What’s Your Preference?

Pichead · #1 (**permalink**) 11-19-2010, 03:28 AM

Me...home...alone...again...

Ah, to be home...alone. What a great thing, previously taken for granted (B.C. - before children). Now, when home alone, I usually open a beer, put on my headphones, and listen to music until either bed time, or the family, arrives.

Tonight I wanted to get a strip light look where both sides of my face were highlighted while the front remained relatively dark. The good guys, either through talent or equipment, achieve this look regularly. But, alas, this wasn't happening with my talent/equipment and I quickly shifted gears. (If given lemons, make lemonade - given that you've also been provided a Nikon D700 and 2 SB-600 Speedlights.)

I positioned the lights very close to the edge of the frame, pointed away from my face and into halfway collapsed umbrellas. This, after some testing, seemed to work o.k., so it's what I stuck with for most of the night. Open umbrellas spread the light too much and I couldn't control where it was flying. Facing bare SB's toward me was too difficult to corral, as I didn't have the proper 'snoots', etc. to focus the light directly toward my face. I think I 'need' strip lights to get this look, but perhaps I just don't know what I'm doing (probable).

The camera-left strobe was set to 1/8th power while the left one was set around 1/16th power. I set a large collapsible, gold-coated reflector against my tripod legs to fill in some of the shadows and to add just a hint of front light (didn't want to use my on-camera flash). All 'information' was controlled using the Nikon CLS through the D700's built-in flash pulse, which sends a signal to the flash units, giving them the power information which I dial in...

After some test shots, I decided to take advantage of my son's chalkboard, on which I eventually drew 'sound waves' coming from my headphones. (Lot's of potential in this chalkboard, but I haven't thought it all through yet....)

zona5101 · #2 (**permalink**) 11-19-2010, 04:30 AM

this is really, really , really, well done. The larger version on flikr makes it even more evident the subtleness and control you achieved in lighting. bravo ryan.