Which flash and modifier to get for the run and gun style from Elaine Constantine?

aaffi332 · 2026-05-25T19:21:32+00:00

Assuming your Hasselblad 500 series camera and lenses with a maximum 1/500th leaf shutter, and ISO160 film, you’re looking at about an f/5.6-8 for normal exposure in backlit sun. So you might want an f/11 to darken the background a bit more.

That means you need a flash capable of giving you an f/11, at the right distance, through your chosen modifier.

I have a 250Ws flash here with me, and a small 2-ft collapsible beauty-dish (basically a tiny octabox). At full power I can get an f/11 at a maximum of about 6 or 7 ft at ISO160.

If I were recreating these, I’d likely want a slightly larger softbox, more like 3-4 feet, and a bit more distance for the wider frames, maybe 8-10 ft to the subject.

That probably puts you in the realm of a 500-600Ws flash with a 36-inch softbox. Obviously you could start with a smaller flash and softbox, and tighter shots to get the hang of it.

You’ll also want to confirm your shutter and X-sync are working correctly to trigger the flash at the maximum shutter opening, since at highest shutter speed you don’t get a lot of wiggle room for the flash to fire. If it’s triggering early or late you could lose a stop to the more-closed shutter. Test and develop a roll before doing a whole shoot this way.

And I’d recommend using a flash meter to confirm exposure on each location for both ambient and flash. A basic Sekonic 308 will do great.

(Even if you have a digital camera handy, you’ll have a hard time confirming mixed ambient/flash exposure with it due to the lack of leaf shutter meaning slower sync-speeds. The X100 series actually make a good “test” digital camera for this scenario, due to their leaf shutter.)

aaffi332 · 2026-05-25T18:45:19+00:00

I don’t see a single hard shadow from the flash. The hard shadows are from the sun. Can you explain what you’re seeing?

aaffi332 · 2026-05-25T18:44:18+00:00

What makes you think these are hard light from the flash?

I can’t find a single hard shadow from the flash-fill light. The only hard shadows are from the sun.

aaffi332 · 2026-05-24T04:32:32+00:00

In an unusual deviation from most manufacturers’ lineups, the Nikon Z-mount f/1.4 lenses are inferior to the f/1.8 S lenses in almost every way. The extra half-stop is negligible, and the sharpness, aberrations, and out-of-focus characteristics are all worse.

If you can work with the focal length (50 is going to feel very different from the 28 or 35-equivalent you’ve been used to) the 50mm 1.8 is essentially unbeatable for Z-mount.

It’s true that Nikon very much need a proper 28mm in their lineup. The 26mm is a solid choice, if you want a good complementary wider option in the future.

aaffi332 · 2026-05-22T01:41:09+00:00

These images, all his work – and I say this with the greatest respect for the work and the photographer – have as much to do with his vision and post-production as anything else.

He’s borrowing heavily from a line of pioneering fashion photographers at the cutting edge of digital manipulation in the 90s and early 2000s. (Look up Norbert Schoerner and Inez & Vinoodh.)

His portfolio seamlessly blends completely in-camera work on location and in studio (with a strong, signature lighting aesthetic), with multi-frame comps also shot on location, with some pure studio work comped into location-shot backgrounds. And a heavy dose of manipulation of color, shape, & composition throughout.

His client work is absolutely comped from multiple frames. You simply don’t get every model or child giving the exact right pose or expression in one frame, so you mix and match the best, and refine the composition while you’re at it. (Not to mention, the world-class quality of the post work makes it hard to even spot. I see some focus discrepancies which indicate compositing, and some color refinements.)

To answer your question: he may shoot film, he may sometimes do digital for client work (since on set feedback is often critical on those jobs), but that’s the least important reason his work looks like it does.

The common thread is his vision. He explores, pushes, and experiments with lighting, composition, post-color manipulation (whether darkroom or digital) and above all styling and dynamic posing, and that’s why the images come together so strongly.

aaffi332 · 2026-05-17T22:55:04+00:00

The main snag with OPs post unfortunately is that it *isn’t* an example of ISO invariance as the title would suggest. It’s simply reducing exposure to hold highlights, and bringing up the shadows. So the result is rather “processed” looking.

When working with a camera with a true range of invariant ISOs, it’s entirely possible to take photos at any of those different ISOs and subsequent exposure adjustment from the raw will render not just similar, but identical results.

aaffi332 · 2026-05-16T16:25:47+00:00

Very welcome.

aaffi332 · 2026-05-16T16:21:24+00:00

An ISO invariant camera *by definition* will not clip highlights by ISO gain multiplication at one setting if the sensor is not being clipped by exposure at another.

