Filling The Pelican: Lighting

In The Beginning: For me, flash photography has always been an evolutionary process. When I first started experimenting in the early 1970s, I lined an old umbrella with aluminum foil and used it with any flash I was able to scrounge up. I was also the first kid on my block to own a $40.00 Wein Flash Meter, which essentially made the immeasurable measurable. Later on, I was helping a biology professor at City College create an audio-visual tutorial on how to properly adjust a microscope. I created two softboxes I needed by starting with a cardboard box lined with aluminum foil. Then I suspended a flash on a narrow piece of plywood and aimed it towards the interior. Finally, I covered the front with some tracing paper. In effect, my "softbox" was in actuality, a box.

I currently use an assortment of Godox / Flashpoint units. For the record, Flashpoint was Adorama's house brand until Godox imported their products under their own name. Originally, Adorama offered the Flashpoint Zoom Li-on Flash, a manual output speedlight that could be controlled using an external dedicated receiver coupled with a hotshoe mounted commander. The hot new thing was the dedicated Lithium ion rechargeable battery which delivered short recycle times at full output. In 2016 I purchased four on sale for $99.00 each, along with the receivers and commanders to keep them all going. Unsurprisingly, this tribe of non-TTL configurations has been discontinued. However, I still use them frequently.

Godox AD200 flash. Full Post here.

Power Upgrade: When the Godox AD200 hit the market in 2018, my location approach to location lighting changed dramatically. Up until this point, big flash was a Norman 200B flash, complete with it heavy power pack and separate head. This and the Graflex IV were the real workhorse flashes for the event and wedding photographers of the 1960's, and being of the Flower Power generation, I automatically assumed that this permanently stooped shoulders would a fact of life.

The AD200 seemed to be a combination of all the newest innovations wrapped up in one compact product. It used a dedicated lithium-ion battery unit that recharged quickly (relatively), provided enough juice for sustained, full output pops, and was reasonably priced. The output to volume ratio was amazing. The flash required about 1.5 times the space to store, but could produce over three times the output of an SB-900 speedlight. It was also self contained, and small enough to fit inside of the Westcott Halo softboxes, eliminating any chance of light accidentally spilling onto the background. It was capable of TTL exposure automation, but in adding this feature, Godox adopted a different wireless protocol from the earlier Zoom Li-on flashes.

Pocket Wizard on AD200 Controller

I was able to bridge this technology gap by using two radio triggers. In this image you can see the AD200 controller mounted directly to the camera's hot shoe to control the AD200, while a second controller mounted in the controller's built-in hot shoe could be used for anything else. In this photo I used a Pocket Wizard transmitter, but it could have been replaced with one for the Zoom Li-on flash. That hot shoe was a bit of genius, as it has "straight through" circuitry that allows one to attach an OEM flash in the controller's hotshoe with full TTL control.

On my last assignment I carried only three flashes: an AD200 (for use in a softbox) and two Godox speedlights carried in my camera bag. Since the were all compatible with the AD200 controller, I had no issues. There could have been problems if I had added an older Zoom Li-on unit to the mix. In a pinch I could  have converted that maverick flash to trigger using its built-in optical slave, or I could have include the dedicated controller. Either way, I could have made it work.

Nikon Redeploy: Obviously I'll need to anticipate the lighting solution I am most likely to use, and equip myself accordingly. However, I am considering a compromise. First off, I usually have two Godox speedlights riding in my camera case. These will respond to the same R2 controller as the Godox AD200. By adding a my seldom used Nikon compatible Godox V1 to the Pelican, I now have my requisite three speedlights for a complete "Krist List". While the flash is designed to deliver TTL exposure automation when mounted in a Nikon hotshoe, it behaves like a dedicated remote when communicating with the R2 controller. Since this is a "round head" flash, it will accept all of the magnetic gels kept in the Pelican.

Umbrellas and Soft Boxes:  The easiest and most portable solution is to use shoot-through umbrellas. They can produce very soft lighting with huge catchlights when you subjects are relatively small subjects (example: half-length portraits). When you use the "double fold" versions, they have an overall collapsed length of only 14", making them almost pockable in a photojournalist's vest. Bob Krist's checklist includes two such umbrellas. Now I need to be clear:  Using umbrellas or softboxes outdoors can be an invitation to disaster if there is even the slightest of breezes. I've crashed several shoot-through umbrellas when they went "Mary Poppins" whenever the wind came up.

Buy yours here.

