Strobist: Cross Light
by Dan
It was a drizzly and cloudy Saturday afternoon for a photo shoot session. I volunteered myself to be the model of the shoot. Our group will setup a sports theme wherein I will be in running attire running on the bridge. Meeting place of the Photo-Toyz was at the gym where I workout but I had decided to just do the sauna will waiting for other photo-toyz members to arrive.
Just in time I was done with the sauna session, Ched and Paulo where there to meet me, too bad 3 members weren’t able to come due to work. It was around 6pm in the evening, the three of us decided to get some chow before we do the shoot since were hungry as well.
After our dinner, we walked for 15 mins. To the shoot location and upon arrival we rested for a while, and then took some photos of the lighted and colorful bridge of the shoot location.
Location: Alkaff Bridge
The Alkaff Bridge was painted in January 2004 in vibrant colours by Filipino artist Pacita Abad (1946–2004) and a team of rope specialists. The artist and her crew of helpers used 55 different colours and more than 900 litres of industrial-strength paint to transform the bridge into Singapore’s first “Bridge of Art“.
The bridge above is already an example of the cross light effect. The lights on the sides of the bridge make the pathway shine on both sides while making the middle portion of the pathway dark. The photos below will give the same effect by adding a subject making the bridges ark as a very good background.
Setup:
- 2 Speed lights: Nikon SB-900 and SB-600
- Nikon D300
Normally you don’t get much detail on online articles or blogs that I know of; regarding how others managed to get the shot and in this case cross lights. As for us, we will give the full details how we did it and below are the output from the full EXIF of the photo. Your light setup and camera settings will vary and its still up to you to decide which approach you want to achieve in getting the shot. We are just mainly sharing what we had done so as to give an idea to the readers how they could do it.
Take note, the session was done via Nikon CLS where the Nikon D300 is in commander mode.
Flashes Set to Remote Mode:
- Group A: SB-600: Manual 1/16
- Group B: SB-900: TTL
Photo 1
Photo 2
The 2 shots above shows how powerful the SB-900′s flash output compared to the SB-600′s, but you could argue it’s due to the settings of the flash and flash output could vary.
For this next photo, we balanced the flash output of the 2 strobes, see below
Flashes Set to Remote Mode:
- Group A: SB-600: Manual 1/16
- Group B: SB-900: Manual 1/16
Photo 3
As you may noticed the flash output of the SB-900 is powerful due to the fact it cast a shadow of the subject despite each flashes are set to the same manual flash output.
After the session, a group hug showing you the setup we had done. Take note the first 2 photos above, the light setup was place side by side straightly aligned to subjects shoulders by the side. You will know this by looking at the shadow cast of the subject wherein this will show opposite shadow cast on each sides. As mention awhile ago about the bridge’s middle portion to be dark due has the same effect to the subject in Photo 1 and 2. The last photo was taken by placing the SB-900 behind and SB-600 in the side front which is just like the group hug below. You will notice the shadow cast is in a forward position since the light was place behind the subject and casting a back highlight at the subjects side body and face.
We packed up our gear then headed to a nearby resto bar for some cheap cold beer and wide screen English Premiere football action.
