COURSE NAME: PHOTOGRAPHY AND AUDIO VISUAL PRODUCTION (VOCATIONAL) FOR UNDER GRADUATE (FIRST YEAR) PAPER TITLE: BASIC PHOTOGRAPHIC UNIT - 4 : CAMERA CONTROLS - 3 TOPIC: FLASH, TRIPOD AND FIRING MECHANISMS OBJECTIVES By the end of the session, students will be able to; 1. Understand the importance of supporting equipments. 2. Know the various supporting equipments available in the market. 3. Understand the uses of tripod, hood and flash mechanism. 4. Differentiate between tripod and monopod. 5. Operate various firing mechanisms. 6. Differentiate between various camera flashes. Introduction In today s program, we will talk about certain items which are not part of the camera, but without which sometimes it s become very difficult for the cameraman to get the desired result. These are known as accessories. Now, we will see some of the accessories, though there is no end to accessories. Because people manufacture their own accessories, they make their own accessories to get desired the results. However some of them are flash, tripod and firing mechanisms. Here are some firing mechanisms. We will see them one by one. Flash We will now see another accessory known as flash. It produces artificial light at 5500K which is day light temperature. It helps us do some of the things like for example taking pictures when it is dark or when you want to freeze a particular movement. Flash earlier on when it began was of a very different kind, people used to fire a particular light and in that light only which was continuous and one could take pictures. Then came the bulbs, then came the magic cubes and so many other things but now we have switched over to electronic flashes which are very handy and which are very useful and which are used in almost every
kind of photography. Whether it is day light photography or fill in purposes. If it is night photography, for creating light and sometimes in the studio only for creative effects. Flashes today are available as separate entity or also as part of the camera. Flashes come as independent unit in various shape and sizes. They are manufactured by different companies and have a different guide number thereby enabling a cameraman to work out the distance and the aperture that has to be used. However sometimes these come in the form of a built in flashes and they are used for fill in purpose. They are very handy particularly for amateurs. They can be controlled. If you don t want them you just have to press them and use a manual setting and they can be controlled if you don t want them you just have to press them and use their manual setting then you can be control the lighting yourself. The other advantage of flash light is that you want to capture the changing quality of light that is to say the quality of light is different and you want a different effect then these flash lights can be used for example in the studio you want to create an environment where you have plenty of flash lights available to you whereby you can get the effect. You can light every part of the frame or you can light distinct parts of the frame by placing flash lights at different places. I have seen a very beautiful picture of an industry taken by Mr. Mittar Bedi, who is father of a industrial photography in India. In which he had shown the various aspects, of the industry at different parts and at great amount of depth of the field. What he had done was that wherever you want light to fall he arranged the lights according and since flash lights are synchronized and they use a slave unit therefore firing one flash could fire all the flashes. It was a great use of facility available in the flash and results were fantastic. These flash lights are basically tubes containing xenon gas. Now what happens is that these can fire at anything from 1/1000 of second to much lower down to 1/200 of the second. Latest Flash can fire as fast as 1/50,000 th of a second or higher. The advantages of this flashes is that they are so fast that the movement can be captured. These flash units are also synchronized with the camera that is to say if a flash a unit is synchronized at the speed of 1/125 then whenever you take a picture using this flash you will be able to take a picture at same time as that of the timing of 1/125 of a second or of smaller duration for example this flash will work at 1/60 of a second also, 1/30 of a second also and downwards. It will work like that. Thereby giving you a kind of picture which has a mix or fresh as well of the ambient light. Now studio flashes for example this is a studio flash. This contains modeling light which is the bulb and also a flash light. This is of great advantage to a cameraman. With the modeling light he can see what lighting effects are likely to be while with the flash light he can get the