For the moment, I'll permanently add that third speedlight to the case and I'll be ready with three lights mountable on three separate light stands whenever the Pelican is in the trunk. If I know I'll be working indoors and need some soft, flattering light, I'll throw in the AD200 and a Glow 31" x 31" Softbox (with its dedicated bracket). Since the softbox and AD200 combination are heavy, I'll just sling a suitably stable lightstand over my shoulder. 

Squeezing both the AD200 flash and the collapsed Glow Softbox may be a tight fit, but the Glow Softbox could be strapped to the extension handle with a bungee cord if necessary.

So far as I can tell, I've covered all of the necessary lighting basics, and by the time my next location portrait comes around, I'll be ready to go.

Susi Damilano

The assignment was to submit a photograph of Susi Damilano, the Director of The Play That Goes Wrong. The venue was the Sab Francisco Playhouse located near Union Square. Parking is away on my mind when working the in city, but there was a convenient parking garage just three blocks from the theater. I arrived at exactly 11:00 am, and was whisked into the theatre to get my lights in place and to determine exposure. In the meantime Ms. Damilano brought a lobby poster to use as a prop. I was lucky the the "G" was reversed, a shoutout to the mishaps that were part of the play's central theme. This would become the foreground for the photo, so I had to create the lighting around it. 

Since Ms. Damilano was the director, I wanted the seats in the background, rather than the stage itself. What I found was an interior that was so dark I could only light a small portion of the background. I had only one AD200 flash and my one 12' tall light stand, so I did my best to elevate the flash as high as I could, and aim it almost straight down. The objective was to create a relatively large area of edge lit chairs to emphasize their shape. By committing my one powerful flash to "background" work, I would need to use speedlight-sized flashes to light the rest of the photo. As can see from this first photo, the fabric portions of the seats were too dark to be discernable.

As it turned out, I still had two additional light stands and two speedlights. One would be committed to being the key light, so I mounted the other speedlight on the second light stand and positioned it, camera right, to throw some light on the backs of the seats. This could be dialed up or down, depending on how much detail I wanted to reveal.

White Balance: I wanted to create some additional separation between my subject and the background, so for fun, I adjusted the camera's White Balance Setting to 3800 degrees Kelvin. This would add a blue tint to background, and when I gelled my key light with a CTO gel, the flesh tones were rendered correctly, if not slightly warm. The gelled flash was shot through an umbrella, mounted just to the left of the lens axis. When working close to the subject, I am often shooting from below the umbrella, so the lighting tends to appear from just above my subject.

Just as I was finishing up, Ms. Damilano came in to see how things were going. She had a phone meeting at 12:00 noon, which was my deadline for completion. It was 11:45, so I told her that I was ready, and the shot would be over in a few minutes. This last estimate was accurate enough, and in a few exposures, I had my money shot.

In this cropped portion of the final print, you can see that Ms. Damilano is centered in the puddle of background light, while the accent light provides some separation of the hair from the background. I did not anticipate the "fill effect" of the "chair light" on my subject's face. I was hoping to get the light high enough to miss hitting her face, but it did. You can see the tiny triangular shadow below her chin, a clear sign of cross lighting. If I had an assistant I could have check this "on the fly", but once the shooting started, I couldn't spare the time for any fine tuning*.

With the shot in the can, I asked if Ms. Damilano would like a photo of Emi, the theater's "empathy dog", for her virtual scrapbook. Sure, so she and the dog came onstage. I made some quick position changes and made a few shots. Just for laughs, mind you.

The repositioning of my new subject moved the background off center, and to make room on the stage, I moved the "chair light" further off center. You can see that it completely missed my subject's face, giving me the shadows I was originally hoping for. Since I was running out of time, I contented myself with the subject's head being clipped. After all, this was a Social Media photo, something cute for friends and followers. Just for fun, I sent both of the images to my Editor. She answered quickly, and loved the shot with Emi. That one moved to the front of the line. 

I look back on the two photos, and am happy that the combination of lighting, white balance, and a CTO gel that produced two very nice photos. My next at-home project will be to streamline my lighting setup process. 

*There's an old saying: "Never let them see you sweat." When something is a tiny bit off kilter, it may be better to just let it ride, rather than disturb the rapport between the subject and the photographer.

Filling The Pelican - The Small Bits

Buy yours here.

Changing from a rolling sports equipment bag to a Pelican case was like downsizing from a bungalow to a fifth wheel. In the process, I eliminated the equipment packed but I never used, and restocked the Pelican with accessories that easily stored and more effective. Some old standbys were kept so long as they were potentially useful and compact.

