Nikon Speedlights

Today's post comes from the book Nikon Speedlight Handbook by Stephanie Zettl. It is available from Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, and other fine retailers.
 








THE ART DECO COUCH
LOCATION: The lounge of an art deco hotel
EQUIPMENT: three sb-900 speedlights, mono-pod, RadioPoppers, Nikon  D700 camera
CAMERA SETTING: f/2.8,  1/100  second , 1000  ISO
FLASH SETTINGS:  TTL ,  FEC  –1 EV for main light, FEC  –1.3 EV for accent light.  Each speedlightwas equipped with a RadioPopper.  The main light and accent light were controlled by an on-camera  master flash set to commander.

My camera’s white balance was still set to tung-sten from a previous shoot when I took the first photograph from this session, but I found the unnatural color palette appealing and decided to continue using it ( images 1  and  2) .

#1

#2

 I liked the spotlight effect of the direct flash on Mallory, but I didn’t like how there was no definition to her legs. To address this, I placed a second accent Speedlight on the floor to camera right and aimed it toward her legs. While it prop-erly illuminated her legs, it also caused a distract-ing cross shadow on the couch (images 3 and 4). By using a piece of black foam to flag my flash I was able to better control the light falling on her legs (images 5 and 6) .

#3

#4

#5

#6

 For comparison, I also photographed our beautiful model in the same setup with a soft-box and a more accurate color balance. You can see how these changes created a totally different mood in the shot (images 7 and 8) .

#7

#8