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Ghetto Light…A Gangster’s Guide
As I’m sure you’re aware by now, photography is basically about recording light on a piece of film or a camera sensor. To take a photograph you need some light. Most days we can rely on the sun for that but occasionally we want to add our own light sources (especially at night and indoors but not exclusively), we also want to be able to control them.
If you have the keys to the bank vault then you could go and spend a wad of cash on some studio lights or a bag full of flashes (strobes) but a cheaper alternative, and one that offers some unique creative opportunities, is ghetto light. Ghetto lights are not a product. Ghetto is just a term to describe any light source that isn’t specifically designed for photography like a torch or desk lamp. It’s about being creative with the equipment you have available or can pick up for next to nothing at your supermarket or DIY shop (home improvement store). I’m going to run through three examples of simple ghetto light options that I use often and provide some example shots to hopefully give you some ideas of what you can achieve with some simple and cheap creative lighting. I’ve written this from a portrait point of view but that doesn’t mean the same wouldn’t apply to using light in this way for other subjects.
no wires...take these anywhere
Torches (flashlights)
Cost: from £1 up to £30 for a real snazzy one.
Pros: Torches are very portable which means you can keep one in your camera bag and use it anywhere. They come in all shapes and sizes and colours. LED torches these days are much kinder on batteries and will last for a fair time on a single charge. You can easily modify the colour of your torchlight using gels.
Torches can also be used for painting light trails whilst using a slow shutter (a topic for another day).
Cons: Torches generally are not very powerful which may mean shooting at a higher ISO than you would normally and this introduces noise and grain into the shot (if using as the only source of light). Torchlight is very directional like a spotlight so not very useful for lighting a large area. › Continue reading
Instant Film Heaven (Without Breaking The Bank)
standing on the bench
You may or may not have already read Paul’s earlier post about saving Polaroid (if you haven’t - what are you waiting for! durrh). In the post he gets all gooey-eyed and nostalgic about the pleasure of taking photos with instant film and I have to say I agree with him – there is nothing quite like it.
I can’t put my finger on what it is about instant film that is so appealing above and beyond digital photography which if anything is even more instant! Maybe that is part of the appeal. Instant film makes you wait and watch the picture be revealed where as digital appears on our lcd screens in the blink of an eye…..where’s the build up and dramatic pause? Traditional film goes too far in the other direction and makes us wait to get the film developed. That’s not good enough for some of us impatient photographers. We want to see the magic happen. That’s maybe where instant film fills a void. It’s got the instant gratification of an instant photo that you would get on a digital camera and all of the alchemy and magic appeal you get with film.
Sadly though with the impending death of Polaroid film, as Paul mentioned in his article, the price of Instant photography is sky-rocketing with packs of film selling for more than your grandma on eBay. There is I’m pleased to report one often overlooked alternative. Instax! › Continue reading
Marumi DRF14 Macro Ring Flash
Marumi DRF14 Ring Flash
I love taking macro shots, and long dreamed of buying a ring flash so that I could light them properly, but I could never really justify spending several hundred pounds for what is a fairly dedicated use. And then this Marumi piece of kit (in Canon and Nikon compatible forms) was released about six months ago, for under £100, and I decided to give it a whirl.
It takes the form of a flashgun shaped attachment which sits in the hotshoe of your camera, and has a wire leading to the ring flash itself. This is secured to the end of your lens using one of the adaptor rings – 55, 58, 62 and 67mm rings are provided which should cover most macro lenses (my Tamron SP AF 90mm macro, for example, has a 55mm filter size).
As you can probably guess from the model number, the guide number for the flash unit is 14m/46ft (at ISO 100), which is the equivalent of the Canon MR-14EX (but almost a quarter the price). The flash takes four AA batteries, and recycle time is around 4 seconds when batteries are fully charged (in my experience).
As you’d expect for the price, there are a couple of negatives to begin with: the build quality isn’t the best, the unit is entirely plastic and wouldn’t survive any kind of abuse or impact (and if you’ve knocked your tripod over as many times as I have, then that is a concern). Also, the adaptor rings have a habit of getting stuck on the end of the lens and are difficult to grip. In fact, I’ve given up trying to remove the one on my Tamron, it’s stuck solid! (Learn from my mistake, don’t tighten them all the way!)
So, it’s cheap, and it’s (supposedly) equal in power to the more expensive options out there – but how does it actually perform?
photo by P. Broome
Surprisingly well is the answer (check out the sample photos)! While you don’t quite get the complete ring effect (due to the flash bulb not being a full circle), the lighting is suitably all encompassing and non-directional, and the colour temperature produced is nice and neutral. I manage to get an average of about 120 shots from one charge of my Energizer 2000mAh AA batteries. Exposure control isn’t a problem, as you get full automatic TTL control of flash power (but not e-TTL), so you don’t have to worry about manual flash settings (just use the Flash Exposure compensation on your camera to tweak the amount of flash, if necessary).
I would question the quoted Guide range though, as when I tried using the flash for some portraits I found the maximum working distance (over which decent lighting control could be maintained) was probably closer to 5m than 14. But having said that, when shooting ring flash portraits you generally wouldn’t want to be further away than that anyway. (Thanks to John for pointing out that this shows that the flash is actually performing as promised, as I’d forgotten to divide the guide range by the aperture I was using! Gah…) › Continue reading
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