Rogue Grid. Buy yours here.

Grid Spots: I favored the Rogue Grid from Expo Imaging. Like nearly every non OEM speedlight accessory, it was held in place using Velcro tape on the flash head. Retention was a little iffy, but if handled carefully, it was secure enough. It featured two grid inserts which could be used individually or in tandem to produce a variety of lighting effects. 

I recall using it only once in the field, and the effect was worth its weight in chocolate The photo was of the installation of Rodin's "The Thinker" in the Cantor Art Museum on the Stanford University campus in Palo Alto. Luckily for me there was time to experiment, and if you check my blog posting on the shoot, you can see the dramatic effect that grid spot had on the final product. The Rogue system could accommodate pre-cut colored gels if I only remembered where I put them.

Since dipping my toe in the Godox "round headed world", I dove in and purchased a variety of accessories, including these grids. The built-in magnets on the flash bezel ring provide an easy-on easy-off option, and are much less likely to get bumped off during the rigors of working in a "run-and-gun" environment than the velcro-secured Rogue unit.

For flashes with rectangular heads, there is an adapter that easily attaches to a variety of different flash head dimensions, up to and including the the largish AD200. By comparison, this system takes up a little more space than the Rogue Grid, but is faster to deploy. 

Honl Gels. No longer available

Gels: Speaking of gels, I originally kept a full set of rectangular Honl Photo Gels in my bag. Like the Honl Grids, they were attached with velcro strips. I also liked that the gels were clearly identified. 

Back in the day my speedlights always had small pieces of Velcro tape on the flash head. This allowed me to easily attach Honl snoots and other light modifiers like the Lumiquest mini-softboxes. Now that my speedlights are Velcro free, I use a Honl Speed Strip when I need some sticky-points.

When I was a proud Nikon user, I usually carried multiple SB-800 speedlights, and always had one with a CTO gel permanently taped to the head. In the bag,   I stored it gel-side-up so I could immediately reach for it when needed. This procedure was more appropriate for the "run and gun" situation where speed was of the essence. Incidentally,  

Since shifting to the magnetic option, I started using the round gel holders and installing the Godox gel disks. No, I don't have a lot of confidence in the color consistency of the gels, but this is digital and not film, so minor adjustments can easily be made in post-production, or a custom white balance setting can taken. Being magnetic, multiple gel holders can be stacked, one upon the other, for a more dramatic effect.

I have proven to my own satisfaction that when judiciously used, gels, can produce photographs more "real than real" by aligning what the mind sees with what the camera records. In this regard the CTO (daylight to tungsten) gels are the most valuable, since we readily accept the color shifts that occur under incandescent light. As they say, any color shift is acceptable so long as the shift is to the "warm".

The Manfrotto Justin Clamp: This gizmo was the hot ticket for positioning a single speedlight without a light stand. All you had to do was find a flat surface (a shelf or a door), attach a speedlight to the cold shoe, and clamp it. The miniature ball head gave you flexibility in direction, and the system worked well enough.

I found that the Justin Clamp worked well on paper, and it did, so long as the clamp was strong enough to keep the unit from twisting out of position. Unfortunately, the plastic cold shoe could crack when the thicker hotshoe of a Nikon SB900 was forced into place.  Manfrotto eventually  corrected that by using a properly sized cold shoe. I suspect most people simply replaced the plastic OEM shoe with an adjustable metal one, as I did here. The clamps were also expensive.

Buy yours here.

Amazon came to my rescue once again, as I found this miniature clamp, complete with ball head and a 1/4x 20 threaded shaft, for about $13.00. All I had to do was find my stash of metal cold shoes (I bought them by the handsfull back in the day) and I would be back in business.

This first part covers the small items in the case, the sorts of things that you wouldn't normally think about until something goes really wrong and you have to kludge something to make it right. Other essentials would include a flashlight, a Swiss army knife, a pair of folding pliers, some ball bungie cords, and one heavy duty bungie to connect the light stand to some convenient ballast, namely the case itself. Add pens, a small notebook, gaffer tape, some alcohol wipes, some first aid supplies, some cough drops, and we're all set.

With my transition to the Pelican case nearly completed, I donated the old equipment bag to the Salvation Army. When I passed the now empty case to the Donation Sorter, I was shocked by how little it weighed. Still, my last assignment convinced me that once I managed to wrestle the case onto the set, the easier access to all my accessories would help me work more efficiently. Still, that Pelican is one heavy bird...

I will cover my revised lighting equipment list in another post.