The Desert, Part II

Joe McNally's second visit to the Dubai desert where he tests out some more small flash (Auto FP), as well as large flash.

[@ynadle1111]

you are absolutely awesome! as a teenage photographer i can't have a better inspiration than you!

[@handsomelok]

mind-blowing images .........

[@mrtrixterathotmail]

Great clip. You GOT skills!!!

[@MsPhotographychick]

I really enjoyed it! I learned alot... thank you!

[@SargentRay]

The reason you need that many flash for such and outdoor shooting is because of the relationship between all theses elements: Ambient light,shutter speed and flash duration. If your simply doing a portrait shoot in direct sunlight all you gave to worry about is killing the ambient light and filling the subject wit a flash. Since you'll probably need to shoot faster than you camera's fastest shutter speed to kill ambient you need to activate FP function to sync the flash at a higher speed.

[@SargentRay]

This is why most action shooters will use camera flash as opposed to studio lights. The latter are more powerful but have short flash duration between 1/200th and 1/400th sec at full power. So to be at least at 1/3,000th sec you need to reduce the power dramatically and that forces you to either bring the flashes closer or use more flash heads. So it is much more convenient to brig multiple camera flash which have a much shorter flash duration to start with.

[@nwagner122]

No, he would use a deeper DOF to reduce the sun (such as f/16). Using a shallower DOF such as 2.8 would require the use of ND filters or something of the like. He could use HSS, though, I doubt he did. He had no real reason to use a shallow DOF considering there was not a lot of a background there to be distracting. I agree with you, I would be shocked if he didn't use manual.

[@drecart1]

Awesome!!!!! What kinda Lens did u use for this shoot if you dont mind sharing??

[@QuadJunkies]

that is just plain SICK Im headed to the Desert this month and bought a couple speedlites. hoping to shoot something silimar. Looks very much like HDR .

[@nwagner122]

it might not have been a deep DOF, my argument was merely that one would not use shallow DOF in order to reduce the sun, as using a wider aperture lets more sun in, thus increasing the sun rather than decreasing the sun.

[@ashtonesia]

i think the thing here is to note is that the flash kills the sun at a degree giving you back the control and since there is already light in the scene it will add more depth into your photos anyone can achieve this with proper practice, im guessing that the 6 here and in the other vid is just enough to control over the exposure so the sun don;t get its way. very nice skills. or maybe im just wrong.

[@CarlBertossi]

great work !! keep up :) I have dream have opportunity to do that kind of work like you :)

[@nwagner122]

yes, I did either misread or something. Anyway, I see what you're saying and I am in agreement, shooting at 1/8000 plus the FP would work, and it does explain the lack of sun rays. Makes sense to me.

[@lukasgisbert]

Hi Joe, such a great location and what a shot. I just have a question, the end shots showing on the video, were they the originals or have you done any work on photoshop to get this final result. Thank you again for this great video.

[@photoeducationbydaniel]

rmstudio - If you understand manual photography with the Nikon Creative System you can achieve very faster shutter speeds e.g 1/8000th than a conventional studio flash system - If my subject is moving faster than 1/250th your sure fire going to have a form of blur at high speed. With closing down apertures to f22 and speeding up the shutter you can pretty much zero out back ground ambient light and use the Nikon SB 900's to control the overall lighting.

[@JerGol]

Is it perhaps something to do with the fact that he's in the desert in the middle of the day? Known for being fairly bright. With that much light, you can do whatever you like without doing silly things like shutter speeds better suited to being inside at night.

[@sunilajmeri2490]

Sir i love it your work

[@paradox963]

@Minefieldz Do you have any idea what your talking about. The 8000th of a second has nothing to do with freezing action when working with flash your flash duration does that the high shutter speed is used to knock down the ambient light. You could do the same thing easy with the Elinchrom Ranger he is using later in the vid and just use some ND filters to cut down the ambient light.

[@RyneBogart]

He shot a ton of them because he wants to keep a decently quick recycle, but also to overpower the sun. the sun was probably giving him f/22 and he couldn't make his flash unit put out f/22. A single flash will give you maybe f/8 or f/11 at that distance. Adding more flashes will increase your flash exposure, balancing out the overall exposure.

[@nwagner122]

If he shot at 1/8000 then obviously he did use HSS. That being said, I was mostly referring to your statement "He uses a shorter depth of field to reduce the sun" which wouldn't work. Using a shorter DOF (or larger aperture) would increase the sun not decrease it.

[@Naqui330]

omg !!! it goes to my favourites !! so damn nicee

[@Brotmaschine08]

wow. the sync speed of a the sb900s is 1/800th?? damn, thats fast... i was gonna ask how he could achieve this short exposure with that much light and a sync speed of 1/500 :D Question: how can i achieve something similar with a sync speed of 1/500? Crank up the f/number at the lowest ISO with a gray filter??

[@valordk]

now that's amazing. How is the background is so well exposed in such high speeds?

[@SargentRay]

He has to use that many flash in order to freeze the action because a fast shutter speed even synced with auto FP just doesn't do it. You also need a short flash duration. With any flash this is achieved by reducing the flash's power output. So to get both power and short flash duration you need to work with multiple flashes. Look closely as he only uses 1 flash for the portraits, where he doesn't need a short flash duration to freeze the action.

[@SargentRay]

So in this regard any flash including a studio strobe will do the trick even if the studio lights have a slow flash duration anywhere from 1/200th to 1/400th sec at full power

[@salimsalman5392]

Sill watching it after a decade

[@SargentRay]

If your flash duration for such important action freezing shots is too low you will get a ghosting artifact being created by the ambient light, no matter how fast your shutter speed is. This is quite apparent in Alexander Heinrichs' tutorial where he explains (in German) his studio lights had a much to long flash duration to freeze the movement of the ball. Search Folge 41 Fuball shooting on you tube. It's in German but you'll get the point.

