On Assignment: Monteverde Institute

One of my reasons for going to Costa Rica was to do some work for the Monteverde Institute. At MVI, visiting college students come to learn about the biodiversity and ecological sustainability for which Costa Rica is famous.

Much of the day was spent shooting students in various environments at the school. But we also went up into the forest behind the school to photograph a couple of the volunteers who come down to Central America to spend some time in an amazing environment and to help to keep things running at MVI.


Volunteer Dan Swift

One of those folks is Dan Swift, who is pictured above. He is from Buffalo NY, where he is almost certainly not missing winter this year. Dan is a Buffalo guy to the core, even having one of the beasts tattooed onto his right forearm. He decided to take some time off of college to come down to help out, and I thought an environmental portrait of Dan might inspire others to follow in his tracks.

We hiked up the hillside on the property behind the school to a large "strangling fig" tree. The fig actually starts growing in the top of the host tree, and keeps sending down vines until it completely takes over. The substrate tree dies, and the fig superstructure remains.

What is left is this cool, gnarly "Ent"-looking thing. Some are actually hollowed out enough so that you can climb up on the inside.

We decided to use the trunk as a backdrop for a portrait of Dan. I wanted to use additional light, but only to solve problems rather than to call attention to itself.

The ambient light was mottled and sunny, so that would be the first problem to solve. It was coming in from a high angle (we are in the tropics) so it would not work as a front light.

That's fixed easily enough -- we go to the shadow side of the tree and turn the high sun into our hair/separation light. This also gives really nice texture to the greenery surrounding the tree.

Only problem is that the tree trunk is now too dark. So our first SB-800 will be used to fix that. I connected the SB to a Justin Clamp, a wonderful little $54 piece of gear that mates a strong, two-way clamp to a small ball head and cold shoe. It's a match made in heaven for a speedlight, and eventually I will have one for each of my umpteen small flashes. You can put a light darn near anywhere with a Justin clamp.

First try was to rake the tree with a side light for texture. Looked like crap, no matter what angle we tried. So next I decided to just uplight the cavity in the tree to add some tone to it.


If you see the effect of the tree light in this photo. Click through for a bigger version to see how the Justin Clamp makes a light stand out of a tree root.

Now, we have sunlight working the top and edges, and an SB lighting up the tree. So all of our light is coming from back to front, which makes an easy environment in which to light Dan. And the detail in the trunk will frame him, too.

When you light on separate planes you have total control of the relative tones between your foreground and background. But that doesn't mean you have to wang them out and make them overly lit. As I said, I wanted to keep the light pretty natural looking, so that meant keeping the ratios between foreground and background pretty tight.

I used my one and only light stand for the key light on Dan, who would have otherwise been a couple of stops underexposed. I saved the stand for the key because that was the light for which the position was most important.

I used an SB-800 with a Lumiquest Soft Box III to soften it just a little, and brought it in just out of the frame at camera left. Not trying to nuke him -- just trying to bring him back from the underexposed backlit shadow area. (Working against the backlit foliage is what gives the photo all of it's shape and texture.)

Even with the lit tree behind him providing separation, Dan's camera-right face went a little dark in the shadow of the key. So I used one more SB-800 from back camera right, past the tree, as a subtle kicker.


We are out of stands, so it's Justin Clamp #2 for this separation light. If these clamps folded flat (or close to it) they would be perfect. But even with their gangly, hard-to-pack shapes I am not complaining.

I clamped onto a small sign near the tree just out of the frame at far camera right. Not a lot of light coming from this one -- just enough to shape Dan's face at camera right.


Shutter Speed Controls the Contrast

Given that your flashes are adjusted (and on manual power) to give you the appropriate amount of light at your chosen aperture, it is easy to work the contrast range of the photo with the shutter speed. This will alter the ambient component of the photo.

By cranking my shutter speed down I can drop the environment and make Dan the star. Remember, no matter how far I drop the ambient, Dan will both be both lit and separated by the flashes. I have him with a front light and kicker, and the part of the trunk right behind him is also lit by flash.

A couple of years ago, I would have cranked the ambient down further to call attention to the light. But I have been trending toward a more subtle balance lately -- using light to shape the environment rather that take over.

In the end, the flash/ambient balance does not call attention to itself and I like that. At face value, this is a portrait. But the real goal is to allow the viewers to imagine themselves in this environment.

And if they are looking for a way to spend a gap year, they could do far worse than to spend it working at MVI in Costa Rica.
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EDITOR'S NOTE: This article is one of a series of "On Assignment" features. You can see the entire list, with 75 more OA articles, here.

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Mount Quackatoa

Okay, so it is really the Arenal Volcano in La Fortuna, Costa Rica, not the Krakatoa volcano in Indonesia. But who can pass up a pun that bad?

