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.

Bounce Flash

Connie Almueti proudly displays her plaque and medal which inducts her into the Civil Affairs Hall of Fame at Fort Bragg, N.C., Sept. 25, 2012. Almueti has served seven commanding generals over 42 years as a Department of the Army civilian, and has been a critical contact for countless commanders in the field. (U.S. Army photo by Staff Sgt. Felix R. Fimbres)

   In case you haven't been following along, I've kind of been gushing about Flash. I talked about flashing in the morning, Flashing  in the evening, and Flashing at Supertime.

[This is a reference to the  song"Sugartime" which I honestly have no idea how I know about this song, possibly I heard it in an ad? Moving on...]

   Needless to say, I'm a big fan of flash. In fact, a friend of mine said the other day,

"Appreciate natural light, but bring your own just in case."

   Okay, enough gushing. So lets talk about this photo. Connie was inducted to the Civil Affairs Hall of Fame, hence the medal and the plaque, and I was tasked with writing the story.

   Unfortunately administrative work doesn't exactly lend itself to very memorable photography, and really the big story was that she was becoming a member of the Civil Affairs Hall of Fame, a first for any woman. So I said to myself,

"Damn the torpedo's lets pose a photograph!" 

   This was also the second attempt, the results of the first weren't really up to snuff. Yes, I have had plenty of bad days photographing, luckily I was able to go back and try again.

I wanted soft light because it's just more flattering. My favorite method of getting soft light is to bounce it off the ceiling. I aim my flash straight up, crank it up to 11 and let it rip. The light actually bounces off the ceiling and cascades downwards like fairy dust.

You'll notice this isn't quite the exact same picture, I can't

find the one I posted. Regardless, it's pretty awesome, in my

opinion to have anything of mine hanging in the pentagon.

Note: High ceilings laugh at your attempts to bounce flash, many flash units just don't have the umph to launch light beams 10 feet up and 10 feet back down. Also some ceilings will absorb the light.

   The only real problem was that the glass on her plaque was the right height to just catch to tip of my flash. That's a big no no because it breaks the fourth wall. I didn't have access to any sort of off camera flash, not even a bracket, so I just had to work with what I had. I strongly considered removing in in post, but decided against it because editing anything in post is frowned upon in Army photographs, more so than posing. As such, it sits there mocking me.

Turns out, this photo is hanging on a wall in the Pentagon. The small photo shows it hanging out with some other photos. As far as I know it's the only photo of mien hanging in the Pentagon, which to be honest is probably more so because of the content (Connie is a pretty big deal) and no so much the awesomeness of the photo. Regardless, I think it's pretty cool.

If your interested in learning more about Connie you can read about the story I wrote here: http://www.dvidshub.net/news/95899/general-aid#.Ul4bWFA3v8k

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

Flashing at Night. Bonus: 30-30 rule

Spc. Sarah M. Wiita, 490th Civil Affairs Bn., plots her points in the dark during the night land navigation portion of the 350th Civil Affairs Command best warrior competition at Camp Bullis, Texas on March 25, 2012. (U.S. Army photo by Staff Sgt. Felix R. Fimbres)

Yesterday I said, "Flash is good. I promise." To which a co-worker of mine said, "It's not good for night land navigation." To which I say poppycock!

   Okay, I really do get his point. The problem with flash at night is that it can certainly temporarily blind you. But without it, getting an image of a moving object at night is hard. It's more luck and than anything else. Without flash you're hoping your subject won't move too much. If your subject moves too much your subject will be blurry and seem out of focus. You're also hoping you can stand still long enough without moving so that you don't cause unnecessary blur to your image.

The night time, is the right time, to use flash. 

   In the above photo we have a few things going on. First off, this soldier is mapping her route on a map with a pencil and a protractor. She is able to see thanks to her headlamp, because it's dark.

   I also want you to notice the orange light on her back/head, that is from a dim street lamp. The reason it's bright like that is because this was a fairly long exposure, (1.3 seconds according to my metadata) that means I capture 1.3 seconds of her moving and light bouncing off her. We talked a little about long exposures and it's effects on light during a post about leading lines. You can consider this a bit of continuation of that topic.

   In case you don't want to go back and read up, what's happening here is that I'm opening my shutter for 1.3 seconds, collecting light, it's not a lot because it's dark, and you can tell because most of my image is rather dark. I used rear shutter, which means at the last fraction of a second my flash went off and "froze" the action.

   You'll notice her head lamp is a little blurry and the general feeling is that we capture motion. You can tell she's doing something, even if you're not sure exactly what it is.

Also note that I didn't use my flash at full power.

   My intent was to add just enough to highlight my subject and not to overpower the other lights. I used an external flash unit, but even your built in pop-up flash probably has a setting which lets you either have it super bright, which I would use during day light with the sun in front of me, or less bright which I would use at night. Because I turned down the umph of the flash and because this soldier was using a bright head lamp anyway, and she was wearing a hat, I didn't blind her.