desired results which he had visualized while using the modeling light. I have the term guide number. Every flash has a particular guide number which helps the photographer to work out the aperture at which the particular a shot will be fired. For example if the guide number is 24 and the distance is 6m than the aperture will be 4. Like that you can work it out. But in today s technology when you have a light meter available to you this things are not really taken care off. However if you don t have light meter and you have only one flash then it will be a great help. Off course this is also shown through a dial on the flash. Here is dial and the guide number. Thereby you can work out the aperture otherwise you will be grouping in the dark. But with this guide number of this flash and also at the distance you can say alright my aperture in the camera would be f4 and you go on shooting you will get perfect pictures. I have already given you a example of use of multi flash in case of Mr. Mittar Bedi. You can use many flashes at the same time without and by just firing by one flash because they all fire simultaneously and the time for which you record say for example if it was 1/125 of a second that was a synchronized timing. Imaging your firing 1/1000 of a second therefore there is a no problem at all. Light travel so fast that all the flashes work together and you can take a picture where various lights are working simultaneously. Another example is that of a flood bank where by flashes put in bank kind of thing or 8 or 10 flashes, are put together to give it great intensity thereby taking a picture. I have seen one Pierelli calendar, in which the photographer has used these kind of light banks. And today they are very common and people are using them wherever they can and wherever its available to get the proper even lighting for the whole setup. We will now see the very creative and also interesting use of flash, the technique part of it as I have mentioned some other terms earlier on the technique is for example fill in flash wherever there is a shadow, you through flash you can either neutralize or reduce them. Similarly we have bounce flash, we, we have the flash facing the sky or some other surface may be on sides and the light is bounced on to the subjects thereby giving it a kind of soft lighting. We also have umbrellas must have seen them flash umbrellas whereby the give a kind of light which is very soft. Sometimes the umbrella is so big that the entire model can stand in front of it and can get even lighting. Also as I mentioned already we have slave flash which fire another flash without actually being exposed to it. So these are some uses. The flashes can also be used with gels for example if you want to create a background which is say red in color with a model is sitting in front of it, you put a red gel on to the flash the light that is falling on the background particularly, if it is black or white or grey then the red effect
will come and if you have multiple colors of gels used at the background or anywhere or on the face also of the subject than you will get that kind of creative lighting through this. So gels are another thing whereby you can create effects of your choice. We will see some of the drawbacks of the flash lights. For example flash light cannot be fired at a very close distance they are dangerous also. Some of these flash lights are speed lights as we call it. They are so strong if we fire within 1meter into the eyes of the subject, then the subject may turn permanently blind. So one should be careful while using this flash light. Secondly the distance part flashes work fine up to a certain distance my experience is that about 12 feet is ok beyond 12 feet they lose effect you may only get the kind of the image which is recognizable but not a proper one, similarly at less than 5 feet s also they burn out the entire subject you get the white picture so therefore while using this flash lights one should be careful in term of the distance in terms of the strength of the flash light, the intensity of the flash light. Next thing is the red eye effect. If the axis of the flash and the retina from which the light is falls back is the same then you get a red eye effect. A flash turns a picture into flat lighting. The shadows are so strong that the details of the face on which it is falling directly they are eliminated and what do you see is flat picture of the subject which is not a presentable thing. One should be careful and use flash as creatively as possible. Tripod and Monopod We will now see yet another accessory known as tripod. Now this tripod is basically used to stabilize the camera and to reduce movement, in fact to cut down movement all together. It has basically two major parts. One is the three legs that we can see and a head on which camera is mounted. The tripod as I said basically has three legs and a head on which camera is mounted. The three legs enable you to raise the height of the camera or adjust it as per the requirement. Head is a very important part of the camera because on this moves the entire camera. This is one of the part of the head that I have got for you. This is fixed on to the camera and then the camera is placed on the tripod. Thereafter it can be tightened up and left in a stable position, whereby you can take the picture and also the duration of exposure can be controlled. You want to have longer duration it can be done because the camera is stable. You put it on the bulb and It keep it open for half an hour it will remain like this or it will remain like that and it will carry on until you close the shutter. A tripod is very essential and
