The environmental portrait

Tom Butler, coffee farmer on the Big Island of Hawaii. Tom sells the incredible 100% Kona coffee.

Nikon D4, 28-300mm (300), ISO 2000, ƒ/10, 1/200 - Off camera fill-flash using the Nikon SB-900 pointed at the coffee farmer.  The Flash is on the Pocketwizard TT5 and being triggered by the Mini TT1 on the Camera with the AC3 to control the output of the flash. Flash is 0 EV and the camera is 0 EV. A second Flash is setup the same way but on different channel at -3 EV pointed at the coffee on the branch.

Before I start this blog I want to thank Tom Butler for letting me photograph him. If you want some great 100% Kona coffee you can go to his website http://paradisefoundhawaii.com.

The environmental portrait is the bread and butter of the working photojournalist.  I wanted to show you three options I did for a portrait of a coffee grower in Hawaii.

I had to really look for the cherry looking coffee berries on the trees. It wasn't the time for harvesting, that had already been done earlier. This is the season for pruning.

This first choice you see here I tried to tie the coffee plant in with the coffee farmer.

The second choice has the coffee farmer in front of the plant rather than behind it as in the first photo.

The last choice I asked him to pick some of the coffee and present it to me for the photo.

You most likely like one of the three better than the other. However, the professional photographer will give options to the photo editor. The editor knows then that I worked the situation and tried to give them some options.

Which one is your favorite and why?

Ambient Light and Flash Combined

Hey Stanley, can you back up and explain this Ambient Light and under 3 stops thing you mentioned in that last post?

Available Light only (Nikon D3S, ISO 12,800, f/5.6, 1/40, 28-300mm)

I had a few people write to me asking similar questions. So, let's delve into this subject of ambient light and under or over exposing with a flash.

Without a flash point the camera at the subject.  I have my camera set for Matrix Metering, Aperture Priority and this gives me a reading of f/3.5 with 1/10 shutter speed and ISO 200. FYI this is not what the setting was in the above photo, this just shows you where to find the reading on the camera.

Step One: Get An Ambient Reading

You need a starting place to be your base exposure. Everything else will relate to this exposure.  I took a picture of the top of my Nikon D3S with a 28-300mm Nikkor lens.  I just pointed across the room for this example. With ISO 200 I have a f/3.5 aperture at 1/10 shutter speed. This is my Ambient Reading with no flash.

Step Two: Use your Nikon SB900

You can use whatever hotshoe flash for your manufacturer you have, but it must be a TTL flash or this will not work as easily.

Step Three: Slow or Rear Curtain Sync

You need to set your flash setting as I have done in the above photo to Slow or Rear Curtain Sync. This tells the flash and the camera that please use the Ambient setting on the camera and then add the flash to the exposure without over exposing the photo.

Fill Flash normal setting (Nikon D3S, ISO 12,800, f/5.6, 1/20, 28-300mm)

Take a photo with this setting as I did in the photo above here.  This will basically light everything up.  I am bouncing my flash with the diffusion dome on the flash for this photo.  It is still getting light from the window, but the flash is filling in everything thing closest to the camera.  The background is brighter, but since it is further from the flash it is not as bright as the statue.

Step Four: Adjust the flash power under 3 stops

The reason I choose to go 3 stops under is this is as low as I can go in TTL mode and the camera figuring it all out for me. 

On the Nikon SB900 you push the button in the far upper left and it will cycle all the way through under and over exposures. Stop on the -3.0 EV.  EV stands for Exposure Value.

With the camera not changing the setting and then telling the flash to underexpose by -3.0 stops you get the results here.

Fill Flash set -3.0 (Nikon D3S, ISO 12,800, f/5.6, 1/30, 28-300mm)

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You can also adjust the camera exposure and the flash exposure and get even more results.

Silhouette

Reveal

Silhouette and Reveal

Again I must give credit to Dave Black for coining this terminology.  I have been doing this for years, but loved how he made this sound very artistic, by using a french word it really sounds artistic.

Here is how you do this photo.

Step One: Take a normal ambient reading

Very similar to the above example.  Everything will look normal.

Step Two: Underexpose the photo by 2 or three stops

On the Nikon D3S the button to the right of the shutter you depress which lets you stay in Auto setting like Aperture Mode and underexpose or overexpose an image.

When you depress it should look like this if you have never done it before.  If you see something else, this maybe why your photos are under or overexposed.

With it depressed turn the wheel on the back of the camera.  Here it is at -1 stop.  I would shoot -1 stop, one at -2 stops and even -3 stops and pick the one that the subject is best silhouetted.

Step Three: Set flash setting to just the opposite + stops

If you picked three stops under then you are going to set your flash to three stops over.  You see now where the flash hits the subject will give you a perfect exposure. 

