Flash motion photography

Pfc. Amber Nolan, 450th Civil Affairs Bn., rucks across Fort Meade, Md. during the 352nd best warrior competition on April 2, 2012. (U.S. Army photo by Staff Sgt. Felix R. Fimbres)

   Wow, it's been a busy couple of weeks for me personally. But it's time to get back on the photo bus. So lets get back to it shall we.

   I know, I know I've been extolling the virtues of flash for what seems like forever; I'll get off my flash horse after this post. I promise. [No, that's probably a lie, but I'll give it a rest for a bit!]

 

Points of interest. Check. Yellow road line leading to subject, check.
Orange/white line leading to subject, check. But those eyes, they just keep pulling me off the frame...sigh. 

   I'm not going to lie, I like this photo. It's not technically correct either, I mean, just look at those eyes pulling me off the frame. Yuck. Okay fine, clear subject, leading lines, subject is in points of interest. The exposure awesome. It's technically pretty good. Just not flawless.

   When I shot this however my concern was getting the patch included in the shot. As a public affairs soldier I was always looking to brand my images. I could go on an on about all the good stuff my unit does on a daily basis around the world, but we certainly don't have very much name brand recognition, at least not yet anyway. But lets get back to this shot.

   Unfortunately a side effect of using flash to get blur is, well, you get blur where the flash doesn't shine.

   [Bad pun. I know. I'm pretty sure you're here FOR the puns tho... right?]

   So the patch itself is a little blurrier than i would have liked it, and her eyes aren't looking over her shoulder, but that's uncontrolled action for you. Having a second flash to specifically light her her patch would have done the trick; [at least in my head it does, using just theory] as it stands there wasn't enough umph to get the black portions of the patch clear.

   

   Luckily her eyes and face are crisp and clean. The flash helped the colors [what little colors that are] on the subject really pop. And most importantly I captured motion.

   Yes, flash freezes motion [surprisingly I haven't done a post about how to use flash to freeze motion...don't worry I'll talk about some other subjects before I go back to flash] but with careful management of your shutter speed you can use it to mix and match both movement and the lack thereof. 

   What we're seeing here is 1/30 of a second [at f/22] which isn't a very long period at all, but it's twice as long as 1/60th of a second [What I normally shoot for blur free objects which are standing still] and it's glacially slow when compared to most sports shots which are shot in the high hundreds and even thousands. 

   So really, 1/30th of a second is a heck of a long time.

   Just not at night.

   In regards to light, specifically the light bouncing off our subject, the blur part you see around her is where she was at the beginning of the 1/30th [lets just call this the first half of the 1/30th of a second] and the crisp parts of here is where my flash went off, and captured her [lets call this the second half.]

   I used the "rear shutter" on my camera to ensure my flash went off at the end. This gives it some forward/upward motion. You'll have to open up your manual to find out how to make your camera use the flash on the rear shutter. If I had used the flash normally it would have given the effect of backward motion as the flash would have fired during the first half and then blur collecting during the second half; so the blur would have been in front of the crispy parts and not behind the crispy parts.

Which by the way is what happened with her sleeve. While her body was moving towards the camera her arm was going away from the camera, so the blurry part happens in the first half and the stop motion happens in the second half, causing blur in front.

Things I need: More Flash

Soldiers from the U.S Army Civil Affairs & Psychological Operations Soldiers prepare to hook up a load to a UH-0 Blackhawk during Pathfinder School at Fort Bragg N.C. on March 27, 2013. These soldiers where able to earn their Pathfinder Badge, thanks to the National Guard Warrior Training Center Mobile Training Team.

   In my dream world I'd have a big flat bed truck with a couple of spot lights and filters at my beck and call ready to provide fill light everywhere I went. Unfortunately for me, I don't have access to something like that. So, sometimes I have to use the power of Photoshop to add light.

Yes, adding light in post does in fact tear me apart inside.

   In this photo I did in fact use my flash. I channeled my inner Captain Kirk and screamed for more power, to which my flash responded, "I'm giving all she's got!"

   You can see that the flash was able to highlight the dust flying at me, but it kind of made it look like snow. It was also able to add a little bit of light to the cargo and the backs of the Soldiers. It also added a little bit of pop to those yellow strands. I would have liked this better if I had more power, because it would have brightened everything up. As it stands it's a shade dark in my opinion.

Step 1: ID Subjects Step 2: Wait for something cool 

Step 3: Press Shutter Button. Step 4: Blog about it.

   You can see that we had cloud cover, so the light was already diffused, there wasn't too much in the way of harsh shadows I really needed to fill.

   Also, the underbelly of the helicopter was dark; and even after some touch up in post is still is darker than I would have liked. But without that flat bed with spotlights there wasn't a whole lot I could have done about that. (I probably don't need a flat bed, a few well placed strobes connected via wireless would do the job as well, but that's a whole other discussion.)

   So how exactly did I find myself in this situation? Well I got a phone call from my Captain,

   "Do you want to go out and take photos tomorrow afternoon? I'm swamped, " she said.

   "Of?" I asked, knowing I didn't have much of a choice.

   "Oh, a bunch of our Soldiers are becoming Pathfinders and their going to be hooking up heavy loads to helicopters hovering over their heads?" She replied

   "Yes. Yes I do."

   I showed up expecting a wait; and wait I did. The students where learning how to communicate with the helicopter pilots and where practicing dropping supplies. Which looked cool, but it's hard to show a soldier on the ground and a helicopter a few hundred feet up in the air dropping supplies, visually it's hard to capture without a huge lens.

Note: A telephoto lens condenses space, so if you want to make it look like two things are closer than they actually are, use a telephoto lens and it'll look like they are much closer than they are.