Not me, that's who.

I'm back from Costa Rica and digging through the mountain of email. But I could not resist sticking a photo our trip mascot up. For those of you who have been living under a rock, it's from Aaron Johnson's What The Duck comic strip. (Plush version here.)

Lots to do to catch up, coupla posts to write from shoots in CR, and will be sticking trip pix in this Flickr set, if you are interested.

And the little Canon G9 came in handy to underexpose that backlit volcano and sync "What The" at 1/500th at f/5.6 at ISO 80 to bring him back up. Fortunately, the G9 will sync at any speed if you know the trick.

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Is That a Soft Box in Your Pocket or Are You Just Happy to See Me?

The LED lights that come built-in to our cell phone cameras are generally useless. But not so the lights built into the cell phone screens themselves.

I am pretty much married to my iPhone now. Well, maybe not technically, but we are sleeping together. I am a huge fan of the BBC podcasts: Global News, Business Daily, FOOC, etc., and listen as I fall asleep.

Something else I am digging on the iPhone: Using the free MyLite app, you can turn your iPhone into a little 2x3.5" light panel that is surprisingly close to daylight balance...
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Mrs. Right vs. Mrs. Right Now

Using a cell phone as a light source is kinda like the old CSN song, "Love the One You're With." Is it gonna light a group shot? No. Is it gonna nuke the sun? Hardly. But it is available.

And what it can do is to get a little kiss of light in there that can provide a nice accent in a low-light shot. In a pinch it can be a quickie, hand-held key light at close range if you are shooting in very poor ambient.

Think twilight, or night shot, handheld with some of these ISO-Wonder Cameras like the D3 and 5D Mk II. Shoot with your right hand, add a little close-up light in with your left. Especially when you a shooting something moody against waning sunset, or just want a kiss of normal color light on someone's face on a night street shot.

The phone is wireless, flat, can be taped anywhere -- lots of possibilities. As long as you recognize its limitations (low light only) the ideas just start to pop into your head.


A Tripod Makes it Brighter

Of course, since the light is continuous, time (and a tripod) is your friend in a darkened room. Additionally, you can move it around during the exposure, so you can make the light source do things that a static flash could not possibly do.

Reader Jann Lipka, of Stockholm, demonstrates by using his cell phone screen to "light paint" a photo which was shot with a PhaseOne back. (How's THAT for a budget mismatch!)


(Via Jann Lipka, on Vimeo.)

You may at first write this off as a gimmick, but just realizing you always have that little light source with you can spark you to find ways to use it.


Little Lights for the Big Boys

Hollywood has already latched onto the idea. If you happened to pick up a DVD of the movie "Collateral," with Tom Cruise and Jamie Fox, check out the extras on disc 2. There is a feature on how they filmed all of the car scenes at night without lighting the exteriors. They just cranked the gain (it was shot digitally) and let the exteriors light themselves.

This left the interior of the car far too dark -- but remember that exposure level was very low. Enter flat-panel lighting. Michael Mann used (if memory serves) flexible panels which were originally designed to be backlights for laptop screens. He simply covered the interior of the back of the car in black velcro (ceiling, backs of the seats, etc.) so he could position the flat-panel LEDs wherever he wanted for the different shots.

This is way cool, IMO, and brings a whole new ethic to lighting the scenes. You are letting the ambient do the heavy lifting, and shaping up your primary subject matter with small lights that do not need to be very powerful. Sound familiar?



You can see the results of this "shaped ambient" style of lighting throughout the whole movie. I like it, and hope to do some low-light shooting with this technique first chance I get.


If you wanna play like Mann but need a little more light than your cell phone, you'll want to pick up a Rosco LitePad HO, pictured at left.

These are far brighter than you cell phone, and can run on 110v, cig lighter, or AA's. It is essentially a matrix of LEDs in a stiff, flat panel that is about 1/4" thick. They start at about $100 US for a 3x6" panel which is rated at 6000K for color.

For still shooters, they would be pretty specialized. But for the PJ's out there who are looking to do multimedia with a 5D Mk II or a D90, the LitePad would certainly merit a little space in your Domke. They are small, thin and rugged -- and ready to go whenever you need an accent in a low-light situation.

Have you put a normal cell, an iPhone or a store-bought panel into service for a shot? If so, hit us in the comments with a URL to the results.

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Speedlinks: 01/22/2009

Greetings from Monteverde, Costa Rica, where we have learned the difference between hotels which have wifi, and hotels which have working wifi. (All of our hotels have been among the former.)

I am dropping this week's speedlinks in via the mooched wifi from the Pensione Santa Elena, which is a very cool hub for young travelers (I used to be one of those) in an amazing cloud forest community. So far, we have had extremely close contact with a five-foot iguana, toucans, white-faced monkeys and a scorpion (he was in our hotel room.)

