camera that doesn't have a focal plane shutter is a massive help here) and direct cable connection OR PW will enable you to use the max possible synch speed.

 

[HoppyUK]

I think you've come to the right conclusion.

If you want the flash to be brighter than daylight, you need lots of power. Simple as, and there's no way around that, other than to shoot when the ambient level is lower, but assuming that's impractical, rule of thumb is you need at least 400ws to do it properly with decent modifiers, at a workable distances, in bright light. That's four or five times more power (2-plus stops) than you get from the biggest hot shoe guns.

You then have to address the problem of sync speed, with ISO and f/number, and ND
filters if necessary.

Another thought is Pocket Wizard's Hypersync which might get your x-sync up to 1/400sec, which would perhaps put an effective 2/3rds of a stop more power into your hot shoe guns. I suspect you'd run into flash duration issues with studio heads. Might be workable if you doubled up on the guns?

Simple answer is power.

 

[specialman]

Hoppy, Garry - I knew you'd come to the table

Garry - I must have been looking at a more expensive Safari to have that price in my head - is there one with a different battery that's priced higher?

So for £800 I could get a two-head kit and generator and then another £200 will get me some versatile modifiers..... sounds better already.

I love speedlightery; it's handy, lightweight and provides me with a solution to a problem that works most of the time. But I am finding myself limited at times because of the physics - there just isn;'t enough power at times. But it's time to evaluate just how much those inconvenient times are worth in money and whether or not I need to expand my lighting armoury.

As you say Hoppy, it comes down to power, or in my case at times, lack of. Likewise, as pointed out, when the ambient is lower outdoors (evenings/mornings) the speedlights work fine but because I shoot throughout the day, it's when the sun is high that I end up just putting the flashes away totally unless I'm doing close-up stuff within a yard or two.

I watched one of Adam Duckworth's seminars at Focus 2011 about using the Ranger system from Elinchrom and a lightweight, compact light really does spark my imagination, simply because it allows so much versatility and you're not just working to full power all the time, which in turn never helps me feel like I have room to experiment.

 

[Garry Edwards]

Garry - I must have been looking at a more expensive Safari to have that price in my head - is there one with a different battery that's priced higher?

Well, at £800 the new Safari Li-on is more expensive than the equivalent Safari Classic but still at least £100 less than you expected - and both models have 50% more power than the Quadra.

IMO the 400Ws Quadra has just about enough power to overwhelm the sun, provided that the light is close, much of the time, and is a massive improvement over hotshoe flashes. The extra 50% from the Lencarta makes it that much easier though.
And, unlike some other makes it's ready to go.