Rodney Campbell's Blog

My eldest daughter and I went out one evening with an idea to take a few images at night (in a cemetery). We took one flash (a Nikon SB-900) and a shoot through umbrella (although we weren’t exactly planning to use it like a normal shoot through diffuser).

The general plan was to have her stand somewhere with some environmental interest and hold the umbrella like one would normally hold an umbrella in the rain. I’d then arrange to sort of shoot the flash into the umbrella and hopefully shroud her in light with the diffused and reflected light from the umbrella also bouncing out into the environment.

Things didn’t exactly go to plan but with this first experiment we’ve got a few ideas for next time we try something like this 🙂

Note: These images (especially the wider shots) look much better when larger – so click any of the images below to see larger versions in an inline overlay slideshow gallery viewer.

I first started with the relatively narrow aperture (f/9) and a fastish shutter (1/125) and took a number of shots which faded to darkness very quickly – I liked this simple image the best

NIKON D7000 + 70.0-300.0 mm f/4.5-5.6 @ 70 mm, 1/125 sec at f/9, ISO 100

then I opted for a wider aperture and a long exposure (many seconds) with rear curtain flash in an attempt to drag in some ambient exposure and hopefully the flash would freeze my subject and umbrella. During the long exposure I also did a touch of quick light painting to light some of the environment on the left and right

NIKON D7000 + 70.0-300.0 mm f/4.5-5.6 @ 70 mm, 6 sec at f/5.6, ISO 100

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