Dramatic Lighting Using the HONL Grids and Nikon's CLS

Imagine if you came home and this was the scene waiting for you. You don't know who this person is, but he clearly knows who you are, and took the time to carefully break into your apartment, and now is waiting for you at your table.



The idea here is simple, the dramatic mood of the scene is provided courtesy of some dramatic lighting, which was created with the help of HONL's Speed Grids. I had both Speedlights (SB-900 and SB-800) placed at camera left. The SB-900 had the 1/8 speed grid on and was pointed down at the subject, and set to -1.7EV via the on-camera SB-800. The SB-800 had the 1/4 speed grid on and was pointed at the table, set to -2.3EV, just enough to see a bit of the table. You can see the setup shot here:



The RAW file was converted to TIF via Capture NX, with additional use of Nik's Color Efex Pro 3.0.

The Cinematico Project Slideshow - Dramatic Lighting

This is a self-initiated project, which I started to fine-tune my skills in dramatic lighting, the set will undoubtedly continue to grow.

Testing the HONL Grids

Ever since David Hobby featured them in his blog, I had been contemplating getting the HONL grids (1/8 and 1/4), as well as a speed trap to attach them to my SB-800. Last week I finally broke down and ordered them and they arrived in the mail today. These are my first test shots with the 1/8 and 1/4 grids. as well as the speed trap. They basically concentrate and soften the light beam from the speedlight giving some very dramatic results. In these shots there's not a whole lot of ambient light because I killed it with aperture and shutter speed but I can already envision quite a few cool applications for the new acquisitions:

1. SB-800 with 1/8 HONL grid above subject at camera left. Power set at 1/32, triggered via Nikon's CLS. Post processed via Nik's Color Efex Pro


2. SB-800 with 1/8 HONL grid above subject at camera left. Power set at 1/32, triggered via Nikon's CLS. Post processed via Nik's Color Efex Pro


3. SB-800 with 1/4 HONL grid above subject at camera left, small golden reflector handheld by subject at camera right. Power set at 1/8, triggered via Nikon's CLS. Post processed via Nik's Color Efex Pro