How did I know how much light to use? Well it's all about experimentation. You need to go out and play with your flash at various power levels at various times of day. The more you practice the more you'll understand when you need a lot of light and when you need just a touch.

"Felix, you could have used a Tripod!"

I could have and that would have eliminated any movement on my part from making the image blurry. But I had the shutter open for 1.3 seconds. The exposure time would have been longer if I didn't use flash. You can see how much she moved in the image. Unless you're controlling the action and telling your subject not to move, after 1.3 seconds you will get a blurry image.  

So how about the composition?

   I included the points of interest so you could think about it yourself, did I use any of the rules we've been talking about? You're welcome to leave a comment or two about what you think.

So why did I include three pictures if I wasn't going to talk about each one of them? Simple.

I want to talk about shooting in a sequence. 

   Now, if your familiar with video you probably just said, "Wait, sequence shooting is for video not photo."

   Yes, this is a video term, but I think it works for photographers as well.

   Sometimes we see something and it doesn't quite turn out how we thought it would. The key isn't to just walk away and see, "ugh, I can't take a good photo," the key is to move and take another photo until you get it right.

In video there is a rule called the 30-30 rule. 

   Which means you move around your subject at least 30 degrees from where you started and you also increase or decrease your subject size by 30 percent.

   This isn't the best example of a 30-30 sequence, especially not for video [in fact I broke a video rule but I won't bore you with more video rules.] However, you'll notice I took a photo, moved my body and took another photo. Same subject, same action, different point of view.

   Next time you go out shooting, remember 30-30. Keep the same subject and move around your subject, make your subject a bigger or smaller portion of your frame and take another photo. Take five or six more. Go crazy. But change it up every time. Doing things like that will help you improve your eye.

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.

Night Lines, no wait. Leading Lines.

Sgt. Zackary Davis, 431st Civil Affairs Bn., prepares a Single Channel Ground and Airborne Radio System (SINCGARS) to transmit a 9-line medical evacuation report during the warrior task portion of the 352nds best warrior competition at Fort Meade, Md. on April 2, 2012. (U.S. Army photo by Staff Sgt. Felix R. Fimbres)

I want to point out really quickly that this is what happens with you Mix light and set your flash to rear shutter. If you don't know what that is, don't worry I'll explain it.

So hopefully the first thing you saw was that green thing (the antenna) leading to the Soldier, my subject, and said, "Hey that's a leading line!" If you didn't that's okay too, we're still learning.

So this photo in my opinion is a better example of a leading line than yesterday's or the day before's. Weather or not this photo is better photo than the last two is completely subjective.

I do want to point out a few things before I talk about the lighting situation I promised to talk about.

First off, the eyes, I just missed the eyes being in a point of interest. Those pesky eyes are a boon when you get them right and a groan when you miss them.

   He's looking in a great direction, towards another point of interest. But the eyes themselves are just out of a point of interest. I think this would have been a stronger photo if I was able to get his eyes in a point of interest. As it stands now it's still a good shot in my estimation because it has leading lines. You don't need ALL the elements of composition in your photos, just one. Please, at least one, like the rule of thirds.

So maybe the first or second question you had was, "What's up with light Felix?"

Well a couple things actually. First I'm mixing colors [wiki link] because I have a few different light sources.

   First there's the [I'm guessing] florescent light (a cool color) inside the building in the background, then there is a soldier nearby who is shining a red light (a warm color) to assist the soldier messing with the radio, and then there is my flash without a gel, which is white.
 
   I also have my flash set to rear shutter. Setting my flash to rear shutter makes the flash fire during the the last possible fraction of a second before the shutter closes. This allows colors like red and green to collect on the sensor before the flash fires and captures the last bit of time.
 
   To the right of the soldier is a red ghosting effect, that's because when his head was over there my shutter had just opened, and the red light was bouncing off his head and onto my shutter. As time went on he tilted his head [about 4 or 5 inches I would guess] and a little bit of red light was caught bouncing off his hat to his left, then he moved his head about another inch or so. It was at that point at which point my flash fired. Then the shutter closed. So what you're seeing is 2.5 seconds [my shutter was set to 2.5] of light bouncing off this soldier. as he moved it from left to right.

   The reason why there is not much red on the soldiers face from the red light, is because my flash, for that last fraction of a second, far surpassed the brightness of red light, and "froze" my subject. Having your flash set to normal would have "frozen" his head so that it was tilted towards the right, and then you'd have light trails on his left.

   But if you look closely there is still some red tinge cast on his face. This is probably a result of not only there being some red light on his face in that last fraction of a second my light flashed, but also because as he moved his head, some red light was bouncing off his head and collecting on my sensor in the time before my flash went off.

   In the background the building didn't move, it just radiated it's light, over exposing that portion of my sensor, which is why the windows look white, while there is a greenish glow around the building. The flash didn't reach that far, so I didn't overpower the green light.