[-3] + [+3] = 0

For the photo above I had the Nikon SB900 off the camera being fired by the SU800 on my camera.

Nikon SU800 triggers your SB900 off camera using infrared signal. Here you can control up to 3 different settings of multiple flashes.  Here if I had three flashes and each one of them setup to work on A, B or C then I can control them from the camera individually.  For the above example I used a SB900 and SB800 both going off with +3 Flash setting as compared to the -3 on the camera setting.  It doesn't matter if I had 100 flashes the camera will only let them fire all together only +3 stops.  I love this technology.

Silhouette

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12,800 ISO noise looks different with flash

Dave Black was speaking at a seminar about using his Nikon Speedlight SB900 flashes instead of his Studio heads to light a basketball court and an ice rink.

I was on the edge of my seat absorbing what he was talking about.  I didn't go out and buy more SB900 flashes and use them instead of my strobes for one reason, clients were not paying for sports coverage as in years past.

But what I was listening to was some of the reasons it was working for Dave Black.

First, by just having his strobes just a little over ambient light level he was able to get better color and avoid the problem with sodium vapor lights. Dynamic range under flash is the greatest light spectrum. Dave Black was shooting his flash just enough over the ambient to affect the color and help shift it to the 5000º Kelvin range.

Sodium vapor lights flicker and when you are shooting above 1/100 shutter speed you can get color shifts to all or just a band through a photo.

Another thing of shooting with the Nikon Speedlights was the ability to shoot at just about any shutter speed.  So in ice hockey Dave was able to freeze the puck by shooting at 1/2000.  The basketball was sharper as well for his basketball.

Available Light only (Nikon D3S, ISO 12,800, f/5.6, 1/40, 28-300mm)

I began to experiment with using strobes with high ISO since then and found some things that it benefits other than just for sports.

I shot here the same photo three different ways. I have the statue lit by window light.  I shot it with nothing but the window light and any bounce back fill is just from the room.  I shot it at ISO 12,800.

As you can see the highlights look good and it is in the shadows that you will notice more noise. 

Fill Flash set -3.0 (Nikon D3S, ISO 12,800, f/5.6, 1/30, 28-300mm)

By putting my SB900 with the dome on the camera and just bounce flashing I was able to get a little different results.  I underexposed the flash by -3 stops.  I did this by adjusting the setting on the back of the flash.

As you can see the shadows are now not totally black as in the first photo.

Then I shot also one more photo with the flash at a normal setting which gave me a lot more light.  This wipes out the shadow detail completely.  However, since I am using it in rear sync mode it was still complementing the window light and not over powering it.

Fill Flash normal setting (Nikon D3S, ISO 12,800, f/5.6, 1/20, 28-300mm)

You really need to zoom in to see some of the noise issues with each photo.The place the noise shows up the most is in the green in the background.  You can see a lot of noise the more it is in the shadow.

Available Light only (Nikon D3S, ISO 12,800, f/5.6, 1/40, 28-300mm)

Fill Flash set -3.0 (Nikon D3S, ISO 12,800, f/5.6, 1/30, 28-300mm)

As you add more fill light (-3 stops) the noise diminishes a great deal.

Fill Flash normal setting (Nikon D3S, ISO 12,800, f/5.6, 1/20, 28-300mm)

What I noticed is when you add Nikon Speedlights to high ISO photos like these shot at 12,800 ISO noise diminishes. 

Less Flash output at High ISO

When you raise the ISO setting on your camera, every stop you raise it the flash only needs to put out half as much light as it did.  If you leave a Nikon D3S on auto ISO and the lowest ISO is 200, then the minute you put on your flash and turn it on the ISO will drop to 200.

You will need to manually set your ISO to the high ISO you desire.  Here I chose ISO 12,800.

The amount of light needed by the flash to put out at this setting is 7 stops less than at 200.  This also means your flash can increase it's distance of throw by 7 times as well.  This means if your flash only would work at 10 feet at f/4 and ISO 200 you can now get f/4 at 640 feet away at ISO 12,800.

Color Temperature affects noise

I have found from my experience that whenever you shoot with flash you have the greatest dynamic range.  Therefore the noise is less with flash than say incandescent, fluorescent or sodium vapor light. 

Slow and Rear Shutter setting 

On the Nikon system, when you have the flash balance with the existing light then the flash only needs to do a little work, because it is complementing the light not being the primary light.

Why do I shoot with Nikon?

The Canon speedlight system is similar to the Nikon TTL Speedlight system.  You can use Slow and Rear Shutter settings, BUT the higher you go with the shutter speed the flash gets darker and not as consistent as the Nikon system.

My point is if you want to shoot with shutter speeds of 1/8000 with your speedlights, then you better have the Nikon.