This photo was a huge reach – working with high-speed sync dramatically limits its range, and underexposing the sky was asking a lot. I like the result, but I have to be honest and admit that this photo probably would have been easier to fake in post-processing.
The key difference is that I wouldn't have thought to try this effect in post.
There's a lot to be said for photographing with a camera instead of with a computer.
It was fitting that a security guard challenged me for taking photos of this abandoned factory by asking if I was authorized. I was standing on the road at the time, so it was a short conversation in which I wasn't particularly helpful. It ended when he went to call his supervisor.
I left him to his radio and continued to do what I was doing. The guard's supervisor arrived with surprising promptness, and after they had a brief conference, he drove over to me to let me know that there was absolutely no problem with me photographing from the street.
I knew that already.
I suspect that I was the most interesting thing that happened on a rainy Sunday afternoon.
This one was taxing the little SB900 speedlight, and even though I boosted the iso to 200 and dropped the shutter speed to 1/250, shooting at f/8 still didn't give me as much depth of field as I really wanted.
If the site office is inside the site then you're just not getting in.
But then the sign maker also chose to use Arial, so that makes two things that I don't understand about it.
When playing with day-for-night lighting I would occasionally try to use the flash to mimic the harsh look of security lighting. This was one of those times, and while I like the result, I don't think it was my most successful effort.
Perhaps it was just a reaction to spending so much time on photos from a simple little point and shoot, but I have been feeling the need to go out and make things more complicated.
Last weekend I spent an overcast afternoon with an SB900 cabled to my D800. High speed flash let me underexpose the background while highlighting something in the foreground, and it just happens that signs are an ideal subject for this treatment. Sometimes I get lucky.
I have used this technique a few times before with my Olympus cameras. The biggest difference in working with the Nikon is that I gain tremendous latitude in refining and adjusting the exposure in post-processing. This does make the results better, but it also means that I can be even more aggressive, and more experimental, the next time that I try it.
