This posting is for my friend Jan, who was asking about the Nibbles picture the other day. Here I’ve re-created the somewhat elaborate construction so you can see for yourself.
The first thing I noticed was the lovely soft light streaming into our en suite. Just the thing for some farewell cockatiel snaps. Light from a wide diffused source such as this wraps around the subject. Light from a narrow, direct source is harsh because it hits the peaks, and doesn’t fill the valleys. The peaks are very bright, and the valleys dim. Friendly light trickles smoothly into the folds, fading gradually to dark.
For the backdrop I started with a sheet of gold cardboard ($2 from the cheap shop) propped up against the mirror. Later I swapped it for the black-side of a disused windscreen sun shield (which also makes a great portable
reflector). I shifted the gold card to light up the non-window side. The gold gives a warmer friendly tone.
The next ingredient is a Speedlite flash with diffuser cap, with wireless trigger on top of the camera. Sitting on its little stand, I can place it off to one side, and angle it every which-way for different effects. Up at the ceiling, off the white tiles, off the gold reflector, or straight at Nibbles.
For a long time I wouldn’t touch flash except in extremis, but now it’s my best friend. Remotely triggered by a wireless sender, you can place it off to once side for a much more pleasing effect. Placing the flash on top of the camera flattens your subject. Bouncing it off a large surface area is even better.
Another thing I never used to do is take photos on Manual mode. Couldn’t see the point since I’d set Aperture priority, and let the camera chose shutter speed. But having photographed Bunyip’s wedding, and done a very ordinary job, I’m now reformed. On that occasion I fixed the camera on f10/f11, but ended up with shutter speeds way too low, and lost a few (too many!) photos with subjects moving while the shutter speed was around 1/25.
What I’ve realised is that you can manually set the camera to aperture & speed, and the smart flash figures out how hard to fire.
So there you go, I’m now a flash convert. Even in bright Australian sunlight it’s useful because you can fill in the shady side, while the sun lights up the other. This leads me to another revelation. I’d always thought that a dark image meant it was photographed in low light.
Wrong! Photography in dark places is difficult because it narrows your options with ISO, shutter, and aperture settings, forces you to use a tripod, and precludes movement of the subject. If you want that effect’s much easier to just put the camera in Manual mode, and choose settings to make it as dark as you want.
You can’t do this easily in Aperture or Tv mode because by default the camera wants to set the image to 18% grey. To do otherwise you have to set Exposure Compensation up or down.
