Shooting Great Portraits with Portable Strobes
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At Photoflex, we get a lot of people asking about how best to set up and shoot a simple portrait using a strobe light and a digital camera. Many people think that strobe lighting is confusing and hard to operate, but in fact, once you know your way around the controls, it can be very easy, particularly if you're shooting digitally and can review your exposure levels as you shoot them.
This lesson demonstrates how to configure lighting gear so that you can shoot professional-quality portraits quickly and easily.
(Click on any image below for an enlarged view.) |
Topics Covered:
- The shortcomings of built-in flash lighting
- Mounting a flash bracket and flash to your camera
- Attaching a softbox to your camera bracket
- Comparisons of different types of lighting set-ups
BUILT-IN FLASH LIGHTING
To demonstrate a simple strobe lighting set-up, we decided to have our model Aidan, a very active 10-month old, "sit in" for a portrait. As you'll soon see, it is often necessary to use strobe lighting to capture the unpredictable movements of an energetic child without blur, particularly in low light or indoor conditions.
For comparison purposes, as with most lessons, we took a shot in the living room the way most people would go about photographing someone: with the camera set to Program (automatic) and the built-in flash activated (figure 1).
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The result reveals a typical built-in flash shot (figure 2). Since the light from the flash is traveling in the same direction as the lens, it tends to flatten out the elements of the shot and it is difficult to get an accurate sense of shape or dimension. The reflections in the eyes are tiny and unnaturally centered, something you would never find in natural lighting conditions, and the shadows cast from the hand and head are sharp and equally unnatural-looking. Unfortunately, this type of result is unavoidable with this type of lighting.
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 Figure 3 |
SHOOTING IN AVAILABLE LIGHT
Next, we decided to try shooting with just the available light to render a more natural look. We switched over to a professional SLR camera, which would allow us to set the exposure manually.
Since we wanted a relatively short depth of field so that the background would be mostly out of focus, we set the aperture to f/3.5 and then tried a shutter speed of 1/100th of a second and took a shot (figure 3).
As you can see from the result, the background is exposed at a decent level, but Aidan is rendered too dark.
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 Figure 4 |
In an attempt to fix the problem of Aidan's face being too dark, we decided to try the spot meter function in the camera. We aimed the camera so that Aidan's forehead (a neutrally toned area) appeared in the very center of the frame, pressed the shutter button halfway down, and adjusted the shutter speed until the Exposure Level Indicator revealed a balanced reading at 1/30th of a second.
We waited for Aidan to be somewhat still because of the slow shutter speed, and then took a shot (figure 4).
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Even in the Playback mode of the camera, we could tell that the result was blurred. This meant that we needed to create some daylight-balanced light, and the easiest way we could do that was with a flash or strobe unit.
Our SLR digital camera did not come with a built-in flash, but it did have an external flash connector that allowed us to sync up a strobe as well as a hot shoe to accommodate shoe mount flashes.
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SYNCING OFF-CAMERA STROBES
In this situation, we decided to use a Quantum Qflash strobe, as it would allow us modify the light with a small soft box, as you will soon see. Quantum makes a Turbo Compact battery that can power both your strobe and your camera, and it mounts directly into the tripod socket of the camera.
Once this was attached, we mounted a Quantum flash bracket to the tripod socket of the battery (figures 5 & 6).
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Next, we attached a 1/4-inch brass stud to the top of the handle mount to accommodate the strobe head, and mounted a Photoflex Heavy Duty Swivel to the base of the strobe head so that we could later adjust the angle of the strobe as needed (figures 7 & 8).
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Once the Heavy Duty Swivel was connected to the strobe head, we connected the other end to the flash bracket and plugged the flash head power cable into the battery pack (figures 9 & 10).
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To sync the flash up with the camera, we connected a PC-to-Household sync cord to both the side of the strobe head and to the external flash connector of the camera (figures 11 & 12).
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This is how the set-up looked from both the front and back once everything was configured (figures 13 & 14).
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Once the strobe was set up, we took a few test shots to determine how much power we needed to expose Aidan's face properly and finally arrived at the 1/16th mark. We kept the aperture setting at f/3.5 to maintain a limited depth of field, and dialed the shutter speed back up to 1/100th of a second to expose for the background.
Once we were able to get Aidan to look in the camera, we took a shot (figures 15 & 16).
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 Figure 17 |
The lighting in this result has improved substantially (figure 17). By simply having the strobe positioned a foot away from the lens, you can't help but improve the lighting of the shot. It's enough distance to rake the light across the features of your subject so that you can get a better sense of dimension.
But since the strobe head is still a relatively small light source (although significantly larger than the built-in flash), there are still smallish reflections in the eyes and a sharp shadow cast from the chin. To increase the reflections in the eyes and soften the shadow, we needed to add a soft box to the strobe.
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SOFTENING STROBE LIGHT WITH A SOFT BOX
Depending on the flash you use, you will most likely be able to add a soft box to create a more natural "window light" effect to your subjects.
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 Figure 18 |
To do this with the Qflash, first remove the flash reflector (figure 18).
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 Figure 19 |
Here, we took a Photoflex Extra Small LiteDome and inserted the 4 rods of the soft box into the Strobe Connector designed to fit onto the Qflash head. Once the rods were secured into Strobe Connector, we fastened the Strobe Connector to the strobe head (figures 19 - 21).
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This is how the set-up looked from both the front and back once everything was configured (figures 22 & 23).
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Once we had the soft box attached, we increased the power on the strobe slightly to compensate for a stop of light the soft box would absorb and took a series of shots (figures 24 & 25).
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Toward the end of these shots, Aidan was ready to get out of his chair, but we managed to capture a few good expressions before he let us know that the shoot was over. Here are a couple of our favorites (figures 26 & 27).
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 Figure 26 |
 Figure 27 |
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As you can see from the results, the soft box has made a tremendous difference in the feel of the shot. The square catch-lights in his eyes look very much like window light reflections and the shadows cast from the chin are much softer than with the straight flash head. The soft box has rendered the eyes a little brighter, revealing the eye color, and the exposure is balanced well against the background.
Now let's look at the results side by side for comparison (figure 28).
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 Figure 28 |
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Remember that lighting is a critical component of any photograph. This lesson is just one example of how a few simple lighting adjustments can go along way toward improving your photographs.
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