playin around

[MJS]

A while back I read in Shutterbug magazine about figuring the best working distance, modifier to subject, to fully exploit its design. (Best distance for an umbrella or box to do its soft thing) They mentiioned measuring the distance across the widest opening, adding in the depth from reflector to front, then dividing by two to get the distance away from the subject. I typically go soft in the studio with a 48 inch octobox on a boom and when needed in the field, will wip out a small white umbrella on a stand and stick my shoe mount SB800 into it. Test one below is with the Octobox as key, 33 inches from the subject and a 52 inch reflector for fill to camera left. Test two was the shoe mount flash into the 36" wide white umbrella, bounced, 27" from the victim with the same reflector to camera left. I left the backlight out because of time constraints. I think they may be on to something with their simple math. Both shot on my new D200 at 70MM. 1/125, F/5.6, ISO was at 100. I'm just coming off the D70 so evreything is on manual with all optimization turned off and the Colorspace set for Adobe 1998. Has anyone had any luck with RGB or sRGB?

[Asylum Steve]

...I can't be bothered with formulas when it comes to this stuff.

The only lighting principals I keep in mind when I work are point source vs. diffused source, and the relationship light distance has on that.

IOW, a soft box or umbrella will act more like a point light source the further away from the subject it is, and be more diffused the closer it is.

I definitely keep that in mind when I plan my lighting schemes. Other than that I simply go by what I see...

[MJS]

I agree 100 percent. It was just an experiment to see how the formula worked. Not a bad starting point when just beginning I'd think. I always went by bigger and closer is better when you want softer.. That being said, I did manage to get some pretty decent sized catch lights. Do you have a preference for silver or white out when working with umbrellas and reflectors?

The competition mentioned in our last was a game called Sporting Clays, sort of like golf with a shotgun. 6 different sized targets at the choice of the course designer, thrown in all kinds of dizzying patterns, at different times. Youi went to different stations for different presentations, just like moving from hole to hole in golf. Unfortunately, you can make more money selling houses on land then you can charging shooters to break stuff safely. I was once ranked locally, travelling from tournament to tournament, now I just help teach the local constabulary how to stay safe in harms way and stick to shooting off my Nikons, and some would say my mouth, when not in danger.