Among the topics in today's speedlinks, after the jump:

Mooning people, stretching your TTL budget, cutting things in half and a portrait worthy of Hannibal Lechter...
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• Strobist reader Bjorn Holland has been on an epic, multi-continent motorcycle trip for months now, and you can follow his exploits at Panomoto.com. Of particular interest is his series of beautiful panoramas from some very rugged landscapes.


• DIYPhotography.net shows you how to extend your TTL cord with Cat5 wire.


• Two, from the very RSS-worthy Toxel.com: A collection of light graffiti shots and a series of photographers mooning people. (Thanks, DavidOnABus)


• Special this week: Nikon D3 and 14-24mm f/2.8 lens -- 50 percent off. (Thanks, Robert!)


• Best enjoyed with a nice Chianti and some fava beans: The skinned stitched panorama portrait which is the third photo down in this F-Stop Mag story about a photo illustrator.

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Annie and Sean Connery for Louis Vuitton: The Light Touch

Reading the section about lighting in Annie Leibovitz's At Work book, I was intrigued by the idea of running a big source off camera essentially as off-camera fill in a neutral ambient-based exposure. (This is compared to dropping the ambient a stop or two and overpowering it with a big light.)

It looks like this is what she is doing for this fashion shot of Sean Connery. In fact, I thought the whole setup was pretty light touch, especially considering the photographer.



I wasn't sure I would like this look when I first read about it, but I really do now that I see the result.

My guess is that assistant thought the lighting gear was plenty heavy, thankyouverymuch, given the angle at which he had to hold that whole boom/light rig. Which might be the reason she chose a lightweight brolly-box thingie over an Octa to begin with. Who knows.

But I found both the lighting gear and the soft touch on the balance to be a neat change of pace.

Not so surprising: The "Bond boat," which speeds away on cue for every shot on the verticals. Oh, and they faked the entire dock. It is a prop. Gotta like that.

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Packing Light for Central America

I am headed to the Arenal volcano area of Costa Rica, for a shoot at an ecological institute and for some fun with the family. I have been before, and am looking forward to dodging sticks thrown at us by the howler monkeys.

It is easy to pack when going on a trip just for fun -- a good point-and-shoot and maybe a slaved speedlight. Ditto packing for a straight shooting trip -- bring everything you think you might need.

But this trip is a hybrid of sorts, so I tried to get as much versatility as possible into a single small bag and shoulder sling. For my one-bag eco shoot I'll have five light sources, a stand/umbrella kit, a boom, and all of the light modifiers and grip gear I think I'll need -- plus backups on the critical items.

So, how much crap can you fit into a small bag? . . .
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My Limit: One Domke F2 Bag

The Domke F2, seen above, is the standard news photographer bag. I have five of them, most of which are threadbare from many years of hard use. They are not huge, but will swallow up a decent amount of gear. My goal was to get everything into one Domke bag with the standard, 4-square divider -- except the stand kit which will go over the other shoulder. That was a bit of a challenge, as the gear would also include a laptop and storage for photos.

I'm no Chase Jarvis (holy crap!) so the only pack donkey I have to consider is myself. As always, the idea is not choosing what to bring but rather choosing what to leave at home.



So, here it is, unpacked. You can see a bigger version here.

Starting with the body and glass, I am bringing one D300 body (bottom left) which gets me 12 megapixels in a small package. Ditto the glass -- one lens. On the D300, a 24-70 gets me from moderately wide to portrait length. And the Nikon 24-70 f/2.8 is scary sharp and far and away my favorite lens.

As a backup for the body and glass, I'll have a Canon G9 (bottom center). Not ideal, but it is only a backup. It also serves as an (extreme) macro and video in a pinch if I need it plus a voice recorder. The SC-17 TTL cord (upper left) can tie the G9 into a multi-light, off-camera setup very easily. If needed, it'll give me ultra high-speed synch, too.

At bottom left are three SB-800's, one of which is always used as a key light and keeps a 1/4 CTO warming gel permanently attached. You'll remember I said five lights -- that's three speedlights, the pop-up on the D300 (which make a great on-axis fill in a pinch) and whatever ambient is available for my photo. Always consider the ambient as a additional light source.

The last major item is a netbook -- a neat little Acer Aspire One which I picked up for $325 on Amazon. It has a (tiny) solid state hard drive, runs a very stable Linux, and has proven to be quite reliable.

I won't be using this for image processing. It is just for email, website upkeep and Skyping with the house sitter, etc. Speaking of that, I will only have limited net access on the road, so please hold off on all but the absolute most urgent messages until I return. I hope to moderate comments at least once a day, but we'll see how the net access goes.

