Photo recipe; Combining flash and sunlight

Sunday 18 November 2018, 15:15 by Erik van Rosmalen | 7,014 views | 11 comments

This article was translated from Dutch with the help of AI. Read the original.

By combining flash and natural light, you can create an interesting image in almost any lighting situation, especially if you can use high-speed flash synchronisation. A small change in the flash or sunlight immediately gives you a completely different photo.

A little while ago, I was in the Moerputten, a nature reserve on the edge of 's-Hertogenbosch. It is mainly known among many landscape and model photographers because of the railway bridge there. It is no longer in use, but has become a rewarding subject for photography.

With model Nayke, I did not go to the bridge, but stayed in the open field, close to the car park. The weather was very changeable that day. One moment there was bright sunshine, and a little later the clouds dominated, although it remained very bright outside.

To give the cloudy sky a role in the photo below, I placed one flash to the right of Nayke. The sun was behind my left shoulder. It was hidden behind the clouds, but still provided some beautiful, diffuse fill light. Nayke deliberately looks away from the flash. By underexposing slightly, the threatening structure of the clouds comes through well.

ISO100, f/4 and 1/1.600s, at 70mm
My ELB400 has Hi-Sync, Elinchrom's technology that makes it possible to use flash at much shorter shutter speeds. If you cannot get around the synchronisation time, it is not possible to add flash to a photo in this way.

During the same shoot, just a few minutes later, we created a completely different image with almost the same flash setup. The only difference was that I swapped the 70-200 for a 50mm lens and chose a slightly wider aperture.

In the photo below, in the tall grass, with the flash once again behind Nayke, we created a much more summery atmosphere. The sun came through a little more and the aperture was opened one stop further.

ISO100, f/2.8 and 1/1.600s, at 50mm

About EXIF...

In Facebook groups and on other photography platforms, you often see that a lot of value is placed on EXIF. I am less concerned with it. Of course, you can work out where that greater or shallower depth of field comes from.

And why there is or is not blur or movement in a photo. However, you can also work out much of this from what you see, and that is even more instructive. In addition, copying settings is of course no guarantee that it will produce the same photo.

What an image looks like does not only depend on ISO, aperture and shutter speed, but on various other factors, such as focal length, the amount and direction of the 'natural' available light, colour, setting and so on. So do not fixate on the EXIF!

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