Strobing out the sun

There is a popular belief that flash photography is for shooting at night or when the ambient light is insufficient to allow you to capture a moment clearly. While this is not a misconception, it is also not a rule. in fact, using flash in the harshest of light can yield some pretty cool results.

My initial plan on this photo shoot was to go take some shots of a horse that is kept stabled in a very beautiful location near my house. I took my dog, Reef along for her morning walk in order to kill two bird with one stone, only to find that the horse was not on location. Not wanting to waste all the drive I had built up, I set reef up under a tree and took some pictures.

My first challenge was to find a way to capture Reef's black fur in a shadowed area without silhouetting her against the bright morning sky. I had three options with the kit I had brought with me:

1. Expose the shot for Reef and in doing so over expose or "blow out" the sky.
2. Expose for the sky and use flash to fill in Reef.
3. Use my ND filter (Neutral Density) to darken the background and my strobe (flash) to fill in the foreground with light.

I went with option three and was pleasantly surprised with some of the results.

For this shot I used an adjustable ND filter that allows me to control how many stops of light I want to remove from the shot. I also used a Nikon Speedlight SB-700 Strobe off camera to fill the scene at about 1/4 power.

Jumping through light

I recently went for a surf with my friend and his family, after we finished surfing I set up my basic travel photography kit and started snapping some fun shots of the kids. The idea was to freeze them with strobes (flashes) and turn getting a picture taken from a dull pose fest to a game that ended with some cool results.

Here is what I used:

• light stand x2
• SB-900 Nikon Speedlight strobe x1
• SB-700 Nikon Speedlight strobe x1
• Blazzeo radio trigger and reciever
• 60x60cm softbox
• 1m white reflective umbrella
• Nikon 18-55mm stock lens
• Nikon d5000

I set the softbox with the SB-900 at about 2m high and angled down at 45degrees about 1m from the subject, for front/side fill light. power at 1/8th to 1/4

I then placed the white umbrella with SB-700 strobe on the opposite side and slightly to the rear of the subject. This was kept as low as possible with a slightly upward angle of attack. power at 1/2.

Now since 2 of the three Blazzeo receivers I brought were not firing (strongly don't recommend buying this pieces of junk) I made my SB-900 speedlight the master and the SB-700 the slave.

A few test shots to expose the background correctly and my shutter speed at 200, iso 250 and shooting in full manual at f9 here is what I got.

Mauie, my friends 11year old daughter.

Kai just in from a wave.

So as you can see you don't need thousands of dollars worth of camera gear or professional studios and models to take some interesting and fun photos. and next time you are looking to snap a pic of your kids and they give you a bored expression just turn it into a game.