Next to the netbook is a small 250GB hard drive, a card reader and about 40Gb worth of compact flash cards. I will use the netbook to move the complete shoots onto the portable HD, and keep a second copy of only the loose edit of the best stuff on the cards, erasing all of the crap as I go after offloading to the HD. There is no better way to conserve space than to erase crap as you go.

This gives me one copy of everything -- utter crap and loose edits -- and two copies of anything that has any potential at all. And the second copy of the edits (on the CF cards) is more stable than a second HD.

Starting at left and working right are various power and connector cords, and a set of earbuds for my iPhone and Skyping. My backup for net access is the iPhone, but let's hope it doesn't come to that. Hard to work down a pile of emails quickly with an iPhone. On the two AC cords (netbook and D300 charger) I used Honl speed straps as cable ties, getting me a little double duty there, too.

In the center up top is a Honl shorty and two spaghetti snoots. Dead center are Pocketwizards -- just two, as I can sync the other SB's with their built-in slaves.

Next door is a charger (and extra batt) for the G9, and a small barn door for the SB's. The G9 will take up zero space, as Susan will be carrying that as her camera. (Heh.) Tucked next to the PWs is a dual-point Sharpie, with 2 feet of gaffer's tape wrapped around it. I have no idea what I will use this for at this point, but experience tells me I will almost certainly use it.

The (strapped) stand kit includes a single shoot-thru umbrella, and is held together by two ball bungees, which I am sure will find several more uses during the trip. The stand will work on it's own, but I also expect to use it as a voice-activated boom. The whole thing is light, so all I need is a scrounged helper to save the weight and space of a real boom.

At top right are two more light mods -- a Ray Flash (because it is the smallest of the ring flash adapters) and a LumiQuest SB-III. Having second thoughts on the ring -- might leave that here. Between the snoots, umbrella and the SB-III, I can get a variety of looks while taking up very little space.

Last but not least are two Justin Clamps, which don't pack so well. But they are very useful, so hard not to include. I saved the space in the bag by clamping them onto the strap on the outside.


Advice From a Real Travel Photographer

... which would not be me.

I love to travel and shoot, but Bob Krist is the real deal. His first travel assignment for National Geographic was documenting the separation of Pangea into the five continents that we all recognize today.

Bob has shot travel professionally for the last 30 years, and wrote the book(s) on the subject. His latest is Travel Photography: Documenting the World's People & Places. If it were a college course would best be described as a Survey of Travel Photography.

It is a cover-the-bases book which takes a systematic look at travel photography, from what gear to pack to shooting advice to digital asset management on the road. It is aimed at amateurs, and not so technical when it comes to photographic technique. There is a chapter on light, and some material on off-camera flash, but its strength is that it allows you to be sure you are considering everything.

We sometimes bore down so far into our specific areas of interest that we miss the forest for the trees. The thrust of this book is that it will keep you from completely screwing up the photos from a big trip because of some dumb little thing you would fail to consider.

If you travel a lot and want a look into a long-time pro's approach to travel shooting, it is well worth a read. But I also have been using it as the answer to friends and family members who have asked me for photo advice before a big trip. Those are exactly the guys who are likely to miss something critical (like on-the-road image backups, for example) and Bob covers all of the bases.

If you are already a digital photography stud you might find this book a little basic. For those folks, I would steer them to an earlier book, Spirit of Place, which can be hard to find now. But even then, if you have a friend who is heading out on a big trip I can't think of a nicer thing to do for them than to point them to Bob.

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I'm at Scott's House Today

You know how when you were a kid, sometimes you'd head over to a friend's house to play -- and their place would be way nicer than yours?

You know, like maybe they had a pool and a trampoline and indoor plumbing and everything?

Today, I got invited to do a guest post on Scott Kelby's blog. You know, that Scott Kelby. Mr. Entire Photoshop Industry.

So, Scott's house would have, say, a helicopter pad. And maybe a gift shop on the lower level. The guy could buy and sell me ten times over.

(Okay maybe you could buy me, Kelby. But you'd have a tough time selling me, pal.)

Anyway, you don't turn down an invite like that. And he said I could write about anything I wanted. So I wrote about sports photography, and a game called "First Frame." If you're up for it, you can see it here.

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Strobist Lighting DVDs Translated Into English

Okay, not exactly.

They are still full of mispronunciations and numerous grammatical errors, so as to remain true to the website. But at least they are now available reasonably in the UK and EU. If you drive on the left side of the road and think football is played with your feet, keep reading.
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The Flash Centre, seen here propping up reader Richard Licence, is now carrying the set and will be shipping to UK and EU without your having to give up your firstborn kid. That means no extended waits, usurious duties or made-up UPS fees.

