A Mix of Strobe and Ambient Light (No HSS)
Recently, I was invited by Rey Dacalos to join their Bikini Photo Safari, an event organized by Rob Lucas that gives both local and foreign photographers the opportunity to explore Philippine tourist destinations while photographing professional models in stunning swimwear. Their next event is coming up this February 2015.
Knowing it would be an outdoor shoot, I immediately prepared the right equipment to deal with strong ambient light. If your game plan is to use strobe lighting to balance the harsh shadows from the sun, you need to find a way to even out your exposure across the scene.
When shooting portraits outdoors, one of the most effective techniques is to blur the background to make your subject stand out. To achieve this shallow depth of field, you need to open up your aperture. But a wider aperture lets in more light, forcing you to increase your shutter speed to compensate.
Here’s the challenge:
Strobes and high shutter speeds don’t usually go well together. A safe maximum sync speed with strobes is typically around 1/200 sec. Under bright sunlight, however, your light meter might read something like f/1.4 at 1/4000 sec. That’s a big problem—especially if you’re working with strobes that do not have High Speed Sync (HSS) capability.
The solution: Neutral Density (ND) filters.
Think of an ND filter as sunglasses for your lens. It reduces the amount of light entering your camera, allowing you to shoot wide open (f/1.4, for example) while keeping your shutter speed within the safe sync range. This way, you can still use your strobe—either to fill shadows or to add direction and drama to your light.
ND filters come in different strengths, measured in stops. The higher the ND value, the darker the filter. Personally, I’m most comfortable using an ND8 (3 stops). Landscape photographers often go heavier, sometimes up to 8 stops, but for portraits, ND8 usually does the job.
In my years of shooting models, I’ve learned that mastering light is only half the challenge. Working with people is the other. Understanding the theory behind strobes and ambient light is fairly straightforward, but the practice can be tricky. The goal is to respond to changing light conditions instinctively so you can focus on the other variable in the equation—the model.
And there’s only one way to get there: go out and shoot. Review your work, critique yourself honestly, and aim to improve every time. Always challenge yourself to achieve a specific result, and embrace every shoot as a learning opportunity.
Keep shooting, everyone!