26 Better Available Light Digital Photography
Flash in the pan
Bigger used to mean better in terms of the output from studio
fl ash units, and even previous generations of handheld and on-
camera dedicated fl ash units. The light output from these strobes,
measured in watt-seconds, had to be voluminous. They had to
be powerful enough to expose slow-speed fi lm at mid- to small-
sized apertures. Although many types of photography still require
this large output of light, it’s not necessary for the majority of
digital photography today.
Herein lies one of the benefi ts of digital technology. Instead of
hauling in cases of big strobe units and power packs on location,
dealing with their interconnecting cables, plugging into AC
power outlets, taking fl ash meter readings, here’s our simplifi ed
approach to artifi cial lighting. We don’t need high light output
to cancel the lighting within a room (often the green cast by
fl uorescent) because we set our digital camera’s color balance
to Auto White Balance or perhaps Flash. This lets us success-
fully mix our fl ash output with whatever light is in the room for
great color. We don’t need the high output to enable shooting at
mid-range f-stops because we can increase the ISO on the camera
to achieve that. Joe and Barry often prefer shooting at wide-open
apertures, blurring backgrounds; this lets the subject stand out
better from the background. We don’t need all of the auxiliary
attachments for big strobes to control the light either becauseThis yoga photograph was lit with
three Dyna-Lite (www.dynalite.
com) studio strobes. If being shot
today, Barry would create the
same lighting with three of his
Canon 580EX Speedlites. The
main light would be set at camera
left, with the head zoomed to
70 mm providing the spotlight
effect. The Speedlite on the
camera would be bounced off the
ceiling, with its power reduced, for
a bit of fi ll light, and the third
Speedlite would be aimed at the
background, with the head zoomed.
© 2006 Barry Staver.