But Then, I Just Couldn’t Take It Anymore...

A WHOLE WEEK WITH ONE LIGHT. I was proud of myself. But then, I backslid. I approached Drew, keeper of the keys to the flash chest. I was twitching, looking away, kind of rambling, beating around the bush, saying stuff like, “You know...I been really good, man...I was just wondering, you know...you got some more flashes in that bag, yeah, man...so...you know...I could really use another flash, man....”

I was a feverish case of strobe-seeking behavior, but not without reason. And, in fact, the multiple flash solutions I had in mind were destined to have the feel, effect, and direction of just one light. But if you need power and you are a resolute small flash user, or you are out there with small flash and encounter a mountain of an exposure to climb, multiple lights can be a way to go. And, the good news is, there are a variety of devices out there now that can handle a gaggle of Speedlights, all mounted coherently and firing in the same direction. No more “flash tree of woe,” as I’ve described in the past.

I helped Lastolite design a current version of their TriFlash, which is basically a three-cold-shoe rig with an umbrella sleeve in the middle. I had the suggestion of making those cold shoes ratchet 360 degrees, thus enabling the light sensor panels of a gaggle of SB-900s point in a coherent direction. It’s a useful adaptation of the older style, in which the cold shoes were fixed and the sensors were then locked into being at right angles to each other. Firing a commander pulse at this older-style arrangement would often not trigger all of them.

With the picture of the ballerina in the field (in the previous chapter), as you recall I had to take the diffuser off the strip light to gain some flash punch. Logically, then, trying to achieve a similar feel with similar depth for Sara, our wonderful Nordic goddess, out there on that same field, in the same light conditions, would be rough with just one small flash. Time for the TriFlash, albeit a pre-production model.

Tripling up the light gave me f/13, at 1/200^th, at ISO 200. The lens was set to 32mm. The camera was set to auto white balance, in manual mode. With the firepower of the threesome, I was able to keep their dome diffusers on, and then re-diffuse them with a 3×3′ panel. The result is a really pretty light, for a really pretty face. It was a simple, beautiful combination of light, subject, and setting, done TTL. As you can see, my commander flash is tipped towards the lighting rig, and the flashes up there are swiveled to maximize the reception of the signal. The result was very solid—all three fired, all the time. By the way, the TTL signal I’m sending them was, in fact, a directive for manual. No sense in even playing the plus one, plus two, plus three TTL game here. I needed the pedal to the metal out of all three units to get my f-stop up where I wanted. Full blast, into domes, into diffusion, and then softly, gracefully, to Sara.

And then there was the farmer and his daughter. One of my favorite pictures of the last couple of years. It shows affection and devotion, in the simplest of settings—an old, battered barn that, predictably, smelled of manure. My light had to look like it had been there all along, just like the barn.

First thing I did was cover the smallish window near the camera with a 3×3′, one-stop diffuser panel. That did two things: it gave me a layer of diffusion, and it sealed the window off from any errant sunlight that might bounce toward it. The only light coming through there now was going to be created and directed by me. Outside, I put up a TriFlash, cranked all the sensors so that they faced the window, and put on a simple 34″ one-stop diffuser umbrella, which I used in shoot-through mode. I kept the dome diffusers on the lights.

The three layers of diffusion speak to the need for three SB units, which I can command, believe it or not, from my commander flash, inside the building. I’ve found that, within reasonable distances, the commander pulse travels easily through diffusers.

But hey, wait a minute. Three flashes, all at $500 a pop! Surely there’s a better way! Well, there are different ways, to be sure. Who’s to tell a photographer which is the best way to light? Or to shoot? Let’s tick some other approaches off, as I did last chapter when discussing high-speed sync.

Big flash. Of course. Anything from a Quadra, to a Ranger, to a Profoto 7B works. There was electrical supply out there in the barnyard, so if you had a long extension cord, you could rock along with a studio pack and head. It would be one light with a big pop. The most elegant trigger for this setup would be a radio. But, honestly, the window is close to camera, and out of frame, so you could easily take a trek back in time and run a hard wire out there, right from the PC port on the camera. Quaint but highly effective, not to mention dependable.

You could then drive the small flash fill, inside, next to camera, off that big pop of the main light. An SB unit has a built-in slave eye, but just about any small flash will liaise with a cheap, simple slave eye, such as ones made by Wein, for instance. This style of building an exposure is, of course, done manually. Test a bit. Get the value of the main light, and then—and only then—dial in increments of fill, just a little at a time.

Don’t try to measure or meter multiple lights from multiple directions all at once. It will get confusing. Get the main light nicely done. Then, just like turning a faucet, slowly let in some fill. Doing this with a big flash approach might indeed call for the application of a piece of standard equipment that, for me—and for many shooters—has fallen into disuse: a handheld light meter would be handy here. Meter the strong side of the light, facing the window, and then click your way around your subject’s face. I used to call this a wraparound. Imagine a face looking at the camera as a 180-degree half circle. When you take exposure readings at various degree points around that half circle, you establish a good sense of where the light starts to fall into shadow, and how abruptly.

Then, I would shut off the main and just meter the fill. If my main gave me, say, f/8, my fill for something like this should pull in about f/4, or even f/2.8 and a half or so. Fill needs to be just...there. If the fill gets too close to the value of the main, it draws attention, and that runs counter to the mission here. The light and the scene all have to be of a piece, presented in seamless fashion.

“I don’t use a handheld light meter. I just gut it out with the LCD and the blinkies, and even, occasionally, with the dreaded histogram. I feel so dirty.”