The price is £102.35 incl Vat (£89.00 exc Vat). Shipping to UK/EU will be £6.60 and £9, respectively. EU is three day delivery, UK is next day. After my experiences with the wonderful, deep-discount city you call "London," we worked the system to get pricing parity between the US and the UK. This may be a first in the history of the world.

It comes in at a little less before VAT and a little more after, and almost dead even when you add in the standard sales tax here in the US. Don't tell McDonalds we were able to do this, or they are gonna be pissed off.

They will be in stock as of Weds., January 14th. You can order in UK/EU from the web here. Or better yet, hit the TFC London store in person just to give Alex Ray a hard time about anything you want. (Tell him I said it was okay.)

More info on the DVDs is here, including how to best get them if you are not in the UK/EU area. And please remember that the camera adds 10 30 pounds.

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Back to Basics: How to Choose an Umbrella

Umbrellas are cheap, portable little light softeners. But there are enough choices available to make picking the right one a little confusing. Or worse yet, to end up with something that is completely a wrong fit.

Below are some of the pros and cons of each of the major types of umbrella. You'll find that choosing is easy, once you figure out how you will be most likely be using it.
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Shoot-Thru or Reflective

The first choice you'll make is whether you will bounce off of an umbrella or diffuse light through it. This is also the biggest variable in the quality of light from an umbrella, so you'll want to make this decision first.


Shoot-thru's offer softer light, both because they are white (vs. silver) and because you can place them very close to your subject. This is simply because the shaft will not protrude into the frame in advance of the umbrella, because it is pointed in the other direction. So you'll get a larger apparent light source, and thus softer light.

Since the light source can be very close with a shoot-thru, it can also be very powerful. If you do outdoor headshots and compete with the sun's light level, this kind of thing matters. You'll want a shoot-through. Just come in as close as possible with that light source and keep it barely out of the frame.

Another advantage of a shoot-thru with a removable black backing is that you can partially gobo the light with the backing. This will remove some of the degree of coverage coming from your light source. This technique can keep light off of, say, the bottom of your frame, as seen here.

But given the same lighting distance, shoot-thru's are usually less efficient than their silvered reflective counterparts. And efficiency is important if you are lighting larger objects (such as full-length portraits rather than head-and-shoulder shots.)

To get even coverage over a larger area, you need to back that light up. And a silvered reflective umbrella will let you do that and keep a lot of light hitting your subject.


A good example is in this group shot, done with two, horizontally ganged 43" reflective umbrellas to make one large, efficient source for key lighting this group shot. It was done for one of the location shoots on the lighting DVDs inside of a dark, shiny room that just threw one problem at us after another.

The silvered umbrellas helped us keep as much of the flash's power as possible with a longer working distance. Additionally, the black-backed silver umbrellas also gobo'd themselves for us, as they were just out of the frame to camera left.

Rather than choose, I like to have this one both ways. I use shoot-through umbrellas with removable backings most of the time, but always keep a silvered umbrella or two with me. Fortunately, they are very cheap ($26 and $20, respectively) and the double-folds take up very little room in the light case. So it is easy to splurge for those two reasons.


Double-Fold or Regular

This one is easy. If space in your bag (or on your shoulder) is at a premium, go with a double-fold. If you value durability over marginal portability, get a standard umbrella.

Apples to apples, the prices are all in the same neighborhood, so this is really a physical size choice. The double-folds are wonderful little umbrellas, and at 43" they are great for general use. But you do have to be careful with them because they are constructed in a fairly lightweight manner to allow every thing to collapse upon itself.

That said, if you aren't using them in windy conditions they will hold up fine if you are careful. And you can make the tip of the shaft (where it gets clamped) stronger with a pencil stub.

Another factor to consider is whether you are using a normal stand or a 5-section compact model. With a normal stand, there is no reason to sacrifice strength and get a double-fold, as you are already committing to the linear space for the stand. May as well get the more sturdy umbrella, too.

Conversely, your choice of umbrella may dictate your choice of stand, so keep them both in mind when choosing.


Medium or Large

First of all, why not a small?

Because you can make any umbrella into a smaller light source by zooming in the flash head or choking up on the shaft (or both). And the smalls are only a few bucks cheaper than the mediums. If that. So go with at least a medium and you'll have more flexibility.

So your choice pretty much comes to something in the medium range (~43") or something in the large range (~60"). And speaking of inches, that measurement is the distance around the face of the umbrella, from tip to tip.

Why? Because it sounds bigger that way.

Second, a myth to dispel: You shouldn't use a huge umbrella with a small speedlight.

You absolutely can, but with the lower-powered flash you lose one of the biggest advantages of a huge umbrella, which is that you can back the light way up and still keep it soft.

With a speedlight, if you back that umbrella way up (say, to light a large object) you will lose effective power before you lose softness. But if you are shooting in a very low-light situation and your aperture is accordingly set (i.e., close to wide open) you can get away with it.