The red arrow is where I wanted to be, on my back, with a 

super duper wide angle lens. I wanted the tips of the rotor,

the cargo and the soldier hooking up. If anyone gets this shot

after reading this and wins an award for it,  I fully expect a 

thank you card.

   Regardless, I stuck around waiting for this shot. Okay, I actually was thinking of a different shot, using a super wide lens from underneath the belly of the beast, but we didn't have a super wide. But I persisted.

   Luckily for me, this event happened about 10 times, giving me ample time to see what was happening, think about different angles, and fail a few times.

   The first time I stood back and just watched. I could see the wind from the rotors just whipping all sorts of dirt in the air. I knew from previous experiences it wasn't going to be fun. But I can't say I was entirely prepared to be just a few feet from the rotor wash.

   Lets just say, unless you're under the belly, it's not a fun time. I went out each and every time, experimenting with different angles and positions aka the 30-30 rule. I really wanted the faces of the soldiers and their unit patch because a big part of public affairs is showing off your "brand." But I realized getting everything in one shot probably wasn't going to happen. I decided the most compelling thing about this event was a 10,000 pound metal monster bearing down on a few soldiers.

So I got behind these soldiers, put them in my points of interest and just waited for the helicopter to get in my frame.

At the end of the day I can say I got a shot I liked. It wasn't the shot I wanted; I still would like to go back and try again, but I'm happy with it.

Interested in reading more about my adventures with flash? Check out: Felix and the technicolor dream coat, 

Flash, Huh, what is good for? Absolutely Everything, and Flashing at Night

Flash, Huh, what is it good for? Absolutely everything!

A Soldier from the Fort Carson band plays his tuba during the 440th Civil Affairs Battalion unit stand-up at Fort Carson, Colo. on September 15, 2012. The 440th has spent the last year filling it’s ranks with both new and Veteran civil affairs Soldiers and is now an officially commissioned unit lead by Lt. Col. Damone Garner and Command Sgt. Maj. Aaron Miller. (U.S. Army photo by Staff Sgt. Felix R. Fimbres)

Oh boy, look at all that dead space on the right. Luckily for me this post isn't about composition, it's about flash. Okay that's a lie, we'll talk about composition too. Why? Because it's the only thing that really matters. [Yes, that is a completely subjective observation] But first, flash.

Most people use flash when it's dark, which is fine, but have you thought about using it during the day?

"Felix, why would you use flash during the day? It's already bright outside?"

   Because of shadows. Do you see how my subject in the photo above is nice and bright? Do you see how the rest of the band is not? The flash is filling in the shadow caused by the sun that is right in front of me [The sun is in the top left; who am I kidding you didn't miss the sun.]

"So what? So the subject is a little dark, no biggie, flash scares me."

   Okay, we'll lets say I didn't use the flash. The camera would have probably tried to expose for the tuba player; [we haven't talked about exposure, but essentially it's when the subject can be seen and isn't too dark or too bright] in this photo he is correctly exposed. The camera would have accomplished this by allowing more light to hit our sensor. The tuba player would have looked the same as he does now. "So what's the big deal dude?

This is the big deal: more light on the sensor would have made the sky white. You would lose the clouds and that pretty blue sky, maybe even the grass. If you want detail, if you want your colors to pop, you need to know how to put the light where you want it, and you need to be able to know how to balance it out.

   I'll get to exposure, apertures, shutter speed and all that technical stuff in other posts, but for now, You should know that flash can and should be used during the day. Yes, even your little pop-up flash on your camera will work. But you must, must, must experiment with it in various situations. Light does a lot of different things depending on the size of the space and yes even the time of day.

Note 1: If you're using flash during the middle of the day, like I did, it's going to have to be a really powerful flash or you're going to have to be standing really close; you will probably have to zoom out / use a wider angle / and/or step closer depending on how bright it is and how dark your shadows are. The further away your flash is from the subject the less impact it will have. I suggest experimenting with stationary objects first. You may find getting close to people uncomfortable so using an inanimate object too learn is fine. Again, you need to learn the limits of your flash. If you're shooting mostly in automatic mode you'll want to know what your camera will do at certain distances.

Taking notes about what your camera and flash settings are while you shoot is always good idea.

Note 2: If you're using your camera's pop-up flash or a flash which mounts into your camera's hot shoe, certain lenses will cast a shadow when used in conjunction with a flash when at the wider angles [10mm-25mm or so, rough guesstimate, again, experiment with your equipment] aka zoomed out. That's because the lens is blocking the light from the top of your camera.

Note 3: Your phone's flash probably isn't going to match the power of sun if the sun is behind your subject, [like the image below] no matter how close you are.

   So how about this photo? Do we have a clear subject? Yes. Is the subject in at least one point of interest? Yes. Do we have leading lines? Maybe, you could argue his eyes lead to his music sheet and the tuba is one big line leading you to the sun. The colors are nice and the subject is interesting.

   What's bad? Well all that dead space on the right for one. It makes the left side of the frame super heavy. You could delete that whole right side of the image and message of the image would still be the same.  

   The empty space on the right isn't the same as negative space because because it's distracting.

   Had there been soldiers all around him, then it would have balanced a little better. It would have blended in. But as it stands, in my opinion, this area of the photo sticks out like a sore thumb. It also causes him to be dead center for really no reason.

Note 4: Dead center is when you put your subject in the very center of your photograph without using leading lines, framing, the rule of thirds, or balance.

   

   Friends don't let friends shoot images dead center. Would it have killed me to put his head in a point of interest? No, not at all. I would have lost some of that dead space for sure; which would have been good. I could have also bent my knees a little too to give it a slightly different perspective.