Here is another tip for photographers doing doing photoshoots with models:
Take the flash off the camera and put it on a stick
One of the easiest ways to improve your pictures is to take the flash or strobe off the camera and put it on a stand off to the side. This is how we learned to shoot people outdoors in photography school. We used Norman 400B strobes that were really powerful–400 watt-seconds. (The light ouput of portable strobes is usually measured by guide number. The output of bigger strobes is measured in watt-seconds which is a meaure of the energy–a watt-second is so many joules.)
I call this setup my light on a stick. I use that name because when I worked on films in Hollywood we would call a 1K Baby Fresnel on a light stand a “Baby on a Stick”.
Now the usual place you see a portable strobe is on top of the camera mounted on the hotshoe. Unfortunately, this is not the best place to put a light. But camera manufacturers place it there anyway because it is convenient. But a light on the lens axis places all the shadows behind the subject so you basically get shadowless illumination. So it is only good for fill light. Another problem you get with lens-axis mounted strobe is red eye.
So I bought a used manual flash for 1000 Czech crowns (about 50 bucks) from Jan Pazdera Obchod Foto-Kino on Vodickova Street which is the best used camera store in Prague. The strobe is a Metz 30BCT4 Mecablitz. (They call a strobe “blitz” in Deutsch as in blitzkreig. In Czech they call it “blesk” which also happens to be the name of one of the tabloid newpapers here in Czech Republic!) You must get a stobe that has a PC sync connector and can be set manually. Usually they can be set at Full, 1/2, 1/4 and 1/8 power. Newer strobes from Canon and Nikon are useless for this kind of application. That is why I had to go to a used camera store.
I put the Metz blitz on the smallest light stand I could find which was a Manfrotto 001B that I bought at BH Photo Video the last time I was in New York City. You also need an umbrella stand adapter to mount the strobe on the stand. The strobe is connected to my camera’s PC connector with a 15-foot long PC sync cable.
The last time I was in New York I bought a Vivatar 285HV to put on the stick. Unfortunately, the Vivitar burned up about the third or fourth time I used it. I think I was shooting too fast or something. I had used my old Vivitar 285 for about 15 years and never had a problem. So with the dead Vivitar I was shooting with a Canon 430EXII strobe mounted on the camera which I don’t really like. The flash is TTL metered auto-exposure and the computer makes all the lighting decisions.
So what I do now is manually meter the flash using a Minolta Flashmeter. Then I set the f/stop on the camera which is in manual mode. Now instead of letting the camera do all the thinking, I am forced to use my brain. When I meter like to have the subject maybe 1/2 stop brighter than the background to separate it and show off the clothes better. I think it is good to have the main subject either be the lightest thing or the darkest thing in the picture.
This is another example of not letting the new automatic cameras steal your job. Take back control. Don’t let machines become your master.