it is a big help when it comes to taking shots which require longer duration. Now I would like to go little beyond the tripod and that is about the stability, now stability can be achieved by doing so many things, tripod is one of them. The other thing which will help in creating stability is how you hold the camera. Normally when we hold the camera close to our chest we get one the other one and this one we get a support, people hold camera like this, like this or like this which is not good. One should try and create as much stability as possible using whatever is available suppose tripod is not available try and make use of what is available around you. I have taken a picture during in the Kumbh Mela of 2004 in Ujjain where I did not have the tripod at all. All I did was that I had a kind of railing available to me. I tied the camera on to the railing and I have taken an exposure of 15 seconds. You can imagine and it just come out well I must say the picture got an award also. This is what you can do when you don t have the facility available. Other things that are available to you are supports of the wall behind you. Take help of the wall. A wall on the side take help of it, sit down, your back side and see you will get greater amount of stability tripod is just one of them. Another thing which is very useful is monopod it is another kind of stability providing agent which has got only one leg now this leg can be extended like in the case of tripod and all you have to do is to fix the camera on top of it and you get a third leg which is not as tardy as a tripod because it is only one leg but then with your two legs and this third leg you can get a great amount of stability and take a picture of your choice. So tripods and monopods are very useful accessories and one should try and use them carrying a monopod is much easier if are you are young and if you can hold a camera otherwise carry a tripod, tripod comes in various sizes,various heights and in various weights also. It has many adjustments besides the head it has also adjustments like it has got spirit level where by you can ensure that your picture, your camera always parallel to the ground. It also has adjustment like the bottom also you can fix a camera and take close ups shots using the same facility of stability in terms of what you call a in terms of taking say a close ups shots or taking macro this camera will go down to the level of the floor and you can take a picture from there. It depends upon you how much you want to use it, how much you can afford and, but the tripod is very important essential accessories particularly shooting under the low light or shooting for certain environment which you think is very essential for your particular result. Firing Mechanisms
We will now see the final of the accessories for this program and that is firing mechanisms. Firing mechanisms are of various types. Of course the most important and most useful is the one which is the direct finger pressure with which we fire the camera. Then we also have direct mechanical ones. These are the some of them these are mechanical in the sense that you fix them not with the digital cameras but with the good old cameras, the analog cameras they fit into the shutter itself and you press from one end and it fires and it hangs on till you release it. These are some of examples. This one has got this thing, this one got a different kind of arrangements, these are manufacturers arrangements. But the fact is they all are mechanical kind and they are used for firing cameras which have this system available in the shutter itself. Direct electrical system is also available where the electrical connection is given and passed on to the camera and it fires. Next is radio where by radio is sound basically, it gives the signal to the camera and it fires. Light is another way of firing. Like we have in the case of flash lights, we have lights available, it fires one flash here will fire all other flashes. The advantages of this are there is no direct or physical contact with the camera and we can take pictures from a distance. Some of the systems that are available are known as cable release, this is a cable release. Then we have a air release, in that what happens is there is a hollow tube and at the other hand there is like in the case of say blood pressure instrument what he does is it presses the air so similarly you press the air and it fires the shutter. Next is electrical release whereby electricity is used. Then you also have delayed action timers for example you want to fire a particular you take self timer isn t it that is same that what we do is we make an adjustment and we press the shutter than we go in front of the camera assign their 8 second, 10 seconds, whatever is the timer set, it fires there are after the expiry of that particular duration and then we have remote releases whereby from a distance for through a remote system you can fire the camera. Conclusion To conclude today we saw some of the important accessories which are available for making your picture more creative. They make it more useful; make it as per your choice. The advantages and disadvantages have been discussed. Just to sum it up for example we have the flash, flash is a great advantage at the same time if it is not used creatively it can be a big disadvantage. We have the tripods. Tripod is very essential when it comes to working in low light or when you want stability in your picture. Tripods are absolutely an accessories if you
want a sharp image because if there is a slight movement than the image will be spoiled, you will get kind of the movement which and there will be blur in the picture. You were also have a sister of tripod which is known as monopod use creatively, it can be a big help. And lastly we have the seen the firing mechanisms, which are very essential when it comes to firing from a distance, there are various mode available the mechanical mode, the air release and also the remote control. So today I think remote is more used because otherwise you have a finger pressure system which is also available in camera itself that all is we have for you today thank you.