I can't remember the last time I took a landscape shot with all this interest in lighting with flash so today I did some of both. It has been strangely warm for the last couple of weeks, despite a couple of recent "storms" that brought only rain--even on Parley's summit at 7,000 feet elevation. Today's meteorological activities included a little fog, some sun, and plenty of clouds:
70mm, 1/80th of a second, f/8, ISO 200.
It occurred to me that my twilight self-portraits had some pretty harsh light, even with the mini-soft box. I decided to give it another go, this time using a shoot-through white umbrella. Oh, and a gnarly case of hat hair:
40mm, 1/25th of a second, f/8, ISO 200, SB-800 with a 1/2 CTO gel shot through a white umbrella camera left at 1/8th power. CTO stands for "Color Temperature Orange." Gel is a fancy name for a piece of cellophane that fits over the head of your flash and is typically used when you need to balance the color of your flash with the existing light. A CTO gel, then, gives your flash that warm orange color, just like the lighting you have in your home. Using one of these ensures that your light is all the same color and you have a fighting chance of getting a decent shot--you can then freely adjust the color casts in your final image.
I use it here to contrast my mug against the cool blue sunset and to give the sense that I'm lit by a warm light right outside the back door.
I think I like the umbrella effect better than the mini-soft box. It's a little smoother for harsh faces like mine. Again, we put a relatively long shutter speed to work here so that the background sky would give us some nice color.
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