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Using studio flash accessories
Techniques
24 October 2007 14:50
Studio flash can be modified for different effects by using a variety of accessories. The first thing you need to decide on is how hard or soft you want the light to be. Using direct flash produces harsh, high contrast lighting with heavy shadows, while for most portraits you’ll want to soften the light to give a more flattering look. A huge range of accessories are available for flash units to help you modify the amount of light reaching your subject, or even fine-tune the direction in which the light is falling, and for connecting your camera and measuring light.
Bouncing the light from the flash into a brolly gives a more diffuse light than using direct flash. Silver and white are the most popular colours to use, with white giving the softest light. Firing the flash directly at the subject through a white, translucent brolly gives a similar effect to using a softbox.
A sotfbox is a frame that fits over the flash head to hold a large sheet of white diffusion material in front of the light. This material softens the light to give an effect similar to window light. The larger the softbox the more diffuse the lighting, but it also cuts down the amount of light reaching the subject.
To highlight particular areas, or as a hair or background light that doesn’t affect other areas of the subject, use a snoot. This conical-shaped unit fits over the flash head to direct light at a part of the subject just like a spotlight.
To control light from spilling where you don’t want it to be, try barn doors. These have four independently adjustable flaps to allow you to fine-tune the direction of the lighting. This is particularly useful for lighting backgrounds or hair, as they can easily be moved to prevent the light spilling onto other parts of the subject.
If you’re lucky enough to have a flash sync socket on your camera you can plug your camera directly into most studio flash units. If your camera doesn’t have this feature but does have a hotshoe then all you need is an adapter that connects the sync lead to the hotshoe.
Before you connect the flash to your camera it’s worth checking that the trigger voltage of the flash doesn’t exceed the maximum recommended figure for your camera. Modern flash units will be fine, but for peace of mind make sure it’s lower than 6V if you’re using a Nikon, Canon or Sigma camera, lower than 250V for Olympus and lower than 400V for Konica Minolta.
A neater, but more expensive, solution is a remote trigger that slots into the hotshoe of the camera, doing away with the trailing leads. It also gets around any problems with trigger voltages. These remote triggers are available in either wireless or infrared versions.