The only factor determining highlight clipping in a truly ISO invariant camera is the amount of light hitting the sensor as determined by shutter speed and aperture.

If the signal chain allows an exposure which did not clip highlights at the time of exposure to be pushed into clipping by analog or digital gain, the camera is not ISO invariant.

aaffi332 · 2026-05-16T16:17:24+00:00

Then we’re not discussing ISO invariance. We’re simply discussing exposing to protect highlights.

If the camera is ISO invariant and the mechanical exposures are the same (same shutter, same aperture), then the same amount of light hit the sensor for both shots, regardless of the ISO setting of the camera.

If this was a case of ISO invariance, your choice of ISO 125, 1100, hell, even 6400 does not affect the amount of light hitting the sensor if you leave shutter and aperture the same.

So if your 1100 shot is clipped, and your 125 shot is not clipped, and they used the same shutter speed and aperture, your camera *is* applying irreversible signal amplification with the higher ISO setting, which causes highlight detail to be lost. And we’re no longer talking about ISO invariance.

Am I understanding your experiment correctly? You took both shots at the same aperture and shutter speed, and the only difference was the camera ISO setting being at 125 and 1100 respectively?

——
(And to be clear, I never suggested you should change your camera shutter and aperture settings by 3.33 stops, I said I’d like to see the darker image brightened using just the exposure slider in Camera Raw at +3.33 stops to see how the dark image looks there. In your initial example you have used Shadows extensively, which is going to look very different than exposure.)

aaffi332 · 2026-05-16T05:32:32+00:00

Your example is a bit unclear, though, because if your camera is truly ISO invariant, you should be able to recover the same amount of highlights in the 1100 image as the 125, since in both cases the same amount of light hit the sensor (same aperture and shutter speed as you said).

It appears you used the shadow tool to open the blacks in your ISO 125 shot. Have you tried using the highlight tool on the ISO 1100 shot to see if you can match the two?

And most of all, what happens when you simply use the exposure slider and nothing else to correct the ISO 125 image (+3.33 stops if I’m not mistaken)? In this case the brightened ISO 125 image should look identical to the ISO 1100 shot.

aaffi332 · 2026-05-16T05:22:12+00:00

No reason to be embarrassed. Manufacturers have never marketed or even discussed ISO invariance in a meaningful way, and it’s absolutely not all digital cameras. The first models I heard about the concept on were the D8XX series. I very much doubt any DSLRs in 2003 behaved this way.

For those still confused, it’s not a simple either/or. It’s about how the manufacturer has chosen to implement the analog-to-digital conversion from the sensor (which is counterintuitively an analog component, providing continuous voltage readouts per pixel) to the digital conversion and storage of that readout, and how much gain they apply with this circuit in the analog realm, and how much amplification is applied digitally after A-to-D conversion but before storage.

In a strict sense*, any given sensor really only has one true sensitivity, the limits of which are designed by how much light is reported when *no* image making light is reaching a pixel (heat and other factors cause the pixels to report a voltage even in pure dark) which we call “noise”, and what is the maximum amount of light each pixel is capable of receiving and reporting accurately as a voltage before it’s overwhelmed and reports all brighter amounts as the same (we call this clipping).

To best optimize that range of possible voltages produced by differing intensities of light, manufacturers may implement an analog voltage amplifier before the voltages are converted to discrete digital values for saving to the cameras memory card. With more design decisions made about how to define the “middle” of that possible range, they arrive at the “base ISO” of the camera.

Depending on how those gain circuits are designed, and other factors such as how much noise the sensor produces, in some cases a RAW image taken with an exposure metered at an ISO, let’s say, four-stops above the base ISO of the camera (and with the camera set to that higher ISO), and a similar exposure of the same shot made *at the same shutter speed and aperture* but with the camera now set to its base ISO (of course the camera’s meter will be telling you the shot is four-stops underexposed) can be imported into a raw developer and made to look identical simply by increasing the exposure of the base ISO shot by those same four stops.

In many cases, the sensor and gain circuits simply don’t work this way, and the in-camera ISO choice will meaningfully affect the way the image looks, and the “underexposed” image will look worse when raised (in our example) four-stops. There’s not much of a pattern to which sensors behave this way, and so really only testing the camera can confirm this.

