Hey we're out here in Los Angeles making
flash pictures at night, I've got a good
question on Ask David Bergman right after the intro...
Hey everybody, welcome
back to ask David Bergman,
of course I'm your host David Bergman,
and I'm out here
on the streets of Los Angeles I just
shot a show with Luke Combs.
I'm on tour with him all year long...
and it's big country... he's a big country
star, and of course...
I have my cowboy boots on,
so we got to get a good shot of that,
but we got cars, and we got people,
and all kinds of things happening around
us... but the reason I'm out here is
because I've got a really good question
today from Mary R ... and she asked me
how do I adjust my flash for night
shooting to make the
subject look like they're just barely
touched by light.
I shoot drag races at night and
typically need to shoot 500th of a second or
faster, to freeze the action.
Since it's so dark I want to use flash but the
light looks really bright and harsh.
I also can't shoot flash off-camera,
because I have to move around too much.
Well Mary.. that is a bit of a predicament,
but here's the thing when you're
shooting sports action.
I know you want to use really fast shutter speeds.
The problem is if you want to use flash
you've got a bit of a predicament,
because every camera has what's called a
maximum flash sync speed.
Now what that is in simplest terms is...
the flash power the flash has to go on
and off within the time that the shutter is open,
so what happens is the shutter opens...
then the flash goes on
... the flash goes off and then the shutter
closes, so because of that...
if you're...
if your shutter speed is
too fast, that flash is going to overlap
that period of time, and you're going to
cut off some of your flash power.
So every camera has a maximum flashing
speed... usually it's around two hundredth
of a second... or 250th of a second... so
that's really your maximum shutter speed
that you can shoot at.
Now you might think to yourself...
how am I going to shoot sports at 1/200th
of a second... you usually want faster
shutter speeds than that to freeze action...
well here's the little secret...
is that as long as your subject is being lit
almost entirely if not entirely by the flash...
what happens is...
because the flash duration is shorter
than the shutter speed, the amount of
time your subject is being lit is
actually really short.
It might be a thousandth of a second...
or even faster... it really depends on the
flash duration and that changes based on
a lot of factors, but it's definitely going to
be faster than your shutter speed...
so even though you're shooting with a
slow shutter speed... you still
are able to freeze action with flash.
Now you asked about shooting this at night...
when you're in a dark environment,
and I obviously haven't seen your exact setup
where you are, but what I'm hoping is
that there's some light in the
background, because if you're just
shooting dark on dark... it's really
challenging to do that with a flash,
because basically you just have to blast
as much power as you can to light up the
whole scene, and get a picture that's usable.
It's not really pretty that way,
but it's really all you can do in that
case, but what I'm hoping is... and what I
want to talk about today is balancing
the foreground with the background,
so that the flash doesn't
look unnatural...
You don't want the flash to overpower the
scenes so... we are here with
my beautiful friend Marissa Roper,
who you all know from Adorama TV...
she's all over the Adorama Channel, but it
just so happens by coincidence,
she was here in LA the same time I was ..
so we decided we would do a photo
shoot...
so here for you on Ask David Bergman
right for you...
So what we're gonna do here now is in the
background... I've got a whole bunch of
lights...
there's all kinds of crazy things
in the background,
but there's really no light on her,
and the foreground, so first
thing I'm gonna do is...
just do an ambient light photo to show
what that looks like...
so no flash, the flashes on here,
but I'm not using the flash...
if you're wondering
what gear I'm using...
this is the Canon EOS R...
it's the Canon Mirrorless Camera
with the grip on it... I like that because
it's got the two extra batteries... it's
the 28-70mm f/2 lens...
it's an RF lens made for this camera f/2.
I love this lens it's got a giant piece of
glass in the front...
really pretty lens, and then it's the 600
EXR T flash on the top...
but I'm not gonna use the flash yet.
This is off, we're just gonna take an
ambient light photo of Marissa out here,
and let's see what this looks like...
so the background is really
bright, and I'm at 1/250th of a second,
sorry 1/200th of a second at f/2,
at 400 ISO, let's go ahead
and take that picture...
Boom! So you can see she is pretty much
underexposed because she's not really
being lit by much of anything...
there's a couple of street lights...
but that background is lit properly.
The background it looks how I
want it to look, now the trick is I'm
going to add the flash in to brighten
her up a little bit...
Now if I just put it on TTL.. TTL,
and just let the flash do its
thing to give us what it thinks is a
proper exposure...
this is what its gonna look like.
So let's go ahead and pop the
flash in here.
I'm at the same exact exposure and boom,
so you can see now that
is pretty harsh...
that looks like a flash photo that is not
just touched by light as you as you asked
for...
So what we want to do is use the
exposure compensation
function inside the flash.
So I'm still gonna be on TTL...
but I'm gonna dial down
the exposure compensation.
Let me just show you what happens when
we go one stop under.
I'm gonna go to -1....
and do another picture... same settings...
boom, and you can see now... still a little
bit too much.
So let's try two stops,
let's go there see how that looks,
and there we go...
still I think a bit too much,
it still looks like a flash photo to me...
so in this case...
I'm gonna go down -3...
I'm gonna go three stops under on
TTL, and let's go ahead... and I'm still on
camera here, and I'm gonna expose that
way... and that actually looks really nice,
it's just a little bit of light in there,
just a kiss of light to brighten up her
face... to fill in the shadows, and give me
a nice exposure.
Now it obviously depends...
like you know it's not always gonna be
-3... but in this case I think
that's the way to go if you're
photographing a car, and it's a very dark car.
If it's a black car... you might have
to actually push up to negative two...
negative one maybe...
even zero but the key is to under expose
the foreground from the background,
so you just get a nice
little kiss of light...
so really Mary that answers your question,
you just want to under expose that
foreground....
obviously on-camera flash is not the most ideal
way to go,
but it's it'd be nice if you could get it off
camera...
I'm not sure if you can find a way to put flashes
somewhere else off camera, and use the
wireless function there...
but if you can't do it on camera...
and you can actually
just fill in a little bit of light.
Marissa great job!
She's the coolest.
Thanks very much for joining me here on
ask David Bergman.
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go to AskDavidBergman.com.
ask your own photo questions on there...
the best ones I will pick to answer right
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