Lighting Technique - Single Strobe

Dave Haas has inspired me to start a discussion about technique, as opposed to the usual "tech talk" we have here...:-)

I decided that while I have a lot of different strobes, I'd try shooting just single strobe for my dives in Hawaii. Shot a single DS125 with diffuser.

I only got to do two dives with the D100 and one with the S2pro so didn't get a huge amount of keepers. There was a WHOPPING storm in Hawaii w/ big surge that made shooting macro almost impossible.

So here are a few shots showing "muted lighting" or at least my first attempt at it. Side lighting on almost every shot.

My impression - I like the texture, but they still look too dark to me. Perhaps I should revisit them and run through the raw conversions again.

So what about your lighting technique? How to make the shots more interesting? How to avoid "flat" lighting? How do you aim your strobes?

Cheers

James

James,

I recently attended an excellent course run by Martin Edge where we were shown some of the different effects you can create by 'painting' with light.

I haven't had a chance to get out into the wild with it but I can show you the results I got in the pool shooting a silk rose. I was using an S2 with a single DS125

Lit from beneath:

Above:

Above Right:

Straight On:

Personally I feel that straight on the target gives the flatest image, as all the shadow are cast behind the and so generally not visible on macro. Lighting from underneath I think will look great with translucent subjects, with the silk rose my favourite is from above. (although from the brightness I must of had the strobe a little closer)

Rob,

Thanks! This is a really good example.

I hope more people will chime in with their thoughts.

Cheers

James

I used to use a single strobes for lighting when I had my MMIIex. That was due to me being too cheap to buy a second strobes and I was still learning the system and photography. (I should point out, I am still learning the photography side of things but, I think we all are in some way really)

I really liked the effects I saw as a result. I was hand holding the strobes and did feel my best results were from a top lit position. I did find it was really easy to adjust lighting fast and play with the effect. Recent conversations like this have me thinking to try it again. I know Bob is a big proponent of single strobe lighting and has some great effects as a result. I really think the key is the shadowing effect.

I am unsure as to the strobes settings on your shots James but they seem flat to me. IMHO I think there is a lack of pleasing shadows and that may be the difference thus why I query about the strobe settings.

Rob's examples are great.

I like the effect when I try single strobes. I usually use one when I want a contrasty rendition of a subject, rather than for softer light, but sometimes I get the latter.

P.S. How do I control image height and width in these BBCode img tags??

I wanted to make these smaller so they'd be easy to view as examples...

Here's a contrasty sample:

In this one, it gave me a nice soft light:

I've also noticed that I can get a better "glow" out of a fish's eye when I use a single strobe. This is not a good photo, but shows the elusive "glow" that I'm (still) trying to capture:

This is a backlit leaffish using a third strobe that I've started clipping to my BC. Another advantage of the Inon strobe due to its neutral bouyancy.

A friend (Mike Coker) shot the same subject on a different day using a 5050 and a single Inon Z220. Ambient light contributed to the interesting color.

Craig, it is great to see you using backlighting - a very underused technique these days.

I have a theory about creative use of strobes and why there is less of it these days and I blame companies like ULCS because their products are too good. In the good ol' days strobe arms were crap. And you could never get your strobes positioned where you wanted them. Then companies like ultra light come along (I use them as an example because they are WP advertisers!) and their system allows us to get our strobes exactly where we want them.

So how has this destroyed creative lighting. Well in the good ol' days you always ended up hand holding your strobe, so you could get it in the right place. Since you were already hand holding it, this encouraged you to try different lighting angles, such as side, top and back lighting. Well, that's my theory, anyway!

To get back to the main point on lighting techniques - I saw an interesting approach in Lembeh last week. One photographer had a Nikonos RS and two SB104s. He would set his lighting up on a subject, resting the baseplate and strobe arms on the sand, then detach the RS and move it backwards and forwards taking the horizontal and vertical shots he wanted. OK, the technique is pretty useless in other environs - but this more studio like approach did intrege me.

Alex

I think I'm going to start carrying a strobe caddie around with me so that I'll have someone to handhold my extra strobes! I liked using the third strobe and hope to do a lot more of it.