trying flash photography

[auxr8220]

i brought some cheap gear off ebay, to give a lighting setup a go.

flashes were $20 each i brought 2
tripods $5 each, again brought 2
trigger and recievers $50

only got this stuff to try it out, will more than likely get some better quality gear in a couple on months.

these are my first attempts,







and one that i took, while i was trying out different position for the flashes. a bit of a dud picture but i like the effect, makes you wonder what else is hiding in the shadows.



some tips would be great

[gstark]

Well done on the purchase. Could you perhaps show us an image of what you acquired, and also maybe a better description? Brand name and models, etc. That will help us to better understand what you're working with.

You say you bought "tripods". Were they really tripods, or are they proper light stands? While tripods will work, light stands will generally provide your lights with greater working height: you will have trouble, for instance, illuminating the roof of the car with lights mounted upon tripods, where you're unlikely to see any such issues when working with lightstands.

The first thing about working with flash is that you need to understand that it's a small, intense light source, and as such, that is going to introduce harsh shadows into your image. Occasionally this might be what you want, but usually that will not be the case. Look at your first image: you can see the spread of the light towards the car coming in from the right, and under the rear of the car there are harsh shadows. Neither of these artifacts adds to the image.

In order to address this potential problem, you need to try to make the light source as large, and as diffuse, as you can. Typically this will be done through the use of light modifiers such as brollies or softboxes, any of which have the effect of reducing the available power of the flash heads, which in turn affects your exposure choices.

Bottom line: you need a fair bit of flash power to shoot a car.

Closely related all of this is the fact that light sources have a tendency to reflect off shiny surfaces, and again this is evident through the hot spots in these images. These are difficult to avoid; large light sources can help to reduce this, and light tents even moreso. of course, for shooting cars, you need a rather large light tent, often referred to as a studio.

If you search the forum, you will find some details of how make your own softboxes; it's pretty easy. Commercial ones can be had from just a few bucks up to values just short of Unca Kev's Simulus.

Bottom line: try to make the apparent light source - the front of the softbox - as big as practicable.

Brollies are very useful, and give good surface area, which equates to a large apparent light source. They're not too expensive, but you probably lose more light with a brolly through extra distance that the light needs to travel through, plus through the expanded surface area, and thus your flash head's power again comes into play.

Important point to note: your exposure is determined by the distance that the light needs to travel from the light source to your subject, along with the power (intensity) of that light source. If you increase the light source to subject distance, you probably need to increase the power available at the light source.

With larger, broader and more powerful light sources, you can reduce the light falloff. Look at the left rear corner of the car in image 1: there's not a lot of light there, is there?

Now, one other technique you may wish to think about is light painting. This would let you use small flash heads - just one, in fact - and get some stunning images. You'll need to have fast recycle times on your flash, and you need to keep yourself out of the way of the light emitted by the flash, and keep the flash out of the field of view of the camera.

Set up your subject and camera positions, open the camera's shutter for, say 25 or 30 seconds. Try f/8 or f/11 as a starting point. Working quickly, manually pop the flash several times, at different parts of the car, from different places, trying to evenly illuminate the whole of the vehicle. Basically, walk quickly around the car, hand triggering the flash from different places around it while the shutter is open.

Examine your image, adjusting your aperture and flash positions as needed.

[auxr8220]

cheers for the feedback g-stark.

this is a pic of the stuff i brought.


they are tripods, but i did buy a light stand and a softbox a little while ago to try painting light over the car using an L.E.D. light. i didnt realise at the time though that the L.E.D. lights were actually blue. i need to buy a few more thing yet though to use it as the mount on the stand is way to big for use on a flash.

and when i was really bored on one of my rostered nights off i also tryed painting light on the car with a smaller L.E.D. lamp that i keep in the car.


and the l.e.d. light



some more experimenting will come, and i will definately try what you have suggested.

[aim54x]

Those flashes are soo cheap, still have the link for them? BTW have you tried a good LED torch for light painting? I have been tempted to try using my Wolfeye Defender for the purpose but I neither have a softbox for it, nor have had a chance to shoot a car.

[auxr8220]

http://cgi.ebay.com.au/ws/eBayISAPI.dll ... 0295574170

very basic quality, but hopefully i can produce some decent shots with them

and yes i have tryed a L.E.D light for painting, i deleted the pictures off my camera though. it turned out very well i brought a 60cmx90cm softbox and mounted the L.E.D light inside then used it to paint the car. the L.E.D weres blue though so it wasnt what i wanted, i am still looking for a decent L.E.D light with white/clear L.E.D'S

[gstark]

i am still looking for a decent L.E.D light with white/clear L.E.D'S

Check the Wolfeyes link on our portal page.

[muzz]

Not sure if you've found the Strobist site but there is a wealth of information there on flash photography.

Do a search there on "Lighting 101 pdf" and you will find a single download of some of the most useful information which I found really helpful.

Cheers, Muzz.

