Sunset with Colour
Date – October, 2015
Location – Currie, Edinburgh
Mastering Light – Off Camera Flash
Hello everyone and welcome back. Firstly, I would like to apologise for not having pictures of the setup but if you carefully analyse the photos you should get a rough idea of where I have placed the lights and setup.
You guys probably remember the red moon about a month ago (September 2015), something I was hoping to capture. Well for me it was an epic fail, I stayed awake, but by 1 am the exhaustion of the day had finally caught up to me and considering I had an early start the next day, I had to call it a night.
The following day (after a refreshing nights sleep), although I was disappointed about not capturing the red moon, I planned to make the most of its after effects by heading somewhere scenic and taking advantage of what Scotland has to offer at the same time.
When it comes to taking sunset/landscape photography (the golden hour), it’s always a rush against time. Initially we went for a two light setup, added a yellow filter on one of the flashes to create more colour. Towards the end of the shoot I decided to add another light and make it a three light setup.
Looking back and whilst on location I realise I could have done with another light stand – we only took one main light (calumet Octabox). I used the gorilla pod (which I always leave in my light and accessory bag) with a speed light and the snoot modifier, attached this setup to the branch of a tree. It took a little longer than expected to set up but it did the job very well. If anyone does not have one then I advise you guys go out there and buy one; they’re really cheap but really do come in handy.
One thing I have learnt from this shoot is that it is key to plan a shoot. Once we arrived at the location and parked up, we walked 15 minutes until we reached the area we wanted to shoot. I decided to take my Manfrotto roller to make the most of my lenses and flashes but looking back I realise I did not need so much equipment; in fact it actually slowed me down. In future, I will plan what I need to take on these types of shoots and advise others to think about what type of shoot you are doing and the equipment you will require.
Since there were only two of us at this shoot, I felt slightly rushed. Again in future I know to get to the location and set up earlier so there is more time to practice shooting as well as having a third person handy to assist where required.
This shoot was more about giving myself some feedback and putting into practice some of the things I have learnt. Fahad was really eager to get behind the camera so he took a few of me. I’m sorry guys – I wasn’t prepared for the photo and did look a little scruffy.
Equipment used:
- Pocket Wizard to trigger the flash
- Three Canon speedlite 600ex-rt
- Calumet Octabox
- Manfrotto light stands
- Canon 5dmkiii
- Canon 24-70 2.8 mkii
- Canon 70-200 2.8 mkii
- Gitzo tripod
- Gorilla pod
- Gary fong snoot
- Gary fong light sphere
You might notice that there are some inconsistencies with the exposure of the background and subjects face, on the day I was rushed but I wanted to get as much feedback for myself as possible. To give you an example, when we first started shooting I was using a shutter speed of 1/200 with 200ISO but within 25 minutes I switched to 1/80 with 6400ISO.
As I shoot in RAW, I had to process these photos through Lightroon with very little changes as I want to show you how they look before you tinker with them.
Hope this post was helpful and informative.