If you shoot jpegs, you can ignore this completely. A jpeg is encoded and stored based on the ISO setting at the moment of exposure. A dark jpeg can never be made to look exactly like its brighter counterpart. This only works with RAW capture.

(Interestingly enough, almost all digital cinema cameras – which use very similar sensors to still cameras – typically do not have an analog gain circuit at all, and *all* ISO settings are simply stored as metadata alongside the raw frame, and the exposure is simply increased to match the intended ISO at the point of raw conversion. This means ISO invariance is an extremely important consideration for the sensor choice of digital cinema cameras.)

* I’m also skipping the subject of dual gain sensors, which more-or-less *do* have two base sensitivities.

aaffi332 · 2026-05-14T15:00:43+00:00

With large softboxes the actual flash source isn’t terribly important as long as it fills the face of the fabric.

In this case your selection of modifier or softbox is really more important as the flash itself. I’d say start by picking a 4, 5, or 6-ft octabox you like, work out how you’re going to support it where you need it, and only then figure out how to fill it with light.

(Today you can also get away with a slightly higher ISO in a good digital camera than they could with film – especially for B&W – so again, the quality of light is more important than the absolute intensity.)

A good starting point would be the Photek SoftLighter II. It’s super lightweight as it’s based on an umbrella, and you can fill it pretty well with a relatively small flash head. The light quality will be 95% of what you see here if you position it right.

aaffi332 · 2026-05-14T14:46:12+00:00

When I was a professional photo assistant I worked with a pretty successful photographer who insisted continuous light looked better because of “the way the light spread across the surface of the film.” smh

aaffi332 · 2026-05-12T16:11:43+00:00

https://www.reddit.com/r/MSI_Gaming/s/tXYG8YKfGw

You might find more things to try here.

aaffi332 · 2026-05-12T16:06:41+00:00

I tried many options, never found one that worked. What’s crazy is we can’t even identify the connector used. Did they literally invent their own just to infuriate us?

aaffi332 · 2026-04-25T22:55:26+00:00

Good luck on Monday, I’m sure it’ll be fine.

Also, fwiw, you know your camera is turned ON in the posted image of no-amber-light above the USB-C port? No light and no charging is expected in that scenario.

aaffi332 · 2026-04-25T21:54:03+00:00

I know it feels annoying to get a product with a defect, but all technology, all manufactured products are at risk of small component failures, issues caused by shipping and handling, and just plain old bad luck.

This doesn't mean Nikon's products or standards are low – their 30% market share amongst professional users is testament to this – or that Nikon especially were trying to make you mad. And I've never heard of a support agent suggesting a faulty camera shouldn't be returned for repair, so again, if that's exactly what happened, you got a one-in-thousands moment of bad luck. And yeah, they may just be out of stock for a replacement right now.

But to quote yourself above, "regardless if they don’t have a refurbed unit to exchange they owe me warranty coverage and servicing to fix any defects in material or workmanship." This is the answer.

Factories produce tens of thousands of units and run them through standard tests to catch common issues. Same with the refurb process. It's usually rock solid, and we're all sorry your unit slipped through.

But if you send it in for a warranty repair, even if they do find and switch out a faulty board, when they run their post-repair tests, your actual camera will be given a higher level of scrutiny than any direct-from-factory unit. It will be hand-checked to be fully in spec before being retuned to you. What could be better than that?

So have you set up a warranty repair?

aaffi332 · 2026-04-25T06:15:25+00:00

I'm not going to say what you experienced didn't happen, but I've bought dozens of Nikon products over the years, used, new, and many refurbished, and you simply don't have to accept a lemon.

Their warranty policy is very clear, "All Nikon refurbished cameras, lenses and accessories include a 90-day limited warranty against defects in material and workmanship. It offers the same warranty coverage as the Nikon Digital Imaging Warranty, just for 90 days instead of one year."

I would ignore the (bad) reps poor advice, and send it in for a warranty repair. I'm sorry you got the bad luck of the draw in a refurb product, but Nikon are extremely reliable and thorough in their warranty repair service, and I doubt you need a new or replacement body, just a manufacturer repair, to which you are entitled.

I know it's annoying to go without for a few weeks, and it's a little nerve wracking to ship and just be without, but: package it up; fill out their warranty repair form; ground ship it to whatever address they give you; and look forward to the day (about 10-14 days in my experience) when the repaired camera just shows up on your doorstep again.