For just a few dollars, a speedlight in a 60" umbrella makes a gorgeous, soft, light source for close-up portraiture -- i.e., head shot, 3/4 shot. Just keep it in pretty close to the subject. And it doubles as a sweet main light mod if you add a more powerful monobloc to your bag later.

But for most shoots, a standard 43-45" umbrella is a great fit for a speedlight. It also gives you a nice power-to-effective-size ratio that works well with the small flashes.


My Suggestions

For most people, I would suggest starting with a pair of ~43" umbrellas for your first flash. One silver reflective, and one a removable-back shoot-thru. Standard or double-fold is a pick 'em, and your choice depending on the variables above. They are cheap, and adding a second won't really bump up the shipping much, either. Go crazy for once in your life.


For your next umbrella (say, if you have two flashes) I would suggest a second black-backed shoot-thru. This gives you the option of ganging them together for a huge light source in close, and/or using them high and low for "clamshell" lighting, seen in the head shot at left.

If you want to create very soft indoor light on the cheap (at close range) consider a 60" shoot-thru as a value-oriented option. And especially if your lighting arsenal includes a monobloc. But it will not have as much versatility as will a medium-sized umbrella.

Here are some of my favorite choices, all of which I consider to be good values, in umbrellas:


:: Westcott 43-inch Shoot-Thru Double-Fold ::
:: Westcott 43-inch Reflective Double-Fold ::
:: Paul C. Buff 60-inch Shoot-Thru ::
:: Eclipse 45-inch shoot-Thru Standard ::

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Take Nothing But Pictures, Leave Nothing But Footprints

If your spouse (okay, statistically speaking for this site, your wife) found out how much you truly spent on photo gear in 2008, what would she do?

Why, she would grab one of your 5-section compact light stands and beat you to death with it, that's what she'd do. Fortunately, the light stand would still be usable for whoever bought it at your estate sale, because those little things are built like tanks.

The cops would first suspect your wife (they always check out the relatives first) and go about collecting evidence. And you'll be happy to know that a crime scene photographer would be using a little off-camera flash, as described in this quickie crime scene photography tutorial.

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From the Invisible Hand Department

Adam Smith would be so proud.

Effective January 1st of this year, ExpoImaging has dropped the price on the Ray Flash ring flash adapter to $199.95. ExpoImaging notes that the price drop is a result of their now being able to purchase the Ray Flash direct from the manufacturer, which removes a layer of distribution costs.

(Heck that's cool by us. We'll take a price drop if it is result of an alien abduction yielding the formula for transparent aluminum if that's what it takes.)

They are kicking the new price point off with a contest, in which the winner will see his or her Ray Flash photo used in an ad. (Rights stay with the shooter.) ExpoImaging also is kicking in lotsa merch for the winning entry.

More details here.

(Photo ©2008 David Maynard)

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On Assignment: Manil Suri

One of the joys of being a photographer is the opportunity to spend your life intersecting with a steady stream of very interesting people. One such recent encounter was with author Manil Suri (The Death of Vishnu and The Age of Shiva), who I photographed for a literary magazine.

I never seem to have enough time these days to indulge in reading much fiction, but my wife is a big fan of Suri. My interest in him was primarily because of his alter ego as a mathematics professor at the nearby University of Maryland Baltimore County.

You don't run across too many people who can explain, in depth, the concept of infinity and crank out bestselling novels between classes.


Abstract Concrete, Redux

After a series of emails, we worked out that I would be able to photograph Suri in or near his office at the UMBC campus, before his midday class.

We would not get a lot of time, but that is part of the game (and, to me, a lot of the fun) when doing a magazine portrait. It is rather like the difference between playing a leisurely game of chess and playing a game under the gun with a timer.

An appropriate analogy in this case, because UMBC is a Big Dawg when it comes to intercollegiate chess. They delight in trapping the kings of players from schools where students pay three times UMBC's tuition.

Scouting within a small radius from Suri's office, I found an area behind his building where a weathered slab of concrete would make for an interesting background. Nearby was an indoor alcove where I could get a completely look, but I'll just be writing about the outdoor stuff to keep this post from turning into War and Peace.

In an earlier post entitled Abstract Concrete, I photographed a scientist who studies concrete at a molecular level. But for Suri, I just wanted to use the concrete wall itself as a starting point for a background.

I liked the patterns, but the tone was both too light and a little too homogenous -- both of which problems are easily solvable with a single speedlight.


Looking at this three-pic composite of the background, you can see the original (auto) exposure on the concrete as it appeared as I found it. It's just a quick grab shot, not even in focus. But it doesn't need to be in focus, as it will be my backdrop and I want to get a look at it a little out of focus anyway. The tone is maybe a stop above medium grey.

