Small-Flash Tip for Landscape Shooters
So, you have a jones for those sweeping, wide-angle vistas but can't use small flashes in close because of how much real estate the photo shows? No problem, as long as you are not bound by the ethics of editorial photojounalism. Maybe, say, shooting an illustration, or landscape photography as art. Just take a cue from Strobist reader "footcandle," who places his strobes where he needs them to be (i.e., close in to the subject to get enough power) and takes them out in Photoshop after the fact. It is an easy thing to do in post. But when you are shooting, just be sure to feather your light upwards so you do not leave obvious light splashes on the ground if you do not want said splashes to be visible.
Lots of portrait possibilities here, too. Photographer Dave Hill sometimes uses a similar technique, for those of you who have made an quest out of trying to get that Dave Hill look. (337 posts and counting!)
Click on the pic and "footcandle" will show you where he hid the flashes. And by the way, am I the only one who thinks "footcandle" is a great Flickr name for a low-power lighting guy?
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Posted at 12:03 AM.
4 Comments:
Some day you'll have to do an article on the Dave Hill technique. Flickr folk have identified High Pass Contrast as the key PP technique. What you could add is the camera technique of light placement and balance with ambient that makes that steely skin tone and almost animated 3d sensation.
I don't think taking the flashes out in potoshop was "en-ethical". He could have also hidden the flashes behind tufts of grass or the like, and gotten the same photo. His final picture is STILL the photo he took. Just my 2cents. Great picture. Good mind to see the possibilities and the solution to get the photo.
When I am shooting for a newspaper, or many magazines, for a news story, I am restricted in the post processing allowed.
Removing items that were in the middle of a frame, or adding items later with a computer, or airbrushing or any other technique is a big no-no.
It is my job to represent the frame as it was, not how I would like it to have been.
If the strobes in the house picture were out of the view of the camera, then that would be ok.
Behind a rock? Fine and dandy!
In a clump of grass? Double benefit, as there might be a little highlight in the grass (though I'd probably try to avoid too much of a highlight.)
If the camera saw them, and they were removed later, that's the problem.
If you are shooting for an advertisement, then you can do what ever you want in post-processing. (I've heard some pictures have been created using dozens, or hundreds of layers in Photoshop.)
In editorial shooting I'm restricted to exposure correction, color correction, sharpening, dodging/burning and cropping.
It's not unethical to remove them, it's just unethical to remove them from an editorial picture.
Pete
Jeffrey Luhn posted an article on the FocalPower Forum that is related to this except when shooting interiors. Check out
Painting with light for interiors.
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