rubber band to attach them to the flashlight.
The thicker the gel, the more the light is
diffused.
■ Availability and price. This is one piece of
photography gear that is really inexpensive.
You can pick up a decent flashlight for less
than $10 at a hardware store.nearly depleted batteries is not going to be
very powerful at all. It is also very easy to
judge with your eyes the difference in power
once you have the flashlight and can compare
it to others you have, so the candle power and
lumens ratings are most useful when compar-
ing flashlights in the store. For example, if you
compare the E1L Outdoorsman to the E2L
Outdoorsman, both by Surefire, you will see
that the E1L is 45 lumens and the E2L is 60
lumens, making it brighter. Keep in mind
that the more powerful the flashlight, the less
time the shutter needs to be open. The power
of the flashlight can also be greatly influenced
by how new the batteries are.■ Multiple sizes. From tiny penlights that takea single AAA battery to giant handheld spot-
lights, there is a flashlight for every occasion.
As you can see from Figure 9-6, not only do
I have a variety of flashlights, but I have a
handheld spotlight as well, which is how I lit
the flashlights for this photograph.
■ Adjustable focus. Many flashlights have anadjustable focus of the beam of light, which
allows for different effects. This feature is
found on the Maglite brand of flashlights and
many other brands. Adjustable focus allows
you to change the size and intensity of the
light, making the single flashlight more
versatile.
■ LED flashlights. Many newer flashlights usean LED bulb, which can be a lot brighter
and more powerful than the old-style incan-
descent bulbs; they also come in different
light colors.
■ Change the color of the light. Changing thecolor of the light beam is easy to do using a
colored gel. I just use small pieces of gel and a
ABOUT THIS PHOTO These four flashlights all have very differ-
ent illuminating qualities. The smallest light is the one that I use later
in this chapter to produce the physiograms. Illuminated by a handheld
spotlight and taken at 2.3 seconds, f/9.0, and ISO 100.9-6