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Guide to Light or Strobe Placement

Pomacentridae
in Lights, Strobes, and Lighting Technique

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Posted

Hi there,

Is there a guide to light or strobe placement? Asking this question in case someone has a good reference I can read up on -- techniques, styles or tips.

My specific question has mostly to do with fish photography. I want to just light up a fish to have darker/black backgrounds, but I always tend to have spill over which lights up either the background or lights up backscatter. The fish I shoot are typically damselfish or wrasses and they hug the reef quite closely with not many opportunities for a clear mid-water shot. So, I am thinking of putting a hood (like a snoot, but not as narrow as a snoot) onto my strobes to reduce the spread or angle of light from my strobes. Are there any thoughts or tips about this?

Thanks,

P

There's a number of approaches to this depending upon how far away the fish are and separation from background. If you want to light your subject but avoid the reef behind the classic recommendation is to try using inward lighting - p122 on my copy of Alex Mustard's book. Adding beam limiters can help as well, something like the Retra reduction ring and macro rings. Backscatter can be an issue with this technique and would work best if you were in really close.

For distant larger fish, the retra reflectors extend beam range and limit spread, but of course only available to use on Retra strobes. The reduction rings could be easily rigged up - 3D printed perhaps or as simple as finding a pipe or similar which is a snug fit on your strobe.

As Chris explains, something like the Retra reduction rings work very well as does a snoot. Snoots do take some practice though and work best on strobes that have a circular flash tube with a central aiming light.

A fast shutter speed also helps by reducing the amount of light the sensor can pick up.

And, yep, after that inward or overhead lighting but these techniques can produce unwanted shadows and odd effects.

41 minutes ago, TimG said:

As Chris explains, something like the Retra reduction rings work very well as does a snoot. Snoots do take some practice though and work best on strobes that have a circular flash tube with a central aiming light.

A fast shutter speed also helps by reducing the amount of light the sensor can pick up.

And, yep, after that inward or overhead lighting but these techniques can produce unwanted shadows and odd effects.

I'm not so sure a snoot would be a recipe for good mental health shooting active fish, probably restrict to anglerfish, scorpion fish and others that won't depart quite so quickly.😂

I'm thinking inward lighting probably should work quite well on fish in mid water once you get the angles dialled in.

  • Author
17 hours ago, Chris Ross said:

There's a number of approaches to this depending upon how far away the fish are and separation from background. If you want to light your subject but avoid the reef behind the classic recommendation is to try using inward lighting - p122 on my copy of Alex Mustard's book. Adding beam limiters can help as well, something like the Retra reduction ring and macro rings. Backscatter can be an issue with this technique and would work best if you were in really close.

For distant larger fish, the retra reflectors extend beam range and limit spread, but of course only available to use on Retra strobes. The reduction rings could be easily rigged up - 3D printed perhaps or as simple as finding a pipe or similar which is a snug fit on your strobe.

Hi Chris,

Thanks for this, I flipped onto that page and inward lighting seems to be exactly the technique I am looking for. Excited to try it out in the pool to see if I can get the results I need.

I will try the beam limiters as a secondary option -- as you pointed out it would be difficult for active fish.

Thanks P

Edited by Pomacentridae

49 minutes ago, Pomacentridae said:

I will try the beam limiters as a secondary option -- as you pointed out it would be difficult for active fish.

Thanks P

Just to be clear snoots would be really difficult, the beam limiters similar to the Retra reduction rings still produce something like a 90° beam (as opposed to a 130° beam) with a sharp dropoff, making it easier to contain the light, not too different to regular strobes.

  • 2 weeks later...
On 4/28/2025 at 11:12 PM, Chris Ross said:

Just to be clear snoots would be really difficult, the beam limiters similar to the Retra reduction rings still produce something like a 90° beam (as opposed to a 130° beam) with a sharp dropoff, making it easier to contain the light, not too different to regular strobes.

Or get an AOI UCS-Q1 and shoot 85° beam if not invested in Retra

https://waterpixels.net/forums/topic/2347-guide-to-light-or-strobe-placement/
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