Turning Day To Night

I was originally going to title this piece “Chasing The Tail”. Yes, possibly a bit of a strange title for an image of a guitar player on stage, but bear with me.

The guitar player is my son, Olly (Or Oliver if you are part of his inner circle of friends). He’s not a model, he’s a guitarist and a damned good one (Yeah, I know; Proud Dad vibes blah blah blah). Anyway, Olly needed a couple of pics for his social media, and I needed an excuse to play with lights and prove a point.

The point?

Turning day to night “in camera”, rather than in post processing. Daytime? Yes, it was actually 13:30hrs when we started this shoot, on the 8th of February. And yes, it was outdoors on a car park in hazy sunshine. I’ve often spent time debating the need for a number of ELB 1200 kits from Elinchrom, due to their own version of High Speed synch which works incredibly well as I’ve shown previously. Lots of light to play with and syncing right up to 1/8000th sec with no issue and fully adjustable light output. Unfortunately, the ELB 1200 is as rare as hen’s teeth since it was discontinued. The ELB 400 is a viable alternative, but their batteries are now of an age where they will need refurbishing.

And why are the ELB 1200 and ELB 400 so damned good at high sync work? Well, for a start, they are the older voltage controlled technology, as opposed to IGBT that’s found everywhere now. IGBT cuts the output when anything less than full power is selected. That’s great for action stopping images and also increases battery life and reduces recycle time. Win – win!

However, that reduced output time is what causes an issue with your shutter curtain timing when you stray beyond your maximum shutter sync speed. Not so good, eh? The older voltage controlled technology caused the light duration to increase as the output was turned down, which is what we want to exploit.

Elinchrom’s “Hi-Sync” technology, essentially their version of High-Speed Sync (HSS), allows us to use flash at much higher shutter speeds than the camera’s standard sync speed by precisely timing the flash pulse to coincide with the entire duration of the camera’s shutter opening, effectively “filling in” the light as the shutter travels across the sensor, enabling shooting in bright conditions with wider apertures and freezing motion more effectively; this is achieved through a specialised flash head design and communication between the camera and the Elinchrom transmitter, allowing for a more controlled and powerful flash output compared to traditional HSS methods.

Key points about Elinchrom Hi-Sync:

Precise timing:

The flash fires a precisely timed pulse of light during the entire time the camera shutter is open, not just at the peak of the shutter opening like in standard flash sync.

Optimised flash heads:

Elinchrom Hi-Sync flash heads are designed specifically to work with this technology, providing the necessary light duration and intensity for good results.

Creative applications:

This allows us to shoot in bright daylight with wide apertures, freeze fast motion, and achieve more control over background blur.

Easy to use:

To activate Hi-Sync, simply select the “Hi-Sync” mode on the Elinchrom transmitter, making it a straightforward setting to use.

Bored yet? I know, I’m waffling. Sorry/not sorry.

So, now I’ve explained why I’m lusting after a set of ELB 1200s, (Helen, if you’re reading this; take note!). Let me explain how I managed with IGBT lights to create the image above, and No, it wasn’t traditional HSS.

My first step was to reduce the ISO to the lowest available, which with the E-M1X happens to be ISO64. This now gave me more headroom with my shutter speed. Next, I needed a small aperture so as to create the starburst effect with the lights at the back of the image, so I selected f16. And those three lights are speedlights. Two Yongnuo YN560II and an Olympus FL900R.

Now, regarding the shutter speed, I went for 1/500th of a second. This gave me a completely black frame when the lights were off. With all the lights being IGBT technology, they would need to all fire at full power if I want to get light across the full frame as the curtain travelled.

The three speedlights were set to full power and also zoomed to 105mm to help intensify the light. Frame right is an ELB 500 set to full power and firing through an 18cm standard reflector. It was placed just beyond Olly and above head height and angled downward to provide the accent along his right side. It was barely out of frame, as I knew the light available from the head would be reduced due to the shutter speed and also the ISO and aperture. During a standard exposure within the x-sync speed, the initial pulse of light happens during the fully open phase of the shutter, so you get get the best part of the light waveform during the initial flash. Because we are using a higher shutter speed, we are using the full length of the light output as the gap between the first and second curtain travels across the frame. This does mean the largest volume of light can actually be over with before the shutter gap has made much progress, and the exposure is actually made with the tail of the light waveform, as the light fades.

One of the drawbacks with this technique used to be the colour change in the light as it ended its pulse, becoming warm. However, most modern lights are incredibly well colour controlled, and you don’t really see the colour shift any more.

Frame left was another ELB 500 firing at full power through an 18cm standard reflector above head height and angled downward to create the accent along Olly’s left side. Again, it was barely out of frame so as to make maximum use of the light output.

An Elinchrom FIVE was also placed frame left, but just this side of Olly. It was again firing at full power though a Phottix Raja 105cm Hexa with honeycomb fitted. This provided the accent on the back of the guitar and in Olly’s hair. Yes, he could do with a comb, I know.

The trigger was an Elinchrom HS trigger, with the setting set to manual. If I had set the trigger to TTL, it would have caused the ELB 500s and the FIVE to “strobe” to cover the moving strip of the curtain, and it would have reduced the available light even further.

And the behind the scene stuff that I usually forget? You can thank Helen for the BTS stuff.