Lighting 101: Cross Lighting
Cross lighting is nothing more than using two light sources that oppose each other in their direction. I say light sources, instead of strobes, because It is important to remember that if you are photographing outdoors with one strobe, you really have two lights. Rather than just trying to do damage control on what the sun is doing to your subject, start to think in terms of using the sunlight as your main (or secondary) light.
The photo above is of a fifth grader who, using herself as a human shield, saved this tree at her school when construction workers building a nearby parking lot were about to mistakenly bulldoze it.
She was a hero in the story. And I wanted to visualize her that way in the photo, so I shot up at her from a low angle. To get a clean background, the sun had to be coming from the upper-back-camera-right direction.
I could have very easily fill flashed her if I was just trying to undo bad sunlight. But if you are working with a small stand, it is just as easy to use your strobe more effectively.
I placed the strobe on manual (at 1/2 power) up on a stand coming from the upper-camera-left, and had her face the strobe. Exposure was 1/250th, of course, to make life easier on the flash, with the corresponding aperture to properly expose the sky.
Now, the strobe becomes the main light, and the sun becomes the rim light. Waaay better than on-camera fill flashing.
This cross lighting scheme is pretty forgiving with respect to subject movement, too. As long as you are working on the quarter angles (roughly splitting the difference between the two light sources) you are going to be fine.
When I shoot high school basketball I like to cross light, too. I use two SB's, one at the top center of each set of bleachers, aimed in a cross pattern at the top of the key. Using them at 1/2 power with a 50mm throw will usually get you an honest, crisp-looking f/2.8 at ASA 800 from the mid-court line to the other basket.It is helpful to use (sadly, expensive) external battery packs for these strobes, as you are gonna be firing off a lot of half-power frames. AA's get eaten up pretty quickly this way.
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by David, at 4:13 PM.
14 Comments:
An alernative to the expensive external power packs are the handly little units built by Al Jacobs.
http://aljacobs.com/THE%20BLACK%20BOX.htm
brian
Brian-
Thanks for the battery tip. I am working on a page on external batteries that will go up soon. Thanks for the good info.
-DH
I just had to write in with this. I've just done a last minute job covering for another snapper. The job was a conference and lo and behold it was in the mother of all sports halls - 30 ft ceilings that along with the walls were painted dark blue!
I tell you, if it hadn't been for your tips on cross lighting (I used a couple of speedlights on quarter power at 800 iso) I genuinely don't know how I could have come back with anything good.
So thanks!
PETE.
regarding external powerpacks, I wasn't too happy with CP-E3's so I converted one so it would work with 12 volt from an ordinary 12V carstarter. See http://hanskeesom.xs4all.nl/foto-event.nl/flitsend/index.html for what I did. Works like a charm. Only takes 6 seconds to recover from a full blast.
I realize the topic here is cross-lighting, but don't people find it odd in the picture of the girl outdoors that the "sunshine" on her face is coming from one side and the "sunshine" on her legs is coming from the other? I find it a bit freaky.
In that case "annonymous," your flash should best be left on your camera.
ON the HS sports / indoor gym example -- you light from above at half court, and shoot from the shadow side under the basket? Or the strobes are at the end line, and pointing toward the top of they key... just curious
I too would greatly appreciate a response to Tim's question on the placement and aim of the flashes and the location of the photographer for the gym.
I did just this yesterday for the first time, and now I'm learning it's called "cross lightning".
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jawrr/2785391717/
It has been almost 2 years since I read Lighting 101. Now it happens that I'm living in the USA and I'm shooting sports for the Local Newspaper. I was shocked today when the Local ISD Athletic Director asked me to remove my flash (it was on the bleachers, at the corner at 1/8) as it causes "something" on the players... he said also "everybody knows that!".
Any word on this? Can I sue him?
Jose,
absolutly not, I shoot sports as well, and you do not need flashes for sports.
How would you feel being a player, and you have 2 seconds left, down by 1 and you have the shot, only when you go to throw it, the flash fires and you miss. I would be pissed as hell.
Do I need a PW on everey signle flash-strobe that I use PLUS one on the camera..
I thought I read somewhere that you dont need a PW on every signle strobe to set it off...
Is that right??
So every signle flash in the diagram set ups that people shjow each have a PW on their flashes...
I use an optic slave shoe to connect my flashes(sunpak 422) to my PW's. A PW is only needed on other flashes if they are beyond the triggering distance of the optic slave shoe.
Great information about cross lighting. I had no idea that it was called that. I can't wait to try this out for myself. Looking forward to more great articles.
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