The Speed Light In The Studio - Fujifilm EF X-500 Makes A Debut

The use of speed lights in indoor situations is sometimes looked upon with condescension - there are so many dedicated strobe units that run off power packs or as monoblocks that the studio shooter comes to think of that as the only legitimate way to proceed - how very limiting this is....

I decided to wring out the new Fujifilm EF X-500 speed light by making it do what my normal Elinchrom EL250 and EL 500 lights do - make artificial sunlight for my model car dioramas. This is pretty stiff going as the Elinchroms - and any other dedicated studio strobe systems - have the advantage of lots of light shapers and dedicated control systems.

In the case of the Fujifilm I elected to use it to simulate street lighting on an industrial site. This is because of the small nature of the flash tube in the housing - it can achieve far sharper shadows than the larger tubes and reflectors used in studio strobes. The fact that I had only one flash to illuminate the transport yard was made up for by use of white Foam-Core sheets as reflectors. Steve Sint is emphatic in his books about the use of single light sources and reflection boosters.

Connection between the camera near the model and the Fujifilm EF X-500 up on a light stand like a street lamp was achieved with one of the Captur sets from the shop. The one I have is a non-TTL version that sends a radio signal from hot shoe to hot foot. The fact that the hot foot has a tripod thread in the bottom means you can rig the thing up anywhere that you can sling a 1/4" bolt.

Not surprisingly, it works...and the shadows cast from the model edges are sufficiently hard and sharp to match in with the scale of the scene. People have an instinct for shadows that even they might not realise - they can zero in on false lighting even if everything else is perfect. It is the same with their ability to see whether a person in an image is real or just a scale model - it takes a master miniaturist to fool the human instinct for a face.

The Fujifilm flash can also be utilised with modifiers like the Mag Mod diffusers and gels. It is a tight squeeze to put the rubber belt on the removable bezel, but once on there it need not be taken off. I elected to warm up the scene for a late afternoon look with some of the orange gels that clip onto the basic Mag Mod set.

But how can you tell where the flash is going to go before you shoot it? After all, that is the great selling point of the studio strobe systems with modelling lights - you can position the things precisely and look at the shadows as you do. Well, the Fujifilm flash has an LED panel under the main flash head that can be switched on independently of the flash tube. It has a considerable range of brightness that is controlled on the back screen and as long as the flash head is pointed forward, it approximates what the discharge will do.

I used it to determine where the street light would flood in through the overhead skylights of the Mangina Transport before I triggered them off. A little long exposure made sure that the shop lights would also register. If you look carefully you will see that the floor in the MT shop is clean...but this will change very shortly. I used to work as a labourer at a construction site and can testify that repair shops dealing with earthmoving equipment are rarely clean...

Verdict for the EF X-500 in a studio situation? Good on-site substitute for the Elinchrom EL250. It will make photography at exhibitions a lot easier.

The Shadow Of Things To Come

Sounds like a takeoff on an Alexander Korda pre-war movie, doesn't it? And if you've no idea what I am talking about you can google Things To Come. It is worth watching on Netflix.

This weblog column is brought to you by the second button from he left on the are Nikon SB5000 - a

button I never saw before on a Nikon speed light. It's the one that looks like a a little human figure with a shadow tapering off behind it. It's one of the final reasons to use this speed light in place of a studio strobe light.

Don't get me wrong - a studio strobe light is a wonderful thing. I know, I own five of them and they mostly do what I mostly want most of the time. They have the distinct advantage of taking big light modifiers and pumping out lots of light. Speed lights, on the other hand, largely don't, and have the further disadvantage in not letting us see what they are going to do before they do it. Studio strobes all have modelling lamps screwed into the reflector area and you can play with the light up and down as if it were a hosepipe. You may not get what you see exactly but you can get mighty close.

The disadvantage of the studio strobe is that it needs the 240vAC power line all the time.

Well, now you can have a powerful GN of 34...similar to the SB 700...various TTL and slave or commander modes, advanced wireless shooting AND a modelling light.

It is not intended to stay on forever - you trigger it with that second button and it sends out a pulsed strolling light from the tube. You can see the effect of the light on your subject in a sort of a blue-white light. It is not subtle - it's a blast - but it is particularly good for visualising where the shadow you create will go.

Sometimes, as in the case of ROBOR, the shadow is as important as the subject.

Yes, it will use up battery power. Yes, it will get a squawk of protest from the delicate and camera shy. But it may save you from making a monster out of a Mother-in-law...

See the Nikon SB-5000 Speedlight on the Camera Electronic website here

Closing The Barn Doors Before The Lightning Bolts - Elinchrom

Users of Elinchrom studio flash units please draw up a chair and sit down - this one is for you. Visitors who use other systems may sit in and pick as much out of it as they can.

I used to use as much light in a studio to take picture as I possibly could. Pushing the sliders up to the top on the Elinchrm EL 500  and 250 units was common and when they went off it looked like Alamagordo. I got up to 5 Elinchrom heads and had to start wearing a Royal Navy flash hood and gloves before pressing the trigger. Floor tiles were buckling from the heat...

This was in the days of trying to shoot time-expired X-ray film as sheet film with f stops in the 128 region. Please don't ask me why in case I figure out an answer...

Nowadays with the Fujifilm cameras and their ability to do jpegs to order, I rarely even use two of the 250 w/s. heads, and when I do I am very economical with the light. It passes through a number of mazes before it gets to the model and after that I do my best to scoop it up again and feed it back into the electricity grid.

The standard 21 cm reflector is the one that lets me employ the barn doors. Elinchrom have made the barn door holder into a dual-use device. You can put on barn doors of various types - and you can put them on all four sided of the holder if you want to - and you can utilise the holder as a way of adding honeycomb grids or gels to the light at the same time.

I reserve the honeycombs for the 18cm reflectors but have made up a varied set of gels from Lee filter material - the heat resistant variety - to add spice to the glamour girl pictures. The same sliding rails that support my home-made gel holders are the place where the Elinchrom-made honeycombs slide in.

Do the barn doors completely trap the light? No - they never do, no matter which brand you get. there always has to be a place with standard barn doors where the two elements meet and it is never light-tight. However, , when you need to shield the backdrop or other elements of the scene from the blast of the strobe it is certainly possible to flag off the light with Foam Core board or matt board attached to the metal barn doors. I have a box full of varied terry clips to do this and as long as the flag does not need to be too big it works a treat. If you need a full size board as a flag you are better off using a Manfrotto grip designed for the purpose and positioning it with a separate light stand.

And occasionally you need an assistant standing on one foot with both arms in the air and a strained look on their face to absorb the light. Disregard their language as they are under stress...