Saturday 16 October 2010

Unit 205, Unit 212 Test of battery and flash and technique

I wanted to test out the college external flash equipment so that I was happy with the operation prior to the main shoot. so we all trundled out down the the delivery point of the college, this location was specifically used as there were not deliveries and no vehicle traffic so from a safety point of view apart from the training cables there were no significant safety issues.

One at the location and the favored car was in position, Eric's was a lighter car with hopefully less reflections, we set up the Bowens Gemini flash and battery units first the stands were set up on stable ground with the single leg pointing forwards to stop them falling over, the flash units  put onto the stands. Then we positioned them in an approximate position to where they will be used in relation to the car. The battery packs were then placed under the stands and cable attached thus minimizing any trailing cables, I also had wireless triggers for both flashes, again removing trailing cables altogether. 

I then took a light reading of the ambient light with my Sekonic L-308s light meter, having my shutter speed on my camera to max shutter speed of 1/200 sec and adjusting the aperture to f/4.6 which gave me the correct-ish exposure (dependent on taste)


Once this was obtained we turned on the key light which started off at 45 degs to the right hand front of the car 


This resulted in a harsh shadow on the opposite side to the light on our latest model Eric. So I moved this light to the front. 

 The second flash was positioned at the rear left hand side again 45 degs to the car, this was ok but a third light was really needed on the front left hand side to the car so to show this we moved the rear flash to the front

This did result in some strong shadows  which will hopefully blend better with the third light

 As I was too close to the car I was shooting at 70mm focal length to show how the end result of me shooting at 200mm and the effect of blurring the background out I set the lens to 200mm and took a close



I then recomposed to create a better shot/ view of the car which I thought was a better more dynamic shot
 I then reduced the ambient lighting by increasing the shutter speed and closing down the aperture and increasing the flash power.

sometimes it's hard to view the setting properlty so I use the info button and looked at the settings on the rear screen




2 comments:

  1. Well done that man. lovethe model.Are we all fixed withthe lighting, will we have enough?
    well worked out Jim.

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  2. Hi
    A good informative session which will help you to achieve a higher level of final work when you do the main shoot. This idea has been achieved from the outcomes of the main car shoot I have seen
    Again well labelled.

    Steve

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