H A S H W I N Photography

Last weekend it was another  outdoor portrait session with my usual adorable models.  Location: backyard.  The timing was also perfect, an hour before sunset. This gives the opportunity to use the flash while there is still enough light to shoot without one at a wide aperture (around f/2.8) . Well, you could do it during a bright midday too, at lower apertures, if the strobes are powerful enough. A couple of 600Ws novatrons could do the job i guess, but haven’t tried it.  For the evening, just 1 strobe was all i needed. (and one reflector for some shots)

Here’s how to set the exposure for the shot.

1. Set your camera to Av mode (aperture priority) and take a sample shot.  (f/2.8 – 3.5 gives a good bokeh).
2. Now dial down the exp by 1, 1.5 or 2 stops depending on how dark you like the background.
3. You can do step 2 by either going to manual (M mode)  and reducing the shutter speed or by staying in Av mode and using the exposure compensation dial.
4. Now, its time to adjust the flash settings. This may require a few trial and error shots unless you use a light meter. Once you are happy with the light on the subject, just shoot on..
5. You can also use a reflector to fill in. (For a reflector, the silver shades used for car dashboards work just as well as professional ones !)

Here are some sample images from yesterday.

The next shot is the same one as above, but i changed the grass color.

a few in monochrome,

This last shot, the exposure for the background was dialed down further…

here is a ‘setup shot’

When they are in a good mood, i can get my kids to pose for me. Usually, when it is outdoors, they have the freedom to move about and i play papa-razzi. This time it was indoors and they were limited to a couple of square feet of space. So i struck a deal, candies for poses…

These set of photos were taken with just one flash, off camera and  shot through an umbrella. Just a single flash can also produce pretty flattering results. The flash was triggered via a PC cord. Unfortunately i didn’t note down the flash settings for these shots…

For all the shots above, the flash was at 45 degress to the left of the camera and just a tad bit above her head level.

For this image above, though i could have used a second flash with a snoot to get the effect, i just burned the edges in photoshop.

For these 3 shots, the flash was almost at 90 degrees to the left and at her shoulder level. Tweaked the white balance in these images.

And here is a simple collage…