Nikon CLS

I have to say, I love the Nikon Creative Lighting System (CLS.) For those who don't know, this is a system that lets you trigger off camera flashes wirelessly, without the need to buy radio transmitters. Basically, the mid-range and higher camera bodies can use the built in flash to send a series of pulses out that the flash units see. These pre-flashes tell the off camera flash units when to fire, and how much juice to use. While the system has some limitations, it can come in really handy.

This image here was made using this technique. I made it for a challenge over at www.dgrin.com called "Open or Closed." It did not survive the judging, but I am still pretty happy with how I did the lighting. It is supposed to be a little wooden guy opening a box, from which a glowing light is emerging. I think I cropped a little too tight. The box looks a bit more like a book than a box. But the lighting is pretty good, I feel. There is one Nikon SB-600 inside the box with a Gary Fong Light Sphere II clear attached. I also have some white craft foam in the bottom of the box to give it a little boost in reflectivity. There is a second SB-600 behind and below the wooden artists model to give him some separation from the background. That gives the highlights under his arms. The whole thing is shot in front of a big piece of black velvet. Black velvet is a great secret weapon for this sort of shot. Unfortunately, my velvet is a bit dusty and covered in cat hair, and the flash back there picked all of that up initially. So there is a piece of black craft foam between the rear flash and the velvet, to control light spill. I was still having some problems getting definition on his head, so I held a piece of white foam core board just above the frame to reflect the light back onto him. I have also found that the built in flash on my D200 can give some strong highlights when you are in close and use it to trigger like this, even if you have the built in set to zero power. It is as if it does not quite cut off before the shutter opens. So I have a small piece of white craft foam in front of my pop-up flash to bounce the light up instead of directly at the scene.