Today I put the gridded standard reflector onto my Simock E300 studio strobe. Then I set it to its lowest power output of 1/32nd and moved it up right under the ceiling. I sat myself onto the floor and took a picture. Then I added the Yongnuo YN-460II compact flash at its lowest setting of 1/64th through a 24″ (60cm) square softbox in my back and took another one. Here they are, first with
one flash:
And then with both:
I changed very little during post processing, except of course desaturating them to black & white and a slight tweaking of the luminance curve. The camera was the Olympus E-520 DSLR with the 50mm macro lens wide open at f=2. I used a slightly longer exposure than usual with 1/40th of a second, but the ambient light was still almost 5 stops under (that means: practically invisible here). The goal was to achieve some kind of dramatic or cinematic look without completely losing the room. You decide…
Thanks for viewing.
That’s one challenge I always face at home. We have pine-coloured wood panelling on the ceiling that has darkened with age – no chance of bouncing anything off the ceiling there ;0)
Is the stand in the background from the Scmock?
Well I didn’t bounce here – the main light from the front was done with a grid in front of the normal reflector, so it was hard and direct light. The one in the back was through a 24″ softbox, so also direct. And yes, that stand in the background is the T-303 from the Simock (and carries the softbox for the small Yongnuo flash), I have the Simock flash on a more sturdy and also higher ‘Dynasun’ W807 stand – see Amazon for details. But next time I’d probably even try a Manfrotto.
As a set tho, that 300Ws Simock was pretty unbeatable for 199€ including the light stand and a 36″ octabox.