Christmas Light-ing
and 
Notice the quality of light between those two images? They were taken about 3 weeks apart, but in the same room. Same camera, and basically the same exposure. The only difference? The placement of the flash(es). The 2nd image is the prototype and was taken when we were decorating our Christmas tree. I knew that I needed to figure out a nice and user-friendly approach to lighting for Christmas and decided I'd do a trial run when we decorated the tree.
The tree-decoration lighting is direct and hard. I had a flash located camera-left, triggered wirelessly via a Pocket Wizard. It was not bounced or otherwise diffused and consequentially, it provides very sharp shadows. It is very dramatic. If you click on the image, you can navigate around to others.
The first image was taken on Christmas, after I decided that I did not want hard light. I knew that I need even light and a setup that would allow me to take images from various vantage points in the room. Here is an image of my lighting setup.
Notice the two flashes, camera-left and -right? They are pointed back away from the center of the room, and bounce the light from walls and corners of the room. The bounce light provides diffused illumination, coming from two opposite places in the room. Combined, they provide even lighting to the areas where the subjects are likely to be (near the tree and the loot). When a subject is to the left of the room, the left light is the main light and the right light provides the fill. The opposite is true when the subject moves to the right of the room. All-in-all, the setup was convenient, and I did not have to worry about lighting or exposure. I shot a few images at f/8 @ 1/60s and then switched to f/10 @ 1/60s when I decided that f/8 was too hot. Point-and-shoot is easy once you design the lighting.
All the Christmas photos can be found by clicking on the album below. See if you can tell when I had both flashes firing and when I changed the lighting.
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| Christmas 2007 |
Incidentally, this is almost exactly what Strobist suggested in the Christmas Game Plan lighting setup. Nice to know that I'm on the same wave as David Hobby, the guy behind Strobist.com.
Posted at 08:41PM Dec 26, 2007 by schnee in General |