Finally playing with light

Light Mod Diffused, originally uploaded by bostonaday.

Today was a day for super-gluing fingers and experimenting with flash techniques. I've been reading a fantastic blog by David Hobby, aka Strobist and it's really inspired me. Lighting has always seemed like calculus to me...I'm sure it's useful, but it's too painful to learn. Well I'm almost past that (with lighting, not calculus).

So today I ran around town with Elizabeth picking up some supplies to give me more control over light. After spending some time working on my craft skills and getting super glue on most of my fingers I went outside to try out some new tricks.

First, I wanted to see if I could overpower the ambient light. All of the pics you see here were taken about 90 minutes before sunset, but they look like they were taken at night with a flash. Not necessarily the best technique for this photo, but I wanted to see if I could master it.

Second, I wanted to see how the new flash modifiers worked, so I set up this experiment. All of the pictures are using the same camera and flash settings. I'm using the on camera flash for a little fill, and the main flash is camera right pointed directly at the blue reflecting ball.

This first picture is with the flash diffuser in front of the flash.


This second picture is with the diffuser removed and the flash zoomed to 80mm.


The third picture is with a snoot attached to the flash (Elizabeth had to listen to me say snoot all day long. Snooty snoot snoot.)


And the last picture is with a grid attached to the flash (imagine looking down a box of straws).


You can really see how the light spills onto the back wall (right side of the picture) using the bare flash. As the beam tightens up from diffused to zoom to snoot to grid you can see less light making its way back there and more light hitting the focal point. I really like the visual impact from the snoot and the grid, and I can see how they will help make a picture pop. Next to experiment some more with balance.