Flash Technique: Daylight Fill

As a supplementary post to the recent Bleeding Through portraits, I thought it might be interesting to share an example of the specific role flash played in the shoot.

The above image split of Bleeding Through’s guitarist, Jona Weinhofen, shows two images shot a fraction of a second apart. On the left, the scene is lit entirely with ambient light, while flashes were triggered in the image on the right.

Daylight vs. Flash:

As you can see, the natural lighting was very high contrast, with deep, cool shadows with the sun acting as the key light. On the right, flash is acting as the key while the sun here creates the fill. Flashes behind to the subject provide a little more interest playing off the folds of the jacket and brighten up some details of the clothing.

Ambient was underexposed by about a stop in the above. The flashes were fired on manual at full-power and triggered wireless through Nikon’s CLS system of IR triggering. You can reads about the full setup for the speedlights in the original post for the shoot.

About the author: Todd Owyoung is an internationally published music photographer specializing in concert photography and band portraits. He also grills a mean steak.

Contact Todd for image licensing and assignments wherever the rock show lives. You can also get in touch with Todd via Twitter.

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 5th, 2009 at 9:40 pm and is filed under Portrait Photography. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

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8 Responses to “Flash Technique: Daylight Fill”

1. Todd Owyoung says:

   March 5, 2009 at 7:42 pm

   Posted an example for the Bleeding Through portraits showing the exact effects of flash vs daylight in the shoot: http://is.gd/m1Ja

   Reply
2. Tiffany says:

   March 5, 2009 at 9:51 pm

   I had a photo journalism class in college and had to explain this to everyone seeing as I did photography professionally before the class. It’s a simple concept and crucial, but people don’t think about it. Good post!

   Reply
   • Todd says:

     March 5, 2009 at 9:58 pm

     Hey Tiffany, nice to hear from you here, thanks for stopping by to comment. Just going into this shoot with the schedule early afternoon time, I knew I was going to have to work with the sun. Better to use it as an asset than fight it, right? Thanks again.

     Reply
3. GuAM says:

   March 6, 2009 at 12:04 am

   [I share] Flash Technique: Daylight Fill:
   As a supplementary post to the recent Bleeding Through port.. http://tinyurl.com/c7k4l2

   Reply
4. Todd Owyoung says:

   March 6, 2009 at 3:42 am

   Posted an example for the Bleeding Through portraits showing the exact effects of flash vs daylight in the shoot: http://is.gd/m1Ja

   Reply
5. Chris says:

   March 7, 2009 at 9:40 pm

   I think the side lighting with the other flashes are probably the single most important thing most people don’t, or won’t, think about. It really adds depth to the photo, as well as detail, which you mentioned. Bringing out the folds and textures supplement the photo that without them, I think the photo is truly lacking. Horray for rim lighting! Weeee!

   Nice post.

   Reply
6. Ash says:

   March 9, 2009 at 10:18 am

   Lighting is something I continually struggle with.

   Why did you have the flashes at full power? Wouldn’t that mean you’d have to compensate via a very high shutter speed and smaller aperture? Would 1/4 power allow you more creative flexibility in terms of DOF?

   Reply
   • Todd says:

     March 9, 2009 at 2:09 pm

     Hey Ash,

     Since I was not using high sync with the flashes, I was limited by the conventional sync speed of the D3, which is 1/250. Given the bright ambient light, I wanted to cut as much of it as possible, which meant a low ISO and small aperture. Given these two factors, the flash light itself needed to be relatively strong to act as the key, so they were used at full power.

     To use 1/4 power on the flashes, they’d have to be four times as close. Regarding DOF, shooting at wider apertures could be achieved by a higher sync speed or a lower sensitivity.

     Reply