In the middle frame, you can see the the adjusted tone after dropping the ambient exposure two stops and change. I liked this one better. It is also in focus, which to my taste makes it less interesting (and more competitive with the subject) as a background.

For the third frame, I took it back out of focus (by focusing to the point in front where I would have Suri standing) and threw a little snooted flash onto it at a hard angle from camera right. The flash was about a foot or two from the wall, raking across, and fitted with a Honl shorty (5") snoot. I put the silver side on the inside to soften the transition from light to dark.

How much strobe you hit it with is purely a matter of personal taste. To me, this dropped-and-flashed background is more interesting than the plain, light grey wall I started out with. That random splash of light adds a little interest, and I can position it for nice shadow-side separation, if needed.

I frequently use this process to build up my backgrounds as a more interesting second layer to a photo. When looking for a backdrop, always realize that you can take your found surface down via the ambient component of the full exposure. Or you can bring it up with a little background flash. Or you can have it both ways, as we did here.


Enter Manil Suri. I used two SB-800s, each with LumiQuest SB-III modifier, for the key and the fill. The key light has a 1/8 CTO on it for a little warmth, and is about 5 feet from the subject at camera left.

At this distance the light is neither hard nor soft, which is a look that I like except you need to watch the shadow depth. And that depth can easily be controlled by altering the ambient exposure component.

But my ambient was being used to control the unlit portion of the background. So I would need to bring Suri's shadows up with a little fill. I chose to fill on-axis with a second SB-800 / Softbox-III, this one with no warming gel.

I could mount this flash on the hot shoe, although the SoftBox-III is a little big for that, and it would rotate with the vertical orientation of the camera. So I simply stuck it on a stand and shot from right under it. This way, you can get the bottom of the light right up against the lens barrel for more of an on-axis look to the fill.

The fill looked best at about 1 1/2 to 2 stops down, which kept the character of the hardish light without losing my shadow detail.

That one came off nice and quick. I liked it as a straight shot, but wanted to add another layer to it if I could do so without spending a lot of time. So I grabbed one of my favorite toys -- a Holga lens that has been mounted to a Nikon body cap.

I love the airy, ethereal, Holga look when it is added to hard, sculpted light. The two balance each other out like lemon and sugar in a glass of lemonade.

(You may need to click the pic for a bigger version to see what the Holga lens is doing to this photo.)

There is almost no extra time required to swap out and get this extra look. And the irony of sticking a $50 piece of plastic on a $5,000 D3 (1:100 lens to body cost) is not wasted on me, either.

CORRECTION: Although for this particular shot the Holga was back on a D300 -- only 36 times the cost of the lens...


This shot (seen at the top of this post and repeated here) was another quick add-on before going inside for the second setup. Just grab the key light and head over to under the exterior stairway to use it as a graphic element.

The process is very quick: Expose for the ambient, drop it 1 1/2 to two stops, bring in the warmed up key light (pretty close in this case) and adjust it's output until Suri has a good exposure.

The stairway and background vignette themselves because of the falloff of the nearby key light. Nothing complicated about it, but the stairs add a graphic element that gave me a second look before heading inside.


To Infinity, and Beyond

Suri really is an interesting guy. Not many people have that right brain / left brain thing going as well as he does.

If you want to see if you are capable of truly understanding infinity, take a look at his lecture on the subject, which was uploaded to YouTube.

If you plan on really trying to understand it, I would recommend two or three anticipatory aspirin, at the very least.
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NEXT: On Assignment -- Monteverde Institute

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2008 Weblog Awards Finalists Announced

"We'd like to thank our parents, the Academy, the people who make black straws, Gary Fong and..."

Oh, wait. We've only been nominated for the 2008 Weblog Awards. We haven't actually won anything yet. We're just a finalist.

Hey, but being nominated is cool, too, right? Right? Hello?

Kidding aside, I am quite stoked to announce that that not only was Strobist nominated for Best Photo Blog (which is first time we have ever been nominated for anything) but the Strobist Flickr Group was nominated for Best Online Community. That's YOU.

This is hugemongous. I mean, you are sharing the dais with the likes of Android Community and the Michael Jackson Fan Forum. (If you are a a lighting photographer and a Jacko fan, it's decision time, bucko.)

In Best Photo Blog there are many strong finalists, including The Online Photographer and the always first rate Big Picture, which surfs the wires for great photos and gives them the play they deserve. (It is run by the picture desk at The Boston Globe.)

So put down that G-Phone, grab your white sequined voting glove and take a moment cast your ballot. You are allowed to vote once every 24 hours, too. Vote for Best Photo Blog here, and Best Online Community here.

-30-

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The Profoto Pro-8 Knows You Like it Fast

You remember at the end of Fast Times at Ridgemont High, where Jeff "Surf's Up" Spicoli hires Van Halen to play his birthday party? Why on earth would someone do something like that?