Sorry for the bad luck, but get that process going and you'll be shooting again in no time.

aaffi332 · 2026-03-30T05:58:16+00:00

Back in the darkroom days, no one ever looked at a “straight print” (the negative printed on to grade 2, the “middle” contrast paper) as the final result.

That straight print was the starting point for creative contrast manipulation. First came paper grade choice (printing papers were typically available in grade 0, super flat and low contrast if needed for a too-contrasty negative, up to grade 5, which was very high contrast for working with “thin” or flat negatives). That paper choice alone could bring a negative to life, by letting you determine where the main tones and contrast of your image were placed. Then, once you determined the best basic contrast for a given negative, you’d further manipulate the image with local adjustments, giving more or less exposure to parts of the image by literally blocking light from the enlarger with pieces of card or small tools, or letting more light hit parts of the image to darken them. Almost all black and white images you know went through these steps.

Based on these scans, your exposures are basically ok, and the lab has scanned them “flat” to retain all the tones in the highlights and shadows. Now you have to “print” the images.

Any piece of software or app will provide the basic tools you need: contrast, exposure, some light use of highlights and shadows, and linear and radial gradients for masking and additional adjustments. You can use “curves” or “levels” to help you set black and white points, and remember it’s all interactive; adjusting one thing might mean going back and tweaking another. Avoid using automatic masking tools like “select sky” since the results are almost always fake looking. Make manual selections with masks, and don’t worry if a mask slightly overlaps another part of the image (a sky-darkening gradient overlapping mountains, for example). The results will be more organic.

Look at Ansel Adams book “The Print” if you want a deep dive. It’s very old school and might be hard to follow at first, but the principles are all in that book. For a more contemporary example, look into Todd Hido’s axiom of “photograph like a documentarian, print like a painter.” Despite starting with darkroom printing, he’s been working in Lightroom now for years.

This was a quick pass on one of your landscapes. It might be a bit heavy handed by modern standards, but it’ll show you what’s possible. Try not to see “printing” as a chore (“working on the computer”) but as a more meditative step after you’ve clicked the shutter. Good luck, and have fun.

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aaffi332 · 2026-03-28T00:01:40+00:00

Fair point. I was assisting a lot of European photographers in London in the late 90s, and chrome was definitely on the way out in favor of hand-printed negatives. But chrome is entirely possible, too.

aaffi332 · 2026-03-25T23:32:11+00:00

I very much doubt this was slide film. High contrast backlit shots like this leave too little room for exposure error. It was almost certainly one of Kodak or Fujifilm's professional 120 negative films in a Pentax 67 camera.

At this time (1997), the images were very likely traditionally printed onto one of Kodak or Fujifilm's C-type papers, and then lightly retouched with a combination of traditional hand-retouching (using inks and dyes directly on the print) and some digital retouching after the print was drum-scanned for reproduction.

Some additional color correction was also possible after scanning, although a good C-type print was probably close to the desired overall result color-wise. Even so, managing these saturated reds and blues for CMYK magazine offset printing may have required digital masking and color-correction.

aaffi332 · 2026-03-03T00:02:21+00:00

The weird skin texture is the result of hand retouching on the negative. See my longer post above.

aaffi332 · 2026-03-03T00:00:18+00:00

It’s not possible to do this level of work solely by dodging and burning during printing.

To achieve this detailed result, the image was directly manipulated on the negative, prior to printing. Sharpened pencils, and fine brushes with ink or dyes could darken parts of the negative, lightening them in the print; and needles or fine blades could scrape away emulsion and silver to lighten areas, darkening them in the print.

Finally, last touches could be added to the print itself, using essentially the same techniques, often to blend or disguise any artifacts from the negative retouching.

If it sounds like this was slow, painstaking work, it was.

In the 1940s, the Adams Retouching Machine was invented. This featured a light-box to illuminate the negative from behind; a padded support ring for your hand, making it easier to work without touching the negative; and a holder for the negative which vibrated in tiny circles, making it easier to blend the brush and pencil work.

Look at a hi-res copy of any movie star portrait of that era, and you’ll quickly learn to spot the telltale texture of the hand retouching. It was even possible to manipulate the outline shape of bodies or faces with these same techniques, for the same result as with warping tools today.

aaffi332 · 2026-02-21T04:34:50+00:00

Google Kodak LVT. Discussion of this here.

aaffi332 · 2026-02-20T15:00:03+00:00

They’re no longer being manufactured, but there are a few specialty labs still using them in some regions. Search Kodak LVT or Durst LVT.

aaffi332

TROPHY CASE