[auxr8220]

two more,

i took these ones this evening, about 9pm here in adelaide.

i forgot to bring my tripod for my camera though, so i could not paint using the flashes i will do that another time.

[dwpolette]

I cheated a little as it was 2 exposures blended. I only have 1 430ex II.

Keen to get another flash

[surenj]

I would encourage anyone keen on flash photography to get manually adjustable flashes as a minimum because you will want to expand your technique quickly once the bug bites you!

Also read

http://www.strobist.blogspot.com/

in it's entirerity ... [is that a word?]

All the best....

[auxr8220]

hey i got some advise from someone on another forum to aim the flashes at the top of the tyres to stop hotspots, i tried this and i am still getting them. lol but i am still determined to get this right.

i am thinking now though that i should of brought better quality flashes, ones that i could atleast change power levels on instead of these ones that always shoot at 100%.

here are some more that i took, i am trying new things and new positions for the flashes but there is always something not right in each photos. ohwell hopefully i can learn and fix the mistakes.

these pictures were shot this morning, it was fairly bright outside, certainly not at dark as what the pictures are, but i suppose that was the look i was going for. shots were taken at 1/40,f stops from 3.5 - 6.3, and ISO's ranging from 200-800
1)


2)


3)


and one of the flashes going off, i didnt use the position of the flashes to actually take any photos besides this one.


awaiting for comments on get a real car, maybe when i go through a midlife crisis i will think about getting something with a bit more class, but for now at my youngish age of 22 the xr8 is loud and obnoxious which i prefer

anyone got any more advise? camera settings, flash setup, things to alter on either lightroom or photoshop.
im all ears

cheers shane.

[jamesw]

Your photos are a good start!

I use flashes and artificial light quite a lot in my line of work and learning to use flashes was quite a learning curve, they are a powerful tool but are difficult to truly understand and master.

Firstly, I'd suggest those flashes are cheap for a reason, being that they have GN of 20 and can't really be expected to do much more than light up a late in the day scene. Not for use in full sun, that's for sure! I'm not sure if i'd suggest purchasing more - try the sunpak 383 and vivitar 285, both very powerful, flexible and most importantly cheap flashes.

Not sure how much you know, so I apologise if I'm saying things you already know. With that said, I think two key things to remember are:

- Shutter speeds (up until your camera's max sync) do not affect flash intensity. They only affect the ambient (non-flash) light.
- Aperture does affect both flash and ambient light.

So if you stop down by aperature, then you will decrease both your flash and ambient light. If you stop down by shutter speed, you decrease ambient but flash light stays the same. Hence, your flash light is intensified, and ability to overpower the sun increases.

Some of your images looked a little soft, so that would suggest to me that flash power was a bit overkill and the duration of the flash was long. Avoid that!

But yes, a good start. Read up on strobist, that site is a good resource.

[Reschsmooth]

hey i got some advise from someone on another forum to aim the flashes at the top of the tyres to stop hotspots, i tried this and i am still getting them. lol but i am still determined to get this right.

anyone got any more advise? camera settings, flash setup, things to alter on either lightroom or photoshop.
im all ears

cheers shane.

Firstly, I can give you advice or I can advise you. (where's the pedant smiley face?)

Regarding the hot spots, these are basically reflections of the flashes coming back at the camera. You can do a search for specular highlights on your favourate search engine.

Because the car is highly reflective, you will get two results:

1. Hotspots arising when the camera to car to flash angles basically meet up. If you can, get someone to point a torch at a flat mirror. With the position of the torch constant, imagine a straight line from the torch to the mirror and then reflecting away from the mirror. Now walk from the person holding the torch to where you would imagine that line is travelling. (Imagine the 'V' caused by the line from the torch to the mirror and bouncing off of it). What you will find is that you will not see any light from the torch on the mirror until you get to the point where you can the torch is directly reflected back at you. This is because the mirror is only reflective and doesn't absorb any light. This may not be a very good explanation. Therefore, to get more even light, you need a much bigger light source as Gary has mentioned because most of the light hitting the car that you will see in the camera will be this reflective light or specular highlight.

2. Notwithstanding 1, the surface of the car is not 100% reflective. This means that there will be some 'diffuse' light hitting it and recording in the camera, but not a lot. You can see this in your shots where the ground has been lit up. Because the ground is not that reflective, it will basically absorb (perhaps not the right word) some of the light and show up in the camera as such. However, you will not get that much diffuse light on the car.

Given all of that, do a search for softbox on the forum as ATJ has recently posted his results on home made soft boxes. This will give you a much better result. You can attach the flash and light paint by hand holding the flash/soft box.

[surenj]

Also check out photos made by "tangcla" one of the members here... He will be able to give you some tips.

[auxr8220]

yeah i will look at buying some vivtars, from what i have seen they work well.

i couldnt even paint with these flashes lol they take too long to fire up,

and i am well aware of tangcla's photos, he is also a member on a car forum i am on. his photos are very nice.