Because they can.

Which is exactly why Profoto hired Annie Leibovitz to shoot a series of portraits of Conny Dufgran, (co-founder and chairman of Profoto) for their 40th Anniversary. Not a bad day at the office.

Leibovitz used a new Profoto Pro-8, of course, because showing up with a bag of old Vivitar 285's would not exactly have been cool. Not that Annie has even seen a 285 in the last 20 years, I'll bet, as ahe uses Profoto. And besides, the Pro-8 has roughly the same recycling rate as an M240 Bravo. Which is nice.

Going by this video, the new high-end studio strobe comes with a soundtrack of singing angels, too. As well it should if it can keep up with a D3 firing on full auto at the lower power settings.

That's not the camera beeping along with each exposure. That's the flash signaling that it is ready to fire again.

Holy crap, is that thing fast. My guess: They swapped the regular caps in the power pack for flux capacitors. (When you hit 88 MPH, it is ready for the next frame before you actually shoot the current frame.)

Matt Hill, the man behind the curtain at the Profoto blog, was on the "A" cam shooting the behind-the-scenes video (embedded above) from the photo shoot.

Hit the jump for Matt's behind-the-scenes comments from the behind-the-scenes video, and a bonus, 100% gear porn video of all of the knobs and switches on the new Ferrari-of-Flashes Profoto Pro-8.
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As always, it is the details that make the photo. The more I see of this lady at work, the more I realize how little she leaves to chance. Which is why I am always making mental notes when I am watching her videos.

Says Matt:

"Eckhard Heine, Profoto's other co-founder, has since passed away and when Annie was developing the concept for the shoot, I hear she wanted to honor their long relationship by including him in the photograph.

The large chalkboard you see behind Conny on the interior locations is hand-drawn schematic of one of the earliest Profoto flash generators. I saw one of Annie's crew drawing it on the chalkboard in our warehouse during prep for the shoot.

If you look closely at the right-hand side of photograph on our webpage, you will see on the computer screen a schematic from the Pro-8. The juxtaposition of old and new in one photograph... very subtle, in my opinion."

That background makes the shot, IMO. Neat thinking -- and execution.

Okay, how many photographers does it take to screw in a modeling light bulb? Well, lessee...

"There were four people (including Annie) listed as "crew", three Photo Assistants, two working on production, one on-set coordinator and four people listed as set designer, two on-set and two that were not."

Yeah, pretty much the same way I roll on a portrait shoot.

Also wedged into the scene were the Profoto documentation squad: Matt on "A" cam, Max Hull on "B," and Ab Sesay shooting stills. Matt edited, and for all I know did the background singing vocals, too.

Matt goes on:

"It was a fun day. Annie shot shot the second and third locations that day at our office. The first was at a marina in City Island at 6:30am."

Here's the result -- click for bigger in a new window:

©2008 Annie Leibovitz

More behind-the-scenes stuff from Matt:

"The setup was fluid - busy assistants like Nick Rogers setting and metering lights. During the shoot, you can see that the lights were moving until Annie saw what she wanted happening. It was a wonderful process to watch live. You can hear her asking Nick, 'Just a little bit lower to get the eye, please.' The stop-motion segments really show how she shifts the lighting constantly.

In retrospect, I learned that your first setup is simply that - a good place to start. Look, evaluate, and adapt until you get what you want.

I hear there is a lot of talk about her shooting rapid bursts of frames - anything I say about that would be a guess. Perhaps she was stretching her legs since the Pro-8 can keep up with the D3?"

(Yeah, just like the M240B, except that you don't have to bore-sight the Pro-8 a little down and to the left because it doesn't walk up and right when you fire it like the 240 does...)

"Annie was using the flash power at a very low level and shooting at a higher ISO (I heard 800 at one point). I can see how powerful that technique can be with low-noise processing and modern DSLRs. She blends it very well. Seeing all the diffused, bounced and ambient sources blend is akin to a well-performed symphony of light."

(Aw geez, Matt -- I was right there with you until the "symphony of light" remark. You still have stars in your eyes, dude...)

"The third and final set of the day was in the most unlikely spot - our Service Department. It was cramped, full of manuals, tools and work going in and out. Having a large crew on the shoot, plus our video/still crew and other people interested in seeing what was going on made it exciting. This is the shot you see featured for the 40th Anniversary, and that desk belongs to a one of our Profoto technicians."

Yeah, well. I am just thinking how much better the piece would have been with a third video camera in the mix. For next time, you have my number.
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And now, your moment of knob-twiddling, dial-caressing, wallet-busting zen:



Official price is listed as: "If You Have To Ask..."

Thanks for the video, Matt -- and for the color commentary.

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