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.

Using Strobist Techniques for Tricky Lighting at Weddings

This past Friday (July 3, 2009) I shot a wedding at The Berkeley Church in Toronto. The location is beyond great for wedding photography, as it's an 1800s restored church turned into a banquet hall/event venue. The place where the couple held their wedding ceremony is lined with stained glass windows which created severe backlighting. The challenge was in lighting the couple without having the flash wash out the whole scene and killing the light coming through the windows. After trying a few setups a couple of hours before the actual ceremony, I finally settled on an SB-800 fitted with a HONL Speed Grid. positioned at 25-30 degrees camera right, triggered via Nikon's CLS. Here are a few of the resulting images:

Classic Black & White Portraits in Toronto

The countdown is on for our own wedding next Friday, July 10. This past Sunday I had the chance to take a few shots of my future bride, Miriam, and her family. Thanks to the amazing features found in Nik's Silver Efex Pro I was able to process the RAW file for this image to get the initial B&W tones, which was culminated with good old dodging and burning in Photoshop CS4 to give the various gradations of light on Miriam's face.

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

Studying Light

Today I decided to add a few more speedlights into the mix. The following frames were shot using a couple of variations of the following setup:



The post-processing for this picture involved a little bit of everything. Converting the NEF file to TIFF using Capture NX, adding a couple of color control points to bump up the saturation of the blue background and add a bit of brightness to the eyes. The TIFF file was brought into Adobe Lightroom and then edited using Photoshop CS4, where a couple of filters (Glamour Glow and High Key) from Color Efex Pro 3.0 were applied. The processed TIFF was then brought back into Lightroom where a variation of Matt K's Nostalgia preset was applied.

More Selfies with Lumiquest Softbox III and Alien Bees

The setup for these shots was just the same as the one for the previous post. The only difference being that the background SB-800 was substituted by a B1600 at 1/32 power with a green gel over the reflector. Both triggered by Pocket Wizards.

Silliness with the Lumiquest Softbox III

This is pretty much what happens when it's -20C outside and you just don't feel like braving the weather to grab a few shots. I set up one (1) SB-800 with the Lumiquest Softbox III at a 90 degree angle above and slightly in front of me. I tried initially to set it up right above me but it kept producing a very pronounced hot spot on my forehead. I finally decided to move the softbox slightly in front and I bounced the light back to my face with a gold reflector held at chest level. The speedlight was set to manual at 1/32 power and triggered via Pocket Wizards. The few shots that have a blue background were shot using another SB-800 with two (2) blue gels and aimed at the curtains of my condo. The yellow lines in the background were provided courtesy of the sun coming through the curtains. The background SB-800 was also set to 1/32 power and also triggered via PWIIs.