Here’s one portrait for you that was lit by the “Chinatown Special,” my DIY Beauty Dish, and made with the Nikon D3 and Nikon 70-200mm f/2.8.
Photographer’s Notes:
I made this image at f/4, ISO 200, and 1/100 at a focal length of 140mm.
When balancing flash with daylight, there are a few important factors to consider. Ambient light is going to be informed by the camera exposure of ISO, shutter speed, and f-stop. Flash exposure is going to be dictated by flash power, f-stop, ISO sensitivity, and the distance between the flash and the subject.
For the most part, shutter speed is largely irrelevant in terms of flash as long as it’s under your camera’s sync speed due to the very short duration of the flash itself. Of course, you still have to worry about camera shake, depending on how and what ambient light is affecting your subject.
In terms of mixing ambient light and flash, I often find it easiest to set the rough ambient exposure with ISO and f-stop for the ballpark, set my flash exposure, and then finally fine-tune the shutter speed to achieve the desired mix of ambient-to-flash.
End Notes:
Looking for more examples of this DIY beauty dish? You can see a full set of portraits shot with the same design here. The design and instructions for this DIY beauty dish are coming up very soon, so hang tight.
This entry was posted on Monday, February 8th, 2010 at 12:32 am and is filed under Portrait Photography and tagged with diy beauty dish, lighting, mod, portait, speedlight, strobist. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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DIY Beauty Dish Portrait example | ishootshows.com http://bit.ly/duZkdH
Oh Wow Todd,
I can’t wait until the DIY instruction comes out!
Once again, amazing pictures :)
Hey Joshua,
May be posting the design/tutorial as early as tonight – it’s coming. Thanks for the feedback.
RT @toddowyoung: Portrait shoot with the DIY Beauty Dish, and notes on balancing flash light w/ ambient. http://is.gd/7V4NA
nice Todd,waiting 4 DYI info RT @toddowyoung shoot w/ DIY Beauty Dish, w/notes on balancing flash light w/ ambient http://is.gd/7V4NA
Cool! RT @toddowyoung: Portrait shoot with the DIY Beauty Dish, and notes on balancing flash light w/ ambient. http://is.gd/7V4NA
Dude, edit that tutorial video or sent the footage to me and I’ll do it!
Oh and, nice shot.
I’m on it.
Everyone else: Oh yeah, Chris and I made a video tutorial while we were making four of these DIY dishes.
Sweet! I’m on a mod making frenzy lately, so I can’t wait to make it!
Hey Joey,
This beauty dish design was fun construct and tweak – I made the “Mark I” myself and then Chris and I tweaked the design together with the Mark II. You can bang out the prep, drilling and cutting in a about an hour or two – the painting takes quite a bit longer waiting between coats.
Chinatown or not, nice light is nice ^_^
Ha, thanks, Melly. For this DIY beauty dish, my brother and I sourced all the main parts from a Chinatown restaurant supply store. The nickname just seemed like a good fit.
Hey Todd,
do you work with GELs on your flash?
Hey Lennart,
I do use gels on occasion, but not for most work. The flash for this shot was just straight, no gel.
Awesomeness! I, for one, need to learn a lot more about my Speedlite. I like the new site header, by the way!
Thanks, Diana. I love working with speedlights. There are just some situations where the portability/size can’t be beat.
There have been some location shoots where being able to just supeclamp a speedlight to a beam or part of a wall has been invaluable. Running even a small head up to the same spot wouldn’t have been an option.
RT @toddowyoung: Portrait shoot with the DIY Beauty Dish, and notes on balancing flash light w/ ambient. http://is.gd/7V4NA
Really nice portrait; the light looks very natural. I’d be interested in seeing the same shot without flash, if you took any, just so it’s more obvious how much light the flash contributed.
Hey Sha Sha,
Thanks for the comment – though the beauty dish can appear hash just on its own in many ways, it’s perfect for lighting like this. I don’t have an ambient-only shot for this, but I’ll see about shooting an example like that at some point.
Portrait shoot with the DIY Beauty Dish, and notes on balancing flash light w/ ambient. http://is.gd/7V4NA
Hi, Just wondered if you could explain all that again, but in a much simpler way lol?
Hey Becky,
Basically I’m talking about a super quick way to balance light, within limits. First expose for flash, then adjust the shutter speed for the ambient.
mind you tell me how u set up ur flash? using CLS with i-TTL or manual power or etc?
thanks.
Hi Mizie,
I was using CLS with manual power. I always shoot my flashes in manual.
let me try to figure out ur work flow. pls correct me if i’m wrong.
u set ur iso 200, f4 and at 140mm.. flash power at 1/2. (let say 1/2 is the best exposure using ur beauty dish (i will one soon – thanks for the info))..
at first the shoot was at 1/200… but since the ambient is dark.. u turn it to 1/100 so u can include the ambient inside the picture.
is it the correct way?
thanks..