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12-14-2012, 12:46 PM - 3 Likes   #1
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Happy strobist Christmas!




Hi, I enjoyed taking this pic - thought I would share my technique. I just received my Cactus v5 flash triggers in the post, so wanted to take some pics for Xmas cards. I had the idea for an ornament in the foreground, and bokeh candles in the background. I like the reindeer's expression, so I wanted to find something for him to look at. After a lot of experimenting, I got the setup I wanted.

The strobist part was actually trickier than I thought. I wanted a constant exposure between the candles and the reindeer, however I also wanted a blacked out background, and a wide open aperture to get bokeh balls. To stop the flash overpowering the candle light I had to go down to 1/128 power on my Yongnuo YN560II, and used more candles as fill. The umbrella was camera right, and candles left. I only have one flash that will go down this low, so it took a lot of experimenting to get the light soft enough and not too dispersed so as to light the background. Not easy, especially as in the end I went down to 1/30 second. Although this allowed the candle light and flash to mix magically, it did mean I had to brush out some background areas in lightroom and rig up a black blanket in the background. Focusing was tricky, so I used live view and zoomed in, although this in turn made holding the camera steady at 1/30th tricky. Pentax SR really saved the day.

The final problem was white balance - the candle light was much warmer than the flash, even with a full CTO gel. In the end I put a second 1/2 CTO gell on top which made everything match nicely.

Lots of fun had though, happy Christmas all, hope you get lots of camera gear in your stockings!

12-14-2012, 12:49 PM   #2
Ash
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The lighting is nicely balanced as is. The gels made sure you got the temperature right. Well done with getting the science of the lighting right and thanks for sharing. Happy Christmas to you also.
12-14-2012, 01:59 PM   #3
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Ha, thats a great shot, made me smile
12-14-2012, 03:34 PM   #4
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That's a great shot and sounds like a lot of work (fun) to get there.

Thanks for sharing your setup and settings for the image - I am absorbing everything I can about off camera flash and posts like yours are a huge help!

12-15-2012, 05:01 AM   #5
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Very successful result and a clever idea. I too take a photo for my Christmas card each year. Yours will be well received I'm sure.
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