Flash bus tour

I had lighting class whole day on Sunday. Painful to get up early after soaring snowbard yesterday.
But at the end of the class at the end of the day, I learned alot about what/how other people do. They didn't teach the basics, but I got the idea of how pros shoot/think/tweak. A lot of TTL by McNally, and he is mainly tweaking flash exposure bias of each slave flash from the master attached to his camera. He usually fixed it at 1/250 and f5.6.

David Hobby did lighting in layers, adding one strobe at a time and see what else needs to be added and where.

Let it rake

1/32 M set

~3' away

~10 deg tilted from the subject

a little bit elevated than subject (otherwise, it only lights the side of the object and the light doesn't RAKE across the whole surface), and also it is too harsh on the side because all the light hit the side and reflect. So it needs to be a bit higher. ~2" , then tilt it up a tiny bit so that the bottom-most ray barely go over the side edge. That way it doesn't flash the side out and lost all the details on the side.

Note: side of the object = side facing the flash.

1/250 as always

1/5.6 (some guesstimate from previous imaginary light meter collection)

Gotta play around with the height of flash, tilt, distance and power. Too many variables!

It took me ~10 shots to get what I want. I picked one setting that I thought will work. Looked at the pic and figured what's wrong and what I need to adjust, and repeat.

Sounds like I semi- tweaking? Any smarter way without trial and readjust things?

Lighting 102 Specular light test

80mm zoom with snoot

1/64 for all except the last few ones as noted.

Flash slightly above on camera right

28mm zoom with snoot

darker

But catch light is ~same size because snoot is same

28mm without snoot

catchlight is dimmer now because light is not concentrated as before by the snoot

1/64

Moved flash to the side.

Trying to see if I can get total "external" reflection without transmission thru the glass (i.e: no see through). I didn't get it. I tried angling to make light just hit the surface and bounce off the glass. Seems like I need smaller acute angle of flash to glass.

80mm zoom with snoot

Flash bounced off the ceiling.

80mm zoom with snoot

1/2 power seem 1/64 for others is too weak to bounce off the ceiling and come back.

Catch light is bigger and weaker now that it's not quite noticeable. Bounce off flash is s a bigger light source now.

After this, I don't know what I'm supposed to get and forgot the goal. Gotta read strobist lesson again.