[@TerenceKearns]

@AshtonPhoto That's a good question. And why wouldn't you dare argue? That's just silly. The shots are good, but there are different ways to skin a cat and I think your suggestion about the Alien Bees is a valid one.

[@eakiboz]

@Mhogan35 how can i sync to 1/8000 ?? or what do i need to do ? thx

[@QuadJunkies]

I shoot photos with a guy that does awesome work with only 2 -3 . Hes owns his own Magazine . Thats why I also mentioned something " similiar" . If I need more , Ill get them as I can afford to .

[@AlexanderAndreassen123]

Isnt it pretty bad to get sand in your lens?

[@shanman1168]

@Mhogan35 YEAH!!!! the sync speed!!!! Right!!! Now I get it!!! Brilliant.... I thought for a second.. "why in the hell doesn't he use strobes..." ...... now I GET IT!!!! COOL! hi-speed sync only works in TTL, right?

[@likeawhispr]

You can expect to lose several stops in real world shooting. Try to shoot close to your subject with a really high shutter speed and you'll likely notices darkness in one half of the frame. FP is "ok" at shutter speeds that are less than say, 1/500 as it's nice to add a bit of fill on bright afternoons to combat unwanted shadows, etc.

[@erbro]

The sync speed does not depend on your strobe, it depends on your body. And 1/8000 is silly as a sync speed. Try taking a picture on 1/8000 with any strobe, and you will just have a narrow horizontal band. The SB's are faster than studio strobes indeed. They flash in 1/8000 of a second, while studio strobes flash in 1/3200 of a second. I'm not sure the extra speed is necessary for freezing this action. Reduce the ambient light by aperture and iso.

[@Khalidazizphoto]

where is "The Desert, Part I" ?

[@shanman1168]

@Mhogan35 YEAH!!!! the sync speed!!!! Right!!! Now I get it!!! Brilliant.... I thought for a second.. "why in the hell doesn't he use strobes..." ...... now I GET IT!!!! COOL!

[@rgrebby]

Whats the music to this?

[@ELTEATROESTUDIO]

@Mhogan35 I understand the maximum sync speed a nikon can handle is 1/250th, are you serious a sync speed of 1/8000th can be achieved???

[@thethoeby]

@4Firearms no a 200MS is not a Sport Camera. Buy a hasselblad h4d 60 for Portrait and Fashon shots.

[@enticingimagery]

Overkill. Great as Joe is, you do not need 6 speedlights in this situation. 1 or 2 can do the job. I do think a lot of these videos are for show, but what a show!

[@kenlor71]

more flashes, faster recycle time, less stress on the system, quicker shooting.

[@citizenofvirginity]

@PippoWasHere He's my number one inspiration...

[@locknuter]

it looks HDR to me if you have 2 x 500w strobes you have 500w of light just from 2 places not 1000w of light so have a heap of speed light is like a long soft box you have only pread your light out

[@likeawhispr]

@Mhogan35 Why on earth would he need a sync speed of 1/8000? You can get the same result from simply shooting the background first to your satisfaction, then using a (quick) studio strobe and ND filter (shut out the ambient) to stop the subject mid-motion. When it's dark out, you don't need a fast shutter speed, all you need is a fast burst of light from a quality strobe as it (the light) becomes you shutter speed for all practical purposes. No way would I buy all those speedlights!

[@AMPATL]

I just want to know why they would rig up seven SB800s when one Alien Bee B400 with a Vagabond power pack would have done the job. Something I'm not aware of? Cannot argue with the shots though, nor would I dare.

[@AMPATL]

@spasmoid1971 I was just thinking of having to change out all those AAs!!! One B800 is $350 and a Vagabond is under $300. But you know what? I'm not the guy with a cool desert video, so who am I to say.

[@photoeducationbydaniel]

@rmstudio I want you to freeze the action of the guy doing backflips with a conventional profoto light setup :-) Blur city there you go! With the Nikon Flash system it all the way to the top end with 1/8000th of sec I'm sorry to to say that 90% of the time in a fashion shoot with the gurus nobody is doing extreme things except for a pose here and there and nothing much that would require a person to be faster than the average...

[@Nilz4FR]

@Mhogan35 that is wrong....I have shot sync speed of 1/8000 with the hensel, you just have to know how :)

[@Savagetechdude]

just a couple? You see that he has 6 there to over power the sun, right?

[@sheroki8]

I think the reason why he used 6 flashes here its bcoz he want to increase his recycling time.. I thunk the exposure here is f22 at max sync speed or his using high speed sycn.. Dont need 6 flashes here you probably gonna need 3 flashes to get f22..

[@axxex8727]

@Mhogan35 Is it me or the look like HDR's

[@likeawhispr]

most of you are getting the wrong idea- just see how much light you get from a speedlight, when syncing at an insane speed such as 1/8000... most of you will be in for a big surprise (shaking head). Shoot at 1/8000 with a few speedlights at f/10, then get back to me.

[@beef7790]

@PippoWasHere you totally can

[@ikarus19]

@rgrebby RJD2 -- "Ghostwriter"

[@AlexanderAndreassen123]

Holy shit, thats a lot of slaves

[@ElectricityTaster]

Fuckload of flashes. Almost looks as if they where greenscrened then layered in photoshop.

[@GsBBoyDan]

Should have used more flashes. ;)

[@surferjc]

@pbmax you my friend clearly do not understand what Joe is showing you here... and are also being rather rude about something you must not have much experience in producing yourself....!