(Now, I don’t use a handheld light meter. I just gut it out with the LCD and the blinkies, and even, occasionally, with the dreaded histogram. I feel so dirty.)

In the Speedlight realm, could you use just one out there instead of three? My answer would be a qualified yes. You would have to make adjustments, most likely in ISO, and perhaps peel back at least one of the diffuser barriers, which would then sharpen the feel of the light just a touch. One flash out there would most likely work, but would give you fewer options and leeway. Also, even if you could leave the dome, the umbrella, and the diffuser panel right where they are and squeak out an exposure, the light would not be quite as rich and soft. One of the beauties of the TriFlash is that the three heads, acting in concert with and close proximity to each other, give the source a good-sized volume, just the way a bigger light would. Small on their own, the three heads combine effectively into one bigger source that sort of smushes the light all over the umbrella before translating through it. (“Smushes” is a technical term.)

Via the three-Speedlight approach, you are dividing the workload—not driving one lone flash to the brink of self-immolation, but using three to create efficiency, recycle speed, additional power, and, very importantly, a big-flash-sized volume. And, via the commander, you control the output of the lights without having to walk outside. Presto! Flash that looks like window light, and it’s controllable right from the camera. The thing about creating window light like this, however, is that while it is beautiful and soft, it is also very directional. Given my choice of frame and direction of the action, my subjects are very, very side-lit.

“Not a good idea. Not only would the calf not take direction well, its presence forced me to start filling the scene to the point of it getting flat and character-less.”

For the farmer, all on his own as a single subject, that light can almost work all by itself. If you maneuver him and the camera angle carefully, and keep him essentially turned into that main window light, you are good to go. A bit of drama, to be sure, but you can skate around having to fill from inside the barn when you have just one face to deal with. Plus, as you can see, if you are just going for a hint of character, and he is just part of the scene, then the side-lit view—where the shadow essentially splits his face—as I say, comes close to working.

But put two faces together out there? Forget it. You have to fill it in, just a touch. With just the one directional main light, his daughter will get swallowed up in his shadow. And, with their body language being so effortless and wonderful, I was loathe to corkscrew them around physically, just to fit my one-window-light approach. Plus, their body language made the photo quintessentially about them. It gave me an obvious path. When I first started to set this picture up, a calf wandered in, and it got me to thinking (wrongly) that maybe I should try to incorporate the actual denizens of the barn into the shot.

Not a good idea. Not only would the calf not take direction well, its presence forced me to start filling the scene to the point of it getting flat and character-less. As you can see from one misguided frame (page 82), the whole darn place is looking way bright, and the emphasis and direction of the light is gone. This self-inflicted wound is done with shutter speed. The specs on this shot are 1/30^th at f/5.6. The final select, with the framer and his daughter, is 1/200^th at f/5. Big difference, right? As I often describe, shutter speed is like a curtain you pull back. The more open (slow) the shutter, the more light pours in. That can be a good thing, but not here, where I wanted to retain control and essentially recreate “natural” light via controllable flash that was going to light just the areas I wanted lit. The slow shutter approach globally lights the room. Keeping the shutter faster dims the room, and the areas lit by flash take center stage.

Also, at 1/30^th, the farmer gets way hot, standing near the window. The ambient pouring through there now overtakes my flash input and swallows it. Now I got a big, hot light source on my farmer. That’s the price for universally adjusting the feel of the light via the shutter.

At 1/200^th I am controlling the room and keeping the whole place muted. But, then, the price I pay for that control is introducing another light for fill. To do this, I simply turned my on-camera commander into an exposure-making flash. Now it’s doing double duty. It’s the mechanism I used to adjust that directional light outside, and now it’s also a light to fill the scene. Having turned it into a light, though, I decided to pull it off the hot shoe, and connect it to the camera via an SC-29 cord. That does several small, but beneficial things.

It gives me the leeway to move the light around. If it’s locked onto the hot shoe, it will almost certainly splash a little hard light on them—given they are quite close to camera—and lessen the natural feel of the light. The camera is slightly below their eye line, and that could make that little splash look truly unnatural and quite perceptible, not to mention introduce a bull’s-eye catchlight in their eyes. (Remember, the mission here is to make the photo look like I said, “Hey, just stand by the window,” and went click. The flash is invisible. Wave your hand. Hit the shutter. A Speedlight Jedi mind trick.)

So, I set the flash free from the hot shoe. Moved it up and directed it into the filthy, disheveled corner of the barn’s ceiling, just over my left shoulder at camera. Given the minimum pop I needed out of that light, it doesn’t need an 8′ tall, antiseptic, super-white ceiling to bounce into. Just a surface, plain and simple. If that surface has a color, it will most likely be the color of the barn, and the light will look, again, like it belongs. Popping it up in there has the advantage of continuing, or wrapping, the fill around from the main. In other words, I’m not trying to open up the shadows by bringing the fill light from the shadow side. That, again, will become a red flag, and even, if egregiously mishandled, create crossing shadows. This fill is almost invisible because it comes from the same side as the big window light. It just tweaks, and almost imperceptibly opens up the feel of that wonderful main source. Most of the time, that’s where you want your fill to be. You only notice it if you turn it off.

I almost made it through a whole week using just one light! But here’s something to perhaps notice, or ponder. The couple of shots discussed here, which used multiple lights, actually look just as simple as the ones done with just one light. It’s not about how many you use, just how you use them.

I like this set of pictures. Almost makes me want to go back to Iceland. Almost.